Mandarin mikan daifuku mochi

丸ごとみかん大福 marugoto mikan daifuku is a currently popular daifuku mochi tea sweet. It’s a cousin of the now classic ichigo daifuku.

Most *bakers* wrap the mikans with shiroan white bean paste, but I really like the anko red bean paste and mikan orange pairing.
For the recipes to make the mochi and paste refer to this post (click).

Mikan, Japanese mandarin orange. The early ones have a green skin. Now, they are becoming really sweet.

Azuki beans to prepare tsubuan sweet bean paste.

With kurozato black sugar.

Serve fresh. Then cut :

Bear beer pancakes, with 3 Autumn fruits

A breakfast that feels the season. Grapes, apples and kabosu lime. This citrus from Kyushu has the size of a ping-pong ball and a woody fragrance. It is often served with fish or to make a ponzu sauce (citrus and soy).
You can see many types of citrus, lemons, lime, oranges on this blog. Japan has a huge variety and they are all different in flavor. That’s really great.

I was given beer. It’s alcohol free beer that the police gives away as part of a campaign against… drunk walking. I mean they give that to people passing on foot in the street. I’m not a fan of beer, but I can tell that this one is not really good, very bitter. But it’s OK to cook. It gives a nice barley flavor to pancakes and lightens them.

The batter made in the blender : beer of course, flour and whole wheat flour (half/half), a little coconut cream. I was out of regular sugar, so after pouring the batter in the pan I’ve sprinkled a little :

zarame sugar.

The skin of these grapes is said to be not very good for health. I’ve peeled them.

Sliced the apple. Tossed in juice of kabosu and garnished with cut peel of the citrus. Unlike the grapes and apples, the kabosu is not sweet and brings a pleasant balance of sourness.

Made the eyes and nose of the bears with coconut cream and kabosu peel.

La France sur tartelette (pear chocolate no bake pie)

A fresh plant based dessert to showcase the first ラ・フランス (“la France”), that’s how they call these locally cultivated 洋なし yonashi (Western pears).

I made the crust in the blender : half oatmeal, half sesame seeds, enough prune to make a binder. No cooking, let dry in the fridge or shortly in the freezer.

The cream : sesame seeds, cocoa, sweetener, vanilla extract and silky tofu.

Toppings : raw pear slices and a chip of 100% cocoa mass.

Two shades of ‘ume’. Plums from the rains.

The rainy season we have now in Japan (mid-June ~ mid-July in Kansai) is married with the plums. It’s called the “plum rains”. So these ume are the “rain plums”.
You make think they are not ripe on this photo. It’s true they are very sour and hard. But that’s at this stage of maturation that they are picked and used to make umeboshi (pickled plum).

When they reach this color they are too mature for the salted pickle. When they become soft…they are not sweet, still as sour and less fragrant. Well, mines are yellow and still hard.

Good to make jam !

With kurozato black sugar.

I’ve just put the whole plums, blocks of sugar and water in the home-bakery. Lazy… but I was punished : that splashed and then cleaning the machine was a hell !