ホモテナシ

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

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.