events

The 1st Workshop of the Year 2020

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I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas/New Year Holiday. After a long great rest I am sure people are ready for the new challenge in this brand new year 2020. I have prepared the Wagashi Making Workshop in the early spring theme for you.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop in January

This will be the first Wagashi Workshop this year so the theme is early spring. I thought several ideas and chose these three designs for this workshop which include a Snow Rabbit and ‘Ume’ plum flower in two ways.

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on: the 26th / January (Sunday), 13:00 – 15:00 
at: The Havan Store (262 Kensington High Street, London W8 6ND)

As the name says a Snow Rabbit is supposed to be snow made into a rabbit shape. It is a traditional children’s custom in a snowy area in Japan. The ears are normally made with two long leaves so that the snow rabbit we are going to make is also having green ears.

The Plum flower is a symbol of New Year. It is almost the first flower to appear in a garden when the weather is still severe so it’s thought to be something delightful and brings happiness.

One of the plum designs we will create is a flower by using a traditional technique. You will learn how to use the wooden tool and your hand to make the sweet into a lovely flower shape. In the second plum flower design I want to show the image of plum blossoms opening on branches in early spring. I am planning to set this one as the free designing sweet and hope I will see lots of different looking sweets designed by creative participants.

The sweets we will make are all Vegan and Gluten free.

[The tickets] for this workshop are available now from here (←click here to the Link). The class is limited to 9 people only so don’t miss out on this great opportunity!

Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in London in December

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How time flies! Right after posting the report of the Halloween themed Workshop it is already time to announce the workshop for December. Since it will be in December the theme of the workshop is Christmas, I’ve been considering what kind of Japanese sweets I should make with the participants?

I always take a lot of time to decide the sweet designs to make with workshop attendees. I consider many elements such as if the design is seasonal, and if is too simple or too difficult for first time attendees.

Wagashi Making Workshop in December

Before finalising the three sweets, I tried several designs. I wanted to make a Christmas Tree. I have made several types of Tree in the past but never made one in the workshop yet. When I was thinking about the possibilities, I suddenly got a brilliant idea. I was very excited and was confident that it would go well, but when I tried making it, it was far too difficult to create the shape.

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on: the 1st / December (Sunday), 13:00 – 15:00 
at: The Havan (262 Kensington High Street, London W8 6ND)

So we will make these three sweets. If the attendees would want to go more creative they can decorate the tree with any shapes such as an angel, Christmas sock, candle or present boxes.

The sweets we will make are all Vegan and Gluten free.

We continue having the Havan Store as the venue since it is a very beautiful and comfortable space with very hospitable owners who are interested in Japanese culture. I was pleased to see that all the participants in the previous workshop loved the shop and their thick and creamy special Matcha green tea.

[The tickets] for this workshop are available now from here (←click here to the Link). The class is limited to 10 people only so don’t miss out on this great opportunity!

I have mentioned about the 13 years old girl who wanted to join us for the Halloween workshop. I am very happy to tell you that she is joining us with her mother for this Christmas one. It is going to be another great one! If you would like to join us, small number of seats still available.

Wagashi Workshop in London for Halloween

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

October poster2It was already two weeks ago. Just before the Halloween night came I had hosted my Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in the Halloween theme. As you can probably imagine it was such a fun class with all the fun loving participants. We gathered in a newly open shop in Kensington High Street on Saturday morning. I planned to make three sweets for this day. Although one of them was originally the purple flower in the photo on the right side, I got the better idea in the last minute and three designs we created were Jack-O’-Lantern, Ghost and Frankenstein’s Monster.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop in the Halloween Theme

So all of us sat comfortably at the table at my new workshop venue that is a lovely shop with lots of Halloween related decoration. The owners of the shop love Halloween and also Japanese culture so it was the perfect venue and they were very enthusiastic about this event.

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Frankenstein’s Monster Appears in the Workshop!

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NNNGWAAAAAASHI!

I am the Frankenstein’s Monster. Please come to Make and Eeeet Meeee!

oct Poster5

I am going to have WAGASHI Japanese Sweet Making Workshop this Saturday. The original sweet selection I was planning to make at the workshop is these three in the following photo. I chose the purple flower because it is a traditional Japanese sweet shape and you can learn how to use the Wagashi tool and your fingers well. However, the theme of this event is Halloween. It’s the only occasion that you can make anything crazy. So I was searching for some design which is easy to make and attractive, as well as looks very Halloween!

October poster2

on: the 19th / October (Saturday), 11:30 – 13:30 
at: The Havan (262 Kensington High Street, London W8 6ND)

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