sweets

Easter Mochi Eggs & Cinnamon Nest

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

It’s Easter weekend. In some shops during this season you see many sweets in the Easter theme. They are mainly chocolate in either a rabbit bunny shape or eggs and chicks. I know it is an event for Christian people but I cannot help myself not to think of some Japanese sweet to make for this occasion.

I have made some chicks with Japanese sweet ‘Nerikiri’ before so this year I wanted to make something else. When I was making ‘Hanami-Dango’ (in my previous post) I got the idea of making eggs with the ‘Mochi’ sweet and also some other sweets to compose the nest to place eggs in …

Easter Mochi Eggs & Yatsuhashi Nest

So this is the Japanese sweet I thought for the Easter theme this year.

Easter eggs.2

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‘Momo-no-Hana’ Mochi

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I feel the sky looks brighter these days. The atmosphere is lighter and the air is warmer. I sense that the spring is coming nearer day by day. I even feel birds’ song sounds so much more cheerful. Maybe they are happy that spring is just around the corner.

Peach flowersAbout two weeks ago I posted that the 3rd of March was the Girls’ Day in Japan. The symbol of the Girls’ day is ‘Momo-no-Hana‘ Peach Flower, and this flower is also the sign for the arrival of spring. I made a Japanese sweet inspired by Peach flower for this month.

 

‘Momo-no-Hana’ (Peach Flower) Mochi

Momo no Hana Mochi 6-22

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Raspberry Chocolate Heart on the Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day is coming. Surely the sweet on the Day has to be Chocolate. According to me, if it is Chocolate sweet the flavour should be Raspberry.

So I made Japanese sweet iwith Chocolate and Raspberry flavour.

Raspberry Chocolate Heart, Wagashi

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I have to remind you that this is not a normal Chocolate sweet. It is still a Japanese sweet ‘Wagashi’ with Chocolate flavour. So the ingredients of the outer part is mainly White Beans with Chocolate Powder.

raspberry-choco-heart-4-2

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Sho-Chiku-Bai 　

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Have you heard about ‘Sho Chiku Bai‘? You might think “Yes, it’s a ‘Sake’, isn’t it?“. That is correct, but there is an origin that the company named their sake with that name. ‘Sho-Chiku-Bai‘ means ‘Pine Tree – Bamboo – Plum Blossom’ in Japanese in this order. They are the three objects Japanese think very auspicious so that we use an image of these three a lot for happy occasion such as a wedding and during New Year period.

I wanted to make some kind of sweet based on ‘Sho-Chiku-Bai’ and came up to this idea.

Sho – Chiku –  Bai

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It is made of a type of Japanese Sweet called ‘Nerikiri‘ and not marzipan which you might think it looks like.

sho-chiku-bai-two-front

The main ingredients are Beans, Sugar and Rice Flour. It is very simple but through a lot of complicated process.

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Sweet ‘Mochi Snowman’ ⛄

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

This year we are having very mild winter in England. We hardly need to heat rooms during daytime and wear gloves outside. So it is very unlikely that we are going to have a White Christmas. Although it is not cold, in my mind “Winter = Snow” so another sweet I made in the Winter theme was this one.

Mochi Snowman

snowman-hiding

It is made of ‘Mochi‘ Rice Cake type of sweet.

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Christmas WA-Pudding

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

What kind of traditional Food do you have during the Christmas season? In England people have Roast Turkey with Gravy for their meal and then Mince Pie or Christmas Pudding for dessert or Tea.

I wanted to make some Japanese Sweet with a Christmas theme so after thinking for a few days decided to make this fusion sweet.

Christmas WA-Pudding

wa-pudding-xmas2

 

It might look like just a normal Christmas Pudding which is a wheat cake with lots of dried fruits and steamed in a quite big bowl. My version is much much smaller, just about 5cm in diameter. It is actually a very traditional Japanese sweet ‘Nerikiri‘ that is made from sweet Bean paste, rice flour and sugar. The white part is also made from sweet White Bean Paste and not icing sugar.

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🎄 Market was a Success!

/ Mutsumi / 10 Comments

Our yearly event ‘Christmas Market’ is over!

Thank you very much for the people who came to the Market and stopped by our Sakura Junction stall. My preparation for the market started a week earlier and in the morning on the day I finally wrapped up my sweets for taking them to the venue.

These are some of the little ones.

sakuera-cherry-bloosom

raspberry-mochi-cake

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