Mochi Bread

I'm still searching for the perfect recipe for Baked Mochi Bread. After being intrigued by all the bloggers who have baked these chewy treats, I am really wanting to make some myself. Sadly, all of their recipes require a pre-mix which I am unable to find at my local grocery stores and I'm not sure if it's worth an arm and a leg to order the pre-mix from an online store. The best I can do is buy the Mochi-bread from my local market and enjoy the lovely taste and texture while imagining that I've made it from scratch.

I bought a bag of Baked Mochi Bread from Hannam, the local Korean grocer, and it was pretty pricey. 6 pcs for $4.50!! Wah, I guess that's because they don't have much demand for the bread, so they don't have economy of scale. Oh well, I was willing to shelf out the cash just to try this bread... and I'm glad I did.

The bread was crisp on the outside, while being fluffy and chewy on the inside. I quite enjoyed it, and the black sesame seeds added a hint of a nutty flavor.

Check out these blogs, that talk about baked mochi:

Baking n' Cooking
My Baking Escapades
Jagaimo Blog
Baking Fiend
Wretch

Ichigo Daifuku

Tuesday: Ichigo Daifuku I was contemplating what items would be nice to place in my sister's bento box for school and it hit me. Ichigo Daifuku! I had just bought a package of strawberries the other day and they were perfectly ripe. I also had some left over sweet bean paste from another recipe. So I simply wrapped each strawberry in a thin layer of bean paste and then wrapped them in a daifuku skin which I dyed pink with food coloring. The mochi recipe I use is very simple and is as follows:

Daifuku

1. Prepare your work area with potato starch.

2. Sift together 1 cup of glutinous rice flour with 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar into a small pot.

3. In a small cup mix together 1 cup of water and the preferred coloring (I used 2 drops of red dye).

4. Add the water to the pot containing the flour and sugar and stir over medium heat until the mixture becomes sticky, transparent and "mochi-like".

5. Once the dough is ready dump it onto your potato startched surface and then soak the pot in water (if you do this asap it makes the pot easier to clean.)

6. Dust you're hands generously with potato flour and begin to divide the dough into smaller portions.

7. Wrap your filling with the mochi skin and dust with some more potato starch.

8. Now you have Daifuku! Eat and enjoy!

Being more Asian

As I have said many times before... I feel that I am not living up to my Asian potential. I am very white washed, I know it's sad but true. I do however enjoy making many chinese/japanese recipes; so I hope that that makes up for at least 50% of my disgraceful nature.

Anywho... I completely went overboard the other day, I made the mochi which you can see to your left. And since my sister doesn't particularly enjoy "anko" I had to replace the filling with a sweet, sugary coconut mixture... turned out nice. I did make myself a special one though... filled with peanuts and coconut :P

I had a whole half a bag of glutinous rice flour left to play around with, so I decided to make some tangyuan in ginger syrup. I found an awesome recipe on chowtimes.com (a site I highly recommend you view if you enjoy oriental baking/cooking). I'll post pictures in my next blog.

I also decided on making some kushi-dango... my youngest sister, the one who usually refuses to eat anything that I bake (goodness knows why?) actually really enjoyed this recipe. She also enjoyed my recipe for Hanami-dango... go figure. For some reason the Hanami-dango turned out a little ovalish, rather than perfectly round... but whatever, they tasted awesome.