My boyfriend has been taking a Japanese class for almost 4 years now. At the end of every year, his school has a “mochi-tsuki” (rice cake pounding) event. We went there at the end of last year, and had a lot of fun! So I decided to share it with you.
Rice cakes are made with mochi-rice (stickier than the regular sticky rice) made soft by soaking it in hot water for a while then mushed and pounded in a wooden or stone mortar with a wooden mallet.
When I was little, my grandmother used to make it every year, but she had a “mochi-tsuki machine” because it’s so much easier than pounding to make mochi, and it’s still a lot fresher than store bought mochi.
“How hard can it be to make rice cake?” you ask.
Probably harder than you think.
They start with four people mushing the mochi-rice, start pounding, and gradually reduced to one person as rice cake gets stickier. I took some video with my digital camera.
First you mush the mochi-rice around.
And they start pounding!
The guy in the middle flips the mochi between each pounding with wet hands once the mochi gets a little harder and one ~ two people are pounding. He has to be very experienced and brave to stick his hands in there. I didn’t shoot a video of the middle guy actually flipping the mochi when adults were pounding the mochi, but I got to shoot a video of a kid with the guy in the middle in action.
And after about 15 ~ 20 minutes of pounding, the mochi is put onto a dusted pan and carried to a separate room for cutting/sorting.
Freshly made mochi is so soft and easy to cut. They have to cut and shape mochi while they're still warm.
Freshly made mochi is so good in Zouni soup (very simple soup with veggies) and Oshiruko. (a sweet porridge of azuki beans boiled and crushed, served in a bowl with mochi)
Zouni (mochi, kamaboko and mitsuba)
mochi in oshiruko
I remember my grandma used to freeze left over mochi, and make my favorite “kinako-mochi” (rice cake with soybean flour mixed with sugar) for me as a snack for a couple of weeks after New Year.
And this is just boys being boys… fast pounding! It’s quite dangerous but fun to watch.
I still haven’t eaten mochi this year… One piece of mochi has about 200 calories, which is about the same as a small bowl of rice. So people used to eat zouni or mochi just as a meal after the new year so that they don’t have to cook much and rest, and get the same amount of calories at the same time, I guess.
I used to eat a couple of mochi in one sitting though… They’re so yummy it’s impossible to just eat one! 
*Elderly and young kids can choke on mochi very easily. Every year, there are several (or more) deaths from choking on mochi. So please be careful if you’re eating mochi with elderly and young kids!
I was born in Japan, lived in New York for a while and now living in San Diego, California. I love creating things with my hands in my free time whether it’s making character bento or stuffing stuff! And now I'm working for 
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Love mochi! I had no idea so much pounding went into it. Thanks for the video. Enlightening!
Very cool! I always wondered what this was
Hi
I lived in Japan for four years and this brought back happy memories. After 12 years of teaching Japanese in high school, I decided a change of career was in order and I am now doing a Master’s in Gastronomy. I am thinking about a topic for either an extended assignment or a dissertation and am strongly considering mochi’s role as an “event” food. Thanks for posting this, this will come in handy. May I assume you are of Japanese background, as you mentioned your grandmother making it during your childhood?