Perfect Cream Cheese and Strawberry Pink Mochi.

Mix together all the ingredients and place in piping bag or set aside in the fridge.

Place the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a small pot over medium-low heat. Continue stirring until the liquid has thickened and a wooden spoon slid through the middle parts the sauce.

Place in piping bag or set aside in the fridge.

Grind the freeze-dried strawberries using a mortar and pestle. If you don't have one of these, you can use a food processor or a coffee grinder. Using a mesh sieve, add your ground strawberries to a large bowl.

Next, add your sweet white rice flour, sugar, and sea salt and whisk all the ingredients until well combined. Pour in plant milk, add food coloring or beetroot juice, and whisk until smooth.

Pour your pink mochi batter into a medium sized pan over low heat. Continue mixing the batter with a wooden spoon or spatula until a scraggly dough forms--about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and place on a work surface dusted with potato starch.

When cool enough to handle, begin kneading (with your hands) and beating (with a pestle) the pink mochi dough until the dough is relatively smooth and you are able to stretch it for at least a foot long without tearing.

Shape your pink mochi dough into a long cylindrical log, roughly 1 1/2 inch thick. Cut the log in half, giving you two shorter logs. Cut those into 1-inch wide pieces. You should have about 12 pieces. Work with one piece at a time, while the remaining pieces are under plastic wrap or otherwise protected from growing hard and puckered.

Use your rolling pin and the flats of your hand to roll each piece of mochi into a round disc, approximately 3 inches in diameter and about 1/8" thick in the center. Try and make the edges of your disc a bit thinner than the center. Then place your disc into a mochi mold, small bowl, or a small soup ladle.

Add 1 tbsp cream cheese filling, 1 tsp strawberry filling, and 1 tbsp cream cheese filling. Do NOT add too much--there should be plenty of space around the filling (refer to photos in blog post). Adding too much will make closing your mochi infinitely harder and messier!

Pull two edges of your mochi up and pinch them closed. Pull remaining edges of your mochi up and around the filling, pinching and sealing them closed. Flip the mochi ball seal side down and place on a small muffin liner, dusted with potato starch.

Serve immediately, as exposure to air will make them grow hard!