Have you heard about ‘Sho Chiku Bai‘? You might think “Yes, it’s a ‘Sake’, isn’t it?“. That is correct, but there is an origin that the company named their sake with that name. ‘Sho-Chiku-Bai‘ means ‘Pine Tree – Bamboo – Plum Blossom’ in Japanese in this order. They are the three objects Japanese think very auspicious so that we use an image of these three a lot for happy occasion such as a wedding and during New Year period.

I wanted to make some kind of sweet based on ‘Sho-Chiku-Bai’ and came up to this idea.

Sho – Chiku –  Bai

It is made of a type of Japanese Sweet called ‘Nerikiri‘ and not marzipan which you might think it looks like.

The main ingredients are Beans, Sugar and Rice Flour. It is very simple but through a lot of complicated process.

In my imagination green vertical lines on the side are expressing Bamboos shooting up to the sky.  😀

And the patterns placed on the front are the shape of Pine Tree branch and Plum blossom.

It has ‘Tsubu-An‘ Azuki bean paste for the centre.

It is completely Free from Gluten/ Egg/ Dairy and Oil.

Happy start of 2017 for everybody with ‘Shou-Chiku-Bai’!!  🙂