Salt Is The Secret Ingredient For Perfectly Balanced Homemade Mochi

While mochi is actually a type of sticky, chewy rice dough (so chewy it can be dangerous to eat if you don't take small bites), for many the term is synonymous with an ice cream treat that was trendy in the mid-teens. Mochi ice cream consists of chewy dough made from sticky rice flour and wrapped around a frozen center and so mainstream has it become that home cooks are making DIY versions with the glutinous rice flour that's now a staple in many supermarkets. Recipe developer Cecilia Ryu, who came up with her own recipe for easy ice cream mochi, tells us "Ice cream mochi is wonderful because you can make it with your ice cream of choice."

In addition to glutinous rice flour, the ingredients you will need to make mochi dough include powdered sugar, hot water, and a pinch of salt. Ryu admits that "The dough itself doesn't have much flavor, but mainly adds another layer of texture." What flavor it does have, though, is something she says is intended to complement the ice cream filling. As with many baked goods, that little bit of salt helps offset the sweetness from the sugar. Basically, this ingredient adds that je ne sais quoi that you won't really recognize as being present –- there's no notable salty flavor in the dough -– but you would notice if it was missing since without it the dessert would tend to taste flat and lacking in some indefinable way.

In addition to the salt in the dough, there is one other crucial factor in making sure your mochi ice cream turns out just right: the temperature. The ice cream balls, of course, have to stay as cold as possible, which means limiting the amount of time they are out of the freezer when you're wrapping them in dough. As Ryu tells us, "The ice cream melts fast and the longer you handle it, the heat from your fingers will melt it even more."

The dough, too, cannot get too warm as warm dough might be too soft to hold together properly. Ryu insists that "The key to making this mochi is to keep everything cold and to work fast." She says that it's best to have everything ready to go before you start rolling the first piece of dough around the ice cream and that you should only have one ice cream ball outside the freezer at any given time. "It would definitely help to work in a cool area," says Ryu, so if your house is on the warm side, you might even want to crank up the A/C while you work on making this mochi ice cream.