dairy free

Japanese Themed Christmas Market in North London!

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The fabulous time has come! It is the season that I am going to have a stall in a Christmas Market in North London. This ‘Jolly Hobbies’ Market is held only once a year during Christmas Time but that is not the only thing this market is special about. It is a Market with a Japanese Theme! It’s organised by a Japanese person and many of the stall holders are also Japanese so the products people are selling there are mostly something related to Japanese culture

2017 Jolly Market E

I got involved in this market about 5 years ago. Since then it is becoming bigger and bigger and the number of the visitors are increasing every year. The Market started as a kind of craft market first and then recently it has been becoming like a Japanese Street Food Hall too. We serve all sorts of Japanese food hot and cold, such as Sushi and Japanese Curry and many other dishes. It includs my Japanese sweets too.😊 So the visitors can have lunch and look around the stalls to pick some great gifts for Christmas and then buy some Japanese sweet and drink for having Teatime there before going home. It is wonderful to see all the visitors seem to be enjoying the time there.

This year as a Japanese Sweet ‘Wagashi’ maker, I am of course putting my Japanese sweets on the stall which most of them are Gluten-free, Egg-free and Dairy-free. I am planning to to take a variety of ‘Mochi’ type sweets for Mochi fans.(^_-)-☆ I am also going to sell Home-made Vegetable ‘Gyoza’ Dumplings on the day. I hope I can serve as many hot grilled Gyoza dumplings to the happy visitors. However, I am still in the middle of preparation and am not sure how many portions can be ready by Sunday.

It will be a fun day for all the visitors and the stall holders too. If you live in the North London or if you can travel to there, please come to say ‘Hi’ to me. I will be most grateful! 😊 See you there then on Sunday!!

Ginkgo Leaf

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My second sweet for November is also in the Autumn Colour theme. The shape is the leaf of ‘Ginkgo’ which becomes the most brilliant yellow colour during this season. Ginkgo is one of the most ancient plants which has not evolved for millions of years. The Ginkgo tree is originated in East Asia and I think there wasn’t many in the UK before. However, I noticed lately more Ginkgo trees along many avenues in newly developed area.

Leaves on grundI have a beautiful childhood memory with Ginkgo leaves. I think it was in somewhere in Kyoto. I was about 3 or 4 years old and running around in a Shinto Shrine ground which was covered with magnificently yellow Ginkgo Leaves fallen from the numerous trees. It was like a massive carpet spread out as far as I could see.

 

Ginkgo Leaf

So, I chose the image of my childhood memory for making the November sweet.

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Autumn Mountain

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We are in the middle of Autumn – Winter transition now. It is getting very cold lately but this chilling weather is the key to the magnificent sights of nature during this season. When the temperature drops the colour of leaves change from green to yellow or it goes even further to orange and then red. It is due to the chemical reaction in leaves. This is called Autumn Colour and can be seen on the leaves of deciduous plants.

‘Autumn Mountain’ Mochi

So, as one of the sweets for November I wanted to create a sweet in Autumn Colour. I want you to imagine all the mountain changing the colour from its deep green to various colour of yellow, orange and red but in a very tiny scale.

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Halloween Black Cat🐱

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I needed to make two Japanese sweets for October. It is quite normal that a typical Japanese sweet maker gets an idea for designing their sweet from some seasonal flower/plant/fruit or event occurring during the month. So what is the most significant thing I could use for designing this month’s sweet?

As a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese sweet designer who lives abroad a big event in October is Halloween. I had already decided one of the two sweets would be a Mochi Ghost, but I wanted to make another one in the Halloween theme too. When I was searching images of this theme it became obvious that the second sweet has to be a Halloween cat. It is not an any cat, it has to be a Black Cat.

Halloween Black Cat 🐈

So, these are my Black Cat sweets for this Halloween.

Black Cat1p

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Halloween Mochi Ghost👻is Coming!

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Oh, we are in October now. It is the month that Halloween is coming! Last year I made two types of Japanese sweets for this Halloween month. One of them was Jack-o’-Lantern and the other one was Mochi Ghost. Actually I started making a Ghost like sweet two years ago and then last year’s Ghost was my revenge creation because the first one was not that a great Ghost. I made a blog post and tweeted about it with photos and then actually it got a good reaction from people. I received many great comments regarding the sweet (Thak you!). The Ghost sweet was also served at Wasoukan Café (Notting Hill, London) and the manager told me that that sweet was the best seller amongst all the sweets they had sold last year. I started thinking that I should make this Ghost sweet as my yearly traditional sweet in this season so that I created another one for this year’s version.

