I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review!

I love Japan, I love cooking, and I love mochi (tried it out once). So this book had to be clicked and requested on Netgalley. I wanted to see how this writer makes mochi (I know a couple of ways but maybe the author had a new one), and I wanted to see cute mochi and how to make them.

I have to say I haven’t tried any of the recipes. While the author says that it is easy to get the ingredients, I have never seen mochiko here in a normal grocery store (I had a time I wanted to make bentos but finding the right rice in a normal grocery store.. eh). Currently we are still in lockdown so I am not going to an Asian Market as that is just too far away, and I am just not a fan of online food buying. But as soon as everything is normal again (probably next year or in a couple of months as by the time this review is up it is November, but it is May now as I write it) I do plan on trying out some recipes when I can visit an Asian Market and get mochi rice, mochi flour, and ingredients to fill it with as I have not seen those at normal grocery stores either. And some I guess I cannot do as I don’t have a microwave any more. I had one in my old house (combined with an oven), but we barely used it for microwave functions, instead only used the oven function.

I loved reading about the author’s family and how they do the mochi making.

The recipes are all quite clearly explained in easy steps, there are photographs, extra tips and notes, and all in all, I think anyone can do it if they want (and if they can find the ingredients). There are also Q&A at the start of each chapter which feature the most basic questions anyone may have about the topic that we are getting to in the chapter. I love how each recipe starts with an explanation, sometimes even with personal anecdotes. There are tons of recipes with all sorts of yummy mochi types, and I can honestly say I am hungry now. So so hungry.

I did like the chapter on how to decorate mochi! Though I had expected just a bit more, some more tips and tricks. Some more shapes and stuff to try out.

I also like that they added dango/odango to the mix!

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this fun mochi book. I am now very very hungry and have had a few times that I wanted to reach out to the book and just grab the mochi. 😛 I would recommend this book to all.