Here are some super cute Totoro Hojicha Puddings that I made this morning.
Hojicha is roasted Japanese green tea. The roasting of the tea leaves gives it a lovely caramel like fragance and great in sweets making. I bought this Hojicha Pudding Pack, they are so yummy. The pudding is creamy and smooth and the flavours really popped.
The pudding packs are available at Kuriya Japanese Market (they have several outlets, see website). I have also spotted them occassionally at Meidi-Ya Supermarket. They come in both Hojicha and Matcha (green tea), both are really good.
Of course to create the Totoro characters, I would also have to make the white layer and the features. Continue reading below as I have included the recipe for this homemade Totoro Pudding!
As many of you might noticed, I have been awfully quiet over the past week or so. Truth is that I went for wisdom tooh extraction last Thursday morning and the recovery has since been slow. My swelling and pain ranged between severe and mid range, the dentist saw me again and I was then sent home with more stronger meds as well as extended medical leave.
During this time, solid foods are not possible for me, so bento is definitely out too.
However I missed making cute food so much that I decided to make myself something cute and soft that I can eat – the answer? Pudding!!
Recipe for Totoro Pudding
Ingredients
(A) Hojicha Pudding
- Hojicha Pudding Pack x1
- 250g hot water (above 90C)
(B) Milk Kanten Layer
- kantan powder 2g
- milk 100ml
- water 200ml
- sugar 3tbsp
(C) Dark choc flavoured writing icing pen
Method
1. In a pot, pour in about 280g of water and bring to boil.
2. In a bowl, open and add in the hojicha pudding pack. Using a weighing scale, pour in the hot water from step 1, measuring 250g of the hot water.
3. Using a small whisk or spatula, mix until smooth and no lumps of the powder remain. If there are too many bubbles or lumps, you should sieve the mixture.
4. Pour into your pudding bowls, remember to leave some to pour into a small metal tray to form a thin layer. This is for you to ‘cut’ the Totoro ears later.
5. Set in the chiller overnight.
6. To make the white parts of Totoro, I made milk kanten jelly.
7. In a bowl, bring 200ml of water to boil. Turn off the heat. Pour in 2g of kanten powder. Turn heat back up, this time medium low heat and keep mixing as the water heats up again until the powder is incorporated. Keep it on the heat for about 1 min (during this time, the mixture should not come to full boil).
8. Add in sugar, to the pot and mix well. Then add in the milk and mix well. Remove pot from heat.
9. Pour into your trays or molds. I made two trays just in case I needed extras. For the remaining mixture, you can pour into containers/pudding jars and enjoy the milk kanten on its own. You can also add fruits for those extra servings.
10. Set in the chiller overnight.
(the next day, or at least about 3 hours of letting the pudding and kanten set)
11. Using cutters, cut the ears of Totoro (hojicha pudding), the white of the eyes and belly of Totoro (milk kanten). The pudding is very soft, so use a small soft silicon scraper to help with the lifting up of the parts.
12. To draw on the features, I used the dark chocolate flavoured icing pen. You can also use chocolate pen, or nutella etc as alternatives.
13. The pudding is best enjoyed chilled! :)
I hope you enjoy this Totoro Hojicha Pudding recipe post.
If you like this recipe, remember to check out these too:
- Totoro Matcha Cream Puff recipe
- Totoro Seaweed Cutting Bento Tutorial
I will be heading to Japan on Wednesday night and will not be able to make bento very much there. I do have some postings coming up, stay tuned and thanks always for visiting my blog.
October 29, 2014
Admire you that you still able to made such cute Totoro Pudding!!! Love it so much & thanks for sharing ^_^ Hope you speedy recovery!