ichigo daifuku

made ichigo daifuku yesterday for the first time and then again today.

overall, i was pleased by how easy it was to make and how delicious the resulting sweet was for the amount of effort (not much!), as long as you take care to get the best strawberries.

… … …

notes.

the anko was so wet and sticky, very difficult to handle. yesterday i put the anko into a nonstick fry pan to try to evaporate a bit of the water to make it a bit easier but it didnt really work.

last night i read online that i should try it with refrigerated anko and sure enough, the cold made it easier. not totally, but much better than yesterday. i also thought the canned anko was too sweet. but im unwilling to make my own anko, so ill put up with the sweetness.

the recipe i used used 100 g shiratamako for 6 strawberries, but i was unhappy with the fruit/anko/mochi ratio. too much mochi. so this time i divided the dough from 100 g shiratamako into 8 pieces. much more fruit per sweet. the strawberries i used were really quite small, though.

i was surprised by how easy it is to make the mochi. i was always kind of intimidated, worried about handling the hot stuff, but it actually cools down really quickly.

strawberry season is here but wont last more than a month, so i will probably make this in two weeks or so to say good bye to strawberries for the year. but i will be making daifuku again after strawberry season is over. mikan, budou, cafe au lait as well as kuri daifuku are all in the plans.

oh. and i will definitely try freezing whipped cream and adding that to the ichigo daifuku when i make it again. ill need to have the technique down before i tackle cafe au lait.

i am hoping by the end of this year, with all my new experience, my daifuku will also be more attractively put together.