Japanese Traditional Sweet - Kinako Mochi (Soy bean powder with sweet rice)

Normal Japanese rice is short grains and sticker than long grains. When you cook, you can make different shape with mold (mould) because they are sticky and stay together. That us why you can not use long grain rice for Sushi mold. Also Japanese use sticker than normal rice for Sweet dessert. The rice which me call, " Mochi Gome" (Sweet rice) and that we use to make "Kinako Mochi" today.

Tools

• Rice cooker or Pot to cook rice
• KichenAid Mixer or Mochimaker

Ingredients

• Sweet Rice 3 cups
• Water
• Soy Bean Powder ( Kinako )
• Sugar (1/2 of Kinako Amount )
• Sweet soy bean paste ( option )

1. Cook sweet rice with water. Same as cooking regular rice, just do not add butter.
2. Use Kitchenaid (dough hook) to beat the sweet rice with high speed. ( Slow speed in the beginning to make them stay in one place.)
3. Mix Kinako and sugar. Sugar should be less than Kinako. ( 1/2 of Kinako amount. )Please see the picture.
4. When sweet rice(Mochi) looks like smooth paste, it is ready to mix with Kinako.
5. Make sure your hands are pretty wet. Otherwise, it will stick on your hands. Please see the picture.
6. Take some Mochi with wet hands and make a ball, then drop into Kinako powder.
7. Serve with sweet red bean paste (Azuki paste), if you like.

Mochi is very sticky and needs to be careful to eat, especially young children or elder people. Some people get choked by it. So I recommend to make smaller pieces and eat very slowly.

Enjoy making with your family and try it with green tea.

Have fun!