japanese sweets

Tai-Yaki & Half-Moon-Yaki            (たい焼き＆半月焼き)

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Taiyaki in the sea

So my fist post after ‘How to Make Tsubu-An’ is ‘Tai-Yaki’. It is one of the most popular street foods in Japan. The name ‘Tai’ means ‘Sea Bream’ and ‘Yaki’ means ‘something baked or grilled’ in Japanese. Although it is called ‘Tai/Bream’ it has sweet filling, which is normally bean paste, and not having any fish at all. It is just a fish shaped sweet.

It is a waffle like sweet filled with traditionally ‘Tsubu-An‘ centre. Recently people started using some new fillings but Tsubu-An is still the most popular one. That is just because it is the best combination & simply delicious.

Tai-yaki inside

Tai-yaki with Tsubu-An & ‘Shiratama (mochi)’ filling

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How to Make Tsubu-An (Anko)

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Tsubuan on Plate

Hooray! I can finally post ‘How to Make Tsubu-An’ here, so after this post I will be able to start making more Japanese Sweets and post on this blog.

As I mentioned before ‘An’ (or ’Anko’, they are same thing) is the main component of Japanese Sweets. It is normally a sweet paste made of beans. There are mainly three types of An (Anko) used for Japanese Sweets and they are ‘Tsubu-An’, ‘Koshi-An’ and ‘Shiro-An’.

  • Tsubu-An ; Made of Azuki beans
  • Koshi-An ; Made of Azuki beans, sieved and skins removed
  • Shiro-An  ; Made of white beans, skinned and sieved

Azuki

‘Tsubu-An’ has Azuki bean’s skin left and not sieved so it’s got more of a coarse texture among all the other ‘Anko’. And maybe because of this coarseness it is tended to be used for more casual Sweets. It needs less procedure to make Tsubu-An but that is not the reason I make this type more often. I like Tsubu-An’s texture the most. It is very versatile. If you are interested in making Japanese Sweets, Tsubu-An making is the great place to start.

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Tea in the Garden with Two Visitors

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Bella

One afternoon we had visitors. This is Bella the Jack Russel. She came to my garden with Liliane for Tea. This was Bella’s first time coming to our garden so she was so excited and explored everywhere. That is why she was covered with some stuff on her body.

So for the Tea I made two things. ‘Sweet Potato Muffins’ and my signature biscuit ‘Kinako Shortbread’.

tea in garden

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Kakigori – the Shaved Ice with Mango

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Mango Kakigoori

I mentioned about Japanese Summer tradition in food –  ‘Chilled Ramen’ before. There is another Must-Have in Summertime in Japan. That is ‘Kakigori‘ – the Shaved Ice!

Nobori

It is the same as the Chilled Ramen, ‘Kakigori’ also has a traditional Flag to decorate at the entrance of restaurants letting people know that the shop serves it. Apparently the design of this flag has been more or less the same for more than 100 years. The red part in this flag is a Japanese Kanji character ‘氷- Kori‘ which means Ice. The blue part is obviously the sea that is the symbol for Summer and also there for making you feel Cool I believe. And the green part is two birds called ‘Chidori (Plovers)’. Whenever you see this sign you feel the summer is there and you want to have some shaved ice.

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Matcha Soy Latte (Chilled)

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Matcha Soy Milk

It is mid summer now. Even here in London it is very hot. I always have afternoon tea with a piece of cake and a cup of Earl Grey Tea or Coffee, but sometimes I rather want to have something cold instead of a hot drink during summertime.

This chilled Matcha Latte is used with Soy milk so if you are allergic to dairy or just don’t wat to have any milk products this is just the drink for you.

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What is Kinako (きな粉) ?

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Kinako

Have you heard of ‘Kinako’? If you like Japanese sweets, Kinako is one of the ingredients you come across occasionally. It is a yellowy powder substance that is made of Soybeans. You can make it at home but I recommend to get it from a shop because it is very hard work and also it is probably much nicer, from my experience anyway.

When I was a high school student our domestic science teacher made us study about certain Japanese food ingredients. My group chose ‘Dried Shiitake Mushroom’ and some other group chose ‘Kinako’. They made home-made Kinako and we tried tasting it during the class. I remember that it tasted quite the same as the one from the shop but the texture was far too dry and we felt almost like choking. So, you don’t have to try making it by yourself. Get it from a Japanese Food shop.

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Anko-ruffles

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Anko-ruffle

Although I haven’t manage to post ‘How to Make An/Anko’ yet (‘Tsubu-An’ Making has been posted now), I decided to go ahead with this post by thinking that presumably some readers know what ‘An/Anko‘ is and where to get it. But if you don’t know I will post how to make it shortly.

So have you heard of ‘Anko-ruffles’ before? No? You might have guessed it. Yes, it’s a made-up name from ‘Anko’ + ‘Truffle’ by me. These are Japanese Sweets I created but just look like Chocolate Truffle, don’t they? The taste and texture are completely different. This is one of the easiest Japanese Sweets to make. If you can gain some ‘An/Anko’ by either making it yourself or buying it.

 <Anko-ruffles> (Gluten/Dairy/Oil, Fat Free)

Anko-ruffle with Tea‘An/Anko’ is the most essential ingredient in Japanese Sweets ‘Wagashi’. It is sweet bean paste. The one I used for this sweet is ‘Tsubu-An’ which is made from Azuki beans. If you have a little amount of ‘An’ (An is sometime called ‘Anko’. They are exactly same things) and some powder ingredients, you can make Anko-ruffles!

As the dry powder ingredients I used ‘Matcha’ Green Tea, another Japanese substance ‘Kinako’ and Chocolate Powder for this time. I will talk about ‘Matcha’ Green Tea and ‘Kinako’ in separate posts.