Mochi Ghost 👻 2017

I made a little similar one in order to meet the people’s expectation but slightly different Mochi Ghost again. This time it is vertically standing 3D Ghost.

Mochi Ghost2p

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Japanese Anemone

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Japanese Anemone

Japanese Anemone

Apart from Grape Mochi the sweet I have created for my September Japanese sweet. I used a perennial flower called Japanese Anemone as the inspiration for this time. Japanese Anemone get lots of flowers around this time of a year which has either pink or white petals with a greenish yellow round centre. When the flower’s gone this round part stays and it looks like small a pom-pom on a stick sticking out from the plant.

Japanese Anemone

I chose Japanese Anemone as the design for this month’s sweet not just because it is a very seasonal flower in gardens right at the moment but also it has the word ‘Japanese’ in its name. What else is more suitable for this occasion than that.

Japanese Anemone2p

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Grape Mochi for September

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September has just started. It means it’s the time that my sweet for this brand new month should be introduced. During the spring – summer season we get various fruits and vegetables harvested or found in a shop and I have used some as inspiration for the flavour or the image of my sweets such as mango, strawberry or Raspberry. So what kind of plant or fruit I can use for my sweet this month?

The variety of fruits are becoming less in this season. Luckily I found a very good one. Actually it was in my garden. I noticed that there were some branches stretching out from the next door. That was a grape vine and the fruit was just getting ripen. Yes, it is not my plant but some branches are coming into my side and reachable, AND nobody-else seems to care, And I think it is a sin to waste food so I took some grapes and tasted. It was a little sour and tangy comparing to the shop bought ones but not too bad to eat.

Grape

The Grapes from my garden

So, it is the Grape season now and I used this inspiration for creating my September Japanese Sweet.

Grape Mochi

This is a Mochi type sweet. I decorated the plain Mochi with Grape pattern as a reminder of what is inside.

Grape Mochi1p

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The Memory of Summer Holiday – Goldfish

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When schools break up for summer holiday, it is the signal that lots of local festivals are ready to start all around in Japan. Many stalls appear in a square that sell food or goods to the people visiting. There are some stalls for offering games too and ‘Kingyo-sukui’ is the one of them. ‘Kingyo’ means Goldfish and ‘Sukui’ is a noun form of a verb to-scoop in Japanese. So what does ‘Scooping-Goldfish’ mean?

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Children enjoying ‘Kingyo-sukui’

On the Kingyo-sukui stall they bring a pond with many small Goldfish. The customers pay to get a small ladle which is made of paper and can keep scooping goldfish until the paper tears up and it is no longer possible to scoop up any fish. That is the time that game is over! At the end of the game you can take the goldfish home you scooped. I have to say I was very good at Kingyo-sukui when I was a child. I could get about 20 goldfish easily with just a one paper ladle.

So when I see Goldfish it reminds me of the Summer holiday. It is very nostalgic and that is why I chose Goldfish as the design for the sweet for August.

Goldfish

Although the fish is called Goldfish, the main colour of them is Red, bright red so the Goldfish on my sweet is also Red.

Goldfish 6

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Mango Mochi

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

I want to know whether we are still in the summer in London. It’s neither hot or warm any more. It is actually quite cool. It is the first day in August today but I already feel like that summer has gone. Autumn must be coming soon or we are already in Autumn. I know usually Indian summer comes around September but still it is too cold for mid summer.

In order to get rid of this cold rainy feeling I had to make something very summery sweet. In my mind ‘Summer = tropical = fruit = … Mango!’ That is why I chose Mango as the flavour for my Mochi for August.

Mango Mochi

Mango Mochi 1

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Sunflower

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It is the middle of Summer in the UK. The weather is so far so good. Many sunny days and also a few rainy days. It is great for plants and nature. In the summer time one plant you cannot avoid talking about is ‘Sunflower’. The most significant things about this flamboyant flower are its huge flowerhead with array of magnificent yellow petals and big leaves. It’s called ‘Himawari’ in Japanese and it means the ‘thing moves with the sun’. It came from the plant’s nature that the flowerhead moves its direction by always trying to face toward the sun. 

Sunflower

During this summer time I wanted to make this most summer-like flower as a Japanese sweet.

Sunflower pp4p

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