Sakura Mizu shingen mochi recipe. This delicate sweet is perfect for spring~plus it is sakura season now in Japan.

I love ohanami~ no matters how many times I go cherry blossoms viewing, I never get tired of it. Its really spectacular when the entire tree is filled with the pink/white flowers.

• 250ml water
• 20g fine sugar
• 8g Japanese agar powder
• 8-10 pickled Sakura flowers*

Tools:

• Pot
• Small whisk
• Jelly mold
• toothpicks/wood skewers

1. Soak the pickled sakura flowers to remove the salt. Pat dry with kitchen paper napkins. Place the flowers in the molds.
2. Add agar powder and sugar in a small pot
3. Pour in the water in 2-3 parts and whisk gently until there are no clumps of sugar or agar powder
4. Bring to boil and simmer for 2-3mins. All this time, gently mixing. Tip: do not whisk too hard at this point as it may introduce too much bubbles into the mixture.
5. Remove from heat and pour into round molds.The heat from the agar mixture will open up the flower petals.
6. Using the toothpicks or wooden skewers, you can gently adjust the position of the flowers to center them or spread open the petals if necessary.
7. Chill for 3 hours.
8. Remove the water mochi from the jelly mold and serve with kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup) and kinako (roast soybean powder). Tip: To remove the water mochi, I use a toothpick, wet it slightly and gently glide it around the sides before gently removing them.
9. Note that these water mochi could melt after some 30-45mins at room temperature, so best to serve them fresh or keep chilled until required. 

I hope you enjoy this pretty Sakura Mizu Shingen Mochi as much as I did!

Have fun in the kitchen!

For pickled sakura flowers, these are the type I used. Usually I get them in Japan.. but these might not be easily available outside of Japan.

Alternatively, you can try to get these sakura tea and use the whole flowers in the tea packets.

The post [Recipe] Sakura Mizu shingen mochi appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

Twin Stars Melody Wagashi

Sanrio celebrates 40th anniversary for the Little Twin Stars and My Melody this year. As a result, there has been so many amazing and pretty pop up stores, special products and merchandise sold specially on the characters this year in Japan.

I hope that I will be able to make it for the next round of Twin Stars pop up store.

Do you know wagashi? Wagashi is Japanese traditional confectionery, usually enjoyed with tea.

There are many different types of wagashi and today this Sanrio theme wagashi is nerikiri. Nerikiri (煉り切り) , literally translated as knead and cut refers a part of the process in preparing the bean paste dough in making the wagashi sweets.

Made from shiro-an (white bean paste) and Gyūhi (blend of shiratamako, sugar and water – cooked into a sticky paste), nerikiri is often shaped into beautiful and intricate designs.

Here is another example of a more traditional Nerikiri wagashi that I made.

Today I decided to make a cute version.

Sanrio once again~ I actually have another idea in mind but I want to wait until later the year in my collaboration with Sanrio to make those ;D So here is the wagashi first!

Little Twin Stars wagashi and My Melody Wagashi for you.

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More info on my bento cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Bento’  here and my 2nd cookbook titled ‘Kawaii Deco Sushi’ out now in stores here!

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Little Twin Stars Steam Cakes!

I am so happy that these cute mushipan (Japanese steam cakes) idea work well~ I didn’t want to make a bento today, but wanted to make something cute and light for breakfast.

It has been some time since I made these deco steam cakes.

I am so glad the Little Twin Stars characters Kiki and Lala turned out looking quite cute and sweet.

The recipe follows my usual steam cake recipes, if you like to see a more detailed illustrated recipe steps, you can refer to my previous Kiiroitori Steam Cake recipe here.

I have included the recipe for this Little Twin Stars Steam Cakes below too.

