Doughs & Ingredients
求肥・ぎゅうひ
Gyuhi
A dough of glutinous rice flour kneaded with sugar, which stays soft even as time passes.
Gyuhi is a dough made by adding water and sugar (or starch syrup) to shiratama flour or mochi flour and kneading it slowly over heat. It resembles mochi, but because it contains plenty of sugar it does not harden easily and stays soft for a long time.
It is used throughout wagashi — as the skin of daifuku, as the binder in nerikiri, in hanabira-mochi and in wakaayu — quietly doing essential work behind the scenes.
It is said that the name was originally written with characters meaning “cow's spleen” or “cowhide,” and that the characters were later changed to the present ones.
