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Red Bean Mochi (Daifuku)

Red bean mochi on a ceramic plate with a bowl of red bean paste behind
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Soft, stretchy red bean mochi wrapped around sweet adzuki paste and rolled in coconut. Made in the microwave, no special equipment.

Ingredients

Units Scale

Sweet red bean paste (anko), or use 1 1/2 cups shop bought

  • 1 cup (200 g) dried adzuki beans, rinsed
  • 3/4 cup (150 g) caster sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1 tablespoon neutral oil or unsalted butter, optional

Mochi dough

  • 1 cup (150 g) glutinous rice flour (mochiko or shiratamako)
  • 1/4 cup (50 g) caster sugar
  • 1 pinch fine salt
  • 3/4 cup (180 ml) water

Coating

  • 1/2 cup (65 g) potato starch or cornflour, for dusting
  • 1 cup desiccated coconut, or kinako, for rolling

Instructions

  1. Make the paste, or open your tin of it. Roll it into twelve balls of about 25 g each, sit them on a lined plate and chill for at least 30 minutes. Cold firm paste is the single biggest reason a mochi seals neatly instead of bursting, so genuinely do not skip this.
  2. Whisk the glutinous rice flour, sugar and salt together in a large microwave safe bowl. Break up any lumps in the flour now, because they are much harder to chase out once the water goes in.
  3. Pour in the water. Add it all at once rather than in stages, it is easier to whisk smooth that way.
  4. Whisk hard until the batter is completely smooth and about the consistency of thin pancake batter. Run the whisk around the bottom edge of the bowl where dry flour likes to hide.
  5. Check the batter. It should pour off the whisk in a thin unbroken stream with no lumps at all. If you can see specks of dry flour, keep whisking.
  6. Cover the bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute, then stir firmly with a wet silicone spatula. Microwave another minute, stir again, then continue in 30 second bursts until the dough is thick, glossy, stretchy and uniformly translucent with no white patches, usually 2 minutes 30 seconds to 3 minutes 30 seconds in total. Beat it hard against the side of the bowl for 30 seconds once it is done.
  7. Dust a sheet of parchment generously with potato starch, scrape the hot dough out onto it, dust the top, and roll or pat it out to about 5 mm thick. Let it sit for 5 minutes, just until you can handle it. Work while it is warm, it stops stretching once it goes cold.
  8. Cut rounds about 8 cm across with a starch dusted cutter. Gather the scraps, press them together and roll again to get your twelve.
  9. Brush the excess starch off the upward face of each round, then sit a chilled paste ball in the middle. Starch on the inside face is what stops a seal from holding.
  10. Bring the edges of the dough up and over the filling, pinch them together firmly, then roll the parcel seam side down between your palms into a smooth ball. Set it seam down on a starch dusted tray and repeat.
  11. Roll each ball in desiccated coconut, pressing gently so it sticks all over. Brush off any loose starch first or the coconut will not grip.
  12. Sit them on a plate and leave for 10 minutes so the dough settles. Serve the same day, at room temperature, and never straight from the fridge.

Notes

  • Shop bought paste works beautifully and cuts the recipe to about 40 minutes. Koshian is smooth, tsubuan is chunky.
  • Glutinous rice flour only. Regular rice flour is a different product and will not work.
  • Chill the paste balls for at least 30 minutes. This is the difference between a neat seal and a burst mochi.
  • Stop microwaving the moment the dough is evenly translucent with no white patches.
  • Best the day it is made. Wrap individually at room temperature for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 1 month and thaw for 2 hours.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://zhangcatherine.com/red-bean-mochi/