Daifuku and the Spectrum of Mochi Fillings

Daifuku (大福 — "great luck") is the most commercially successful form of daifuku mochi — a thin, yielding mochi skin wrapped around a filling. The original form used simple koshi-an; by the Edo period daifuku were sold by street vendors throughout Tokyo. The ichigo (strawberry) daifuku, created in the 1980s by a Tokyo confectioner who placed a whole strawberry inside the an before wrapping in mochi, became a sensation and a category — now the most recognisable Japanese confection globally after mochi ice cream (itself a daifuku variant).

The daifuku tradition has expanded significantly beyond the original an filling, revealing the mochi skin as the neutral carrier the nerikiri skin is in wagashi — a vehicle whose job is to yield and deliver without competing:

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