Recipe for Little Twin Stars Steam Cakes

makes about 6, using 6cm diameter width cupcake holders

(A) Ingredients

• Hotcake mix 150g (I used Morinaga brand hotcake mix *see pic reference below)
• Plain low fat yoghurt 100g (I used marigold plain yogurt with sugar) *If you are using plain yogurt without sugar, please add 50g of sugar instead of 20g stated below.
• sugar 20g
• baking powder 5g
• salad oil 1tbsp
• egg (small) 2
• vanilla essence 3~5 drops

(B) Ingredients for coloured dough and features

PINK

• 1.5 tsp cake flour
• pink icing colour

BLUE

• 1 tsp cake flour
• blue icing colour

BLACK/DARK BROWN

• 0.5 tsp black cocoa powder

YELLOW

• 0.5 tsp cake flour
• yellow icing colour

Method

1. Add all ingredients (A) in a large mixing bowl and mix well.

2. For PINK batter: Scoop 6 tsp of the batter mixture from step 1. Add pink icing color and add 1.5 tsp of cake flour, mix well to color it pink

3. For BLUE batter: Scoop 4 tsp of the batter mixture from step 1. Add blue icing color and add 1 tsp of cake flour, mix well to color it blue.

4. FOR BLACK/DARK BROWN batter: Scoop 2 tsp of dough mixture from step 1 and add 0.5 tsp dark cocoa powder, mix well.

5. FOR YELLOW batter: Scoop 2 tsp of dough mixture from step 1. Add yellow icing color and add 0.5 tsp of cake flour, mix well to color it yellow.

6. Transfer the coloured batter into separate small piping bags.

7. Divide the remaining batter from step 1 into your cupcake cups. It should yield you about 6 nos. Tap the bottom gently a few times to remove the trapped air bubbles.

8. Pipe in the outline, eyes and mouth onto the batter. Then add in the coloured batter – pink, blue, yellow accordingly.

9. Be creative and have fun with your creation, you can even write text etc.

10. Place the steam cakes on a steamer rack and steam at low heat for 12 mins.

Point:

It is good to place each of them in a holder/container (see pic below). This prevents the cup from expanding too much, keeping your design intact. 

Please ensure that the pot is high enough as the cakes will rise when steamed.

In addition, highly recommend to cover the pot lid with a steamer cloth to prevent water from dripping onto the cakes. It will spoil the design and may cause sinking, or the cake to split apart. 
Steam cakes (mushipan) are so fun to make and they make great breakfast or even little presents/sweets to give away or for parties. I also like how the cleaning up is generally quite easy.

I hope you will try this Little Twin Stars Steam Cake recipe!

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Winnie the Pooh Deco Shiratama Pudding sweets~

It has been a while since I made deco shiratama dango.

Shiratama dango is Japanese dumplings, similar to chinese tang yuan except that it is more chewy and more bite as compared to the soft tang yuan.

They are great for desserts and sweets, e.g. eaten with kinako (roasted soy bean powder) and anko (red bean paste), served with ice cream in parfaits, in sweetened soup or syrup, or other types of your favourite sweets.

The recipe uses Shiratamako (Japanese glutinous rice flour) written as 白玉粉 in Kanji. They are available at Japanese supermarkets such as Isetan and Meidi-Ya. I have occasionally spotted them at Daiso too.

Recipe for Winnie the Pooh deco shiratama dango

• Shiratamako (Japanese glutinous rice flour) approx65g
• Silken tofu 70g~80g
• Gel food colours (yellow, lemon yellow, red, moss green)
• Americolor Food Gourmet Pen (black)

* If the Shiratamako  is not available at your country, you can try using normal glutinous rice flour.

* I used Wilton edible gel colors in this recipe, you can substitute with other types of natural food coloring. Note that if you are using liquid food coloring, the dough should not be too wet as the food coloring will be added ‘moisture’.

*Tip: the colours will usually deepen slightly after the shiratama dango are cooked, so do take note when colouring the dough. 

*Tip: The tofu in this recipe provides the ‘moisture’ content for the deco tang yuan, so you should adjust the amount accordingly. So usually I do not add in all the tofu at one time, I will add about the same amount as the flour then slowly adjust the amount and add in more until my dough reaches the desired texture.

