crouch End

Japanese Themed 🎄Market🎄 in North London

/ Mutsumi / Leave a comment

How time flies! I feel like it was just a month ago that I mentioned Sakura Junction had a successful stall in the Christmas Market in 2015. Now it is the time again that we are going to have a stall for introducing our sweets to public.

2016-xmas-japanese-food-market

The 🎄Christmas Market🎄 is actually TOMORROW!!

These are some of the range that I am going to take for the market.

On top of the various Japanese sweets we are going to serve ‘Chicken Kara-age (Japanese Fried Chiken)’ this year.

fry

There are Sushi and some other food as well. You can have nice Japanese lunch or Tea with my sweet there.

The venue is in North London. If you live near by or even from different part of London please pop in to see me. I have been working very hard to prepare for this occasion so will be very happy if you come to say ‘Hi’ in person💓

The Market is open only for 4 hours! So don’t miss it!  See you there.

My First Order!

/ Mutsumi / 10 Comments

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

Continue reading →

My Products for the Market

/ Mutsumi / 3 Comments

So what were my range of products for the markets? I did not have much time to take photos and by the time I finished making and before packing, there wasn’t enough natural light to take good photos of all my products. However, I managed some.

The first product I introduce to you here is the most colourful one ‘Nerikiri‘. Nerikiri is the very delicate Sweet which basic ingredients are just rice flour, sugar and beans so that it is Gluten/Dairy/Oil/Egg free. It is one of the most classy Japanese Sweet ‘Wagashi (和菓子)’ that are often used for Tea Ceremony.

These are the three types I made.

Nerikiri 3 types

Continue reading →

Mission Accomplished!

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments
nerikiri ready to go

‘Nerikiri’ ready to go to Market

It’s over! My mission to running a stall in the Chritmas market in two weekends in a row finished! Pheeeeeeeew.

Although I was planning and practicing some sweets as products, not everything went according to plan. What I have learnt from this experience was that “Food is a living thing”. Even when I thought I was following the recipe I had a great result before, something went wrong when I really seriously wanted to make everything neat and delicious. It was so unpredictable.

Continue reading →

Yaki Manju (焼きまんじゅう) – Baked Manju

/ Mutsumi / 7 Comments

There is a recipe of ‘Yaki-Mnju (焼きまんじゅう) / Baked Manju’ I normally use. That is a Japanese Sweet wrapped with biscuit. It is good. I like it. It is also something that Western people are quite familiar with.

We have a Japanese sweet called ‘Kuri-Manju (栗まんじゅう)’. That is a ‘Yaki-Manju’ with Chestnut ‘Kuri‘ pieces inside and made into a Chestnut shape. The skin of this sweet is slightly different from Western biscuit. It is much smoother and you can make it into some shapes.

This time I made ‘Yaki-Manju’ in the traditional way. I tried making some shapes with different filling.

‘Kuri-Manju (栗まんじゅう)’

This one is ‘Kuri-Manju‘ with Chestnuts ‘Kuri’.

Yaki kuri manju

Does it look like Chestnut to you?

Yaki kuri manju cut

Instead of using small pieces, I mixed Chestnut in syrup mixing with ‘Shiro-An (白あん)’ and that made the filling looks like a paste.

Continue reading →

Ukishima (浮島)- Floating Island (G/D free)

/ Mutsumi / 6 Comments

The next Japanese sweet in my search of the right product for the Christmas market was a sweet called ‘Ukishima (浮島)’ in Japanese. It means literally ‘Floating Island’. I think the name came from the pattern the sweet has. It is often made in two layers in different colours and the wave of the lower layer looks like an island appearing above the sea.

I had had the sweet when I was in Japan in October and I even posted the photo on this blog as ‘Manju in Autumn Theme’. It is the square one in orange and green colour with a piece of Chestnut. I was so amazed that a sweet can be light and moist at the same time. It was so delicious that I bought it again.

Ukishima – Floating Island (浮島)

‘Ukishima‘ is a steamed sponge like Japanese sweet. The texture is very light but also very moist. The Good news for many people is that it is Gluten / Dairy free. Perfect!

‘Matcha Ukishima with Apple’

Ukishima piece with L

I tried two versions. This one was with ‘Matcha (Green Tea)’ with Apple. It was a little rough but it looked OK, don’t you think? My voluntary tasters liked this and gave “10 out of 10”! So I am certainly adding this one in my products list.

Continue reading →

Gluten Free Shortbread

/ Mutsumi / 7 Comments

So I am going to have a stall in two markets, one is on the 6th (Sun) and the other on the 13th (Sun) of December. Both are in North London. I will be very happy if anybody who lives nearby wants to try out my Japanese/Japanese-Western fusion Sweets and come to see me there. 🙂

xmassmall           Xmas flyer 2015 pshoped

The market venue and the date are fixed but the thing which is not fixed yet is what I should bring to those markets – my products.

There is so much demand for Gluten free food these days and I have been developing some. Luckily many of Japanese sweets are originally Gluten free and Dairy free.

Gluten Free Kinako Shortbread with Sesame Seeds

I have this signature biscuit “Kinako Shortbread‘ which is the Shortbread with Japanese ingredient ‘Kinako‘ and white sesame seeds. I know it tastes good and I have sold it before. So I want to try changing it into Gluten Free biscuit this time.

Kinako gf shortbread

Continue reading →

Winter ‘Market’ is Coming!

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

It’s very fast! Too fast that Time passes! It’s nearly December. I though 2015 has just started. I cannot believe it. It means Christmas is coming soon too. Oh, Noooo! And then the thing comes before Christmas is?

Winter ‘Market’ is Coming!

Jon-Snow-In-Game-Of-Thrones

… sorry my mind is still in Winterfell.

Anyway, I have to tell you that I decided to have a stall in local markets in December. Not one but two. Am I crazy?

One of them is organised by a Japanese person and I have been joining them for the last three years. It is a Craft Market which is more like a market that people bring to gather their hobbies in one place. Some of the stuff is very Japanese and must be new and interesting to local people.

Xmas flyer 2015 pshoped     2015 Xmas J pshopped

Continue reading →