Mango sorbet mochi

Vegan mochi filled with creamy mango sorbet — free from milk, eggs and gluten.

The rice dough is vegan on its own, so all you need is a dairy-free filling. Mango sorbet is ideal: it is thick and creamy, scoops well into balls, and its sweet-sour flavour suits the neutral dough. The nutrition values for this recipe cover only the dough, not the sorbet.

Type: Mochi ice cream · Servings: 12 · Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 100 g glutinous rice flour (mochiko, shiratamako) (shiratamako or mochiko — ordinary rice flour won’t work)
  • 50 g granulated sugar (sucrose) (don’t leave it out — it keeps the dough soft)
  • 180 g water
  • 20 g cornflour (cornstarch) (have about 60 g ready for dusting; about a third ends up on the mochi)
  • 100 g mango (flesh) (for topping or folding in at the end, cubes of fresh mango)

Making the mix

  1. Make the mango sorbet from its recipe (or use shop-bought) and let it firm up well in the freezer — you need about 450 ml.
  2. Line a muffin tin with paper cases (or a baking tray with baking paper). Using a cookie scoop (about 30–40 ml), scoop 12 balls of ice cream, put them in the cases and freeze for at least 2 hours until completely hard.

Method — No-machine method

  1. Dough: in a microwave-safe bowl, mix the glutinous rice flour with the sugar. Gradually pour in the water, stirring until the dough is smooth and free of lumps.
  2. Cover the bowl loosely and microwave (about 1000 W) for 1 minute. Stir with a wet silicone spatula, microwave for another minute, stir again and finish with 30 seconds. The cooked dough is glossy, slightly translucent and very sticky. Without a microwave, put the bowl in a steamer for 15 minutes and stir the dough halfway through.
  3. Careful: the dough is hot and very sticky. Don’t touch it with bare hands; work with the spatula.
  4. Dust a worktop or a sheet of baking paper generously with cornflour (cornstarch). Tip the dough onto it, dust the top with cornflour too and roll it out with a rolling pin into a sheet about 2 mm thick.
  5. Leave to cool for 10–15 minutes. Cut out circles with a cutter about 9 cm across, press the scraps together and roll them out again — you should get 12 circles. Cover the circles with cling film so they don’t dry out.
  6. Brush the excess cornflour off the dough circles — on the side that needs to stick together it would get in the way.
  7. Take only 2–3 balls out of the freezer at a time. Put a ball in the centre of a circle, quickly draw the dough up around it, pinch it closed into a little bundle and press firmly. Thin disposable gloves help — the dough doesn’t stick to them and the warmth of your hands won’t melt the ice cream.
  8. Turn the mochi seam side down and put it in a paper case in a muffin tin. Keep the tin in the freezer between batches. If the ice cream starts to soften, stop and let the balls firm up for 15 minutes.
  9. Leave the finished mochi to harden in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

The filling is ready-made sorbet — ideally the mango and lime sorbet from its own recipe. Making it isn’t included in the time here.

Total time: 4 h 33 min

Stages

Preparation
30 min
Freezing
2 h
Cooking
3 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
4 h 33 min

Serving and storage

Take the mochi out of the freezer 5–10 minutes before serving so that the dough softens and the ice cream loosens — straight from the freezer the wrapper is firm. Eat in small bites and chew thoroughly: mochi dough is very sticky and every year in Japan someone chokes on it, most often older people. For young children and older people, it is better to cut the mochi into pieces. Sorbet melts faster than cream ice cream, so a shorter tempering time is enough.

Wrap each mochi in cling film and store in a sealed container in the freezer; they keep for 2–3 weeks. Don’t put them in the fridge — the dough hardens in the cold and the ice cream melts.

Tips

  • Sorbet contains more water than ice cream, so balls made from it freeze harder. Let them soften for 2–3 minutes before wrapping, otherwise the dough is hard to draw up around them.
  • Any other thick sorbet works the same way — raspberry or strawberry, for example.
  • Work quickly and in a cool kitchen. Thin disposable gloves stop the dough sticking and the ice cream melting from warm hands.
  • Roll the dough thin (about 2 mm) — a thick wrapper is rubbery and turns firm once frozen. If the dough tears, it is too cold or too dry; covered with cling film it stays pliable at room temperature for several hours.

Sources