All About Mochiko: 3 Desserts to Make Using Mochiko

Mochiko is a Japanese sweet rice flour made from cooked mochigome, a glutinous variety of short-grain rice. To make mochiko, producers wash the grains in water to slough away the outer husk, then dehydrate the kernels and mill them into a fine powder.

Shiratamako is another flour made from mochigome that is also sold as sweet rice flour. However, it has a slightly different texture due to the extensive treatment of the rice: After an initial wash, producers soak the grains again, then grind them while wet. The resulting liquid is pressed, then dehydrated, and ground into flour. The two flours are gluten-free and not inherently sweet. The sticky, chewy texture they bring to confections is characteristic of the specific cultivar of rice grain, Oryza sativa var. glutinosa, which merely replicates the snappy stretch of gluten.

You can use mochiko as a thickening agent in various sauces or breading, similar to cornstarch or katakuriko (potato starch), or as a gluten-free flour in some desserts and baked goods, such as:

1. 1. Mitarashi kushi dango: Dango, or dumplings, are a popular confection made with a combination of mochiko and regular rice flour (joshinko), which gives them slightly less stretch than mochi. Kushi dango are sweet dumplings served on skewers, usually glazed in mitarashi, a sweet soy sauce.
2. 2. Mochi: Mochi is a rice cake traditionally made with shiratamako, which yields a finer texture and chew, but it can also be made with mochiko.
3. 3. Wagashi: Ground mochiko or shiratamako are primarily used to prepare chewy sweets, known as wagashi.

Both rice flour and mochiko are made by removing the rice grain’s outer husk and milling the inner kernel into a fine powder. The main difference between the two flours lies in the kind of rice grain used in their production. Regular rice flour is made from non-glutinous, long-grain brown or white rice. Mochiko is a sweet rice flour made from a glutinous, short-grain sweet rice called mochigome, also known as “sticky rice.”

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