sweets

Sakura Season Starts, So Does Sakura Sweet

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

Now officially it is spring in the UK. Which means Sakura season has started. Sakura is a Japanese word for Cherry tree and also Cherry Blossom. People in Japan love Cherry blossoms and go crazy when this season starts or even before when the season comes nearer. I mentioned about our tradition in Sakura season three years ago on this blog so if you are interested about the custom please read my old post.

As well as our traditional Cherry Blossom viewing ‘Hanami’ we like to eat all sorts of food which is in flavour or shape of Sakura blossom. There are many ways to produce Sakura related sweets and I will try making several different types in this season.

 

Sakura sweet in Japanese Crêpe style (with recipe)

This is a baked type Sakura sweet in crêpe style.

Sakuea1 Continue reading →

Shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day

/ Mutsumi / 3 Comments

Today, the 17th of March is St. Patrick’s Day. Saint Patrick was the foremost patron saint of Ireland and his death on this date is traditionally a festival day for the Irish community.

The famous symbol of Ireland is a Shamrock so lots of people wear something green on them. I have seen places where people even coloured the river green for this day (which I’m a little against the idea). However, do you really know what a shamrock looks like? I made two types of Japanese sweets for this St. Patrick’s Day that look quite similar but slightly different. So, tell me which one you think is a Shamrock.

Shamrock 6 Continue reading →

Mimosa, Mimosa and Mimosa

/ Mutsumi / 2 Comments

You might have seen many photos of Mimosa flowers last week and wondered why these flowers now? It was because the 8th of March was the Mimosa Day. Actually it was the International Women’s Day and the flower is the symbol of the day. I was not planning to make any sweets that day but when I heard it was the “Women’s” Day I thought I had to do something to celebrate particularly for this day. I made some sweets with a Mimosa design but I could not take photos quickly enough for posting to my Blog here in time on the Wemen’s Day. However, as I believe “being late is better than never”, so here it is.

Mimosa Sweets

As soon as I had Mimosa’s image in my mind I got some idea. I tried making these three types.

Mimosa 1

The image in my mind was lots of fluffy tiny yellow pompoms on the tips of every branches that reach out with the blue sky as the background.

Continue reading →

My New Tools and the First Attempt

/ Mutsumi / 7 Comments

When I come back from Japan my suitcase is always full, actually too full and overloaded which means sometimes I have to remove some stuff from it. It’s normally filled with Sencha green tea, sweets and some other Japanese food that are either difficult to find or too expensive in London. However, when I returned this time in February there were something different I brought back in my luggage.

They were my brand new tools for making Japanese sweets. Now I am back in London and started creating Japanese sweets. I could not wait to see if I could use them properly. I have seen that many professional sweets makers were producing beautiful sweets by using the same tools and could not wait to try out how I can use this.

Practice1

This sweet is the very first trial I made as a practise, so it is far from the perfection. I realised that controlling the grip of the tool is the key to producing a great result and I need a lot of practice. One of the petals came off by cutting too deep, but I am quite pleased to see the outcome as this was my first attempt. I don’t know how it looks to you but I hope you can see this as the shape of Chrysanthemum or some kind of flower. I am going to carry on practising and hopefully I can show you the great result of a Chrysanthemum by this autumn.

Hichigiri for Hinamatsuri

/ Mutsumi / Leave a comment

Usa hinaIt was ‘Hinamatsuri’ the Girl’s Day yesterday. I have mentioned about the Japanese culture of praying for the good health and happiness of girls on the 3rd of March on my previous post. We decorate our home with Hina Dolls of Emperor and Empress as well as some other figures on red carpeted shelves, that are between five to seven shelves (or even more) traditionally. I created some sweets in shapes of the dolls in the past. On this day we don’t just decorate but also eat a sweet called ‘Hishimochi’ which means diamond-shaped Mochi which I also have created it once before.

