It’s been a while since I’ve shared my culinary skills and I know you’ve been salivating for more. I’ve made sandwiches and soup and even pasta before so today let’s make… this:
“What is it?” you ask? It’s the Happy Kitchen ‘taiyaki and dango’ kit. It’s a candy-making kit where the candy looks like classic Japanese treats. But could it ever look as good as the packaging? And looking at these instructions didn’t inspire confidence:
Thankfully English instructions were available online. They were very clear and make things look easy. But could I reproduce the results on the box???
That’s the contents. Everything except water is provided, and the various elements are prepared individually. The six packets contain various powders that mix with water to create the sauces or jellies or dough to make the little foods.
Here’s the ‘rice’ cake, which has the smell and consistency of an actual mochi:
The mixture was extremely rubbery and difficult to shape – a bit like an eraser – but you can see I managed to shape it into the sizes required. This was the only mildly challenging part of the whole process.
Taiyoki are fish-shaped cakes with filling inside. The kit uses water-based dough which is microwaved to produce the little cakes. I was particularly amazed this step worked!
The various base pieces were then mixed with sauces (chocolate and ‘dango’) and a fake strawberry gummi that you can see setting in the earlier mochi photos. It was fun and much easier than I thought it would be.
The final step was to make the fizzy ramune drink (by simply pouring a powder packet into water) and I was done. Look how great the finished ‘meal’ looks:
Naturally you’re not surprised because you know my skills in the kitchen, but for a first time making candy I’d say this all turned out better than I expected!
But how did it taste?
We thought it would be dreadful, even inedible, and assumed it would taste of chemicals. To our surprise the taiyoki tasted like a chocolate pancake, the strawberry gummi tasted like a real strawberry and even the little dango were sweet and chewy! The ramune was incredibly sweet, but then I drink Mt Dew!
Overall a big success! Fun and easy to make, tasty and it looked great: who said I couldn’t cook?!?