Yaokin Fluffy Softmallow and Dora-Choco

The next step down the path of reviewing food from my ZenPop box (the "Peach Festa") is paved with things for children. Both of these dagashi (kid's snacks) are made by a company that most people know best for their savory corn snack sticks.  I have to admit that I don't recall every having seen the pastel marshmallow barber's pole that is the "softmallow," but I have a hazy memory of the little tiny dorayaki. Since I left Japan six years ago, I imagine I'm going to continue to have hazy memories.

The softmallow looks like something someone would try to recreate on Instagram or Pinterest, and then someone else would try to recreate it and it could be an epic Pinterest fail. It's adorable enough to be snipped into little pieces and be used as unicorn cow pies as part of a cake decoration.

So, the marshmallow has definitely won the remains of my twelve-year-old self's heart in terms of looks, but what about taste? It is indeed very fresh and soft, but soft like a pillow that gives and then rebounds. The marshmallow is lightly sweet and has no other flavoring added, but it is a nice flavor. I'm pleased to say that most of the Japanese marshmallow's that I had in Japan had a strange aftertaste that is absent in this one. The only difference between this and an American marshmallow is that it's less sweet and just a hair more "rubbery," but not in a way which is off-putting.

The dorayaki has an amazing smell that reminds me of freshly-baked cake. The chocolate filling is so similar in appearance to red bean paste that I forgot it was chocolate until I put it in my mouth. The cake is surprisingly moist for a shelf-stable product and does have a more "cake-like" taste than regular dorayaki which tends to be like a pancake which is a bit dry.

In terms of the filling, it's not super flavorful on the front end (the cake dominates), but hits on the back end when you get a little burst of chocolate that falls somewhere between dark and milk. The filling is nicely fatty and adds to the texture to some extent. This was shockingly good for a kid's snack and reminded me of a less cloying version of a Hostess snack cake.

Softmallow:

Dora-Choco:

Fujiya Sweets Torte Nama Dorayaki

"Nama" in Japanese means "raw". I'm guessing that the reference in this case relates to the enormous dollop of whipped cream in the center of the dorayaki in the picture as this certainly does not appear to be uncooked in any sense of the word. Dorayaki, for those who don't remember or haven't seen my reviews of such treats, is two pancake-like slabs that sandwich a sweet jam filling. The filling is usually red beans or a mixture of beans and other things like chestnuts, pumpkin, or sweet potato. I favor the chestnut ones, but the red bean ones are fine as well.

I have never had one that came with a whopping pile of whipped cream, but the idea certainly holds appeal. My husband is a sugar hound and I'm a fat fiend. He'll take the heavily frosted things and I want the stuff that's slathered in whipped cream. In fact, I'm pretty sure that gelatin was invented not as a way of using bones from animals, but rather to offer a preferred conveyance for whipped cream. Gelatin as a dessert is so lame that no one would blame you for adding a little something to make it better. I believe this is also the reason people invented "Jell-O shots". Knowing that you are getting intoxicated makes it feel more worthwhile.

Getting back to this candy, I've reviewed a few of the Sweets Torte line before and am very likely to review more in the future. The concept is to recreate a particular confection and offer up both the flavor and texture elements of the food being imitated. It's done using multiple layers of chocolate, jammy fillings and cookies. The possibility that you're going to get something special is pretty good, but there's no guarantee.

The first bite reveals most of the anko (sweet bean paste) notes that you've going to get before the sweet and rather soft chocolate flavor merges in and dominates. The cookie base is slightly crispy, but not as brittle as other versions of this that I've tried have been. The flavors don't reveal themselves in layers so much as in a melange which is mainly overwhelmed by milky bittersweet chocolate. I don't get any sense of the flavor or texture of a dorayaki-style pancake at all. That is where the biggest disappointment comes from. If that is not present in some fashion, then this is just really a mildly adzuki-tinged chocolate.

It's actually pretty tasty, but only if you're looking at this as a chocolate and not as something which is supposed to be unique. I paid around $2 (200 yen) for this small box with five candies about the size of a very large coat button. In terms of value for the experience, it's a very bad buy. So, while I can say I will be more than happy to eat the rest of these, I would not buy it again as it's just not special enough for the price.

Shirakiku Dorayaki (with chestnuts)

During the last eight months of my time in Japan, I taught a sweet old lady who used to bring me gifts on a regular basis. She told me that her favorite sweet was dorayaki. This was a woman who, when I told her that I was leaving Japan, started to cry and continued to do so throughout most of the remainder of the lesson. I learned from that experience to tell my students about my departure at the end of the lesson.

