Who is credited with popularizing mochi ice cream in the United States?

Frances Hashimoto is credited with popularizing mochi ice cream in the United States. Hashimoto, an American businesswoman, helped bring the Japanese-inspired dessert to a much wider American audience through Mikawaya, her family’s confectionery business in Los Angeles.

Mochi ice cream consists of a small ball of ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of mochi, the chewy rice-cake dough made from glutinous rice flour. The wrapper provides a soft, elastic contrast to the frozen filling and also makes the dessert easy to hold.

Mikawaya began selling mochi ice cream commercially in the 1990s. The product drew on longstanding Japanese traditions of mochi-making while adapting the filling to American ice-cream flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

Mochi ice cream is sometimes confused with daifuku, a broader Japanese category of filled mochi. The two are related, but mochi ice cream is specifically defined by its frozen ice-cream center.