SCK Tries… Kim-Joy’s Ice Cream Mochi

I’m here with a new edition of SCK Tries! This is where we try out a DIY and see how it goes in reality and whether we’d recommend that you try it yourself. This time I’m trying a recipe from Kim-Joy’s cookbook Celebrate with Kim-Joy.

The Original DIY

Kim-Joy is a baker and cookbook writer who produces amazingly creative and imaginative recipes, with a lot of them having cute themes and a variety of animals or kawaii characters. I was so excited to be able to try out a dessert from the Celebrate with Kim-Joy cookbook as it has so many fun and whimsical recipes for every season and holiday. In the end I decided to go for the ice cream filled mochi! I love mochi in all its forms, so it seemed like the perfect recipe for me and the winter theme was apt for the time of year.

Ingredients & Equipment

The recipe lists all the ingredients you need and are given in both US and metric measures. The equipment you’ll need isn’t listed so I recommend reading the recipe a couple of times to make sure you have everything you need before starting (especially uncommon items like a sugar thermometer and a balloon) and just make sure you’ve got a big enough flat space in your freezer to lay out the sheet of ice cream balls to keep frozen until needed.

In the end, I decided to alter the decoration slightly, as I’m not a huge fan of fondant icing and it called for a lot of little fondant penguins to adorn the mochi. Instead I chose my very tiny ice-type Pokémon, Glaceon, as I was sure he would love the snow and ice as much as penguins do!

Process

The recipe was broken down into easy to follow steps and I loved the process of making my little ice cream filled mochi. It could’ve done with some troubleshooting information for the actual mochi skin making and forming process, as I think first timers might possibly find themselves struggling to solve some issues that might arise.

Luckily, the only ‘fail’ I had was nothing to do with the recipe and more to do with the weather factors! The rain and humidity that particular day made the sugar ‘glass’ for my sugar bowl stay slightly sticky instead of completely hardening around the balloon. When it was popped, the bowl completely cracked into shards instead of staying whole. I’m not one to give up though, so I decided to use the shards of blue sugar glass as part of an icy looking decoration inside another bowl.

I actually quite liked the effect, so it wasn’t a massive disappointment, but definitely try to make the balloon bowl if you can. It looks amazing!

The End Result

These filled mochi balls turned out fantastically and I kept them in the freezer to pull out whenever I fancied a bit of dessert. My favourite ice cream filling for the mochi is definitely chocolate, but I think a fruit sorbet would work well too. Even though I had a bit of a fail with my sugar bowl, it was a really fun and enjoyable process overall and I would definitely make them again. I would love to try different colours and fillings.

If you’re looking for a unique dessert for a party or celebration then I definitely recommend checking out Kim-Joy’s books. She even has a new book called Bake Me A Cat, which is full of cute cat-themed recipes! They’re all available from bookshops worldwide including Amazon (UK/US), The Book Depository (free worldwide shipping) and Bookshop (UK/US) .