Table of Contents

Recipes

📝 My private notes from the 京都 course.

By Family

My families don't align perfectly with how to chose 7 sweets for 真之行 (see presentation) nor with 仲實:

蒸し物 (steamed)

Recipes

焼き物 (baked)

Like 桃山, something wrapped in 焼き皮 or, of course どら焼き

Recipes

伸し物 (stretched)

Like 求肥-based (花弁餅, for example) or regular もち.

Recipes

練り物 (kneaded)

Using こなし or 練り切り dough, including

Recipes

打ち物 (pressed)

Like 落雁(らくがん) or just normal pressed sugar

Recipes

流し物 (jellied)

Like 羊羹(ようかん) et al. They have their own little page.

Recipes

Which technically is hard sugar, but I'm using this category for non-pressed sugar-based sweets like 琥珀糖 or 雲平

Recipes

Evergreens

sakurakawa.jpeg かるかん, a 蒸し物 using yams.

ukijima.jpeg 浮島, a 蒸し物. Sometimes it includes some candied black beans.

momoyama.jpeg 桃山, a baked 黄身餡 sweet that can be shaped into beans, bells and chrysanthemums.

oshimono.jpeg 打ち物 are just pressed sugar sweets used in all shapes and flavours.

Simple to make, こなし-based alrounder. The colours change according to the season.

Steamed buns with yams (薯蕷饅頭(じょうよまんじゅう) which can be adapted in many ways.

So rustic I don't think the 「お萩」(or ぼたもち) is great for tea, but an important 和菓子 still.

…and, of course, the all-important 練り切り!

Summer-leaning, but manifold: 流しもの

's less cumbersome brother: The 団子!

The dried 錦玉 that is 琥珀糖

Winter

求肥-wrapped, baby boar-shaped, cinnamon-flavoured, fire-warding sweet for 炉開き

A plain 薯蕷饅頭 that's coloured and brandied, making it a 織部饅頭.

∃ two kinds of 柚べし: 味噌 in a cured citron, or a 求肥 with walnuts and 醤油.

zenzaice.jpeg ぜんざい, a sweet soup with red beans and 餅. It's often served for 炉開き.

kogarash.jpg 木枯らし, a cinnamon-flavoured 金団.

花弁餅, the traditional 裏千家 New Year's sweet wrapping in 求肥 candied burdock and 味噌餡.

fukujusou.jpeg 福寿草 , a 茶巾絞り

akebono.jpeg , a しぐれ sweet akin to a 桃山, but with baking powder so that the skin breaks.

No photos yet, but also:

  • 蕎麦板, a buckwheat biscuit that I really like!
  • 粉雪, normally a 道明寺粉-based sweet that you can also make with baby food!

Spring

hatsuharu.jpeg My 発音, which is a 軽感(かるかん)

雪間の声」, my creation using うぐいす餡 (hence the name) in a 金団-style sweet.

未開紅」, a こなし-based plum-shape

うぐいす餅, a plain good ol' もち tossed in green soybean flour.

千代結び, an 雲平 dough shaped into a knot to last for a thousand generations! 🙀

The 茶巾絞り 「水鳥」, for which I like to use 黄身餡 as 中餡.

The messy, but tasty affair that is the poppy seed 餅

The iconic 花見団子, where the use of 蓬 actually makes sense.

The literal いちご大福餅.

Not originally my idea, but because I only had the 千鳥 cookie cutter, we ended up with the 「雀の分」.

My creation「吉野窓」, which represents the excitement of viewing the cherry blossoms!

The starch-based canvas for black syrup that is the わらび餅

桜もち, which lives from the salty-sweet contrast.

fujinami.jpeg 藤浪, which is 黄身餡 wrapped in slightly coloured 外郎.

Summer

The ちまき that wraps some 求肥-variation in bamboo leaves

柏もち, the oak leaf-wrapped 団子-dough variation.

水無月, an 外郎-based sweet

Carnations made of 金団 for Mother's day.

Irises as 茶巾絞り

蓮根羹, a lotus root flavoured 羊羹.

笹巻, a 葛-based jelly in a bamboo leaf.

若鮎, an 求肥-filled どら焼き

水牡丹, in a way a 茶巾絞り, but made with 葛.

