道学実

Inoko Mochi

5 min read

modified
2025-11-15
note type
Okashi

Photo


Attempts

2025-11-15

Came out great today. Notes:

  • Used the 1qt saucier. It was on the verge of being too small, but worked well. I’ll use this again in the future.
  • Not new, but a note: the mochi came together really quickly in the pan. Only took a couple of minutes before I started adding the sugar. Adding the sugar was around another 3-4 minutes.
  • On Koshi-an usage:
    • I did something unusual. I took it straight out of the pack, rolled it into balls, then let it air-dry. Sat for a few hours in my office with the window down, then another few hours (no lid) in the fridge.
    • Result was that the inside of the anko ball was still almost just as wet as before, but it had a dry skin on the outside. Dry skin + being refrigerated made it very easy to work with. After it warmed up, it seemed to reconstitute back into being pretty wet.
    • So overall, this worked! Do it again.
  • On parceling it out:
    • I did 20g anko to 20g mochi. Seemed to work well.
    • Steps:
      • Pull 20g off the hump.
      • Form into a ball, folding into itself until it’s uniform and doesn’t have lumps.
      • Flatten out a little bit (not all the way, just to make it not a full ball anymore) and leave it pretty side down.
        • At this point, it’s probably still pretty warm. It’s easy to manipulate.
        • When you come back to it later, it will be cool and harder to manipulate. Trying to stretch out a cool mochi ball is how you get stretch marks. So it seems better to stretch it out now, then finish the rolling later, than to do all the rolling later.
  • On wrapping:
    • First step is to flatten the ball. Something I noticed that I must do every time:
      • If you just start flattening it between your two hands with your thumb and forefingers, you’ll get stretch marks on the nice side.
      • However, you don’t get stretch marks where your thumb is. This is because your forefingers are doing the pinching / pulling, and your thumb is stationary.
      • SO. Flip the disc over so the nice side is on your thumbs side, then flatten like that. (This was game-changing.)
    • Finish flattening by pressing the disc onto the surface (I usually do all of this on a sheet pan). All four fingers together, then press alternating hands onto the disc to flatten without leaving finger marks.
    • Let the disc drape over the mochi. Try to make the disc just large enough that there’s still some stretch needed to get around the ball, but not so much that it already fully wraps around the ball. Otherwise, you’ll end up with too much at the bottom.
  • On shaping into cute little boars:
    • Shape first, then dust off katakuriko.
    • GENTLY roll into a cylinder first in your hand. Eeeever so gently.
      • You can do this in your palm, with fingers of one hand held flat to roll out.
      • If you do this, make sure the underside (seams side) is facing up and touching your rolling hand’s fingers. Your rolling hand will leave some indents.
    • Then once gently cylinder’d, using the four fingers of your hand, place your hand on top of the mochi (as if you were holding a computer mouse) and start shaping.
      • You can also pinch a little etc, push down from the top, to get that very gentle boar shape.
    • At the end, round the shape off by placing both hands under the mochi.
      • You know how when bakers are trying to make their loaves round, they hold their hands palm-up, then using the inner edge of their hands, they push against the lower part of the dough? Do that, but in the shape you need.

Recipe

Notes:

  • Recipe is from sweets lady book, page 98
  • Replace pure cinnamon with PSL mix
  • Use half the amount of spice than in the recipe (already adjusted in ingredients below)
  • Omit the mizuame (no particular reason honestly other than it’s annoying. I’ve had issues in the past with it getting “crusty”, but I don’t think that’s a problem).

Ingredients

Makes 12 mochi

  • Pumpkin spice mix: ½ teaspoon
    • 4 parts cinnamon
    • 1 part nutmeg
    • 1 part ginger
    • ½ part clove
  • 100g mochiko
  • 140g water
  • 150g johakutou (granulated sugar)
  • 3g roasted black sesame
    • (About 1 teaspoon full to the brim, if not a little overflowing)
  • 20g anko balls
    • (I usually use koshian)
  • 1:1 mochi weight to anko
  • Katakuriko for dusting

On 2024-11-16, 330g yield of dough from this. On 2025-11-15, 350g (with some slightly hefty measurements).

Recipe

  • Mix spices, mochiko, and water. Cook in a pan until mochi-feeling.
  • Add sugar in 3 parts.
  • Add sesame seeds, mizuame if using.
  • Pour mochi onto a katakuriko-dusted pan. Bring together mochi like usual.
  • Sear 3 lines on the top.
    • They should be all parallel. Not flaring out.
    • Use the side of a fork and do 3x individually, not just once with 3 tines at the same time.

Shape examples


Graph View

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