Method

1. In a mixing bowl, add in shiratamako and equal amount of tofu (65g). Knead and mix well, it will resemble wet crumbs.
2. Then slowly add in more tofu and knead until the dough comes together and you have a soft dough that does not break or crack when shaped. The texture/feel is like ear lobe :P
3. Divide the dough into about 1:1:3 parts. To the largest (3) dough, colour it yellow by adding some yellow gel colours and kneading the dough.
4. To one small part (1) of the dough, colour it red by adding some red gel colours and kneading the dough.
5. To the last small part (1) of the dough, further divide into 1:2 parts. To the larger part, colour it green by adding some green gel colours and keading the dough. The last smallest part of the dough to be coloured light lemon yellow  by adding yellow gel colours and kneading.
6. Shape the coloured doughs into the Winnie the Pooh characters in different poses on small pieces of non stick baking paper.
7. Draw on the features using Americolor Gourmet Pen (black), if not you can also use a thin brush to ‘paint’ on some food colour.
8. Bring a pot of water to boil. Slower ease the Winnie the Pooh deco shiratama dango into the boiling water with paper intact.
9. The paper will float or detach itself from the Winnie the Pooh deco shiratama dango  as it cooks. Remove from water.
10. Cook the Winnie the Pooh deco shiratama dango until they float up while boiling. This indicate that they are cooked.
11. Remove and immediately place in ice water. Serve with sweets.

I made Earl Grey Tea Pudding to go with my Winnie the Pooh Deco Shiratama dango!

The pudding is soft and creamy which I really like :)  yummy!

I hope you like this fun recipe blog post!

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Baked some doggy donuts today!

Woof~woof~~

haha some of the doggy donuts are a little burnt :P Looks like the doggy had a tan!

I do want to make character glazed donuts sometime soon but today lets eat a more healthy and less sweet option :)

They earned thumbs up from my colleagues and many have also asked me for the recipe :) looks like this is a keeper!

I just need to practice baking the donuts so that I can more cuter designs!

I found them a  little sweet for me so I have already reduced the sugar in the recipe below.

Also the pink cheeks were not so obvious after baked, might have to make the pink dough darker in colour.

I should have a game – find the Doggy Donut charm! haha yes, you might have noticed that tiny cute charm in the earlier photos and definitely in the photo above.

As part of a creative collaboration between me and my IG friend @oborochann, I made these doggy donuts inspired by her cute charm piece.

Want to bake some of these cute donuts? Here it is :)

Oh yes, some of you might wish to cake the donut mold I used. Mine is KAI Cake Mate Silicon Donut Mold, you can now buy direct from Japan via Global Rakuten. I found a store link with the product here.

Recipe for Baked Doggy Donuts

(Makes 12 mini donuts)

Ingredients

• 200g Morinaga hotcake mix
• 100g milk
• 200ml whipping cream
• 1 egg (med size)
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp melted butter (unsalted)
• 2 tbsp sugar

For the designs, prepare the following in 3 separate small bowls:

• (A) 1 tsp milo powder + 1tsp cake flour
• (B) 1 tsp black cocoa powder

*if you do not have the Japanese black cocoa powder, you can use valrhona dark cocoa powder

• (C) 1 tsp cake flour + pink coloring

*I use pink icing colour in the recipe

Method

1. In a large bowl, add in the hotcake mix, milk, whipping cream, egg, maple syrup, melted butter and sugar. Mix well.
2. Scoop out 4 tsp of batter into (A), 2 tsp of batter into (B) and 2 tsp of batter into (C). Mix well.
3. Transfer the batter from step 2 into small piping bags. I used baking paper to roll up my own mini piping bags. I find the ones made from baking paper easier to control the batter when I draw out the designs.
4. If there are leftover melted butter, you can use it to lightly oil the donut mold. If not you can use a little salad oil or vegetable oil with kitchen paper napkin to do the same.
5. Draw out the designs on the mold. (A) is used for the doggy’s ears, (B) is used for the eyes and nose and (C) is used for the cheeks.
6. Bake at 180C for 1 min.
7. Remove mold from oven, pour in the batter until about 90% full. Bake at 180C for 14-15mins.
8. Wait till cool before removing donuts from the mold, if not the design might crack.
9. Repeat steps 1-7 to bake the second batch. 
   

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Sakura kanten jelly dessert!

The one thing that excites me at the start of the year is spring~ I love all the beautiful things associated with spring. Especially sakura flowers.

I was also inspired by a talented friend and artist of mine – @Lovelimzy.  She creates the most beautiful flora mixed media art pieces.

Recently we met up for dinner and she passed me her lovely calendar set that features prints of her creations. I was so thrilled and happy! Decided to make something flora to match the theme~

Check out a glimpse of her calendar, totally heart it~~ check out her FB page here.

