Sakura, Sakura..

This week, with my fellow combater John by my side, we’re bringing sakura 「桜」 to everyone’s palette. To begin, we tried sakura flavoured Swiss roll, sakura rice jelly pancakes and finally sakura dango 「団子」. As the white mage in Clan Uprising, I wondered how Sakura would taste in the different styles of desserts and what health benefits it might have. It is claimed that cherry blossoms can prevent cancer, heart diseases and reduce cholesterol levels, but whatever health benefits Sakura might have would probably be lost in desserts loaded with cream and sugar.

We first ventured into Muji to find our sakura Swiss roll and pancake. Here is a little information about Muji. The name Muji is short for Mujirushi Ryōhin 「無印良品」which is known for its simplicity and no brand approach. The company was founded in the 80s and has gained huge success throughout the years to become an international company that has stores in over 20 countries.

 

Back to the sweets, the Swiss roll was 100円 and the pancake came in a pack of 3 for 126 円. Both items were very Japanese with the sakura incorporated into it but were obviously influenced by western sweets. It was interesting that the sakura pancake didn’t smell like flowers but the Swiss roll did, even though they had a similar cake texture. The rice jelly pancake smelled like a typical western pancake. What made it unique was that it had red bean paste inside along with rice jelly. Red bean paste is also seen in many Chinese and Korean desserts. Red bean paste is commonly paired with matcha so I wasn’t expecting it to be in the sakura pancakes. We agreed that the Sakura Swiss roll was more delicious. It smelled like flowers and the Sakura added a nice hint of sweetness to the cake.

Now, turning to the traditional sweets, the amazing dango purchased in Kamakura 「鎌倉」. There were many little shops that sold traditional Japanese sweets, which was an awesome opportunity for us. We found a Sakura infused dango that cost 130円. The Sakura was very distinguishable and added a nice natural and earthy flavour to the sugar it is coated in. This was the best tasting Sakura flavoured sweet out of the three. Now we can say we know what Sakura tastes like. Quest completed and now time to return to the clan headquarters.