Sweet Tasting Tour: Mochi & Japanese Sweets at Foodstory

About

If you visit a Japanese traditional confectionery shop, you’ll usually find some tiny ‘gem’ sweets that are tuned to the season. Japanese sweets – called wagashi – are made from a limited palette of ingredients, and are creatively made to express the season of the year.

Our Japanese sweets-making workshop will explore different aspects of Japanese traditional sweets; ingredients, technique – and particularly design – all tuned to the season. Join us at the season of your choice, or join us every season to master the art of Japanese confections.

Every class we make:

• Fruit-filled mochi: my favorite is strawberry with 3333# ##**adzuki-an (sweet red beans) and mango with shiro-an (sweet & smooth white bean paste). A seasonal fruit will be included.
• 2 kinds of season-specific traditional confection 季節の和菓子・Seasonal wagashi, not always sweets but some savory snack such as Mitarashi-dango and Gohei mochi.

Techniques you’ll learn:

How to turn a packaged/canned adzuki-an (called just “an” or anko/sweet adzuki beans) into easy-to-handle anko for making mochi. We make an easy version of sweet white bean paste and introduce the variation of anko How to make mochi by steaming rice flour (Mochiko) How to make a bouncy mochi skin (Gyuhi/求肥) by mixing water, rice flour (Shiratama-ko) and sugar in the pot over the medium heat.

Summer:

1: Karukan(かるかん）: Regional sweet made from rice flour, egg white and sugar. This simple flourless mochi cake is light and can be flavored and accented with citrus juice and rind. We also teach how can me 2: Kuzu-Manjyu : Refreshing clear noodles made from arrowroot flour, served with ginger syrup, matcha syrup or mixed berry syrup. (These syrups are great for shaved ice as well)