Lately I’ve been seeing ice cream mochi popping up in select grocery stores and I am hooked! I thought, why not make this at home and customize my own flavours? I love strawberries, but instead of using strawberry ice cream I thought I would put freeze-dried strawberries right in the mochi dough. To keep the Asian theme, I used Prairie West CanAsian Ice Cream flavours (honeydew melon and peach lemongrass) for the filling. Ice cream mochi are surprisingly simple to make, it just takes some patience while you wait for the ice cream to freeze as well as some kitchen tools. You will need saran wrap, a rolling pin, a spatula, a pastry brush, parchment paper, cupcake liners and a muffin pan for this recipe.

Strawberry Mochi Ice Cream

Prep time: ~1 hour + 4 hours inactive
Cook time: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Total time: 1 hour + 4 hours inactive
Yield: 6-8 large mochi

INGREDIENTS

¾ cup sweet rice flour* see notes
¾ cup water + 1 tbsp. water
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp. freeze dried strawberry powder* see notes
½ cup corn starch
~2 cups of your favourite ice cream flavour. I used Prairie West CanAsian Honeydew Melon + Peach Lemongrass flavours to keep with the Asian theme.

*This is sometimes referred to as glutinous rice flour. Do not use standard rice flour as it is not starchy enough to hold together.

*I found freeze-dried whole strawberries and pulverized them into a powder with a pestle & mortar. You can omit the strawberry if you like, but if you do be sure to reduce the water used by 1 tbsp.

DIRECTIONS

Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop your favourite ice cream flavour into small, perfectly rounded balls and place into individual cupcake liners. Depending on the size of your ice cream scoop, make 6-8 ice cream mochi. I used approximately ⅓ of a cup of ice cream per scoop, and made 6 large ice cream mochi. If you prefer smaller mochi, adjust accordingly.

Place in the freezer for approximately 2 hours, or until frozen solid.

In a medium sized microwave safe mixing bowl, whisk together the sweet rice flour, sugar, and freeze-dried strawberry powder. Pour in water and stir until well combined. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. You don’t want the seal too tight so leave a small section loose enough to let some steam escape. Microwave for 1 minute. Remove carefully (the bowl will be hot) and stir the mixture with a wet spatula.

Put the saran wrap back on and microwave for 1 more minute. Remove from the microwave, stir again and repeat but only for a final 30 seconds. The mochi dough will be slightly translucent and very hot at this point, so handle carefully. If it has not turned into a tacky dough, microwave for an additional 30 seconds.

Line a large work surface with parchment paper and dust the parchment generously with cornstarch. Place the mochi dough in the center, and sprinkle more cornstarch over top as well as on your rolling pin. Roll out the dough to ~ ⅛ to ¼ inch thickness and transfer (still on the parchment paper) to the fridge for 15 minutes.

While the mochi is setting in the fridge, cut out 6-8 squares of plastic wrap. These will be used to wrap the individual ice cream mochi once complete, so cut to an appropriate size.

When the 15 minutes is up, remove the mochi dough from the fridge. Depending on the size of your ice cream balls, cut either 6 or 8 large circles out of the dough, using either a ring cutter or a knife. I made relatively large ice cream scoops, so I ended up cutting out 6 circles of dough, approximately 4.5 inches in diameter. You may need to cut the mochi, and use the leftover dough scraps to make another ball and roll it out into a second thin sheet to accommodate the volume of wrappers you need.

Be sure to only work with one ice cream ball at a time, leaving the rest in the freezer so that they don’t get too soft and hard to handle.

Place one of the squares of plastic wrap on your work surface. Take one of your mochi circles, brush off any extra corn starch using a pastry brush, and place in the middle of the plastic wrap. Remove one of the ice cream balls from the freezer, place it in the center of your mochi wrapper and discard the cupcake liner. Fold the dough overtop of the ice cream, pinching to form a seal. If you have a lot of extra dough where you formed the seal, cut it off using a knife or scissors. If you are finding it too tricky to trim because the ice cream is softening, you can always cut off the extra mochi wrapper once it’s frozen. Wrap the completed ice cream mochi in the saran wrap, and place back in the freezer. Repeat with remaining ice cream balls. You will want to let the ice cream mochi harden again before serving, approximately 2 hours.

Before serving, left soften at room temperature for approximately 2-3 minutes.