Sakura Jelly, mousse & Cheesecake

It's the sakura season again, probably towards the end of it now. How I wished I can be in Japan now. Since I can't go on holiday during this time of the year, I made some sakura desserts instead.


First up is sakura jelly, this is actually quite easy to make, check out my recipe at the end of the post.


You will need sakura honey syrup and kanten powder for this. They can both be substituted with honey syrup and agar agar powder respectively, but the taste and texture will be slightly different.


Sakura are still so pretty even when dried, the flowers taste like sour plum, since they are pickled.


The second dessert I made was Sakura cheese cake. I'm actually missing an ingredient, which I wanted to use to decorate, I thought I had it at home but I could not find it, hiaz. I think I might remake this again next year, if I can remember.


The bottom layer is crushed digestive biscuit. The cheese layer is mixed with sakura paste and the top layer is the same as the jelly recipe I'm sharing in this post.


I also made some sakura desserts and shared the recipes previously, you can get the sakura konnyaku jelly recipe here, and sakura macarons recipe here.


I found this sakura tricolour mousse in my archive, I think I made it around two years back, shared it on my Instagram, but did not shared on my blog. The pink layer is sakura flavoured, white is vanilla and green was green tea.

SAKURA JELLY RECIPE

Ingredients:
Bottom layer:
250ml water
3 tbsp caster sugar
2g kanten powder
100ml fresh milk
4 tsp sakura honey syrup
pink food colouring

Top layer:    
300ml water
2g agar agar power
3 tbsp sugar
4 tsp sakura honey syrup
8 pickled sakura blossoms

Method:

1. You will need this mould, but you can also use a cake mould.

2. Rinse the pickled sakura to remove excess salt and soak for 30 minutes. Gently pat dry the flowers on paper towels. 

3. For the bottom layer, boil all the ingredients except fresh milk, food colouring and sakura honey syrup in a pot at medium heat. Keep stirring the mixture as it heats up. Remove from heat and add fresh milk, food colouring and sakura honey syrup into it, and stir to mix well. Pour mixture into the mould. Leave to cool and place in the fridge to chill for half an hour. 

4. For the top layer, boil all the ingredients except honey syrup in a pot and stir to boil at medium heat. Remove from heat and add sakura honey syrup into it and stir to mix well. Pour mixture into the mould. Gently place the sakura blossoms into the mould , gently shake the flowers in the jelly liquids they will open up. You can use a toothpick to adjust the petals.

5. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.

Cafe Cat and Paw

Have you seen this cute 3D latte art of a floating kitty from Cafe Cat and Paw online?


If you have no idea what I'm referring to, here's what the marshmallow kitty looks like. I don't drink coffee, so he's floating in a cup of green tea latte. So, so adorable!


Each box comes with 2 kitties and 4 cat paws. Even the packaging is so cute.


Japanese always comes up with the cutest stuff!


The marshmallow will slowly melt into your drink. Want to get a pack? Click HERE for the website to purchase them.


Here's my version of the kitty latte art.


This is a savoury version, my kitty is made using mashed potato, and he's floating in a bowl of asparagus soup.


I've not forgotten that I owe some of you a tutorial on how to create characters using mashed potato. I will take step-by-step pictures the next time I'm making mashed potato characters and get it updated.


I also made another version using shiratama and green tea pudding.


This did not turned out too well, the brown details on the kitty shiratama were a perfect shade when they were just cooked. But as the pudding was still setting in the fridge, I left them in a bowl of ice water in the fridge and went to take a nap. When I woke up and wanted to assemble them, I realised the brown details had smudged a little and turned more reddish. Hiaz. :(

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Sakura Jelly

No food art for today, decided to blog about these sakura jellies I made on Tuesday first, as I know some of you want the recipe.


The sakura flowers are pickled in salt and the taste is quite similar to sour plums. You can't eat the flowers straight out of the pack, they are very salty, you have to soak them in water first, before you use them in your recipes.


Was deciding between Kanten and Konnyaku jelly, ended up choosing the latter as I think the flowers will show through slightly better under Konnyaku jelly.


I'm so in love with sakura, I've to admit they don't exactly taste fantastic, but they are just too pretty. You can expect to see some sakura bentos and more upcoming sakura desserts recipes on the blog in the following weeks. :)

SAKURA JELLY RECIPE
Ingredients:
10g Konnyaku Jelly Powder
200g sugar
950ml water
5 tbsp sakura honey syrup
a handful of salted sakura
pink food colouring

Method:

1. Put salted sakura in a bowl, cover with enough water and leave for around 2 hours. Then, dry the flowers on a paper towel. Set aside 5 tbsp of the water from soaking the sakura.

2. Mix jelly powder and sugar, stir well.

3. Boil 950ml of water and gradually add in the mixture in step 2. Add in sakura honey syrup, salted water set aside in step 1 and a little pink colouring (very little is needed, just dip a toothpick in food colouring, then dip it in the water). Stir till everything is dissovled.

4. Scoop the mixture into bowls/mould. Add in sakura flower from step 1, use a toothpick to adjust the flowers. Chill in the refrigerator for around an hour. 

Note:

• If you do not have sakura honey syrup, you can replace it with honey.

Donuts Sandwich Bento

These are sandwichs, dressed up to look like donuts. lol. Snack bento for IT is Mango sago, it's one of his favourite dessert. I made them yesterday and decided to let him bring to some to school today.


Bento for IT


Bento for LT


A treat for IT to bring for recess, no idea how to cutify this.