Coffee Mochi Ice Cream

Sometimes mochi is just mochi. And, sometimes mochi is much, much more.

Traditional mochi is made from steamed sticky rice that is pounded, mashed and then formed into rice cakes. The addition of sugar, water, milk, and or food coloring drastically changes the sensory experience of eating mochi from choking down a flavorless glob of glutinous rice paste to savoring the gummy texture of a perfectly sweet and colorful delicacy. 

My family is neither culturally nor ethnically Japanese, but mochi was a beloved childhood treat, just like arare, shave ice, iso peanuts and musubi. My earliest memories of mochi conjure the soft pink and white Nisshodo chichi dango, rectangular prisms of mochi wrapped on the angle in pinch-twisted wax paper hammocks to keep them separated. My grandma would let me pick up a plastic bento container full of them on each trip to Shirokiya department store in Ala Moana Shopping Center. I’ll never forget those crinkly clear plastic clamshell bento containers that had to be stapled shut to properly contain their wiggly mochi treasures. I’d work around the staple in the middle to free the mochi, retrieving successive chichi dangos through the unstapled ends with a pinch of my index finger and thumb in my own successful version of the arcade game “The Claw.”

From chichi dango, I branched out to eating daifuku, stuffed mochi. I loved the sweet red adzuki paste, the white lima bean paste, the sweet potato paste and even the peanut butter-filled daifuku I used to get at The Peanut Shop on Liliha Street. And then along came mochi ice cream –an incredible fusion of textures, temperatures and cultural food sensibilities.

While accounts differ on who exactly invented mochi ice cream (many credit Frances Hashimoto with its invention), it’s clear that Los Angeles’s Japanese-American businesswoman and cultural activist Frances Hashimoto is responsible for popularizing it.  According to a 1978 interview, Hashimoto had just begun her career as a third grade teacher when her mother asked her to quit to help with the family’s 50+ year-old business, Mikawaya, a traditional Japanese pastry and confectionary in LA’s Little Tokyo.  After some contemplation, Hashimoto decided to leave teaching and the rest is mochi ice cream history.  In the 1990s Hashimoto turned Mikawaya into a multi-million dollar mochi ice cream producer and brought the unique dessert into American supermarkets like Safeway and Trader Joe’s.

In an interview for the online series KAIWA, Hashimoto was asked what she needed to do to keep her business open. Her reply beautifully articulated the delicate balance between tradition and innovation at the heart of a successful culturally-based American business:

“Well, I think the main thing is we’re constantly looking for new products, and, at the same time, we always remember that it’s traditional Japanese pastries. So, we work on that: being traditional, authentic, and yet trying to think of different products that would be along the taste of Americans.”

This is such a complex and potentially controversial balance for culturally-based American businesses to strike: to be simultaneously culturally authentic and yet palatable to American sensibilities.

Some might call mochi ice cream a bastardization of traditional mochi. The General Tso’s chicken of desserts.  Others might not even care about the origin or cultural authenticity of mochi ice cream, so long as it delivers on intrigue and deliciousness. For me, mochi ice cream will forever epitomize having the best of both worlds in one bite. I love mochi ice cream for its intrinsic, fusion-y weirdness. Talk about a mouthful of opposites ­– soft and hard, sticky and smooth, chewy and creamy! I love mochi ice cream precisely because it defies being just one thing. Mochi ice cream reminds me of growing up among a myriad of cultural influences in Hawai`i.  Mochi ice cream reminds me of all the cultural and ethnic fusions that make me multicultural, multiethnic American me.

For a family Iron Chef competition organized around the ingredient of coffee, I paid homage to my favorite childhood treat by making my own custom, dairy-free coffee-flavored mochi ice cream from scratch for the very first time. I’ve included the recipe for the coffee ripple I added to store-bought coconut-based ice cream.

Recipe makes at least 12 mochi ice cream balls and leaves lots of room for mistakes and multiple taste-tests :)

Handy Tools

A whisk

Ice cream scoop

Plastic wrap

An empty egg carton

A rubber spatula

A rolling pin

A wide mouth mason jar lid or cookie cutter

Coffee Ripple Ingredients

1 tbsp freshly ground coffee beans

½ cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup of a mixture of honey + black strap molasses

6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa

1 pinch of salt

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 pints of ice cream

Ripple Play-by-Play

In a saucepan on medium heat, combine the sugar, coffee grounds, honey + molasses mixture, salt and vanilla. Whisk in the cocoa. Lower the heat and continue to whisk until the mixture has a toffee-like consistency. Remove from heat and cool completely before pulling into ribbons and combining with softened ice cream (I used dairy-free Vanilla Island flavored Coconut Bliss) in a glass casserole dish.

Ice Cream Play-by-Play

Working quickly, use an ice cream scoop to make 12 individual balls of ice cream. I used a plastic wrap-lined egg carton to keep the balls separated and maximize freezer space. Keep the ice cream balls chilled until its time to assemble the mochi ice cream.

Mochi Ingredients

1 ½ cup of mochiko flour

1 ½ cup of freshly brewed coffee

½ cup of granulated sugar

lot of corn starch (for coating hands, rolling pin, surface and mochi dough)

Mochi Play-by-Play

Combine mochiko flour, coffee, and granulated sugar in a microwavable bowl. Whisk together until fully combined. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 1 minute at a time (2-5 times depending on the size and power of your microwave) until the batter begins to solidify. Cool the mochi dough for at least 10 minutes. Prepare a non-stick work surface. I lined the granite countertop with plastic wrap and sprinkled the plastic liberally with cornstarch. Use a rubber spatula to transfer the mochi dough to the work surface. Sprinkle liberally with cornstarch. Prep the rolling pin by coating it with cornstarch, too. Roll the mochi dough out into a flat sheet. Use the wide mouth mason jar lid or cookie cutter to punch out 12 or more flat circles. Place each flat mochi circle on its own large square of plastic wrap. Set them aside.

Mochi Ice Cream Assembly Play-by-Play

Work with one ice cream ball at a time, keeping the rest in the freezer. Place the ice cream ball in the center of the flat mochi circle (which should be on its own plastic wrap square). Working quickly so as not to melt the ice cream, bring the opposite edges of the mochi circle up and pinch them together at the top like a dumpling. Quickly bring all four corners of the plastic wrap square together and twist the plastic wrap to tightly secure the mochi ice cream ball inside. Place the plastic-wrapped mochi ice cream back into the egg carton in the freezer before pulling out the next ice cream ball. If you have an extra egg carton, it may be easier to devote one entirely to finished mochi ice cream balls. Repeat until you have finished the desired number of mochi ice cream balls. Enjoy!