Mochi The sweet little rice cakes

Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made from cooked mochi-gome, a sweet variety of rice. Traditionally, mochi-gome glutinous rice is transformed into the typical soft and elastic rice dough through a process of pounding with large wooden hammers and a lot of skill over many hours. The quality of the glutinous rice as well as the duration and technique of pounding the rice play an important role. The finished dough is then shaped into small balls or similar and, depending on the type of mochi, is refined with fillings and toppings. Daifuku Mochi, in which the dough is mixed with sugar and the filling consists of sweet red bean paste, are particularly popular. 

But don't worry, you don't have to pound rice for hours to be able to eat mochi. You can also conveniently use pre-packaged glutinous rice flour and process it into rice cakes with water, sugar and salt.

What does mochi taste like?

Rice cake has a rather neutral flavor. It is rather the sauces or other ingredients that provide the special flavors. Mochi is naturally slightly sweet due to the glutinous rice flour, which gives rise to many delicious treats. Natural mochi is comparable to unbaked cookie dough both in terms of taste and consistency. 

Where is mochi and rice cake traditionally served?

Mochi are traditionally served in Japan on special occasions, with family members usually preparing their own rice cakes. A lot of rice cake is also served at New Year's, which takes place around the end of January or mid-February according to the lunar calendar. The rising demand and short-term increase in consumption also regularly make headlines. More on this at the end of the post.

Mochi Traditions

Unfortunately, mochi is rarely made by hand anymore. But with a little luck, you'll see someone presenting the elaborate preparation process as a show-act at celebrations or events. The preparation of mochi is often carried out by sumo wrestlers, as it requires a lot of muscle power! 

In this process, one person uses a utensil that resembles a gigantic wooden mortar and is called "Kine" in Japanese to pound the rice. A second helper keeps moving the rice mass at regular intervals. The blows must be delivered at such short intervals that a missed blow could have fatal consequences and seriously injure the second person. For this reason, automated mochi production with machines is much safer. 

Mochi is traditionally served either fresh, in a soft state, or dried. Roasted with sugar, soy sauce and nori, mochi is also available for purchase. 

Modern Mochi

Mochi's popularity has not waned over time. Children and adults alike still enjoy the delicious dessert. In the meantime, however, there are countless ways in which mochi can be served. The ingredients also vary. Globalization has also slightly adapted the Japanese taste buds to the Western palate. And dairy products are now eaten much more frequently than just a few years ago. This has led to a completely new mochi: one that is filled with ice cream! This comes from the freezer - yet even when frozen, the mochi dough is deliciously soft. 

Daifuku - Mochi with filling in many variations

When the small mochi rice cakes are not empty, but refined with a filling, they are called "Daifuku". There are many different mochi fillings - the creativity of mochi manufacturers knows no bounds! Mochi with sweet red bean paste (this is made from adzuki beans) are particularly popular. Chocolate or whole strawberries also go well in mochi. In addition, the rice dough can also be refined, for example with strawberries or even matcha powder. The finished mochi are often also rolled in dark or light sesame seeds. 

Where can I buy mochi?

You can get mochi in any East Asian supermarket in the frozen food section and Daifuku mochi in the confectionery section. Alternatively, Amazon offers you countless variations of Daifuku mochi at supermarket-like prices. Unfortunately, there is currently no normal rice cake imported from Japan to buy in Germany, as it should be delivered frozen. 

For the past 1-2 years, however, the supermarket chain Rewe has been selling products from the sushi fast food chain "Eat Happy", which not only prepare sushi but also fresh mochi in many variations. 

Making mochi yourself

You can also make your own mochi dough. It's not that much work, but the bought rice cakes have always tasted better for me so far. For this you need sweet glutinous rice flour, water, sugar and some salt.

Mochi, Dango & Daifuku – What’s what?

Mochi is mochi? Wrong! There are also other variations of the sweet rice cake - and they have completely different names. 

Mochi is made from mochigome (i.e. powdered glutinous rice). No other ingredients are added to the mochi dough besides rice flour. That's why pure mochi is not sweet and always white, not colorful.

Dango is made from rice flour (mochiko). Usually no sugar is added to the dough for dango either. The best way to distinguish mochi and dango is by how they are served. Dango is often served on skewers with three or four balls and often topped with a (usually sweet) sauce. Mochi is simply served.

Daifuku is the experimental brother of mochi and dango. Daifuku is always filled. The filling variations range from strawberries to bean paste to ice cream. Daifuku is also not always white, but can have colorful additives in the dough. 

Mochi Icecream (Korean ice cream variety)

My food blog colleague Matthias fell in love with Korean mochi ice cream, which is based on daifuku, during his trip to South Korea. The main ingredient here is still the rice cake, but frozen and filled with a kind of vanilla cream ice cream.

Mochi Death Trap

Several people die every year in Japan from consuming this sweet temptation. I can reassure you, the reason is not a chemical or other ingredients that cause poisoning. Mochi is based on natural substances and can therefore be consumed without concern. But especially at New Year's, when rice cake dishes and mochi are traditionally served in large quantities, the number of deaths rises sharply during these few days of the year. The reason for this is that mochi is a soft and sticky mass and can become lodged in the esophagus. This leads to choking in the mochi victim and subsequently to death. The most vulnerable are very young and elderly people, as they do not chew long enough and sometimes swallow the mochi in one piece.