Warabimochi with Tapioca Flour

Warabimochi with Tapioca Flour

When I was walking through downtown Arashiyama around this time two years ago, I remember seeing many food carts and storefronts selling cubed up mochi dusted in matcha and kinako. I was surprise at how soft, light and jelly-like they were. The mochi I have known growing up has always been a bit denser and chewier. These mochis were labeled as warabimochi, and I thought it’s name described the way the mochi is prepared and served, but after some googling, I found this mochi is made with a different kind of flour!

Mochi is made by pounding cooked glutinous rice into a paste, or more simply, with glutinous rice flour. Warabimochi can be made with different kinds of flour, but the most popular being: potato starch, bracken starch and tapioca flour. These flour, when cooked are sticky (aka starchy) and jelly like which gives warabimochi its unique texture.

I had some tapioca flour on hand so I thought I would try making warabimochi. Making mochi is very easy in of itself, see my 5 Minute Microwave Mochi recipe, and it is very forgiving– I have made it in the microwave, on the stovetop, in the oven, in a steam basket as well as boiling it. I decided to opt for the stovetop method in making warabimochi since that gives me the most control.

I combined some flour, sugar and water and heated it on the stovetop over medium heat, stirring continuously. It took a while at first for the mixture to thicken, but when it starts, it thickens fast! I think it took less than five minutes to get to that perfect consistency. I then turned off the heat and continue beatting, mixing and stretching it until a cohesive dough ball forms. The mixture is pretty stretchy was and appearance and texture-wise, it is similar to mochi made with glutinous rice flour. After that, its just letting it cool slightly, rolling it in kinako, shaping, cutting and the best part– eating!

Course: Dessert, Snack                     Cuisine: Japanese                        Keyword: mochi                   Servings: 4

Equipment

• kitchen scale
• small pan or skillet
• silicone or wood spatula

Ingredients

Mochi

• 50 g tapioca flour
• 40 g sugar
• 190 g water

To Dust

• kinako (soybean flour) see the “dusting flours” section for more options

Kuromitsu syrup (Brown Sugar Syrup)

• 50 g dark brown sugar
• 50 g water

Instructions

1. Mix together all of the mochi ingredients in a pan and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously until and thick sticky and stretchy paste forms.

2. Turn off the heat and keep beating, mixing and stretching the dough until it is evenly translucent and comes together in a dough.

3. Dust a container with kinako and transfer the mochi to the container. Roll it around so it is evenly covered and flatten it to fit the container. Let cool uncovered.

4. While the mochi is cooling, make the Kuromitsu syrup. Combine sugar and water in a pan and heat on medium heat until the syrup is slightly thicker. Kuromitsu syrup is pretty thin– so think thin maple syrup.

5. Once the mochi has cooled, transfer the mochi to a kinako dusted works surface. Cut the mochi into cubes and dust with more kinako. Serve with the Kuromitsu syrup on the side.