Making Mochi

There’s a whole complicated process around making mochi that I can’t explain properly. I remember something about a mallet and a lot of pounding, and how it’s some unfortunate person’s role to flip the mochi between swings of the mallet. There’s a lot of pounding and the end result is something that’s a lot like playdough only much more edible. That stuff, the result of the pounding and flipping, is the actual mochi (rice paste?), the wrapper, the last layer of this traditional Japanese treat.

We’d been invited by Renee, the mistress of Happy Hearts Mochi, to learn how to make mochi treats. It’s a hands on kind of afternoon at the mochi house in this Honolulu neighborhood — the mochi house is a white building that I’d be hard pressed to find again on my own. Renee runs her full time mochi making business right here, we sit at her work table after taking off our shoes and washing our hands. Our goal? Peanut butter mochi. Yum.

There’s container of sweet adzuki bean paste and a jar of, you guessed it, peanut butter. Renee scoops the bean paste with a melon scooper and puts a ball in the palm of her hand. She flattens in out and then, drops a dollop of peanut butter in the middle. Then, she wraps the bean paste around the peanut butter until it’s completely covered. Daynah, the fellow mochi maker and I take our turns while Albert and Ed snap photos. Ours aren’t nearly as pretty as Renee’s, of course, but she’s the pro.

The next step is to wrap those balls in rice paste. The paste is bright green from food coloring and it’s been microwaved so it’s hot and stretchy. It’s weird rubbery stuff in this state, kind of fun to play with though hot enough that you want to keep it moving so you don’t burn the your hand. It’s the same thing again — you flatten out the mochi and wrap it around the bean paste that’s wrapped around the peanut butter, pinching it to seal the package and rolling it a little to make it smooth.

The last step is the finish work, we put crushed peanuts into little dimples on the top of these round green balls. Mine are a little lumpy, a little awkward but they’re not SO bad for a first timer.

The next part is the best — Renee takes a box of her perfect mochi out of the fridge and lets us try them. There are five kinds — peanut butter, the ones we’ve just made, coffee filled with haupia (coconut pudding), my favorite!, pumpkin for the season, chocolate, and big fat ones with whole strawberries inside.  Her mochi are neat and pretty, mine don’t fit in their ruffled paper skirts.  She lets us pack little boxes of them and later that night, I eat mine in my hotel room, while watching the tide come in. They are perfect.

Want perfect and delicious handmade mochi when you’re in Honolulu? Get in touch with Renee via her website.

Disclaimer: Travel and accommodation portions of my trip were sponsored by the Oahu Visitor’s Bureau in exchange for my blogging about my experiences in Hawaii.