#bilo bilo

What is PIKAGENIE craving today?

I plan to talk about any treats (from sweet to savory) that come across interesting and yummy! These treats will mostly be centered towards, but not limited to, the Asian category!

Instead of reviewing treats, I am going to share my experience in making my first ichigo daifuku! Thank you, otaku-food, for the recipe!

When I was in Japan, my Japanese was super limited. It still is pretty limited today. Anyway, my sister and I were looking at these desserts and we saw some dark complexions on the mochi. 

Why did we think it was chocolate flavor? We don’t know. It looked like it. 

But hey! At least we like red bean. It’s not like it wasn’t anything foreign to us.

SMALL KITCHEN

I live in a basic apartment. My kitchen is small, which made it difficult for me to actually keep everything in one place. I had one corner for cutting up strawberries and wrapping them up in red bean. Another corner was dedicated to mochi. The third corner was for the end product. Thinking back to it, I should have kept everything all on the table in my living room. That way, the mess would have stayed in one place. (Seriously, the cornstarch was everywhere...)

MOCHI vs. BILO BILO

Oh my goodness. This is one of the most messiest desserts I ever made in my life! Props to all those who make these on a daily basis. 

I never made mochi in my life before- well, I technically have before. There is this dessert that I help my mother make. It’s a Filipino dessert called ginataang. I help her make the bilo bilo (sticky rice balls). Ingredients are pretty much the same. So I definitely know how sticky this can get! However, making this mochi is a much more stickier process than making the bilo bilo. 

The difference between making the bilo bilo and mochi is that you are holding a really hot mochi. I live in a hot area. Holding hot mochi while it is 90 degrees outside is just painful! And even if you tell me to let it cool down, I cannot do that! The heat helps keep the entire ball stay together. 

CORNSTARCH IS YOUR FRIEND

It’s a very sticky process. In the recipe, it states to stretch out the mochi into a flat disk. I assumed that I should stretch it out on my palm just like how I play with the bilo bilo sometimes. I held in the pain from the heat. Maybe I should have let it cool down a little bit. (Next time I make this, I am going to ask a friend to help so they can do this painful task for me. This isn’t really a painful task. I just cannot handle holding hot items sometimes.)

Anyway, as I placed the red bean covered strawberry in the middle of the mochi, for some odd reason, it became red bean covered mochi with the strawberry still inside. Basically, I did not use enough cornstarch for this process. The dough was just sticking EVERYWHERE. I was so close to just giving up since I was just tired from a long day, but the idea that I am giving this to family kept me going. 

For the next piece, I decided to use hella a lot cornstarch. I made sure to dunk my hands with cornstarch. As I was stretching out the dough, I kept adding in the cornstarch so it wouldn’t be as sticky anymore. It worked!

Even though that worked, I forgot how tiny my hands were. It was quite difficult for the next few pieces since I was working with really huge strawberries. The cornstarch was really accumulating on my hands and it was getting annoying for me to keep rinsing them. So, another idea came up. Since I was using two cutting boards (one for red bean covered strawberries and the other for mochi itself), I decided to take advantage of it. I grabbed a rice scooper, dunked it into the cornstarch, and started pressing down on the mochi clumps so it can stretch out. Just like before, I continued to add in the cornstarch on the stickier parts of the mochi.

Huzzah! It worked!

This process made everything go much more smoothly afterwards! Having the mochi stretched out onto the cutting board made placing the red bean covered strawberry and wrapping it up a lot easier and less messy. I just wish that I figured that out sooner because there was literally cornstarch everywhere in the kitchen. 

AND OVERALL...

This was fun to make! I handed this out to friends and family and they all loved it! 

Next time, even though cornstarch basically saved my life, I definitely want to minimize the amount I use. It is quite powdery when you eat it. My housemate spilled some on the couch by accident. (Don’t worry. She cleaned up after herself.)

Also, I am pretty sure mochi should not be that big. I was working with huge strawberries and I didn’t bother to cut them in half. 

And if you have made ichigo daifuku/mochi before, I have one question. Would red bean paste work and taste better than canned red bean? It was quite difficult keep some of the beans from poking out of the mochi. I’m sure the layer was not thick enough, but I would like to know the difference it would make. My mother also suggested that I should make my own anko. I definitely want to aim for better quality next time!