You never see molasses for sale in Japan. In fact, it's actually rather difficult to explain the concept of molasses to students. Gingerbread doesn't exist in Japanese culture (as far as I've seen). Commonly available Japanese brown sugar is also really light in color and weak in flavor, so you get the feeling the native's don't have a taste for strong molasses flavor.
These cookies are called "black sugar" cookies, but what they actually are are molasses chocolate chip cookies. The goop pictured on the front of the bag even looks like molasses, though the web site calls it something like "black sugar nectar". So, maybe Fujiya is trying to cultivate a taste for molasses, or just coming up with yet another flavor of Country Ma'am cookies.
There are five tiny cookies in the pack and it costs about 150 yen ($1.60). Each cookie is 3.5 cm (1.4 in.) in diameter (10.5 g./.34 oz.) and they're 48 calories per cookie.
Unsurprisingly, the cookies smell like dark brown sugar or weak molasses. The texture is perfect. They're crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. There are generous amounts of chocolate chips in them, so you can taste the chocolate very well and the sweetness level is about right. The flavor, however, is a matter of taste. My husband liked these, but I couldn't get on board with the combination of chocolate and molasses. To me, it was just not a good mix.
I think someone who likes chocolate chips in their gingerbread would love these and though I certainly wouldn't buy them again, I can't fault anything about the cookie. It's just a matter of my tastes.
5 comments:
I like their cookies, although I haven't tried this variety yet. Actually, you can get dark brown sugar here quite easily if you know where to look! It goes by the name of 'kuro zato', and lots of areas are famous for their own variety. I find it can be a bit lumpy for cooking with, but it tastes fab!
Hey Orchid,
Where do you get all the new products from? Mainly the konbini? or supermarkets? I havent seen these in jp yet, so I was just wondering.
anchan: I've seen the really dark stuff occasionally, but it seems to often be hidden in local markets. The white and light brown sugar are together, but the dark stuff is either missing or somewhere strange. I'll have to look more carefully!
Kelly: The newest stuff is usually at convenience stores, but some things are regional or only at certain stores. My husband picks up a lot of "New Days only" items from stores in JR station in Tokyo. There are also things that are only sold at Narita airport. I think this is done so that travelers can pick up souvenirs that are unique to the area they visit.
So, for the newest stuff, I'd recommend big convenience stores (especially Family Mart and 7-11), but that's no guarantee of finding any particular item!
Hey Orchid, I found these at Seria, along with Mango flavour, and a similar size pack of Kinako flavour (the last one). They were only 105¥.
Just posting on here in case other readers wanted to find some too.
Does anyone know where I can find these online? My brother did an exchange program in Japan and this is all he talked about! Thought it would be a great stocking stuffer...
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