sweet

Japanese Anemone

/ Mutsumi / 10 Comments
Japanese Anemone

Japanese Anemone

Apart from Grape Mochi the sweet I have created for my September Japanese sweet. I used a perennial flower called Japanese Anemone as the inspiration for this time. Japanese Anemone get lots of flowers around this time of a year which has either pink or white petals with a greenish yellow round centre. When the flower’s gone this round part stays and it looks like small a pom-pom on a stick sticking out from the plant.

Japanese Anemone

I chose Japanese Anemone as the design for this month’s sweet not just because it is a very seasonal flower in gardens right at the moment but also it has the word ‘Japanese’ in its name. What else is more suitable for this occasion than that.

Japanese Anemone2p

Continue reading →

Blackberry Magic Cake

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post I was indulging myself in the baking with Blackberries. It is now too late to pick any Blackberries in London but I heard the Blackberry season has not even reached in Scotland and some area in the States are in the middle of the season right now. I am so jealous of the people who can still go picking since I did not have enough to make jam this year. Anyway, I made several cakes and desserts and I’d love to introduce the recipe of one of the best amongst them.

Blackberry Magic Cake

Blackberry Magic cake4p

It is the recipe that is based on my favourite Magic Cake which has three layers of Soufflé like top, moist cake in the middle and a custard cream like soft bottom. When I have plenty of Blackberries I always bake a custard tart with them so I know Magic Cake and Blackberries work perfectly as a combination, so what I had to do is just get going.

Continue reading →

Grape Mochi for September

/ Mutsumi / Leave a comment

September has just started. It means it’s the time that my sweet for this brand new month should be introduced. During the spring – summer season we get various fruits and vegetables harvested or found in a shop and I have used some as inspiration for the flavour or the image of my sweets such as mango, strawberry or Raspberry. So what kind of plant or fruit I can use for my sweet this month?

The variety of fruits are becoming less in this season. Luckily I found a very good one. Actually it was in my garden. I noticed that there were some branches stretching out from the next door. That was a grape vine and the fruit was just getting ripen. Yes, it is not my plant but some branches are coming into my side and reachable, AND nobody-else seems to care, And I think it is a sin to waste food so I took some grapes and tasted. It was a little sour and tangy comparing to the shop bought ones but not too bad to eat.

Grape

The Grapes from my garden

So, it is the Grape season now and I used this inspiration for creating my September Japanese Sweet.

Grape Mochi

This is a Mochi type sweet. I decorated the plain Mochi with Grape pattern as a reminder of what is inside.

Grape Mochi1p

Continue reading →

The Memory of Summer Holiday – Goldfish

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

When schools break up for summer holiday, it is the signal that lots of local festivals are ready to start all around in Japan. Many stalls appear in a square that sell food or goods to the people visiting. There are some stalls for offering games too and ‘Kingyo-sukui’ is the one of them. ‘Kingyo’ means Goldfish and ‘Sukui’ is a noun form of a verb to-scoop in Japanese. So what does ‘Scooping-Goldfish’ mean?

275px-_____

Children enjoying ‘Kingyo-sukui’

On the Kingyo-sukui stall they bring a pond with many small Goldfish. The customers pay to get a small ladle which is made of paper and can keep scooping goldfish until the paper tears up and it is no longer possible to scoop up any fish. That is the time that game is over! At the end of the game you can take the goldfish home you scooped. I have to say I was very good at Kingyo-sukui when I was a child. I could get about 20 goldfish easily with just a one paper ladle.

So when I see Goldfish it reminds me of the Summer holiday. It is very nostalgic and that is why I chose Goldfish as the design for the sweet for August.

Goldfish

Although the fish is called Goldfish, the main colour of them is Red, bright red so the Goldfish on my sweet is also Red.

Goldfish 6

Continue reading →

Mango Mochi

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

I want to know whether we are still in the summer in London. It’s neither hot or warm any more. It is actually quite cool. It is the first day in August today but I already feel like that summer has gone. Autumn must be coming soon or we are already in Autumn. I know usually Indian summer comes around September but still it is too cold for mid summer.

In order to get rid of this cold rainy feeling I had to make something very summery sweet. In my mind ‘Summer = tropical = fruit = … Mango!’ That is why I chose Mango as the flavour for my Mochi for August.

Mango Mochi

Mango Mochi 1

Continue reading →

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

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

Continue reading →

‘Strawberries and Cream’ Cup

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

Oh, it’s nice to have a little rain today. I know it is not as hot or humid as how Japan is at the moment, but it has been very hot here in London. It is also in the height of Wimbledon Season here and the British People’s minds are also heating up in cheering British male No.1 player Andy Murray and the female player Johanna Konta. Both of them just got through to the quarter-final yesterday. Hooray!

Anyway, where there is an event, there is also a famous food or drink, isn’t there? For instance if the event is RHS Flower show, it is a Pimms and if the event is Wimbledon, it is certainly ‘Strawberries and Cream’. It sounds so stylish but it is actually just some fresh strawberries serving with cream on top, but people love to have it in the court side or ‘Henman’s Hill’ whilst cheering for their favourite players.

So, as an homage to this Wimbledon season I wanted to arrange this traditional British dessert into some Japanese sweet, but how …. ?

Strawberries and Cream Cup

This is the outcome of all my thinking about ‘Strawberries and Cream’. It is made of a traditional Japanese Sweet called ‘Nerikiri’ and I shaped it into a very western looking sweet. I placed three small strawberries and some cream in a cup which is also made of Nerikiri pastry and of course you can eat the whole thing including this cup.

Strawberries & Cream1

Continue reading →

The Wagashi Day

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

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!  😀