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Wagashi Workshop in London

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Dear Wagashi Lovers,

Your long waiting is over! I am pleased to announce that the ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweets Making Workshop in London will be held next month. The theme of the workshop is “Autumn Colour” and we are going to make ‘Momiji’ Japanese maple, Ginkgo leaf and Chrysanthemum. All the sweets we will make are vegan and gluten free.


Although it will be held at our usual venue, the Havan Store, because of the concern regarding the pandemic, this time we’ll have two sessions of a smaller class with a limited number of participants.

Wagashi Making Workshop in Autumn

  • Date: the 13th November (Saturday)
  • Time: 11:30 – 13:00 / 14:45  – 16:15

The ticket sales have just started. For getting your seat could you please visit:

https://thehavan.com/product-category/event/

Hope to see you there.

It’s a Watermelon indeed!

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In the previous post, I introduced my Mochi Watermelon. It’s a Mochi-type Japanese sweet which looks like a Watermelon on a tiny scale. So on this post, I’d like to show you what the inside of the sweet looks like.

The inside of Mochi Watermelon

So this is what the inside of the sweet looks like.

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Hina Mochi on Hinamatsuri

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hishimochi-2Today the third of March is Hanamatsuri – Girls’ Day in Japan (Don’t worry, there is Boys’ day too). I have mentioned about this day in the past so if you are interested please read the articles in 2017 and 2018.

There are several traditional food/sweets we eat on this special day and Hishimochi is one of them. It is a diamond shaped sweet made with three coloured Mochi (in pink, white and green) place on top each other.  In 2017 I made this Hishimochi sweet with steamed Japanese sweet instead using Mochi.

Hina Mochi

This year I made this Hina Mochi instead that is a Mochi type sweet I got inspired by Hishimochi. It is a round Mochi in the traditional Hishimochi tri-colours.

Hina mochi1

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Chocolate Heart for Valentine’s Day!

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💕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.

chocoheart2

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!!💕

Watermelon Mochi

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I mentioned in my previous post of Cinnamon & Cream Mochi I created several types of Mochi this summer and this Watermelon Mochi is another one.

Watermelon Mochi

As you can tell from the name and the appearance of the sweet I used Watermelon as the flavour of filling inside. Two years ago I made similar (in the look and also the name) sweet which I named Mochi Watermelon but there is a minor difference between them. Basically the one two years ago was in a shape of the fruit as well as the flavour, and the one I made this summer was Mochi with the flavour packed inside.

Watermelon Mochi

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Cinnamon & Cream Mochi

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This summer I made Mochi in several flavours and this sweet is one of them.

 

Cinnamon & Cream Mochi

I named this sweet as Cinnamon & Cream Mochi but it is probably more suitable to call it ‘Yatsuhashi’ Cream Mochi.

Cinnamon Cream Mochi

People who have visited Japan, particularly in Kyoto, might have heard the name Yatsuhashi before. It’s a famous sweet from Kyoto that Mochi flavoured with cinnamon and Kinako (roasted Soybean powder) wrapping up sweet Adzuki (Red) bean paste filling.

My Cinnamon and Cream Mochi is a Mochi sweet coated with the same mixed powder as Yatsuhashi sweet. I used Sweet Adzuki (Red) bean paste and whipped cream as the central filling. The cream inside has been softly whipped and if you have this sweet half frozen, the cream part becomes almost like Ice cream. Basically it is a fusion of Japanese and western sweets and it’s great to have as a dessert after a dinner.

It’s Gluten free.

Wagashi Workshop in London in Summer

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I have hosted several ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshops. They were mainly for adults and I had been thinking that it would be great if I could have a Workshop that people could participate with their children. In order to make this plan possible there were several issues to clear and the biggest one of them was that the event has to be held daytime. For solving the problem I thought it would be best if the event was held during the school holiday period. In case this idea happens, I have been considering several designs for sweets which are attractive and also simple enough for children to make but enjoyable for adults too. After going through many possibilities I finally picked three designs in the summer theme and set up a date and the venue to have a workshop on the 25th of July.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop (July/’19)

I had a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in the Summer theme on the 25th of July and it ended well.

w 1

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Wagashi Workshop in London (May/19)

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It is so great that my ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop is becoming almost a monthly event. This time it was at a new venue that was in an interior shop with a beautifully setting located in a quiet courtyard in North London.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop (May/19)

I had five participants who were willing to join me for this workshop. They are three female and two male, two of which were Japanese. I was very pleased to have this wonderfully mixed group of people.

workshop

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Wagashi Workshop in London (April/19)

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How was your Easter? It was very nice that we had great weather for this Bank Holiday weekend. About one week before Easter time six people gathered in a Tea shop in Soho London and my Workshop in April finished successfully. It’s great the daytime is becoming longer now and when we started the Workshop at 7pm the outside is still bright.

Wagashi Making Workshop (April/19)

This time all the participants had tasted my sweets before and we had two workshop repeaters amongst them.

2019_4

Look how smiley everybody in the workshop is. Of course they looked very serious when they had to concentrate on making the shape of the sweet but quite often we all went in bursting a laughter! It was such a relaxed great atmosphere. It’s great to see everyone was enjoying the time being there.

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