The good news is when you make this recipe, you can skip both ... the round balls of sticky rice dough with ice cream in the middle. But “mochi” is only the glutinous rice cake on the outside.

Working with one tablespoonful of mochi dough at a time, roll the dough between your palms to form smooth 1-inch balls. Cook mochi dumplings in boiling salted water to set the dough, then cool in ...