The surprisingly refreshing 葛焼き

The creatively named 葛饅頭

Autumn

yamazuto_19_nov_2023.jpg やまずと, a sort of 茶巾絞り made with こなし dough.

fukiyose.jpeg 吹寄せ, autumn leaves and whatnot from 雲平 dough, with some pressed sugar

洋菓子

Barfi, an Indian milk-based sweet.

Truffles, which I like flavour with olive oil.

Calisson d'Aix, a Provence sweet with a candied fruit dough

Torrone di Beneveto, which I like for February, but really is a 干菓子 that works always.

mitterand.jpeg Soufflé Mitterand, an absinthe-flavoured ice cream

Baklava, which you can fill with buffalo milk and make look a bit like a ひしもち!

Madeleine, a small butter-cake in the shape of a shell that can be chocolate coated.

The wonderfully fluffy soft shell that is the macaron.

Cedric Grolet's lemon-shaped dessert, a fluffy ganache in a fruit-shaped shell

Schaumkuss, an Italian meringue on a wafer covered in chocolate

Meringue, which I'm flavouring with absinthe for more 🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭

鳳梨酥, a Taiwanese pineapple jam in shortbread

marron.jpeg Marrons glacés, which thanks to the glaze make for excellent 干菓子!

راحة الحلقوم, which is interesting in it's similarities to 葛!

Candied violets (or flowers in general).

Recipes

千's 主菓子

Umegoromo (plum robe) sweets. In Japan, although trees may still be laden with snow, plum blossoms appear in February, holding the promise of spring. These sweets, decorated with a plum-blossom design, are made of rice dough with a filling of strained red-bean paste.

Hitchigiri sweets. Dainty shreds of colored bean paste are placed on patties of dough made of rice mixed with mugwort. They resemble the shells used in a game played by young girls on March 3, the Doll Festival.

Hanakurenai (pink flower) sweets. These suggest spring, with the green of willows and the pink of cherry blossoms. They are made of delicately tinted white-bean paste.

Karagoromo (Chinese robe) sweets. May is the month of irises in Japan. For these sweets, white-bean paste has been wrapped in rice dough that has been partly tinted a faint purple.

Mizumo no hana sweets. Green-tinted bean paste wrapped in arrowroot dough and folded into a three-sided pyramid.

Mizubotan sweets. Pink-tinted bean paste wrapped in arrowroot dough mirrors the beauty of the botan (tree peony).

Takenagashi sweets. Served chilled, these sweets of gelatin, sugar, and red-bean paste mixed and packed into green bamboo offer a cooling respite from the heat of the summer.

こはぎ 餅 (bush clover, one of the seven autumn grasses)

Minori no aki (autumn harvest) sweets. These sweets, made of mashed sweet potato topped with pieces of boiled chestnut, are dyed and shaped to evoke the autumn foliage of a mountain.

Konoma no nishiki (autumn brocade) sweets. The last leaves of autumn form a brilliant brocade on the mountains. For these sweets, white-bean paste is wrapped in rice dough and sprinkled with ground poppy seeds, calling to mind the frost on the late-autumn trees.

Kazabana (snowflake) sweets. Gently falling snowflakes resemble flower petals being scattered by the wind. A steamed sweet filled with red-bean paste and stamped with the design of a snowflake.

花弁餅

千's 干菓子

Otafuku sweets. Ground soybeans and sugar are mixed and pressed into a mold to produce this image of a happy but plain-looking woman with enormous cheeks. She is traditionally called Otafuku. Neji-ribo sweets. Sugar cakes are tinted and twisted to represent the pull ropes on bells at Shinto shrines. February is the first month of the lunar new year, so congratulatory colors and symbols are once again used.

Kocho (butterfly) sweets. The first butterfly, heralding spring. These are sugar cakes pressed into a mold. Sawarabi (bracken sprout) sweets. Sugar cakes cut and shaped like the bracken sprouts that appear in early spring.

Kompeito (star) sweets. April is a time of cherry-blossom-viewing picnics, and these tiny sugar cakes are often used when serving tea outdoors with special utensils. These were originally brought to Japan by the Portuguese.

Kutsuwa (horse bit) sweets. These sugar cakes are shaped like the old-style bits used for horses in Japan. Tazuna (bridle) cakes. Sugar cakes dyed and twisted to resemble the old-time bridle for a horse.

Taki senbei (waterfall crackers). Sugar cakes pressed to look like waterfall fowing down. Aokaede (maple bud) sweets. Sugar cakes in the form of new maple leaves in the spring.

