It is ‘Tsuyu’ Rainy season again, I mean in Japan. Instead, we are having a heat wave here in London right now. Actually it is the longest heat wave in June for 20 years. But back to talking about the rainy season in Japan. We get an announcement when the rainy season starts in each region, however, it is quite common that it stops raining after the declaration. This year seems to be the example of that year because I just checked today’s weather in Japan and saw ☀ for almost all the area.
Anyway, however the weather is, it is June and it is the begining of the rainy season and the symbol of the season is ‘Ajisai’ Hydrangea flower.
Mochi Hydrangea
Last year I designed a Japanese sweet Hydrandea by getting inspiration from the flower of June. It was a ‘Nerikiri’ type of sweet. However, because ‘Mochi’ is very popular in London, I have been trying to think how I could make this flower in a Mochi type of sweet. I came up with an idea and here is the result.
The outer layer was created to look like Hydrangea flower with a Mochi type sweet and Agar was applied on the top to create the shine on the flower.
The centre was ‘Shiro-An’ sweet white bean paste but there is an extra flavour added to this sweet. Which is …
Blueberry Jam! I thought its purply blue colour and the flavour go well with the Hydrangea theme.
This sweet is Free from Gluten, Egg, Dairy & Oil.
This sweet is searved at Wasoukan Cafe (Notting Hill, London) until the end of June. Enjoy your Tsuyu season. 😀
Sakura Junction 
Those are beautiful. I wish my Hydrangea flowers looked as good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much! You are such a hard working gardener and I believe your hydrangea must be very beautiful too! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. I hope more flowers will start to appear soon. Though I added a special feed they’re still pink rather than blue like your desserts. There’s always next year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The flowers of Hydrangea become bluey when the soil is more acidic and pink when it’s more alkaline. Will it be for next year? I would look forward to seeing beautiful blue flowers on your blog next year. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope so. I’ll keep trying everything I can to change their colour.
LikeLike
Good capture of the season! I’ve heard the temperature there reached over 30 degrees again! (almost 40 in Germany!) I wonder how people could survive without aircon????
Here we have little rain this year but went mad today – it poured down and blew violently! Well, anyway it’s much better than water shortage in summer!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much! Yeees, it WAS very hot. They said ‘it will be the longest hot wave in June for about 20 years’ so I expected it would continue for at least one week but what happened? Although it is a sunny day, the temperature is just 23℃ today. It was such a short ‘longest’ record…😓 No wonder nobody buys air-conditioning here?!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The other day I found an interesting expression in the Telegraph – “the ageless problem of the British weather”. Indeed 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, ha, ha … indeed. It never goes away! 😆
LikeLike
These are so beautiful, the blueberry jam is a great touch. I wish I lived closer so I could try these lovely sweets. Thanks for sharing ^_^
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much! Soft Mochi with Sweet White Bean Paste is good enough but I think the fruitiness of Blueberry Jam was a great match in flavour. 😀
LikeLike