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Coco Choco Mochi!

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I developed a tasty sweet last summer. I received a great compliment from the friends who had it. I was very happy with it and planned to post it here soon after but … I didn’t get round to it yet. However, I made a very similar one and maybe this one is a better version for some people. Because it’s Dairy Free this time. I re-designed the sweet as one of two Japanese sweets for February.

Coconut Choco Mochi

It is a Mochi (Rice Cake) type of Japanese sweet. The soft and gooey outer layer of Mochi is flavoured with Chocolate powder. What the outer Mochi layer wraps up is the difference between the first verision and this version. It is Coconut Cream and sweet Azuki Bean Paste with Desiccated Coconut on top.

Coco choco Mochi 5e2

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Sweet 🌹 Roses for Valentine’s Day

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We are in February. It is the month of Valentine’s Day. So I wanted to make some suitable sweet for this particularly ‘Love’ month. In Japan by following an opportunist Chocolate company’s strategy Valentine’s day became the day that a girl gives chocolate to the boy she likes, but I am in London and I will just create something that shows love between people.

In England it does not matter if you are a man or a woman you can give flowers, a card or a book, anything to the person you love. However, I think the most common things people choose as a gift are flowers so I made a sweet in a shape of flower with Love.

Sweet Roses

When you express your love with flowers I believe Roses are the most obvious choice for many people. I had an idea to decorate my Japanese sweet as a rose for a white and used it for this month’s sweet.

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Fallen Leaf

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There are many sweets and cakes I made but have not made into my Blog page so far. The sweet I am introducing here is one of them. This is the sweet I created imagining a fallen leaf in Autumn colour, so naturally it was meant for Autumn. Although I was planning to introduce this on my Blog before, there were so many things I had to do between October and just recently so I did not manage to do so. I just want to post this before the end of this year.

‘Ochiba’ – Fallen Leaf

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Christmas Tree 2017

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I made two types of Japanese sweets for December. You might have noticed that one of them has been briefly introduced as the part of White-Christmas Market report in my previous post.

Christmas Tree 2017

It is December, the Christmas month. So one of them I made is of course a Christmas Tree. This one is my third attempt in making a Japanese sweet ‘Christmas Tree’ for last two years (the last years’ one is here with Mochi Snowman😊) and I am satisfied with this year’s one the most.

Christmas TreeP2

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Mochi Dango

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As a part of the story of ‘Hanami’ (Cherry Blossom viewing) I have introduced a sweet called ‘Hanami-Dango’ in April. It is a tri-coloured Mochi on a skewer which is a traditional and popular sweet in Japan. Yes, it is a tradition that Hanami-Dango is composed of three balls in green, white and pink colours. I also explained why it has to be in those colours and why in that order. However, It is my nature to try arranging things to create something different and Dango is no exception so I made un-traditional Dango.

Mochi Dango

This is Mochi Dango with two types of Mochi and toppings.

Mochi Dango

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Yomogi Mochi

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Winter in Japan is very cold and snowy but once Spring comes all the plants in the field and mountain start to grow rapidly. As you might know already Japanese like to add some seasonal touch into food and it can be a shape or some flavour added to create a taste of the delightful season.

Yomogi

Yomogi

One of the wild Plants we traditionally add into making Mochi is ‘Yomogi’ leaves. It is a type of Mugworts (Artemisia indica var. maximowiczii) and it used to grow anywhere by the road or field. The upper side of leaves is dark green and the lower side is white-ish colour covered with tiny hair like structure. When you mix the leaves into a sweet it gives a dark green colour but what we like the most about using this plant is the very distinctive slightly bitter flavour that it gives. When it’s added to sweet and combined with sweet bean paste the bitterness of the leaves enhances the sweetness of the bean taste and creates the harmony in flavour.

Yomogi Mochi

I created this Yomogi Mochi as one of the sweets for having during the ‘Hanami’ Cherry Blossom viewing occasion.

Yomogi Mochi4

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Easter Mochi Eggs & Cinnamon Nest

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It’s Easter weekend. In some shops during this season you see many sweets in the Easter theme. They are mainly chocolate in either a rabbit bunny shape or eggs and chicks. I know it is an event for Christian people but I cannot help myself not to think of some Japanese sweet to make for this occasion.

I have made some chicks with Japanese sweet ‘Nerikiri’ before so this year I wanted to make something else. When I was making ‘Hanami-Dango’ (in my previous post) I got the idea of making eggs with the ‘Mochi’ sweet and also some other sweets to compose the nest to place eggs in …

Easter Mochi Eggs & Yatsuhashi Nest

So this is the Japanese sweet I thought for the Easter theme this year.

Easter eggs.2

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Petal Mochi (Hanabira Mochi)

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Happy New Year to you all again!  Hope you had great Christmas and New Year’s Day. The first sweet I would like to introduce you in 2017 is this sweet called ‘Hanabira Mochi‘.

Petal Mochi (Hanabira Mochi)

petal-mochi-top-croped2

‘Hanabira‘ means flower petal in Japanese so I shall call this sweet Petal Mochi.

It is a sweet we traditionaly have only during New Year period. It started in the palace to celebrate a New Year by eating two layers of white and red mochi with some other food. Until the Meiji period the custom spread out to people in the country and the food got simplified onto some similar type of sweet that I made here.

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Shiratama Zenzai

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Very strong wind was blowing around this week. It was a gale caused by the Storm Imogen on East coast of Britain. We started having extremely mild winter and then suddenly it became wintery winter! Cold and miserable.

On a cold day like today I feel like having something warm and comforting. There is only one thing in my mind. It must be definitely …

Shiratama zenzai 3

‘Zenzai’ with Mango & Matcha ‘Shiratama’

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