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Sakura Manjyu

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Web C

I’m in the middle of the report about the visit in Japan. However, I created this sweet from being inspired by Sakura/Cherry blossom in Japan in Spring time and cannot resist introducing them here any longer.

flower for web

 

[Sakura Manjyu]

Yes, these are the sweets I have used for the banner of this website. It is a type of Japanese sweet called ‘Nerikiri’. Its ingredients are white bean, sugar and rice flour. That’s all! So they are free from gluten, egg, dairy and even oil/fat. Very simple but it need a bit of practice to shape each one of them by hand into Cherry blossom or petals.

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The Rice Flour used for this is ‘Shiratamako’ which is made from glutinous rice ‘Mochi-Gome’. Although it is called ‘Glutinous’ this stickiness of rice is coming from the molecules of ‘Amylopectin’ and not from Gluten. The difference is that Gluten is Protein found in wheat and Amylopectin is a huge starch compound made of many sugar like molecules connected to each other so that it is Carbohydrate. They are completely different substances. By adding a small amount of sticky rice to ‘Shiro-An (White Bean paste)’ the texture becomes stretchy and bendy just like plasticine. When I add a little bit of natural food colouring it becomes more like a real cherry flower?

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When I have a market stall people often think these ‘Nerikiri” sweets are marzipan, but “NO” they are nothing like marzipan. You can shape each individual sweet by hand as you like so that it has to be skillfull to make ‘Nerikiri’ and the process is very time consuming. Among all Japanese sweets they are rather posh ones, I must say. They are often used for traditional Tea Ceremony because of its sophisticated delicate finish.

Although it is simple enough to make ‘Nerikiri’, in order to understand this sweet I have to start from explaining how to make ‘Shiro-An (White Bean Paste)’ first. It means I have to wait to post this recipe until I mention ‘Shiro-An’ making. Sorry for keeping you waiting. 💓

Blueberry Cheese Daifuku

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Cream Cheese-An (Sweet White Bean Paste base) and Blueberry Jam centre wrapped up with Blueberry infused soft Mochi (Rice Cake)

Since I sub-named this site as ‘Japanese Food and Everything Else’, I could not think of starting a post with non-Japanese food on this blog. But there was a problem. We have a huge variety of fruits at home at the moment. They are plums, kiwi fruits, grapefruit, banana, blueberries, apples and figs. I have to use them. I wanted to make something I can post on this blog by using them. However, these fruits are more suitable for western sweets rather than for Japanese. So I had to think what I can do to make something Japanese with western fruits.

And then my eyes focused on one of the fruits.

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Blueberries!

However, they look too western! So I gave a challenge to myself on turning Blueberries into Japanese Sweets.

M’s Blueberry Challenge!
Here is the outcome of my challenge ‘Japanese Sweets with a western twist’.

 <Blueberry Cheese Daifuku>
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‘Daifuku’ is one type of Japanese sweets that An (Sweet Bean Paste) is wrapped up with Mochi (Rice Cake). Usually the An used for Daifuku is either Tsubu-An (Azuki Bean Paste) or Shiro-An (White Bean Paste) and both go well with most of fruits. So the flavour of Blueberry should also go well with this idea.

But it has such a western face, then I had to give a little bit of twist in Daifuku for making it slightly more western.

The solution was ‘Cream Cheese’. I am going to use ‘Cream Cheese-An’ for this sweets. Basically the idea is making a Japanese version of Blueberry Cheese Cake.

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It was the first time for me to make ‘Cream Cheese-An’. I have not had it anywhere else yet but the taste of the ‘Blueberry Cheese Daifuku’ was just what I wanted. Soft smooth Cream Cheese-An matched very well with Blueberry Jam. A hint of White Bean Paste’s mild taste combined all the flavours into one.

Obviously it is not Dairy Free but it is still Free from Gluten, Fat/Oil and Egg. It was a good attempt. Success!

Happy Healthy Eating!

Welcome to Sakura Junction!

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Sakura

Hi I’m Mutsumi,

Welcome to Sakura Junction and my first post on this blog!

I am very pleased to start this website ‘Sakura Junction’ at spring – Cherry Blossom time. It’s because ‘Sakura’ means Cherry/Cherry Blossom in Japanese. Japan is famous for cherry blossoms and Sakura is our National flower. There is no any other season more suitable than spring for the start of ‘Sakura Junction’.

I have been wanting to be involved in food production for many years, particularly Japanese Food. WHY? It is because there’s been a kind of trend in Japanese Food here in London for several years, however, people don’t really know much about Japanese Food. How many Japanese dishes can you name other than ‘Sushi’? Japanese street food is becoming quite popular recently so you might know ‘Okonomi-yak’ or ‘Tako-yaki’. And our most recent hit in London ‘Ramen’ is the one that foodies are talking about right now! Basically there are so many different types of food in Japan.

So I want to introduce Japanese Home Cooking to you. You may have tried to make some Japanese food before but got stuck with unfamiliar ingredients? I am going to adapt the ingredients and use only the stuff you can find in London without any difficulty.

to post intro

Over several years I have developed the skill of making Japanese Sweets. That is my specialty and I occasionally sell these in a market. Japanese Sweets are not only pretty, but very different from westerns sweets. Many of them are mainly made of beans,
rice flour and sugar so that they are Free from Gluten, Dairy, Fat/Oil and Egg. Carbohydrates burn cleanly in our body unlike butter & cream with high content of Fat/Oil. Beans are thought to be a healthy food option anyway, so that overall Japanese Sweets are much healthier than pastries.

I hope my blog will inspire you to cook more Japanese Food.

Happy Healthy Eating!!