Persimmon Mochi

Persimmon mochi has a soft, sticky, and chewy mochi skin with a sweet jelly-like persimmon filling. Decorated with a real persimmon leaf, this mochi looks just like a real persimmon!

Hachiya Persimmons

Soft and juicy hachiya persimmon is the best choice for making persimmon mochi. When fully ripened, hachiya persimmons turn soft, mushy, and sweet like honey jelly. You can dig out its flesh with a spoon, and use it directly as the persimmon mochi’s filling.

Unlike fuyu persimmons, which can be eaten either hard or soft, hachiya persimmons taste bitter when they are unripen.

As soon as I received the hachiya persimmons I bought online, I couldn’t wait to taste one. One bite of unripen persimmon made my tongue numb for almost half hour. 😵

Therefore, you will have to be very patient with these persimmons. Do not eat it until the whole fruit turns soft and squishy like a rotten tomato. To ripen a rock-hard persimmon, you just need to leave it on your countertop for 1 to 2 weeks.

A faster method to speed up the ripening process is to bury them in a bucket of uncooked rice. You can use any type of rice. And to be honest, I don’t know why this method would work. But my dad uses this trick all the time. With this method, you should be able to get fully ripened persimmons within 5 days.

But this method would work only if you don’t forget the existence of these persimmons. One year, my dad and I totally forgot about our persimmons in the rice bucket, and we ended up got some rotten persimmons and moldy rice. 🤣

Three methods to make mochi skin

The key to making delicious mochi is to make a chewy and stretchy mochi skin. After all the ingredients are well mixed, you can either steam, microwave, or pan fry the mixture until the mochi dough is fully cooked.

I have tried three different methods to make mochi skin. All of these methods have been working great for me:

1. Steam

• Mix all the mochi dough ingredients in a bowl, cover the bowl tightly with a food wrap, use a toothpick to poke about 12 holes on the wrap.
• Steam the mixture over high heat for 30 minutes until fully cooked.

I used this steaming method to make my persimmon mochi dough in this recipe.

2. Microwave

• Mix all the mochi dough ingredients in a microwave-safe container, cover the bowl tightly with a food wrap, use a toothpick to poke about 12 holes on the wrap.
• Microwave the mixture on 100% power for 3 minutes.
• Check out my strawberry mochi recipe for detailed instructions for the microwave method.

3. Pan fry

• If you don’t have a microwave or a steamer, you can also pan fry the mochi mixture until it forms a dough. It will take you about 10 minutes.
• Check out my peach mochi recipe for detailed instructions for the pan frying method.

To check whether the mochi dough is fully cooked, you can stick a toothpick into the center of the dough: if the toothpick tip comes out clean, the mochi dough is fully cooked.

Persimmon Mochi Skin

You might have noticed that in the video I blended some persimmon flesh and used the juice to make the mochi dough. However, in the ingredient list I listed “milk” instead of the persimmon juice.

It is because that different types of persimmon contain different amounts of water. A fully ripened hachiya persimmon would contain more water than a partially ripened hachiya persimmon. Therefore, I can’t tell you exactly how much persimmon puree to put in the mixture. You will need to observe the texture of your mochi mixture and adjust the amount of persimmon puree little by little.

If it’s your first time making persimmon mochis, it could be hard for you to adjust the amount of water based on the texture of the mochi dough mixture. Therefore, I’d suggest you to just use milk plus some food coloring instead of the persimmon puree. In this way you are more likely to make successful mochi skin. 

If you want to try making mochi skin with persimmon flesh, you can start with 150g persimmon flesh + 80g water. You can blend them and weigh 180g of the persimmon puree and gradually add it into the dry ingredients.

In this way, the mochi skin will have a persimmon taste too. Since we will blend them into juice anyway, you can use both hard (fuyu) and soft (hachiya) persimmons to make the mochi skin

Persimmon Mochi Filling

I used jelly-like hachiya persimmon plus whipped cream as my persimmon mochi’s filling.

Since the mochi skin is very soft and delicate, we need to make some gelatin whipped cream that doesn’t melt to hold the mochi’s round shape. Check out this post for how to make stabilized whipped cream that can hold its shape under room temperature for a whole day.