Although sakura season is not here yet, I decided to make this super pretty sakura flowers kanten jelly dessert!

What is kanten? It is Japanese agar dessert.

In recipes, you can swap kanten powder with our local agar powder but the texture will be different.

Personally I find that Japanese kanten jelly has a slightly softer and tad chewier texture which I prefer. And if you are making Japanese Tokoroten, you will have to use kanten powder to get that right texture (read this article on Japan Times).

Lucky for us, we can get kanten powder here in Singapore. They are sold at Meidiya-Supermarket located at the basement of Liang Court. Check the section where they sell sweets ingredients like bean paste, syrup and flours.

You may need to look out for the Japanese description to locate the product – Kanten powder/flour is written in Japanese Kanji as 寒天粉 or it may also be written in Japanese Hiragana as かんてん粉.

For the sakura flowers, I used the preserved sakura flowers that I bought from Japan which is not available here.

In Singapore, the alternative option will be to get ‘Sweet Sakura Tea’.

Open the tea packs and select the whole sakura flowers you would like to use, you will need at least 2 packets of the sakura tea for this recipe. I would recomend to rinse the flowers first before using if not it may be too salty. I usually soak the flowers in some water then drain and pat dry before use –  see recipe details.

So many people have been asking me about this jelly cake mold. I bought this jelly mold super long time ago from Rakuten Japan.

If you are keen, I managed to find the following online retailers that carry the product

1. Bento & co, website link.

2. Little Bento World in Autralia, see here.

3. Rakuten global shopping site, see link here.

This mold is actually very versatile, it can be used to make sushi cake, cake and jelly etc.

A super easy Japanese Kanten Jelly recipe for you~

Recipe for Sakura Kanten Dessert

Ingredients

(milk layer)

• kanten powder 2g
• milk 100ml (if you dont like milk, you can even change this to a juice you like * a pink colour juice will be nice~ to match the sakura flowers)
• water 200ml
• sugar 30g

1. Add all the ingredients in a pot, bring to low boil slowly. Keep stirring gently as the mixture heats up. When all powder and sugar are dissolved and incorporated, remove pot from heat. Pour into your jelly mold till the halfway mark and let it rest (at room temp) for about 30mins until harden.

(top clear layer)

• kanten powder 2g
• water 300ml
• sugar 30g
• sakura essence 3-5 drops (optional)
• sakura flowers 8 pcs

1. Soak the sakura flowers in a bowl of water to get rid of the salt. Drain and pat dry the flowers gently with paper napkins and arrange the sakura flowers around the jelly mold.
2. Add all rest of the ingredients into a pot, bring to low boil slowly. Keep stiring gently as the mixture heats up. When all the powder and sugar are dissolved and incorporated, remove pot from heat. Pour gently into your jelly mold to fill it up.
3. Using a thin skewer, adjust the positions of the flowers as you need.
4. Let the jelly rest at room temp for about 30mins until it firms up. Chill in fridge.
5. Dessert recommended served chilled.

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I made Doraemon Deco Steam Cakes (or Deco Mushipan). It has been a while since I made such deco and character design steamed cakes.

Recently Daniel Food Diary was really kind to purchase 5 of my Kawaii Bento Cookbook for giveaway (now closed) on his Facebook. And in his question posted to the participants, he asked the readers to share what bento they would like me to make. Several mentioned Doraemon.

While this not a Doraemon Bento, I hope those who like Doraemon characters will like this creation!

Plus I also included the recipe in this post and step by step photos to make these Doraemon deco steam cakes :)

I decided to make these deco steam cakes this morning partly because I have yogurt left in the fridge and I needed something for breakfast.

And somehow, the Doraemon character came to my mind. Plus it is round in shape, which makes it easier to create the character design on the steam cakes.

If you do however wish to see Doraemon Bento, here is one!

I promise I will make more Doraemon Bentos soon!

