Thursday, June 21, 2007

Sweets

Let's see... Not too much to talk about today. Leiya and I are going to be blimps by the time the summer is over because we keep EATING! So many good excuses to have treats and desserts.

On Tuesday, one friend brought over some Japanese sweets so we enjoyed those that day, and yesterday, another couple of friends gave us a box of Europeon style sweets. Both were delicious and it's hard to decide which type I like best! (So eat them all, right?)

The sweets from the Europeon style bakery were lovely to look at and lucious to eat. Not so big size-wise, but very delicate and attractive. Cheese-cake, rich pudding, berry gelatin, fruit mousse etc. Leiya claimed the pudding (in a cute little ceramic milk container) and I jumped on the cheesecake.

As for the Japanese sweets. As I've mentioned before, almost all of the traditional sweets are made of bean paste, either white beans or red beans. These were gorgeous to look at in a different way from the Europeon sweets. From the top left, the pink one is made of white bean paste and has cubes of gelatin on it (made from seaweed) and is fashioned into the shape of a hydranga. The light blue one is also of the seaweed gelatin and bean paste and it had small figures of fish (probably bean paste too!) strategically placed depicting fish swimming in a stream. The dark one was a couple of types of bean paste with real beans on it. The three on the bottom had various colors of bean paste but they had been hand molded to represent a common yellow flower (sorry, don't know the name) an iris and a rose.

Anyway, we are pigging out in the Watanabe house!

6 comments:

anne bebbington said...

All those desserts look too beautiful to stick the spoon into - by the end of the summer you'll have to stitch some bigger trousers :o) but what better excuse than having Leiya home to give yourself a treat

Connie said...

As always the Japanese desserts are done with a spectacular presentation. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant last year and were served red bean ice cream. I have to admit that it sounded dreadful and I was sure I would not like the taste, but surprisingly it was very good. Now I can't say that I particularly liked the taste of the green tea ice cream that I've eaten but then I don't like the taste of green tea either.

Laurie Ann said...

Cheesecake is my absolute favorite dessert!

teodo said...

Ciao Tanya these cakes are so nice that it would be impossible to eat them......

For the last post I decided that you are our favourite tour operator for Japan

The works by your daugther are wonderful! She will be famous very soon!
ciao ciao

Melinda said...

The yellow flower is a lily.

Tracey said...

The Japanese sweets are so beautiful! It does seem that the Japanese chefs take great care in making a lovely presentation of each dish. Very nice! I'm just wondering how a desert made of bean paste and seaweed would taste? Maybe I'll have to figure out somewhere to taste this sort of thing, it does seem very interesting!

As always, thank you for the little glimpses of Japanese life, I am fascinated!