This recipe is mainly for my friends who share
the Cooking Exchange on Mondays here in Colorado.
This is not a traditional style of Daifuku.
Simply mochi dough with red beans would be an original.
It's also popular that the dough is with slight salty black beans.
But nowadays you can see many kinds of Daifuku such as
with fruits, chocolate, whipping cream, green tea flavor, and etc. in Japan.
For me, I do like strawberry one with red beans as well as
the traditional one (dough is with the black beans).
Today I introduce you ladies one of my favorite recipe
which is not traditional.い ち ご チ ョ コ 大 福 Strawberry Chocolate Daifuku
■ Ingredients 【7～８ servings】
・Strawberris ・・・ ７ (Big pieces) ～ 8 (Small pieces)
・Katakuriko (starch) ・・・ Proper amount
* I think you can get it at Pasific Mercantile(Denver), H Mart(Denver),
East West Imports(Ft.collins) or it would be ok to use corn starch.
--- Ganache ---・Bitter chocolate chunks ・・・ 2.5 oz (70 g)
*I used this one (found it at Kingsoopers) ↓
・Starch Syrup ・・・2 tsp
・Heavy whipping cream ・・・ 2 oz (46 g)
--- Chocolate cream ---・Ganache(above) ・・・ leftover above
・Heavy Whipping cream ・・・ 3 oz (86 g)
--- Mochi Dough ---・Suger ・・・ 1.5 oz (42 g)
・water ・・・ 200 ml
・Shiratamako ・・・ 4 oz (112 g)
* I think you can get it at Pasific Marcantile(Denver), H Mart(Denver),
East West(Ft.collins) 
■ Directions① Preparing ganache. Bring chocolate chunks and
starch syrup to a pan. Cook it for a minute over
middle heat.
② Take the pan away form the heat. Add heavy
whipping cream immediately and mix them together
gently with a rubber spatula, from outside to inside.
Keep stirring until the mixture become smooth and glossy.
③ After removing retained heat, coat strawberris with it.
Keep refrigerated until it become solid.
④ Preparing chocolate cream. Beat the heavy whipping
cream in a bowl. Scoop small amout of the cream and drop into
the pan remained the ganache and mix them well.
⑤ Again, get
④ back to the bowl and whip together.
⑥ Making Mochi dough.
Bring all of --- Mochi Dough --- ingredients
to a bowl and stir for a while. You don't have to beat them.
⑦ Strain the mixture through a coarse strainer.
⑧ Cook for
*2 minutes in a microwave. I recomend to use
a heat-resistant bowl because it's easy to knead the dough.
(I used a heat-resistant Ramen bowl.)
*It depends on your microwave.
⑨ Take it away form the microwave and knead the dough well.
Be careful not to burn yourself because it's very hot.
⑩ Cook it in a microwave again. For
*1 minute.
And then knead it well again.
*It depends on your microwave. But when you can see
the dough balloon up, it's the sign to stop cooking.
⑪ Spread Katakuriko(starch) on a cutting board
or something like that. Put the dough on it and
devide them into 7～8 pieces. It's sticky so it helps
that you take Katakuriko on your hands.
Also it's very hot. Be careful!
Leave it as it is until you make sure the retained heat is removed.
⑫ Dip
③ into
⑤. I recommend to dip it only the
bottom side of the chocolate coated strawberry.
⑬ Wrap up the starawberry with the dough.
Pull 2 corners of the dough which face each other to the top part.
Glue the 4 corners together.
Make it shaped using your fingers and palms.
Voila! Bon appetit!!
But it would be better to
keep it refrigerated for about 1 hour because the dough become settled down.
Plus, don't keep it more than 24 hours.
You should
eat it in a day not only for the best quality
but also for your sotmach...
