Mochi with Sweet Peanut filling

Mochi!!! i loove mochi...especially ones that are of many different colors. my friend was having a Japanese themed party so i told him i'd make something yummy and sweet that goes with the theme. 

 first! i made the sweet peanut filling. i basically just put peanuts and sugar in a food processor and pulsed until i had a crumb-like consistency. the sugar added was to taste; i just eye-balled how much i added...it looked like 1 1/2 cup peanuts to 1/4 cup sugar and it tasted pretty good after i put it in the food processor. not too sweet but sweet enough mmm. 

 now on to the mochi itself! i didn't use the mochiko glutinous rice flour; instead, i just used what i had which was a generic type sweet rice flour. in a bowl, add 100 grams of sweet rice flour and 2 tbsp of sugar (or more if you want it sweeter). 

 in another pan (i used my 8x8 baking pan) pour in some potato starch, which you can get at a super asian store. this extremely helps with the crazy sticky mochi (it's crazy sticky!!)

 add in the 1/2 cup water into the flour/sugar mixture, 1/4 cup at a time and stir until there are no pockets of flour. if you want to add some color into your mochi, add the dye with the last 1/4 cup of water. 

then place the bowl over a bain marie, or simmering water on top of the stove, and let it steam for 15 minutes. 

 once it's done, wet your spatula and stir the mochi around until it forms a uniform dough. then dump it into the pan with the potato starch. while it's still warm (which helps the mochi stretch alot) divide the dough into 8 equal balls. 

 take one of the mochi balls and stretch out the ends to make a disc. brush off the starch as best you can..

 and add a good teaspoon of the filling into the middle. don't add too much or it'll burst. i've had that happen to me the first four times.. -.- 

 pinch the ends all together and then place the mochi ball end side down and rotate the mochi with your hands to shape it into a more circular shape. make sure you have enough potato starch in your pan! i'm soo serious when i say the mochi is extremelyyy sticky! 

 the mochi was soo easy to make that i made alot of batches with different colors!

with the green one i just added green tea powder into the flour/sugar mixture before i added the water! it was so good! 

even though i used the same filling in all of these, you can add some variety like red bean, chocolate ganache (mmm), nutella(!?), ice cream(???) and so much more! get crazy!

Ingredients

peanut filling:

1 1/2 cup peanuts 

1/4 cup sugar (or to taste)

Mochi: 

100 grams sweet rice flour

2 tbsp sugar 

1/2 cup water