Chocolate Heart for Valentine’s Day!

💕Happy Valentine’s Day!💕

What is significant for this day where your are? Valentine’s Day is the western idea to show how much you love your wife, husband, girlfriend and boyfriend. This was not a custom in Japan until the 1970’s when one chocolate company advertised that “it is the day a girl can tell her love to a boy by sending chocolates as the gift”. Since then the chocolate industry has been go crazy before Valentine’s day every year.

Chocolate Heart Mochi with Red Currant Jam

I made this Chocolate flavoured Mochi for Valentine’s Day this year.

chocoheart

It is a heart-shaped Japanese sweet with chocolate flavoured Mochi outer layer and sweet white bean paste and homemade red currant jam inside. For this special occasion it has the golden love potion powder sprinkled on top.

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The Great thing is that you can taste this sweet at the Matcha Bar at the Havan Store (262 Kensington High Street, London). They will serve this sweet during February.

It’s Vegan and Gluten free.

Maybe love is like a Chocolate Mochi! 💕Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!!💕

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Private Order in Spring

A few days ago I received a private order for my Japanese sweets. The client wanted me to deliver 15 Wagashi sweets to her. Apart from the specific request that she would like to have 4 Daffodils and the rest should be ‘Mochi’ type sweets I was given the honour to select the suitable sweets that would be favoured by western people. So the sweets I picked and packed were like this.

Spring Gift Set

Gift

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Coco Choco Mochi!

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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Christmas Tree 2017

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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Raspberry & Chocolate Square

Valentine’s Day has arrived. I have introduced my ‘Raspberry Chocolate Heart’ for this special day in my previous post. Whilst making the Chocolate Heart I got an idea for improving the look of the sweet.

Raspberry & Chocolate Square, Wagashi

This is it! It is using exactly the same ingredients with the previous Raspberry Chocolate Heart but I made it into a little more western sweet look.

raspberry-chocolate-sq-top

Instead of making the shape into a heart, I placed a pink heart on top.

raspberry-chocolate-square-1-wz-cup

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Raspberry Chocolate Heart on the Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is coming. Surely the sweet on the Day has to be Chocolate. According to me, if it is Chocolate sweet the flavour should be Raspberry.

So I made Japanese sweet iwith Chocolate and Raspberry flavour.

Raspberry Chocolate Heart, Wagashi

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I have to remind you that this is not a normal Chocolate sweet. It is still a Japanese sweet ‘Wagashi’ with Chocolate flavour. So the ingredients of the outer part is mainly White Beans with Chocolate Powder.

raspberry-choco-heart-4-2

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My First Order!

Hooraaaay! I had the first order for my Japanese sweets and I managed to deliver them to the client last Saturday. (Sorry, it takes so loooooong to write in a second language)

The client was a lady who lives locally. She visited my market stall on the 6th of December and liked my products. She wanted my Japanese sweet for her husband’s birthday party who loves Japanese food. What a lovely thought!

So what she ordered me was 35 pieces of ‘Ukishima’ with Matcha Green Tea & Apple and Chocolate & Chestnut flavours. I prepared the ingredients ready for making it on time for the Saturday.

So, Voila!

Ukishima

35 Pieces of Ukishima became ready! I cut and trimmed the edge of each piece carefully.

Ukishima matcha

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Matcha Chocolate in an Origami Box

Matcha Chocolate 2

On New Year’s Eve I was invited to friends’ house for the New Year’s Eve Dinner with some other good friends of mine. Many of us are foodies so we each brought some different dishes.

The main dish and dessert were already made by somebody else so I made some nibbles for drink before the dinner started. It was Mushroom Vol au Vents and Cheese Twists. It took a while until the main dish was ready to serve so my nibbles went down a treet whilst we were waiting.

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The main food was a roasted chicken brought in by Miss D. She also cooked all the side dishes such as Braised Red Cabbage, Lentil with Italian Sausage and roasted potatoes & Tomato with garlic (famous? Gwyneth Paltrow recipe). It was delicious! Thank you Miss D for your hard work.

Our course followed by a selection of Cheeses & Biscuits, Grapefruit Posset and Melting Snow Man made by the friend’s daughter and then Herbal Tea.

As our little tradition of exchanging gifts on the New Year’s Day I took some ‘Matcha Chocolate’ in a handmade Origami Box with me.

Matcha Chocolate

Matcha Chocolate 1

It’s easy to make and taste so good. It can be a very good gift for a Matcha lover. I presented it in a handmade Origami Box.

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