Review: Buono Ice Cream Mochi

Dough balls with coconut milk ice cream filling. We previewed these last September and promised a full review - so here it is. There was some doubt that these were vegan initially, as the packs don't even state that they're vegetarian. We wrote to the UK distributor who assured us that they're vegetarian as well as non-dairy, which is great news for lovers of vegan ice cream:

If you're not familiar with japanese mochi, they're balls of sweet dough made with glutinous rice which you can toast - see our review of 3 Uncle mochi. Ice cream mochi arrived later and are popular in the US, where even the dairy-free ones are common.

Stretchy toasted mochi 

Mochi dough can be a challenging texture for western palates. It's soft and fluffy, but can go squishy and a bit slimy as the ice cream melts. It's great stuff for making pockets for ice cream that you can eat with your fingers. The Buono dough is made with tapioca instead of rice.

The non-dairy ice cream is made with coconut milk. It's smooth and creamy like Swedish Glace (or Food Heaven ice cream). The flavours are pretty good too. We tried the Strawberry, Mango and Chocolate flavours. There are also Vanilla, Green Tea, and Black Sesame flavours, but we couldn't get hold of those.

These mochi are great. They're now widely available and are an easy option for a vegan dessert or treat. Not everyone will like the dough, but they're sure worth trying if you've seen them in your local health food store.

Also sold online at Goodness Direct

The Good: Smooth creamy ice cream, good flavours
The Not-so-good: Contains hydrogenated fat

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Veganoo Score: ★★★★☆
Buono - Mochi Ice Dessert - Various Flavours
(Ice Cream Mochi)

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Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients from the packs we reviewed.

Strawberry

Water, coconut milk (21%), glucose syrup, modifed tapioca starch, frozen strawberries (11%), sugar, shortening (refined palm oil, refined hydrogenated palm kernel oil,antioxidant: E319, emulsifiers: E471, E475), dextrose monohydrate, maltodextrin, emulsifier E471, stabilisers: E410, E412, E407, acidity regulator: citric acid, colour: E162, salt

Chocolate

Coconut milk (32%), water, glucose syrup, modified tapioca starch, sugar, shortening (refined palm oil, refined hydrogenated palm kernel oil, antioxidant: E319, emulsifier: E471, E475), Cocoa powder (2%), maltodextrin, emulsifier: E471, stabilizer: E410, E412, E407, dextrose monohydrate, salt.

Mango

Coconut milk (20%), water, glucose syrup, modified tapioca starch, mango (13%), sugar, shortening (refined Palm oil, refined hydrogenated palm kernel oil, antioxidant: E319, emulsifiers: E471, E475), dextrose monohydrate, maltodextrin, emulsifier: E471, stabilizer: E410, E412, E407, acidity regulator: citric acid, colour: E160a, salt.

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