Red Bean and Vanilla Mochi Ice Cream

I did it! Finally, after months of trying to make one, I’ve finally had the courage to make one.

Of course, it wasn’t an easy process. Being my first try, I had a couple of problems. The original plan to wrap the vanilla ice cream with red bean paste before finally covering the filling with mochi. That didn’t go quite well. For some strange reason, the ice cream balls just wouldn’t re-freeze! So out of frustration, I folded the red bean paste into the vanilla ice cream instead. They really didn’t look great, but still tasted amazing. To form them into balls, I transferred the ice cream into my 3/4oz cupcake tins and made 12 singles.(Sorry, forgot to take pictures) After 36 hours in the freezer (yes, that long!), they were finally ready for some hot lovin’.

What I’ve learned in this process is that you have to always work with a fairly hot mochi dough. A cooled dough would not stretch and seal the edges when pinched. Believe me, I’ve learned the hard way! So, if you know a mochi recipe that works well even cold, please share them with me! 😉

I basically followed the mochi recipe I already have which I posted weeks ago. I just added half a recipe so I could make 12 mochis. For your convenience, here’s the recipe (again)

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Mochi with Red Bean Filling

I’ve been semi-obssessed (if there’s such a thing) with mochi since highschool. I didn’t even know what it was back then. From what I remember, I once saw in the television this lady preparing a dessert with some kind of flour and cream, then cooking it in the microwave. The glutinous ball product looked enticing enough to eat and I’ve been wanting to make one since then. Of course, I was in the province, so there was no mochiko (the type of flour they used) and we also didn’t have a microwave oven back then, so I just forgot about it.

Fast forward to present time, I saw a box of chocolate mochi with peanut butter filling at the supermarket, and so the desire to make one which was held back years ago suddenly surged back. Months back, I was researching how to make mochi. I had my doubts with the microwave technique coz I was not so sure if it would ‘cook’ the flour so I searched for other options. I found one online which requires steaming the mochi paste instead of microwaving it. Sadly, it yielded an undesirable mochi, it was too oily and the mochi came out dry. There was also a baking technique but that resulted to a cassava cake-like consistency. So I gave up and totally forgot about it.

Then just last Friday, my officemates and I were talking about mochi ice cream and I remembered my unfinished conquest to mochi-land. And this time I thought of giving the microwave thingie a try. The result, well, I couldn’t be any happier. I should have trusted that lady! 🙂

For those who are unfamiliar with mochi, mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice. Traditionally prepared by pounding rice into a paste, it is now commonly prepared by using rice flour. Popular variations of mochi include daifuku which is a round mochi stuffed with sweet filling and mochi ice cream.

In the Philippines, the closest food that I could liken to mochi is tikoy. Both made from glutinous rice, tikoy and mochi almost have the same consistency. If we dig to a more local food, I’d say the espasol from Laguna and the Royal Bibingka from Ilocos are also quite similar.

Here’s my recipe:

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