Japanese · Dessert
Sakuramochi, Domyoji Style
- Advanced
- 35 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, a floral thread lifting the aroma, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 150 g domyojiko, coarse cracked glutinous rice
- 200 ml water
- 60 g caster sugar
- 1 g fine salt
- a pinch of red food colouring, not cochineal, for a pale pink
- 200 g koshian, smooth sweet red bean paste
- 8 salt-pickled cherry leaves (sakura no ha no shiozuke, from a Japanese grocer). Never fresh cherry leaves, which are not the same thing
The skills inside
Brining & curingSteaming: basket, leaf and lidShaping by handResting dough: the pause that does the work
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soak the cherry leaves in cold water for 20 minutes to draw off the brine, then pat them dry; they should taste of salt and almond rather than of the pickling barrel. 20 min
- Bring the water, sugar and salt to the boil, stir in just enough colouring to tint the syrup a pale rose, pour it over the domyojiko in a heatproof bowl, stir once, cover, and stand 20 minutes until the grain has drunk the syrup and looks swollen and matt. 20 min
- Steam the covered bowl over a full boil for 20 minutes, then rest it covered for 10 minutes and stir with a wet spatula, crushing about a quarter of the grains so they glue the rest together. 20 min
- Roll the bean paste into 8 balls of 25 g. With wet hands, flatten 45 g of the warm rice in your palm, seat a ball in the middle, and close it into a barrel with no paste showing.
- Wrap each one in a cherry leaf, vein side against the rice.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes
- It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
- It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
- The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
- It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
- Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.
Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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