My friends will tell you I have just a slight obsession with Halo Top (okay, I may have once bought 12 pints at once). With this obsession comes a hobby of trying to figure out how I can incorporate Halo Top into more of my meals. This usually means I sit down with a pint and top it with all the fruit in my fridge, but sometimes I get a little more creative. And when I get creative, beautiful ideas are born, like my most glorious Halo Top creation to date, this birthday cake mochi ice cream recipe.
I won’t lie, mochi dough can be super hard to get just right. There’s a fine line between undercooking and overcooking it, and I unfortunately have been on both sides of that line (multiple times). So here are my suggestions—nay, commands—to make sure your mochi dough turns out as planned (trust me, I made this recipe three times before I got it right, so listen up and learn from my mistakes).
1. Don’t under microwave it. The dough will be impossible to roll out because it will just stick to the surface and your rolling pin and become one giant squashy mess.
2. Don’t over microwave it. It’ll be impossible to roll out for an entirely different reason. The dough will get tough and thick, making it hard to roll into the thin layer you need for cutting.
3. Use a lot of corn starch. By thoroughly dusting your surface and the dough, you’ll prevent the dough from sticking and turning into difficult glops.
Follow those three commandments, and you should have glorious, Halo Top-enhanced birthday cake mochi ice cream for days (or one sitting, no judgment).
Halo Top Birthday Cake Mochi Ice Cream
Ingredients
Instructions
Add water to a glass bowl. Place a strainer over the bowl and drop the jam into the strainer. Push the jam through the strainer into the water.
Add corn syrup. Stir mixture until ingredients are completely integrated.
In a separate bowl, add the rice flour and sugar. Stir until combined.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Stir until smooth.
Cover the glass bowl with plastic wrap. Microwave for 3 minutes, peel back plastic wrap, and stir with a spatula.
Cover again with plastic wrap. Microwave for 2 minutes, peel back plastic wrap, and stir.
Cover for the last time with plastic wrap. Microwave for 2 minutes, peel back plastic wrap, and stir.
Dust surface liberally with corn starch. Gather the mochi dough into a ball and plop it on the corn starch-covered surface. Pat the dough with corn starch so that surface isn’t sticky for rolling out.
Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a thin layer. Sprinkle the layer with the rainbow sprinkles and roll the dough until the sprinkles are imprinted into the dough.
Use a round cookie cutter (or a mini bowl like I did) to cut your dough into circles. Clump any remaining dough into a ball, roll it out again, and cut final circles out.
Take a square of plastic wrap and place it over a muffin tin. Press one circle of mochi dough into the tin. Fill the dough with a mini scoop of ice cream. Gather up the edges of the dough and pinch it closed. Take the plastic wrap and twist it around the mochi to keep it together.
Either eat the mochi right away or store in the freezer for delicious treats to enjoy later.