![]() ![]() When eaten from a package at a store by the road size in Japan (especially if you’re not taking them home to pair with your afternoon tea), the sweetness can be somewhat jarring and overpowering. When attending a high end omakase or kaiseki meal in Japan, a tiny mouth size serving of an overly sweet wagashi might pair well with a cup of bitter green tea to round off the meal, but that’s because it fits into the entire aesthetic and theme of the meal. In fact, while the phrase “not too sweet” may sound derogatory, this phrase is actually quite commonly used in many asian countries, particularly south-east asian countries, to describe desserts which are perfectly balanced. Take for example certain famous Parisian patissiers such as Sadaharu Aoki (青木 定治), who whilst was born in Tokyo, now resides in Paris and creates refined traditional french desserts with a Japanese twist, but can be best described as “not too sweet”. However, if you look at the directions in which desserts have been moving towards such as in fine dining restaurants all over the world and especially at french bakeries, the trend has been moving towards more balanced subtle desserts rather than sickly sweet desserts that used to rule king. This is where the first point of interest lies- as green tea is typically bitter, these sweets are designed to be extra sweet in order to off-set and balance out the tannins in the tea. These shops specialise in making Wagashi (和菓子) which is the traditional art of making confectionery and sweets designed to be paired with green tea. Whilst you can find these desserts at almost any shop in Japan nowadays, including Seven Elevens, Lawsons and Family Marts, there are still specialty shops that sell them so you should seek them out in Japan if you wish to try them. The Daifuku’s package was tied together with a piece of string that was also used to cut it in half to be shared. ![]() The Daifuku was special because it had both a layer of Shiroan (white bean paste/白あん) and Koshian covering the strawberry, a combination that had me blown away as I had only ever tried the version with only red bean paste. This recipe here however, is for an Ichigo Daifuku that was brought back as a gift from my friend who visited his hometown where his relatives were involved in the Japanese confectionery business. So in this case, Ichigo Daifuku (いちご大福) would be referring to strawberries wrapped in sweet bean paste and covered with rice cake. But for this post, I wanted to give my take on it, as well as a few aspects of making it that I discovered along the way, especially when it comes to the sweet bean pastes.įirstly however, the word Daifuku (大福), refers to a traditional Japanese sweet made from soft mochi (もち), which is a sticky rice cake, stuffed with a sweet filling, typically Koshian (こしあん), which is a smooth sweet red bean paste. There are probably a million recipes out there already for Ichigo Daifuku, as well as making your own red or white sweet bean paste on the internet already. ![]()
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