Japanese steam yogurt cakes (mushi pan)

**Doraemon Deco Steam Cakes Recipe**

Ingredients

• Morinaga hotcake mix 1pkt (150g) (some of my readers have used other ready pancake mixes too but I usually stick to morinaga cause I like the taste)
• sugar 20g
• eggs (small) 2
• yogurt (I used marigold plain yogurt with sugar) 100g
• baking powder 5g
• salad oil 1tbsp (if you do not have salad oil, you can use usual cooking vegetable oil, you can also omit the oil entirely if you prefer a healthy recipe)
• vanilla essence 3-5drops (optional)
• blue icing coloring (for Doraemon’s head)
• red icing coloring (for Doraemon’s nose)
• dark cocoa powder (for outlines) 0.5tsp
• plain flour 2tsp

Method

1. In a large mixing bowl, add in the eggs, sugar, yogurt, baking powder, vanilla essence, salad oil and hotcake mix and mix well.

2. In three smaller bowls, add in (A) 0.5tsp dark cocoa powder (B) 0.5 tsp plain flour (C) 1.5 tsp plain flour, respectively

3. From step 1, scoop out the following batter into the the small bowls (A) add in 2 tsp batter (B) add in 2 tsp batter + some red icing colouring (C) add in 6 tsp batter. Mix well. These are for piping the designs and outlines.

4. To the remaining batter in the large mixing bowl, add in some blue icing colour to create the blue colour batter.

5. Fill small muffin cups (about 6cm in diameter) with the blue batter up to about 75%/80% full. It should yield you at least 5 cups. 

6. Transfer the various batter into small piping bags.

7. Start create the white base for Doraemon’s head. Followed by the outlines and nose.

8. Be creative! You can create different expressions~

9. Place a steamer rack in a large pot with water, bring to boil. Then steam the cakes for about 12mins under low heat.

10. Important notes:

- The pot should be big enough to ensure space for the rising of the steam cake

- Please use a steamer cloth to wrap the pot lid, this is to prevent water from dripping onto the cake and spoiling the designs or causing sinkage

- Please use low heat when steaming the cakes, too high heat might cause the cakes to split and destroy the designs

- As my muffin cups are very thin, I used double layer when I steam them so that it will not expand too much and the design will stay. 

I hope you enjoy this fun Doraemon Deco Steam Cake recipe!

Its great for breakfast, picnics and parties too! As yogurt is used in these steam cakes, please try to consume the cakes within the next day of making them.

Not a fan of Doraemon?

Why not check out my other deco steam cake recipes

- Totoro Steam Cakes

- My Melody Steam Cakes

- Kiiroitori Steam Cakes

- Brown Bear Steam Cakes

- Minion Steam Cakes

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More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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I felt like having something sweet today, so I decided to make a nice set of tea and sweets – I call this my Sheep Wagashi set :)

Why Sheep? haha I am still in the mood of new year and wanted to continue making sheep characters since this is the year of sheep.

This Sheep Wagashi set comprised of matcha warabi-mochi, sheep shiratama sweets (dumplings), zenzai (Japanese red bean soup) and a cup of hot matcha. 

Which sheep deco shiratama dumpling do you like better, the front-view or the side-view?

Personally I think I liked the side-view better, plus it looks cuter mini size.

Shiratamako is Japanese glutinous rice flour, it can be used to make boiled rice dumpling.

Similar to your Chinese tang yuan except that tofu is used for the dough instead of water, making it easy to shape the dough into different designs without it drying up too quickly.

Want to make this?

You might have read my Rilakkuma Deco Shiratama Sweets Recipe before, the recipe methodology is the same. But I have taken some step by step photos of today’s recipe for you too.

Recipe for Sheep Deco Shiratama Sweets

Ingredients

• 40g Shiratamako (Japanese glutinous rice flour)
• 45g~50g silken tofu
• icing colours (black, brown, pink)

Method

1. Add 40g of silken togu to 40g of shiratamako in a bowl and knead.
2. Slowly add in more tofu and knead until the dough comes clean from the sides and is soft and malleable. There should not be visible cracks when you roll them or knead them into balls. The dough should feelsoft like your ear lobe :P
3. Divide the dough roughly into 3:2:1:1 parts. Colour each part into the desired colours by adding icing colours to your dough. Over here I coloured the dough pink: white (no colours): brown : black
4. Knead and shape the parts accordingly on a sheet of baking paper. For the nose of the sheep, I draw them on with a thin brush.
5. Trim and cut the baking paper for the different dumplings made. Cook them in a pot of boiling water until the dumplings float up.
6. While you are blowing, the baking paper will likely slowly slip away from the dumplings, just use a pair of chopsticks to remove them when that happens.
7. After the dumplings are cooked, scoop them out and place them in some cool water.
8. Serve with sweetened soup like zenzai or in anmitsu sweets.

