How to Make Sakura Mochi (Recipe) 桜餅

By Just One Cookbook · 30 min

Ingredients

Instructions

1. Wash the sweet rice: rinse it twice in a large bowl of water, then rub the grains gently with your fingers and rinse until the water is nearly clear. Drain well in a fine-mesh sieve.
2. Mix 2 tsp water with a tiny amount of red food coloring until the water is a soft pastel pink.
3. Put the drained rice in a rice cooker pot with ¾ cup room-temperature water and 1 Tbsp sugar, and mix well.
4. Add the pink water to the rice water a little at a time, checking the colour as you go, until it is a soft pastel pink. Level the rice and cook on the regular setting (about 55 minutes including soaking and steaming).
5. Make the syrup by dissolving 1 Tbsp sugar in 4 Tbsp water until clear.
6. Scoop 15 g of red bean paste per piece (about 2½ tsp if you have no scale) and roll each into a smooth ball, wetting your hands with the syrup. Refrigerate until needed.
7. Soak the 8 salted cherry blossom leaves and 8 salted cherry blossoms in water for 20–30 minutes (up to 60 minutes) to remove the salt.
8. Pound the hot rice with a syrup-dampened wooden pestle or paddle for about a minute until sticky, keeping some grain shape. Divide into 8 equal portions and shape each into a cylinder, wetting your hands with syrup.
9. Place a rice cylinder on plastic wrap brushed with syrup, add a bean paste ball, and fold the wrap over. Flatten and shape into an oval about 4⅓ in (11 cm) long and 2¾ in (7 cm) wide, slightly thicker in the middle. The text ends mid-sentence, so the final shaping and leaf-wrapping steps are not given.

Summarized from Just One Cookbook's video. Watch it for the details.

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