Black Sesame Mochi

For those of you who don't know what mochi ice-cream is, mochi is a Japanese ice cream very much in the shape of a ball consisting of rice dough on the outside (the mochi) with ice cream in the center. The ice cream at the center could be any flavor but the very first mochi ice cream I ever had and saw was the green tea mochi ice cream, I believe this to be the original mochi ice cream.

Maeda-En is a popular Japanese ice cream maker and produces containers of green tea ice cream, azuki bean ice cream (red bean) and of course different flavors of mochi ice cream.  Maeda-En is my usual Japanese go-to brand, I've found it the best thus far in quality and flavor.

Craving ice cream which doesn't happen too often, I walked over to my local Korean store with Mr. Borscht and raided the ice cream freezer section, we walked back home with three boxes of ice cream: a box of green tea mochi ice cream, a box of red bean popsicles and a box of black sesame mochi ice cream.  The first two I've had countless times, the last however... black sesame mochi, I've never had before.

For those of you who grew up eating creamsicle and otter pops, or drumsticks and Baskin Robins may be thinking in horror 'red bean ice cream?!' or 'black sesame ice cream?!'- 'WTF?!' Fortunately I grew up eating red bean ice cream and green tea ice cream, my palate has been trained to understand that ice cream doesn't have to be all sweet and all sugar to be a treat from a very young age.  This isn't to say that if you've never had these types of ice creams before that you wouldn't like them, it just might be a little odd at first... but c'mon, how can any ice cream be bad?  And besides, aren't you the least bit curious about this so-called black sesame mochi?

So let's get on with it!

First off, the Black Sesame mochi ice cream box says it is gluten-free, and so it is when I checked on the ingredients, except that the facility also uses the same machines to process soy and other things... so maybe it's not completely gluten-free, but if you're a lenient gluten-free eater (like moi) than this should be okay.

The rice dough dusted with powdered sugar  is moist, softy and doughy, the texture of biting into the dough and through the ice cream to get a bit of each is exciting and pleasant to the senses.  The sweet doughy texture along with the cold semi-firm ice cream to balance it off is a large part of what makes mochi a popular ice cream treat.  The flavor of the green tea mochi ice cream of which I'm accustomed to is light and fragrant to the palate and the nasal cavity, the green tea mochi builds in it's flavor slowly, gradually- very much like green tea: subtle at first and then a bit stronger later.  The black sesame mochi is quite different in comparison.  The flavor of black sesame is undeniable and hits hard with a BANG!  But not unpleasantly, instead excitingly. Full flavored black sesame as if it had been toasted to release the flavors before being introduced into the ice cream, the flavor is nothing less than exciting and mysterious- I strongly urge to give this mochi flavor a try, IT'S A MUST!  And I guarantee that if you love your green tea mochi you will love the black sesame mochi as well... dare I say "maybe even more?"