The image of this summer insect is pressed into the top of these sugar cakes. Uzu (water-eddy) sweets. Sugar cakes twisted to look like cooling eddies of water.

Omodaka (water plan-tain) sweets. Cakes of raw sugar are shaped to resemble the water plantain that blooms in sum-mer. Kanzemizu sweets. Raw sugar pressed into the form of water ripples.

Raw sugar shaped like taro, and like the leaf of it.

Naruko (bird clapper) sweets. These baked rice crackers are shaped like the boards used for clappers that scare off birds from eating the rice that is ready for harvest; the images of three pieces of bamboo, which act as the clappers, are branded on the surface. Suzume (sparrow) sweets. Hard-sugar cakes in the abstract form of sparrows darting around an autumn field.

Icho (gingko leaf) sweets. Sugar cakes colored and pressed to resemble the golden glory of the gingko leaf in autumn. Shimeji (mushroom) sweets. Sugar cakes colored and shaped like mushrooms.

Yukiwa (snowflake) sweets. Sugar cakes pressed into the form of snowflakes. Sasamusubi (bamboo-grass knot) sweets. Along mountain paths in the winter, bamboo grass can be seen beneath the snow. These sugar cakes are shaped and colored to resemble leaves of bamboo grass tied in knots.

若松 (young pine) sweets. Young pine trees symbolize the hopes for the new year. For these sweets, the impression of a pine branch is stamped on soft rice crackers, which are then stacked, with miso placed between each layer. No-shimusubi (gift knot) sweets. At New Year's, gifts of money are often wrapped in strips of paper. These sweets, similar to ribbon candy served in the West, are made of strips of sugar cake that have been dyed red and white, the traditional congratulatory colours in Japan, and tied in knots before they harden.

Background

お菓子屋

➡️ I've moved famous sweets and sweets stores to their own page.

Presentation

➡️ Rules governing the arrangement during tea also found their own page.

腰掛け

  • You can serve difficult to eat sweets such as a 竹流し in the 腰掛け, or when you want the guests to enjoy the atmosphere.
  • In that case, add the 黒文字 on the far side of the tray akin to the 利休箸. The guests take them into their 懐紙.
  • You can use lidded containers or a 菓子鉢, but maybe the 縁高 is a bit odd here.
  • The host brings out the sweets to the guests once they are sitting.
  • If there's some refuse (like bamboo leaves), you could instruct the guests to leave it in the container.
  • The guests leave the container to the 下座 of the 煙草盆 stacked upon the 円座.

Dialogue

  • When bringing your own sweets, and they are used in the 点前, the dialogue changes a bit: The host can either prevent the silliness of having to ask about the sweets by saying 'thanks for bringing those sweets' before the conversation moves to asking about the tea; or the guest can say 'thank you for using my sweets' after having inquired about the tea (UH19).
  • For me, it's: 「前席(ぜんせき)では、かずかずのお菓子をどうもありがとうございました」. If it get's more complicated, I stumble over my words.
  • If asked about the ごせい and you've made the sweets, it's okay to say 「手作り」or 「自作(じさく)」.

Resources

  • There are 4 main books that I use:
    • 仲實's 和菓子. Probably the Bocuse of Japanese sweets. More professional-oriented, but excellent recipes. Build around families.
    • 金塚's 私の和菓子帳. Build around seasons. Recipes are sometimes a bit iffy, but a great calendar. Not too tea focussed.
    • 清真's 本格和菓子. She's a 学校園 teacher, so her recipes are very tea-focused. Somewhat childish, probably simplified a bit.
    • The 淡交テキスト series (TT): Great recipes, very seasonal, very tea related.
  • In my drive, I have also an excellent mini-book by UH!

Org

  • To keep this page tidy, I'm using the folded, pageImage and tag plugins.
  • For pageImage, I had to fix a bug so that it finds the first image of a page.
  • Every actual recipe now gets the {{tag>...}}-snippet somewhere on its page, which should at least contain:
    • Family (from mushimono yakimono noshimono nerimono uchimono nagashimono ame)
    • Season (from winter spring summer fall evergreen)
  • Because topic uses the title on the page, each sweet needs to say it's name on the page again.
  • To fold such a list in, use:
++++ Title|
{{topic>tag&table&header&nofirsthl&nouser&image}}