Alton Brown's Favorite Midnight Snack Is A Cool And Refreshing Choice

Alton Brown is a culinary powerhouse with a lot of opinions, a sharp wit, and a tailored palate. He makes bologna sandwiches bougie so, of course, Brown doesn't turn to potato chips when midnight cravings hit. His late-night snack choice is a little more refined, a little more complicated, and totally more elevated than just your standard bag of potato Lays.

When he's looking for a little treat to end the night, Alton Brown reaches for mochi ice cream to satisfy his cravings. These little frozen balls have a thick outer layer of chewy, sweet Japanese mochi rice cake with a smooth ice cream center. They're a fun combo of complementing textures and tastes that you can make at home or buy in the store. In freezer sections, you'll see a rainbow of mochi ice cream in flavors like birthday cake, lotus cheesecake, green matcha tea, and double chocolate.

Like transforming ice cream into single-serving freezer pops, mochi ice cream lets you parcel out your late-night snacking in bites. So, a midnight snacking session of mochi ice cream can be more easily portion controlled than other sweet or even salty snacks.

You'll find mochi ice cream in most grocery store freezer sections these days. Trader Joe's makes its own branded version, and it's also featured on the dessert menu at many Japanese restaurants. Most varieties and brands are gluten-free thanks to the sweet treat's rice flour base, but they do contain dairy in the ice cream filling. Look for mochi ice cream marked dairy-free for vegan versions.

You won't find the kind of ready-made mochi you need for mochi ice cream on store shelves, so if you want to make this ice cream treat at home, you have to make the dough yourself. Mochi is made through a straightforward process of heating a mixture of sweet rice flour, sugar, and water. Once cooked enough to be doughy, you treat the mochi just like pie dough, rolling it out onto a blanket of corn starch (it's sticky!) and cutting rounds big enough to wrap around frozen balls of ice cream. The whole process takes about two and a half hours, additional freezing time included. Your homemade mochi ice cream can be stored in the freezer for up to three months, so you can have an Alton Brown-approved midnight snack whenever you want.