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Purple Sweet Potato Mochi

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It was the time I had to develop sweets for Wasoukan Café (Notting Hill, London) for July. It is a ‘Kimono’ shop with a café counter that the staff serves ‘Matcha’ Green Tea in a Tea Ceremony style and also two types of monthly Japanese sweets. Yes, their sweets are made by me and I have been developing two new Japanese sweets every month for them. The staff told me that they were amazed at the popularity of ‘Mochi’. So I had to decide what kind of Mochi sweet I should deliver to them for this month… I wanted a colour and the flavour which go well with the Mochi texture and considered several possibilities and then an idea came to my mind.

It is a Mochi type of sweet with Purple Sweet Potato Paste. Western people are rather sceptical about the idea of using Sweet Potato as a sweet but in Japan we love to use several root vegetables as sweet and Sweet Potato is one of the most popular ones. It has the natural sweetness and more importantly the flavour goes so well as the Japanese sweet. I saw some BBC program which introduced the reason that many people live a very long healthily life in one area of Japan was due to Purple Sweet Potato. They did not show any scientific evidence to this theory so I am not sure if it is true or not but one thing I can say is we like Purple Sweet Potatoes.

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi

So, here is my Sweet Potato Mochi. It is not just a normal Sweet Potato Mochi but it is a “Purple Sweet Potato Mochi” for this month. 😀

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi

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Teru Teru ‘Mochi’ Bōzu

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It has been quite good weather for a while in London. It sometimes rains during the evening and is sunny in the daytime. This is perfect for the plants. In the meantime the rainy season continues in Japan and although it is not the typical season even Typhoon is approaching now. I have seen so many photos of beautiful Hydrangea from Japan which is in full bloom in bright pink and blue in the rain. Yes, the rain is good for plants, definitely. However, sometimes it rains just too much even for Japanese so that people, particularly children, wish it would stop and become sunny the following day …

TeruTeru editYou might not know but there is such a traditional magic to stop the rain in Japan. It is a charm and you don’t need a magic wand. You don’t need a magical powder. Instead, what you need is a simple mascot! The mascot is called ‘Teru Teru Bōzu’ and you can easily create one by yourself. I assume you are motivated to try making this Japanese traditional Please-Stop-The-Rain-Tomorrow-Mascot. I add “How to make Teru Teru Bōzu” at the end of this post so that you can make one.  🙂

Teru Teru ‘Mochi’ Bōzu

Teru Teru Bōzu is the symbol of this rainy season. Why not have it as a sweet?

Teru to edit cut

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The Wagashi Day

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Do you know today, the 16th of June, is “the Wagashi Day”? ‘Wagashi’ means Japanese Sweet in general but how is this day connected with Japanese Sweet and what do people do this day?

The Wagashi Day and Sixteen Sweets

It started in the year of 848 in the Heian period when plague was spreading throughout Japan. With the hope that this disease would stop and everybody would live healthily and happily, the Emperor Ninmyō changed the era to Kashō and prayed to the God with an offering of sixteen Japanese sweets. It was on the 16th of June and the number of the sweet offering was associated with the date. Since then this day became the Wagashi Day and people ate Japanese sweets and wished a happy life. This custom carried on until the Edo period.

Sadly the custom diminished sometime later, but in 1979 Japan Wagashi Association reintroduced the Wagashi Day back into society by wishing that people would continue appreciating the magnificent Japanese sweet and carry on the beautiful food culture for future generations.

Although I have liked eating Japanese Sweet Wagashi since my childhood, it is not that long ago that I started making it myself. Since then I realised that Wagashi is such a versatile sweet which is made from very limited ingredients of just beans, rice powder and sugar basically. By wishing this world becomes a safe and wonderful place to everybody I re-introduce 16 sweets of mine that I made last year 2016.

Enjoy your Wagashi Day!  😀

Kabuto – the Samurai Helmet

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The month of May has just started. The biggest event in this month is on the 5th which is called ‘Kodomo-no-Hi’ the Children’s Day. It is the day we celebrate the healthy growth and happiness of children and do some ceremonies or eat some special food on this day. I have introduced some of the traditions we do last year over two posts.

Kabuto 4Last year I made two sweets in this Kodomo-no-Hi theme. One is ‘Koinobori’ the Carp and the other one is ‘Shobu’ the Iris and I wanted to make something different this year.  I got an idea from some object we make with Origami. The photo on the right side is the thing  I used as the base design. I hope you can guess what it is.

It is a ‘Kabuto’ the Samurai Helmet made with Origami.

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‘Kabuto’ the Samurai Helmet

So for this year’s Children’s Day I made ‘Kabuto’ the Samurai Helmet in Origami style with Japanese sweet ‘Nerikiri’.

Kabuto2

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