If you can’t find hachiya persimmon in your local stores, you can also use ice cream as the mochi’s filling. But here is one thing to keep in mind: if you wrap a scoop of ice cream directly into the mochi skin, it will melt fast before you shape it into a ball. 

To avoid a mess, you can make some ice cream balls with food wrap and freeze them overnight until they turn very hard. In this way you will be able to wrap them with the mochi skin easily.

EQUIPMENT you will need:

• Kitchen scale
• Blender
• Steamer
• Non stick silicone mat (Optional)
• Non-stick food handling gloves (Optional)
• Rolling Pin (Optional)
• Mochi mold (Can be substituted with a ladle)

INGREDIENT LIST:  

– Persimmon Mochi Skin

• 170 g milk (¾ cups; *See Note 1 if you want to use persimmon juice instead of milk)
• 30 g cornstarch (3 tbsps)
• 45 g sugar (3½ tbsps)
• 100 g glutinous rice flour (15 tbsps)
• 3 drops food coloring – orange color (Gel, liquid, or powder food coloring)
• 20 g unsalted butter

– Persimmon Mochi Filling

• 1 hachiya persimmon
• 300 g heavy whipping cream (1¼ cup)
• 30 g powdered sugar (4 tbsp)
• 10 g water (1 tbsp)
• 3 g gelatin powder (1 tsp)

– Other

• 30 g glutinous rice flour (4 tbsps)

Step-by-Step INSTRUCTIONS 

– Preparation

1. Make gelatin whipped cream by following this recipe. Put the whipped cream into a piping bag, keep it in the fridge.

2. Cook 30g of glutinous rice flour over medium heat for about 5 minutes, whisking constantly, until it smells like popcorn. Set aside to cool down. (We will use this cooked flour to prevent from getting sticky later.)

– Make Persimmon Mochi Skin

1. Add 170g milk, 30g cornstarch, 45g sugar, and 100g glutinous rice flour in a bowl. Optionally, add a few drops of orange food coloring to make the mixture orange. Stir with a whisk until the mixture is smooth. (*See Note 1 if you want to use persimmon juice instead of milk. )

2. Cover the bowl with heatproof food wrap, use a toothpick to poke about 12 holes on the food wrap. Steam the mixture over high heat for 30 minutes until fully cooked – Stick a toothpick into the middle of the mochi dough and if it comes out clean, the dough is fully cooked.

3. Take the bowl out from the steamer, put 20g butter on the top of the steamed mochi dough. Wait for a few minutes until the butter is melted.

4. Roughly mix the butter and the mochi dough with a spoon. Transfer the mochi dough and the butter on a nonstick silicone mat, or a working surface covered with plastic food wrap.

5. Once the mochi dough is not too hot to be touched, use your hands to knead the dough until all the butter has been absorbed. You can put non-stick food handling gloves to avoid from getting sticky. (If the dough is still to sticky to be kneaded, wrap up the dough with plastic food wrap, keep the dough in the fridge for 1 hour until it completely cools down. It will be less sticky after it’s cooled.)

6. Knead the mochi dough by pulling and folding it for about 5 minutes, until you can pull it as long as your forearm (about 10 inches). 

7. Cut the mochi dough into 6 equal portions. (I made it into 7 balls because I am pretty confident to handle thin mochi skins. If it’s your first time making mochi, you can start with 6 balls and thicker mochi skins.) Flatten each small dough into 5-inch diameter circles. Cover with plastic food wrap until use.

– Assemble The Mochi

1. Take a mochi skin, dust some cooked glutinous rice flour on one side, line the mochi skin on a mochi mold (You can also use a soup ladle or small round-shape bowl) with the glutinous rice flour side facing down.

2. Add about 1 tbsp of hachiya persimmon fruit in the middle of the mochi skin, pipe in about 2 tbsps of gelatin whipped cream. Pull the edges of the wrap together to cover the filling, press together the edges to seal well. 

3. Pinch off the dough where all the pleats meet, apply some glutinous rice flour, flip the persimmon mochi so that the smooth side is facing up.

4. Place a persimmon leaf on the center of the mochi.

5. Serve immediately. Store leftover mochi in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

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