Moffles モッフル

Meow was enamoured by the idea of a crispy outside but soft chewy inside selling point of the moffle.  Moffle, is where you take a chunk of cooked mochi dough and press it into a waffle iron.

Typically, cooked mochi dough, or cut mochi is pan fried and the eater garnishes it however she wants.  The Chinese sometimes even slices this stuff and stir fry it with vegetables and it's a savoury dish.  But cut mochi by itself, when pan fried, will puff up and get crispy.  Pan fried mochi is called yakimochi in Japanese, which is also the same term used to describe someone who is jealous.  I guess the reasoning could be that people get "puffed up" or worked up when they are "heated" or angry, haha!

My first attempt at moffles was a huge fail.  The dough was not the right consistency and Meow did not cook the dough correctly.  I was actually being lazy and thought I could try microwaving the dough, which dried it out and I got a rubbery slab out of it.  I tried putting it in the waffle iron and it did cook, but it was mostly rock hard.  FAIL!

After that, I looked into alternative ratios for the dough and other possible ways to cook the dough and came across the mitarashi dango dough which a few blogs that did not make moffles from store bought cut mochi says it will work.  And it also worked for me.

Moffles モッフル

Version 1

Use and follow mitarashi dango dough recipe from here

100 g piece of dough will give you about 1/4 of a regular sized round waffle

Yield: approximately one 7" round moffle

Version 2

Use and follow daifuku mochi dough recipe from here

1. Make the dango dough, divide the dough into 100 g portions, shape to flat-ish pieces, and cook it in boiling water.

2. Once the dango dough has been drained, brush your waffle iron with butter or any other fats to grease it (you will need it, mochi sticks to everything!)

3. Place a piece of cooked dango dough on the waffle iron and press the lid down.  Keep pressing the lid down to help squish and spread the dough.  You will hear squealing.  Eventually, the lid will be able to fully come down, but keep pressing because mochi tends to puff up in the presence of heat,  you want the dough to spread as much as it can

4. Cook moffle to desired colour

5. Add any fruits or sauces to the moffle as desired.  Typical waffle condiments will work, so will cheese, and also the sweet soy sauce syrup from mitarashi dango

6. Consume while warm

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You really don't need more than perhaps half of a whole round moffle.  These things are heavy and filling.

I find them not as fluffy as I would imagine or had hoped, but the crispy-chewy contrasting texture was definitely interesting.  The mitarashi dango sauce went very well with it as expected, it is basically grilled mochi after all.

With mitarashi sauce

I should try to make a much softer mochi/dango dough and do this again to see if I can improve on the softeness.  Perhaps take the daifuku dough and do it.

As for using the dough from version 2, it yielded a much fluffier and crispier moffle.  But it likes to spread and run in the waffle iron.  LOL!  Just be careful as to not add too much dough when cooking.  Mr. Meow is not allowed to like moffles because he was scoffing off at the idea of them, but he secretly likes this version better, as do Meow Mother, and Meow.

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