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Homemade Yogurt Mousse Fruit Tart!

I made my ‘signature’ fruit tart again ^ ^

My colleagues really liked my Mixed Melon Yogurt Fruit Tart that I baked before and so I decided to bake them another fruit tart for our year end gathering.

This time I topped the fruit tart generously with grapes, strawberries and longans.

I really love the yogurt mousse filling recipe for my fruit tart. It is so yummy and gives a certain lightness to the fruit tart. The yogurt also goes well with fruits.

Strawberries, grapes and longans were chosen as they are not too sour, and will add certain ‘crunch’ and texture with the yogurt mousse fruit tart. Their colours also reminded me of the festive and christmas, don’t you think?

This is also the perfect season to use strawberries in desserts. Lots of sweet Korean strawberries for sale at supermarkets.

To give the fruit tart the shine, I used some Napaju Crystal spread which I bought from Rakuten Japan. It is used in cakes and tarts to give a lovely shine to the fruits.

If you do not have the spread, you can use apricot jam spread that Phoon Huat sells for cakes too, or make your own jam spreads.

Please do bake this yummy fruit tart. Here are the recipes, if you need to take a look at the step by step pictures, please follow the links.

RECIPE for Tart Crust (makes 1 fruit tart, about 18-20cm)

• 110g plain flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 30g almond powder
• 60g unsalted butter
• 50g powdered sugar
• 1g salt

Method

1. Mix the ingredients in a large bowl (you can use a mixer with dough hook or by wooden spatula).
2. At first, they will resemble crumbs, just knead them a little and they will come together.
3. Wrap in cling wrap and store the dough in the fridge for at least 30mins/
4. Butter your tart tray, set aside.
5. Roll out the dough into a large flat round dough, flip it onto your tart in or roll it over your tart tin. Don’t worry if it breaks or there are gaps, just use the leftover crumbs, press and fill it in.
6. Use your fork and make little holes at the bottom of the tart base, this is to prevent it from rising.
7. Preheat your oven to 170C (while waiting, cover the the tart tray with cling wrap and set in the chiller before baking)
8.  Place a sheet of baking paper on the tart crust and fill in with pie weights. Bake your tart crust at 170 C for about 15-18mins and remove the baking paper and pie weifhts. Continue to bake for another 17~20mins until nicely browned.
9. After baking, set aside to cool. Remove from tart crust from the tray.

Step by step pictures are here.

Recipe for Yogurt Mousse Filling for Fruit Tart  (makes 1 fruit tart, about 18-20cm)

• whipping cream 150ml
• plain yogurt 150g
• sugar 15g (for cream)
• sugar 40g (for yogurt with sugar / increase to 55g for yogurt with no sugar)
• gelatin powder 10g
• water 50ml

Method

1. In a bowl, add whipping cream and 15g sugar. Beat with mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form. Set in chiller.
2. In another bowl, add in the plain yogurt and sugar, mix well
3. In a heat resistant cup or bowl, add in the gelatin powder and water. Heat in the microwave at 500W for 15 sec until gelatin dissolves.
4. Fold in the whipped cream into the yogurt mixture and add in the gelatin, fold until evenly mixed (it does not take very long).
5. Set in the chiller for about 1 hour, after which, it would have a mousse like curdish texture
6. Fill your baked tart crust with the yogurt mousse filing. The tart crust should be fully cooled before you fill in the yogurt mousse.
7. Set the filled tart in chiller for at least 30mins before adding any fruits on top. You can also leave it overnight and add the fruit toppings the next day.

Step by step pictures are here.

Follow my food art and bento creations on my Facebook my page here or my Instagram here.

More information about my bento cookbook title ‘Kawaii Bento’  here. 

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The post Yogurt Mousse Fruit Tart appeared first on Little Miss Bento.

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 Melon Pan recipe

- Totoro Matcha Cream Puff recipe

- Totoro Steam Cake 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.

Have a good week!

キャラ弁ランキング – ブログのランキングに参加中。よろしければクリックしてくださいね♪　ありがとう

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The post Recipe for Totoro Pudding appeared first on Little Miss Bento.