Can you tell what this is? Yes, it is a Satsuma but it is not the real Satsuma fruit. It’s a Japanese sweet I made into a shape of a Satsuma so it’s an illusion food. I have seen this kind of sweet somebody-else made and wanted to try making it myself for a little while. Now it is the season for Satsuma and this is my first attempt.
Satsuma ‘Mikan’
In Japan we call this kind of small citrus fruit Mikan’. I wasn’t sure what is the best name for this sweet, should it be tangerine or clementine? And then I remembered that there is another small citrus fruit called Satsuma. Satsuma is a Japanese word and it’s a southern part of Japan too. If a citrus fruit has got a Japanese related name, then why not use it?
This sweet is made of a type of Japanese sweet called ‘Nerikiri’. It is the same sweet that I normally make cherry blossoms or sunflowers but one thing a little different is that you can peel the outer layer. It looks pretty real, doesn’t it? I used the centre filling flavoured with orange juice so it looks like the real Satsuma fruit and tastes like one too.
This sweet is Vegan and Gluten free.
It was already two weeks ago. Just before the Halloween night came I had hosted my Japanese Sweet Making Workshop in the Halloween theme. As you can probably imagine it was such a fun class with all the fun loving participants. We gathered in a newly open shop in Kensington High Street on Saturday morning. I planned to make three sweets for this day. Although one of them was originally the purple flower in the photo on the right side, I got the better idea in the last minute and three designs we created were Jack-O’-Lantern, Ghost and 
Sakura Junction 