AlwaysAisle Thanks for the photos! I bought a bag of kiri mochi earlier this year and thought the scoring lines were to break up the pieces. I see they also serve as puffing up lines. We've been making it Chinese "nian gao" style sometimes by frying in a pan, sometimes dredged in egg first.

I admit to staring at mochi machines once or twice this year on Amazon & Amazon JP. They seem rated for 100V and don't really do export models? I tend to get a hankering for senbei and daifuku but it's not exactly something I should eat often (sedentary life vs extra carbs) and I'm not sure if mochi machines do regular rice for senbei (vs sweet mochi gome). I don't have a stand mixer or bread machine, either, and would probably be more tempted to make mochi than bread. Maybe I could start with an inexpensive bread maker, steam rice first and hand pound with a rolling pin mortar & pestle style to break up the larger grains before transferring to a bread maker? I wonder if there's a similar Korean ttoboki or Chinese nian gao machine to work a rice based dough instead of rice flour or if home bakers always go with rice flour these days?