london food

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.

Morning Glory, the Summer Sweet

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How’s your summer been so far? (Sorry, it’s winter for the people who live on the Southern Hemisphere). Here in London we had a record breaking hot day in July which was followed by some rainy cold days and now some sunny but still quite chilly days as summer. I wonder whether the Indian summer will come this year.

Morning Glory

I made some Japanese sweets in a summer flower design. This is one of them, Morning Glory. I think it’s the most summery flowers. It is the first plant that I have sown the seeds and looked after myself when I was a child.

Morning Glory2-2

I made this sweet because I received a private order. It is one of the best sweets for summertime.

Wagashi Workshop in London in July

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I have been thinking to have a ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in London with a summer theme for a long time. Although I was trying to make a plan, there were several obstacles in front of me and it took quite a while to set up an event. I wanted to do my Workshop in July which is the school holiday time so that children can join the activity with their parents.

So, I have finally fixed the day and the venue of my next Workshop. Because I wasted so much time for sorting out the problems, the time I have until the actual day became much shorter than I wanted it to be. I’ve got just TWO WEEKS from today. I hope many people find this workshop attractive and want to join me.

 

Wagashi Making Workshop in London

  • on: The 25th July (Thursday) 2:00-4:00pm
  • at : The Crouch End Cellars (55 The Broadway, Crouch End, London N8 8DT)

Workshop summer1

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Roses

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Oh, No! How time flies! We are already in July. Time passes so fast and it’s so difficult for me to catch up! I made these Rose sweets a little while ago but could not post it here until now.

Roses

Anyway, there are a lot of ways to express a Rose flower in a Japanese sweet. I have made several sweets in the past including the Mochi Rose last year.  The one here is using the same technique for making the Mochi Rose but I used ‘Nerikiri’ sweet instead of ‘Mochi’ this time.

Roses1

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Clematis

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Clematis is one of my favourite flowers. Last year I made a Clematis sweet with a ‘Mochi’ type sweet so this year I wanted to create it in a different way. I decided to make it with a ‘Nerikiri’ sweet. The Clematis flowers are normally from white to pink or purple colour which is the colour I like the most. However, I did not want to use any food colouring this time so I used Ube Purple sweet potato/yam to colour and flavour the sweet. I like purple blue Clematis flower so that helped too.

Clematis 

By using the same sweet material in two colours (and flavour) of white and purple I created these two types.

Clematis 19-4

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Another Form of Wisteria

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I have introduced two types of my Wisteria sweets previously that I created by using two types of tools. And then I thought I could create another Wisteria sweet in a slightly different and possibly better design, so I wanted try to see if my method will work. Basically I was not satisfied with previous designs because they did not look Purple showering enough! It needed more flowers hanging down like a real shower.

Another Wisteria

So I created this sweet as an experiment. The technique is quite similar to the designs of the Wisteria I had made earlier by placing two layers in different colours and removing the top layer and revealing the bottom colour from the cut.

Wisteria v2-1

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‘Mochi Heaven’ Stall Ended!

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The Food Market that I had suddenly decided to have a stall has ended three days ago. In the last three years since I started making Japanese sweet for Kimono shop I have heard that so many people saying ‘I looove Mochi!’. As I said in my posts in the past I had believed that Western people didn’t like Mochi and I was wondering ‘is it really true that these people love Mochi?’ So, my mission was finding out ‘How much do people looove Mochi’!

It is always hard work to prepare food for selling but Making Japanese sweets is very time consuming work and I wasn’t sure I how could be ready until the actual Market day. When I have a stall in a food market I normally prepare all kinds of Japanese sweets but this time I could concentrate on creating different flavours for Mochi and that was a good thing for me.

 

‘Mochi Heaven’ Stall in a Food Market

These sweets in the photo were the main line-ups on my stall.

CE Market2-2

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Mochi Stall in a Market

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I have an announcement. This became rather short notice but I have just decided to have a stall in a local Market this Sunday.

 

Never Too ‘Mochi’ Stall in Crouch End

My stall will be in the Food Market as a part of the Crouch End Festival. The Crouch End Festival is actually the biggest community festival in the whole Britain which lasts over a week in this villege-like community of North London. It consists of all sorts of entertainment such as music, open air films, art and even a Zombie walk as well as all kinds of food. This year we are going to have a performance of the world famous Crouch End Festival Chorus too. The Food Market is normally held in the Green square in front of the ‘secretly famous’ Hornsey Town Hall (this special building has been used as a film/TV location for such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Killing Eve’) which is the central part of this community, but this year the venue will be set in a nearby ‘Stationers Park’ due to the building development work.

I had a stall in this festival several years ago serving all sorts of Japanese sweets. However, this time I wanted to try serving mainly ‘Mochi’ as it has recently became one of the most favourite Japanese sweets for British people lately. I hear so many people saying ‘I love Mochi!’ but I don’t know how much they love it. Although I am a little anxious whether many Mochi lovers would turn up to my stall, I am going to bet it will be great.

Mochi1

 

Heavenly Mochi Stall in the Food Market

  • at : Stationers Park, Mayfield Rd, London N8 9LP
  • on: the 9th of June (Sun), 11:30 –

I know the venue is not the easiest location to reach if you are not from this area but if you love Mochi, please come to try mine at my stall.

I have been planning to make Mochi in several different flavours and this Polar Bear below is one of the Mochi which is likely to be on the Mochi Stall. If you readers can tell me what your favourite flavour for Mochi is it will be a great help to me!

Mochi2

Hope to see many people turn up there on the 9th of June. See you on Sunday!😊

Choisya

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C shrubChoisya ternata is the shrub which flowers the earliest every spring in my garden. It gets numerous number of tiny white flowers which have marvellous orange blossom like scent. No wonder it’s called Mexican Orange Blossom as the common name. Every spring when I see and smell the flowers I wanted to make ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweet of Choisya as the design, however, the timing of their flowering season is somehow always wrong for me and before I decided what kind of design I should make, the flowers were. This spring, I finally managed making one design before all the flowers’ disappeared, however, the problem this year was that I did not have time to write my article about the sweet until now.

plant

 

Choisya ternata

So, this is the Choisya sweet I finally managed to make.

Choisya3

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