Because this woman was so emotional about my leaving and so sweet to me, I always associate this particular Japanese treat with her. I was her favorite teacher - when I told her that I'm sure she'd find another very nice teacher when I was gone, but she said, "but, I love you!" - and this was her favorite snack. I have to say, given how hard my departure was for her, I feel a little guilty every time I see dorayaki. It's not a happy association, but it is a reminder that teachers are not just monkeys who entertain in English to the Japanese people who they associate with. That's just who we are to other foreigners who have no respect for us.

I realize that's a bit of a downer to start a post off with, but they can't all be about mascots with large crotch plates or delirious yet non-drug inspired stories about other mascots. No, no. Sometimes, this is serious business despite the sugar- and salt-drenched nature of my work here.

For those who don't recall from my other single review of dorayaki, these are pancake-like cakes with red bean paste in the middle. Mine promised to be studded with lavish and large bits of chestnut as well. All of this was available at the sale price of $2.99 (about 300 yen), which is about as cheap as dorayaki ever gets around here. Usually, these go for $5-6 a pack in my area.

One of the reasons that I haven't reviewed dorayaki much in the past is that I have a lack of love for the type of cake on the exterior. It tends to be dry and sticky. It's supposed to be modeled on or similar to castella, which I am not a big fan of. This particular version does have the tacky exterior of castella, but it's not as dry inside. In fact, the cake portion was fluffier than usual and that made it much more enjoyable.

The filling though, was not quite as promised. I realize that this is a smallish picture for detail, but there is not an enormous collection of chestnut pieces in there. The illustration may show them in there like nuggets in a gold miner's pan, but they are pretty thoroughly integrated in the real deal. That doesn't mean this was bad. The red bean jam filling is actually quite tasty. It doesn't have as many large, un-mashed beans as these sometimes do, but it is slightly coarse in texture. I've had better anko, but this is absolutely not bad anko. The sweetness balance between the somewhat bland exterior and sweet interior is quite good. I also enjoyed the textural contrast between the cake and filling.

This is not the best dorayaki to ever come down the pike, but it was certainly very tasty and brought a nice sense of nostalgia as well as an enjoyable tea time. If you're a fan of red bean sweets and have never tried these, this is a good and relatively economical place to start. If you like this, then you can move up the scale to something handmade from a Japanese sweets shop (if you have access to one). I'd certainly have these again.

Lawson VL Jumbo Dorayaki

I've always been curious about the origin of various foods and wary of the notion that any food was solely invented by one particular culture. Long-time and attentive readers will recall that I question the notions of “Japanese bread” and “Japanese cheesecake” as these are not Japanese at all, but minor variations on European cuisine (as are many other baked food items). All of that being said, I think there are some things which make sense as food concepts which likely were "discovered" simultaneously in various cultures. Pancakes would fall into the category of things that you could easily see being created all over the world without input from other cultures. How imaginative does a person have to be to think about adding (any type of) flour to liquid and then deciding to pour into onto a hot, oiled surface?

Dorayaki is something which I haven't reviewed before because it is most often sold filled with chunky sweet red bean paste (tsubuan) and I'm more of a fan of koshian (finer paste that has had the skins sifted out and has more of a smooth fudge-like texture). As time has gone by, I've grown a lot mellower about coarser versions and as our departure from Japan approached, I became more and more attracted to traditional Japanese sweets including those with chunky-style sweet red beans.

It's important to say at this point that I didn't go 23 years in Japan having never eaten dorayaki. It's a very common treat and I'd been exposed to it before, but didn't really pay much attention to it when I ate it. My first really positive experience with it came at a Japanese all-you-can-eat buffet that had a dessert bar which included some damn fine dorayaki. This 100 yen ($1.22) super large (about the diameter of my open hand with splayed fingers) “jumbo dorayaki” wasn't something that I expected to live up to that aforementioned red-bean-filled pancake, but it certainly was more accessible since it was on sale at the local Lawson 100 shop a few minutes from our apartment.

Dorayaki is basically two pancakes sandwiching some sort of filling, usually bean paste. The main question is not what it will taste like, but what the textures will be like. Will the cake be sticky and weird on the outside (sometimes they are), dry (ditto), or tough (double ditto)? Will the beans be too sweet or too bland? In the the case of this dorayaki, the pancake had a very nice flavor and texture and was only slightly tacky on the outside. It was tender and appropriately sweet for a relatively bland wrapper for the bean filling. The beans themselves were quite sweet and lacked a strong “beany” taste. I could have done with a bit more flavor depth on that front, but I can't say it was terribly disappointing and I felt that it was sweet and had a satisfyingly dense texture.

I can't say this is the best dorayaki ever, but I can say that the value for the size and price is on the amazing side. It is quite tasty and I'd definitely buy it again if I had the chance. It's important to note that this really is a "whole lotta dorayaki" at 490 calories for the entire thing. A quarter makes a serviceable snack, half makes for a nice continental breakfast, and the whole thing for an enjoyable pig-out. You can guess which I went for.