As my elder kid gets older, what he is interested in changes as well. The yearly birthday bakes is like a diary of sorts, documenting what he likes. But as he gets older, his taste gets more exotic and the bar set for me is higher.
"Ma, why don't we try something different this year."
By different, he means different genre of bake. I made him chiffon cake, cookies, macarons, choux pastry and even a chocolate bomb with macaron hidden inside before for previous birthdays. This year, he requested for mochi. Not just any mochi but mochi in his favourite flavours and in the form of some characters in his favourite game --- Minecraft. Presenting my version of Matcha mochi with Matcha Nama chocolate and azuki bean in the center, and Mocha mochi with Nama dark chocolate and coffee salted caramel in the center.
Slime and Magma cubes!
The only challenging part of this is figuring out how to get it to be cuboid without special moulds. I tried my technique of using cookie cutters to make snowskin mooncakes for this but somehow it didn't work. Not sure if it is the fact that the filling is cold and can go soft after a while. I gave up trying with the square metal cookie cutter after a couple of atempts and just stuffed it in a silicone ice cube tray. It worked!... Sort of 😂. You need to make sure the mochi is sufficiently dusted with flour so that it doesn't stick to the mould or it will end up tearing again.
You begin by making the Nama chocolates. I used Just One Cookbook's recipes as a reference for both
dark chocolate and
matcha chocolate versions. Nama chocolate is actually just chocolate ganache dusted with cocoa or matcha powder. I skipped the dusting and prepared the chocolates using my lazy one-bowl method of preparation.
Nama dark chocolate
Ingredients :
100g 54.5% Callebaut dark chocolate
50g whipping cream
1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur
Steps :
1. Place everything in a microwave-safe bowl or heatproof bowl. Melt the chocolate using medium power at 10 second bursts of using microwave. Alternatively you may use double boiler to melt the chocolate. Stir well until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
2. Transfer into 3cm silicone hemisphere moulds and press a cling wrap on the surface. Refrigerate for 1h.
3. Reserve a little melted chocolate in piping bag.
Matcha Nama chocolate
Ingredients :
100g Callebaut white chocolate
30g whipping cream
7g unsalted butter
4g (1/2 tbs) matcha powder
Steps:
1. Place everything except matcha powder in microwave-safe bowl or heatproof bowl. Melt the chocolate in a similar way as pt 1 above.
2. Add matcha powder and mix well.
3. Transfer into 3cm silicone hemisphere moulds and press a cling wrap on the surface. Refrigerate for 1h.
4. Reserve a little melted chocolate in piping bag.
You may omit the coffee salted caramel or leave out the coffee and use plain salted caramel if you wish. I usually a stash of homemade salted caramel in the freezer as it freezes well.
Coffee salted caramel
Ingredients:
1 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp boiling hot water
Note: you may prepare your salted caramel by dissolving the coffee granules in the hot cream for making salted caramel. But because I already have salted caramel in store, I add the coffee after the caramel has been made.
Steps:
1. Dissolve instant coffee in hot water. Doesn't matter if not all the granules are dissolved.
2. Add coffee into salted caramel in a microwave-safe bowl. Mix well. Microwave for 10 sec at medium power. Mix well. Repeat heating and stirring until mixture is hot enough and starts to bubble.
3. Let coffee caramel cool for 10 min at room temperature. Sieve coffee caramel into piping bag.
Assembling of the mochi filling involves first making a well in the middle of the set chocolates. You can use anything you have on hand to create the well. Spoons, fondant tools, mini melon baller etc.
Fill the cavities with coffee salted caramel or partially mashed azuki beans.
Glue the halves of the hemispheres together using some melted chocolate left in the piping bags. Use gloves to handle the chocolates as heat from your fingers will melt it.
Each ball of chocolate is about 16g.
Put the assembled chocolates into the fridge or freezer while you work on the mochi.
Mochi
Ingredients:
45g icing sugar
45g cooked glutinous rice flour + extra for dusting
75g water
Powder flavouring *
12g olive oil (or shortening /other oil)
Gel colouring (if using)
* 1/2 tsp Matcha powder OR
1/2 tsp instant coffee granules and 1/2 tsp cocoa powder. Omit this for plain mochi
Note: traditional mochi doesn't contain any oil and raw glutinous rice flour is used in the preparation. I used cooked glutinous rice flour as I still have leftover from snowskin mooncake making. I add oil so it can keep moist and soft longer. So after a few days, the mochi texture will resemble snowskin mooncake texture. And if you guessed that I actually used a snowskin mooncake recipe for my mochi, you are absolutely right!
Steps:
1. Sift together icing sugar and cooked glutinous rice flour. If powdered flavouring is used, sift that in together as well.
2. Place water, oil and gel food colouring in small saucepan. I added a drop of green for the matcha mochi and a drop of red for the mocha mochi to get the final product to look more like the characters. Heat the mixture until it just starts to boil.
3. Pour the liquid into the sifted flour. Mix well with a spatula until a dough forms. For the matcha mochi, I added a few drops of white gel colouring and mixed it until the colouring is absorbed but colour is not homogeneous. This is to give it a slightly molted look but is optional. Cling wrap mixing bowl and set aside to cool for about 10 min or until dough is cool enough to handle.
4. Briefly knead the dough with spatula and portion into 20g balls. Dust with some flour if it is too sticky. I like to use parchment paper as my work surface.
5. Flatten a ball of dough and place a ball of chocolate in the middle.
6. Carefully wrap the filling with dough, placing it seam side down.
7. Dust each ball of mochi with cooked glutinous rice flour. Place into silicone ice cube trays. These are slightly bigger than 3cm. Carefully press it in to fill the corners as far as possible.
8. Freeze for 1h covered. In the mean time, prepare some plain dough for making the Magma eyes. Prepare some greenish black dough for making the Slime eyes and mouth. I used a mix of matcha powder and charcoal powder to colour the dough.
9. Roll out the dough until about 1mm thick for both plain and green-black. I used fondant square cutters to cut out the small squares and laid them on a tray lined with parchment.
10. Air-dry the cutouts for 15 min. Use edible marker or edible paint to add on the red, orange and yellow details of the Magma eyes.
11. Pop the frozen mochi out of the ice cube tray and place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
12. Brush a little water on the spots where the eyes are supposed to go. Carefully place the eye cutouts in place.
13. Store the assembled mochi in airtight container in fridge for up to 5 days. The texture of mochi is soft for first 2 days but will firm up more after that.
Here is a view of the cross-section!
With lots of love,
Phay Shing
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