When I went to Little Tokyo I went to a small store that sold all kinds of mochi. If you don't know what mochi is, it's a sticky rice dessert that is sometimes filled with something and sometimes not. Back then I never thought that you could make your own mochi. Well here it is, I made some mochi filled with peanut butter and I must admit it's one of the best. I also made some with Nutella and that was good. I tried using purple yam but it was too soft to keep it in the sticky rice. By the way, make sure you use the Mochiko brand. It's one that's in the box. Well, you can use another type of brand but it seems you have to mix it with another type of flour. For the sake of this recipe I only used the glutinous rice flour.
Mochi
1 1/2 cup Mochiko flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water
1 tsp vinegar
3 tbsp cornstarch or potato starch
3 tbsp of confectioners sugar or in my case fine sugar
Mix the 3 tbsp of cornstarch and 3 tbsp of confectioners sugar and set aside. Take the Mochiko flour, sugar, water and vinegar, mix them together in a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a wet paper towel and place in the microwave between 8 to 10 minutes depending on your microwave. After 5 minutes, check the mixture and mix with a spoon to ensure that it cooks evenly. Personally, it took my mixture around 7 minutes and 30 seconds.
Anyways, ofcourse its going to be sticky to handly and that's why you will need a clean surface sprinkled with the cornstarch mixture to work with the mochi. place a small amount that you can handle on your kneading surface and sprinkle more cornstarch mixture. Flatten with a rolling pin or a circular cup and cut out small at least two circular shapes (or whatever shape you want).
Place a small amount of filling on one piece and cover with another. Pinch the edges to close and enjoy.
