Green Tea Mochi - Using cooked green tea leaves on top of coconut Mochi

At last, but not the least of all three recipes is coconut Mochi with cooked green tea accented on top of coconut Mochi. This recipe is based on Kashiwa mochi, or Mochi wrapped in oak leaf. Oak leaf on Kashiwa mochi gives a pleasant bite of tannin to the plain mochi while not being too overpowering. Typically, oak leaf is removed before consumption.

Tea leaf on this mochi, on the other hand, is not removed, but consumed with the mochi. Because soft leaves of the green tea variety are used, flavor is milder. We also blanched the leaf a bit to keep the tea leaves from getting further oxidized.

Ingredients:

2 oz fresh green tea tips
1 lb mochiko
2 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking poder
1 can coconut milk
1 can water
Potato or cornstarch to dust

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir the mochiko, sugar and baking powder together.

3. Add coconut milk and water to flour mixture. Stir until the batter is smooth.

4. Pour batter into pan. Cover tightly with foil. Bake for 1 hour.

5. Lightly cook tea leaves by blanching, steaming or microwave until wilted. Watch for overcooking or burning. Set the tea leaves aside to cool.

6. Remove mochi from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Carefully remove foil. Let mochi cool completely before cutting.

7. Wrap cut mochi with tea leaves or place tea leaves on top and dust with potato or cornstarch. Let rest 12-24 hours.


* If you experience mochi being too sticky, wait overnight or a day. Mochi will firm up a bit and you can peel the mochi off the pan easily.