Gorgeous Hawaiian butter flavour…
Warabi Mochi…
Easy Mochi Ice Cream Recipe…
Microwave Mochi…
This study was by Forest Gunpian. and semi-extense. And while I can’t say that with absolute scientific certainty, I think I answered the question I had when I started: Is Kori Bakery & Dessert the only place in the world where you can get a Mochi Cube?
yes. These delicious telegenic social media darlings seem to be actually Orlando’s signature desserts.
“I’ve never seen it anywhere in the US or Asia,” says Gillian Liu, owner of Kori.
Opening last August, Koei is back in a beautiful city for Li, a Hong Kong native who was stuck around Central Florida after graduating from Embry-Ri-Ri’s Aeronautical University in Daytona.
“In the end, it wasn’t for me… In college, I was already selling bobati and desserts at home.”
Best Bakery: 2025 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Award
However, business education was not hurt. After opening two successful RoyalTea locations (Mills 50 and Waterford Lakes), Liu went home a bit to take advantage of some of the effects of Covid-19.
“It’s difficult to get a good storefront in China,” explains Liu. “Many businesses have been shut down during the pandemic and there was one place I really wanted to get.”
For a while, she opened the successful coffee/tea house bar concept and sold before the 407 Redux.
When her former landlord brooched the idea of a new dessert concept in the Mills 50 space she was about to lease, Liu began testing the concept, along with other ideas to close the menu, which would eventually become Kori’s signature cube. The engineering desserts were challenging.
The cube, which is drizzled with white chocolate, comes in a quartet with a taste that is symbolized by its color. However, it took me a while to get the recipe properly. And even today, only specimens that are best suited to the picture can see inside the case.
The baker comes at 6am on weekdays and 4am on weekends, creating a day’s product with dough that proves for a while before rolling out, stuffing it with flavor-specific fillings and layers of sticky mochi balls (“gloves” say liu!”
“Most of the time, mochi and stuffing are leaking, so there are specific techniques to properly seal them,” she says. “It’s like making a dumpling of sorts.”
The oven fresh cubes need to be removed immediately, inspected for defects and cooled before a white chocolate bath.
“The camera is the first thing to eat,” laughs Liu, pointing out that the dessert is designed with foodie photos in mind. “Everyone always wants to take photos, but that was also delicious.”
You can testify.
If you’re like me and enjoy a less sweet dessert, these cubes, especially matcha and tarobe, will elegantly fall into the juuuuuuust above the dessert line. The lovely shoku bread style dough hides a layer of sweet tarobe (or other) stuffed with chewy meat on top. If you are eating, the staff will then film the cubes and then heat them up well enough to allow for gorgeous, stretchy mochi pulls.
“If you take them home (they will give you instructions), I recommend warming them a little, but some people prefer them at room temperature if they like their mochi a little bit of chewiness,” she says. I fell into this camp, cut mine into sections and looked into its impressive and delicate anatomy, pre-consumption.
But it’s not everything you’ll find here.
Late Air Acia Melon Bread films popular Japanese sweets whether plain or filled with fruit and cream. Mochi Cookies ($5) is a new item, and the other blends textures into interesting culinary rides.
“They’re very different from typical American cookies,” Liu offers. “The outside is very crunchy so I get all the cookie textures in one, but it’s very soft and chewy on the mochi.”
Snow and Ice started here with a massive signature offer ($16.50). It is a visual shortpper, a delicate Korean-style shaved ice pile with generous toppings layered around its sloping sides. Crystal boba, homemade coconut, jasmine tea jelly, fresh fruits and skewered dango mochi are also made in-house.
Since the opening, guest feedback has seen Liu and the team create a “solo” version ($5.95). However, these do not come with dangos, but in part encouraged a very new product, Mochi Bowl.
The flavors of strawberries and matcha are skewer and sticky, and there are new additions to the sweet soybeans.
“We’re the busiest weekends, but on weekdays, many customers come to study and work, so instead of sweets, we want some deliciously flavored lunches, brunches and snack items,” says Liu.
Best Dessert: 2025 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Award
The mitarashidango is seasoned and comes with seaweed for wrapping. It is very popular and has proven to be balanced with so many sweet drinks, including fruity tea, milk tea, cold foam, and more. Flasco-like bottles also offer easy-to-drink desserts. This bottle features colorful milk tea in colorful flavours layered over creamy panna cotta. Some fans like to give it a violent shaking to mix before enjoying it. Others prefer a gentle suction of the straw on the spoon end. Some caffeine caffeine free (Tarobe), and double the other caffeine (matchapresso).
Kori’s bright and charming atmosphere is also painful.
Is there something else? Liu seems to have created her very own for others to copy, as her eyes are so trendy, but I’m not sure.
“I’m Gemini,” she jokes. “I always like to do things differently.”
For now, the square one is the hips.
Do you want to reach out to me? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @Amydroo or the Osfoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. Join Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook Group for more foodie fun.
If you’re going
Kori Bakery & Dessert: 721 N. Mills Ave. In Orlando; koridessert.com
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