There is one sweet that people particularly in the Kyoto area eat for the Girl’s Day but I was not familiar with it until recently. The sweets are called ‘Hichigiri’. I heard that this sweet was born in the palace in the old time in probably the Heian period. People needed to make many Mochi to serve so many guests that they were too busy to roll up each Mochi piece into a ball shape. Then they just pulled small pieces and left the pulled shape as it was. If you understand ‘Kanji’ (Chinese) character you know Hichigiri  (引千切) means literally ‘pull and cut into a thousand’. I could imagine that the Palace kitchen was so busy.😆

Hichigiri

So this year I tried creating these sweets for Hinamatsuri.

Hichigiri 1 Continue reading →

White Daffodils

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

So officially or perhaps unofficially ‘yet’ it is spring here in London. By following my previous post with ‘Ealy Spring Field’ I am going to introduce another early spring flower that you can find right now.

Daffodil-Flower-Record-Group_0a3cc90f-7f51-4a18-bf08-a9a89bb59cb6_x2000_crop_centerThey are Daffodils. Both Daffodil and Crocus are bulbous plants so they use energy stocked up in their bulbs to spread out the leaves from the ground even in the toughest season and try to be ready for opening flowers just on time when the sun warms up the air. I have to say their timing this year was perfect.

White Daffodils

I created yellow Daffodils last year so this year’s ones are pure White flowers.

W Daffodil2

Continue reading →

Early Spring Field – Crocus

/ Mutsumi / 4 Comments

van-zyverden-flower-bulbs-21430-64_1000‘Spring has come!’ This is the phrase my late father, who was eager to learn English but could not complete his desire, liked to say whenever the weather was becoming warm. Even before the end of February now the weather is so mild in London, unlike the usual dark grey English weather this time of year it is very sunny with beautiful blue sky. So I go out for a walk and find some bulbous plants flowering.

Crocus

The scene with yellow and purple dots in the field made me smile. They are the flower buds of Crocus just about to open.

Spring Field Crocus 1

So this is my interpretation of the cheerful early spring field as a Japanese sweet.

Continue reading →

Christmas Wreath

/ Mutsumi / Leave a comment

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday. Today, one day after Christmas, is called Boxing Day and the Winter Holiday continues in the UK. This year I created two Japanese sweets for Christmas. One of them is Poinsettia in my previous post and the other one is Christmas Wreath.

Christmas Wreath

I had been having some idea of making this design for the last two years but this is the first one I tried to make into a shape. This is my Christmas Wreath.

Wreath1

Continue reading →

Poinsettia

/ Mutsumi / 5 Comments

B9330269811Z.1_20171118101738_000_G4BKBEKRJ.1-0It is the final month of the year and only one week’s left before a brand new year starts. It means the biggest event for most of the families in the UK is coming soon. It is of course Christmas! There are many things that relate to Christmas and one of them which is quite significant is a plant called Poinsettia. Poinsettia is originally for a warmer place but maybe because of its bold colour combination of vivid red and deep green it makes the most Christmassy looking decoration in your house.

Poinsettia

This is one of my ‘Wagashi’ Japanese sweets for December.

poinsettia1 Continue reading →

Christmas Market ’18 Ended Successfully!

/ Mutsumi / 5 Comments
Market6

Christmas Tree seller at the hall entrance

Our annual event of Japanese Christmas Market has just finished! Unlike the last year’s snowy day it was a great sunny day this year! As we expected the great turn out of people I’d say this year’s market was a great success.

We arrived a little earlier on the site even before the doors to the venue opened for the vendors and started preparing our table to be well ready for the arrival of customers … but then I realised that I forgot to bring some of my Japanese sweets products! I had to go home and brings them as quickly as I could since they were quite a big part of my products. Last year I had to go and fetch some stuff on the snowy road on foot. It was so horrible and I had tried to be sure that would not happen this year, however, it did happen again! I was so stupid. Anyway, so I went back home and when I was walking back hurriedly towards the venue I saw a man holding a container that looked like my sweets inside! I thought ‘Wow! Already?!’ It was just a few minutes after the market opened to public and my products were already sold without me. It was a great sign ahead for the day.

Market1

Continue reading →