sweets

Spring also brings a variety of sweets too. During this season, you can find strawberry flavored items as well as sakura (cherry blossom) flavored items....I have been leaning more towards the sakura flavored ones.

Sakura chiffon cake 420 yen (about US$4.20) from Starbucks, this had more of an American (bold) cherry flavor rather than the delicate cherry flavor that you find in Japanese confections...an expensive disappointment.

Not a sweet, but this tiny bagel was from Comme Chinois, I loved this size. I bought a chocolate bagel and a multi-grain.

From Mochi Cream, the raspberry millefeuille...custard, raspberry coulis and crunch from wafers...this one was my favorite.

Also from Mochi Cream, the caramel pudding. Liquidy bitter caramel and sweet custard...delicious. (doesn't it looks like lips puckering?)

Sakura mochi...this is the Kanto (East Japan) style. A thin crepe-like outside wraps some sweet bean paste. The whole thing is then wrapped with a sakura leaf (cherry leaf) that has been soaked in salt water.

From Ferdinand, their sakura mochi anpan, a whole sakura mochi Kansai (West Japan) style is tucked inside a steamed bun. Kansai style sakura mochi is sweet bean paste and a bumpy gelatinous outside made from Domyoji-ko.

Domyoji-ko is steamed mochi rice which is then dried. I think it looks like coarse sugar when it is dried and I think it is then re-constituted when it is used to make sakura mochi. Sakura mochi has a salty and sweet flavor---salty from the sakura (cherry blossoms and leaves) which are soaked in a salt water mixture, sweet from the sweet bean paste.

Chikujian's sakura daifuku. White sweet bean paste flavored with seasoned sakura leaves, wrapped with a soft mochi (rice cake)...again the sweet and salty combination is out of this world.