Sakura Mochi Recipe: Easy Pink Cherry Blossom Rice Cakes

Sakura mochi is a sweet, slightly tart pink mochi with a red bean paste filling. It's a traditional Japanese dessert usually eaten in Spring when cherry blossoms bloom. For fans of the video game Genshin Impact, you'll know it as a food item that restores health. You might also know sakura mochi as the reason Mitsuri from the anime Demon Slayer has pink hair.

Although the revival qualities may be debatable in real life, the sweet pink delicacy is easy to make and a visual delight for tired eyes. Our simple recipe will teach you how to make these pretty pink cherry blossom rice cakes at home.

Jump to:

• What Is Sakura Mochi Made Of?
• What Does It Taste Like
• Sakura Mochi Ingredients
• How To Make Sakura Mochi
• Sakura Mochi Recipe | Cherry Blossom Rice Cakes
• Sakura Mochi Recipe (Kanto Style)
• Cooking Tips
• How To Store
• When Is It Eaten
• How To Eat 

What Is Sakura Mochi Made Of?

Sakura mochi is a confectionery (or wagashi in Japanese) made from sticky glutinous rice filled with sweet red bean paste and wrapped in a salty pickled cherry blossom leaf.

There are two different styles of making it. The Kansai style in Western Japan uses coarsely broken rice called domyojiko. This glutinous rice is dried and broken into smaller pieces. Our recipe focuses on the Kansai-style sakura mochi. 

Eastern Japan practices the Kanto style, which uses shiratamako, a sweet glutinous rice flour. As a result, the final presentation looks like a rolled-up mini pancake. 

What Does It Taste Like

Sakura mochi is a pleasant mix of contrasting flavours. Outside, the papery leaf is mildly salty, juxtaposing the sticky rice that wraps around the red bean filling. It's not very sweet. The wagashi tastes just slightly honeyed and has rich, earthy undertones.

Sakura Mochi Ingredients

These are the key ingredients to make sakura mochi kansai style.

• Pickled cherry blossom leaves
• sweet red bean paste
• Mochigome, also called Japanese glutinous rice
• Pink food colouring or cherry blossom powder

While Kansai and Kanto styles use different types of rice, you can buy Japanese short-grain glutinous rice or 'mochigome' for both. This ingredient is the same grain type used to make the traditional Kagami mochi and conventional red bean daifuku snacks. If you can't find Japanese glutinous rice, you can also use long-grain Thai glutinous rice. However, the texture will taste different.

Cherry blossom leaves pickled in salt are the hardest ingredient to find overseas. We've only been able to find them frozen in one speciality Japanese store during cherry blossom season. If you can't find the leaves, you can still make sakura mochi without them. We would use sakura powder instead to replace the cherry blossom part of our recipe. We don't recommend using a different leaf type like perilla as these will add a different flavour.

You can use artificial pink food colouring to create the sweet pink sakura mochi. Alternatively, you can try dragon fruit powder or beetroot juice.

Ready-made red bean paste, or Anko, should be easy to find at Japanese grocery stores. However, check out our red bean paste recipe if you want to make it from scratch. 

How To Make Sakura Mochi

To make sakura mochi, first rinse sweet rice with running water and soak overnight. Then, wash your sakura leaves for about 15 minutes. Next, if you prepared your red bean paste, roll out red bean balls for the filling. Next, add food colouring to the rice incrementally until you get a lovely pale pink. Then cover and cook it.

Lastly, divide the rice. At this step, you either cook and fold the rice over the red bean (Kansai style) or mix the grains into a smooth batter to fry. Once fried, wrap them around the red bean paste balls (Kanto style). When you have shaped all the balls, wrap a sakura leaf around each and serve at room temperature.

Sakura Mochi Recipe (Kanto Style)

You can also make the Kanto version of our sakura mochi recipe. The Kanto version looks like crepe and uses shiratamako. Our recipe serves 15 and takes 5 minutes to prepare (if you buy the Anko paste instead of making it) and 30 minutes to cook. 

Ingredients

• 100 g cake flour
• 25 g Shiratamako
• Red food colouring
• 250 ml Water
• 300 g Red bean paste
• 15 pcs Pickled sakura leaves rinsed and patted dry

Instructions

1. Sift the powdery ingredients into a bowl, add water slowly, and whisk until it forms a smooth batter. Add red food colouring to the mixture. Then, cover the sakura mochi dough with cling wrap and rest for ten minutes.
2. While the flour is resting, form the red bean paste into 15 balls.
3. Heat a frying pan on medium and scoop the batter into the pan. Remove it to spread into an oval shape before returning it to the frying pan. When the dough looks dry and semi-transparent, flip it. Cook the other side, then let it cool. 
4. Place the red bean into the dough when you've cooked both sides. Wrap the dough crepe-style around the red bean. Then, wrap a cherry blossom leaf around it. Repeat the steps to make more sakura mochi. 

You can add sugar to the mixture and stir it into the rice for extra sweetness.

Cooking Tips

• To get the perfect sakura mochi, it's a good idea to plan ahead of time. You need to soak the sweet rice overnight or at least one hour. Soaking ensures the grains will cook and absorb moisture evenly. 
• The rice is sticky once cooked, so use plastic wrap to stuff the red bean paste inside. 
• Another tip is to soak the cherry blossom leaf to get rid of excess salt, as they are initially soaked in salt for preservation before being sold. 
• The final tip is gradually adding food colouring until it reaches your desired colour. Try not to add too much at first.  

How To Store

We suggest that you consume sakura mochi immediately, but if you have to store them, make sure they are wrapped tightly in plastic cling wrap and in an airtight container. This will help stop the rice cakes from hardening in the fridge. Inevitably, the texture won’t be as nice once refrigerated but you can leave them out at room temperature to soften again.

When Is It Eaten

​​In Japan, many people traditionally associate this pink cherry blossom dessert with the 3rd of March, Girl's Day or Doll's Day. Known as Hinamatsui, this is an unofficial holiday that the Japanese dedicated to girls and their families. 

On March 3rd, Japanese households with young daughters usually decorate their homes with ornamental dolls disposed on red-cloth-covered platforms. The dolls symbolise the girls' prosperity, health, and, traditionally, a stable and prosperous marriage. They also eat many sweets, including pastel pink sakura mochi. 

It is also eaten throughout Spring when the cherry blossoms bloom. The wagashi was reportedly invented in 1717 in Tokyo but slowly evolved into two different cooking styles.

How To Eat 

We recommend serving this Japanese pinkish dessert with light, fragrant green tea. We recommend enjoying it with the nutty, toasty genmaicha or hojicha.

The leaves are preserved in salt to extend their shelf life, so you'll have to soak them to eliminate excess salt. The leaves keep the wagashi from drying out and give it a light cherry blossom fragrance.

However, are the sakura mochi leaves edible? The Japanese Wagashi Association recommends against eating cherry blossom leaves. So, in short, they are not meant for consumption and are for decoration.

Whether you make it Kansai or Kanto style, your sakura mochi will turn out appealing as a teatime snack.

If you're looking for an easier Japanese mochi recipe, start by learning how to make mochi with our guide.