すいか (watermelon) KitKat

OK, now I kind of expected the trick to this one to be “loads of aroma and zero flavour” of the actual watermelon, so I was definitely surprised to discover, that it is actually, the other way round.

Moreover, you kind of have to stick your nose up close and give it a good whiff in order to smell anything watermelon related.

Now, the flavour is a different story. Of course, it tastes quite “fake”, but it is just as you expect watermelon to taste in non-watermelon foods. In fact, the flavour is so strong it even permeates the chocolate after-taste…

Caramel Macchiato KitKat

Yet another new discovery in the world of KitKat flavours…

The interesting thing about this one, is that it’s the first time I see a calorie count right smack on the cover of the chocolate! Only 115 calories it says.

As for the flavour of the actual choc, I must say I quite liked it. Not digging too much into my memory I’d quess it’s one of the least sweet Kitkat bars, in a nice way. I didn’t feel the caramel so much, but there definitely was a nice resemblance of macchiato. Worth a try!

Soy Sauce Flavoured KitKat

So, finally, I tried the famous limited edition soy sauce flavoured KitKat.

I must say, first thing that came to my mind was that… I didn’t expect it to have such a strong aroma (a nice one, actually) and that for some strange reason I assumed it will be covered in dark, not white chocolate.

The smell actually really reminded me of the brown sugar KitKat.

Moreover, if I didn’t know what I was eating, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it is, indeed, THE long searched for, limited edition, soy sauce KitKat…

Soy Sauce flavoured KitKat in Japan

I finally got a hold of that famous limited edition KitKat flavour released in Japan: Soy Sauce…!

Yep, I know, who would’ve ever thought of mixing soy sauce with chocolate…?

I’m seeing my man next weekend so we’ll be doing a tasting of it very soon… check next week ;)

Easy to make Ginger Chocolate

Try these easy to make, not-so-bad for you little chocolate bites. Each has only 62kcal!

Ingredients (makes 12 using 3cm-deep moulds):

75g milk chocolate

25g sweet chocolate

40g cream, around 45%

12g starch syrup

10g ginger

1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Put into a bowl, immerse it into hot water (40C is perfect) and melt the chocolate.

2. Grate the ginger using a fine grater.

3. Add the cream, the starch syrup and the grated ginger to a small pan.

4. Put the pan on medium heat until the contents start to boil. Remove from heat.

5. Slowly add the contents of the pan to the chocolate and mix well with a rubber spatula.

6. Refrigerate until the chocolate mixture becomes thicker and slightly hardens.

Serving suggestion:

Pour the chocolate mass into little foil moulds. Sprinkle some dried/caramelised ginger. Enjoy!

Healthy Green Tea Scones with Carrot Jam

OK, here’s a recipe for Green Tea scones with Carrot Jam. It’s on the healthier side, and each scone has around 200kcal. Think of all the antioxidant qualities of the green tea :)

Ingredients for 12 scones:

For the scones:

5g green tea

200g flour

25g sugar

7g baking powder

1 large egg (60g)

75g milk

50g butter

salt to taste

For the carrot jam:

100g carrots

150ml water

50g sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cinamon stick

100g plain yoghurt to go with the jam

Preparation:

1. Grind the green tea using a blender or a similar machine.

2. Combine and sieve through the flour and the baking powder.

3. Shred the carrots. Remove the moisture from the yoghurt to make the texture more similar to that of cream cheese (one way to do that is to pour it into a bowl lined with paper towel and keep in the fridge for one hour).

4. Heat the oven to 200C (390F)

Next steps:

1. Mix the flour/baking powder combination with green tea, salt and sugar. Take out the butter from the fridge, cut it into small crumbles and mix them with the dry ingredients using the palm of your hand into a sort of a crumbly dough.

2. Whisk the egg in a separate bowl, mix in the milk and add to the dry ingredients.

3. Bring the dough together (using a wooden spatula works best).

4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until approx. 1.5cm thick.

5. Cut the dough into twelve 6cm circles.

6. Bake in a 200C (390F) pre-heated oven for around 12 minutes on a baking tray lined with a baking sheet. Place on a cake cooler once done.

Carrot Jam:

1. Add the shreded carrot and water to the pot and put on a medium heat until boiling, reduce heat after, stirring from time to time.

2. Once the carrots become tender, add the sugar, cinamon and lemon juice. Cook until the water evaporates, remove from heat and cool.

Serve with the yoghurt and the carrot jam in separate little bowls and enjoy your healthy vitamin and antioxidant packed snack!

*If you’re not so concerned about the health factor, you can just replace the yoghurt with cream cheese…

“SALTY VANILLA” Toppo Sticks?!

OK, the moment I saw this, I knew I had to try it no matter how clashing the combination of vanilla and salt sounds. It’s like having french fries with vanilla ice-cream, right?

( I know, I know, I ate that too back in the day )

Anyway, long story short, it tastes good! Now, unfortunately, that’s not because Toppo found the perfect balance between salt and vanilla to excell you to the culmination of eating pleasures… It’s simply, because I personally couldn’t taste the salt AT ALL. So, it was just like eating ordinary vanilla cream filled sticks.

I wonder, was it just a marketing spoof? Or are my taste buds so insensitive? Or… could it be yet another of those funny attempts of the Japanese trying to translate things into English? Perhaps the guy making this just took a random dictionary, which happened to be one of antonyms, looked up “amai” and it came as “salty”?

We will never know….

Green Tea (Matcha) Chocolate

As you might already know, Green Tea chocolate is usually just a mix of white chocolate and matcha powder. Here’s how to make a kind of green tea truffles:

Ingredients: (for a 12cm mold)

100g white chocolate

10g butter

60ml cream

1/2 teaspoon rhum

Macha powder

Chop the butter into small pieces and keep at room temperature. Chop the white chocolate into small pieces and mix the two together in a bowl.

Heat the cream until just before boiling point. Slowly add the chocolate-butter mix, and melt in the cream while whisking.

Add the rhum to the above and mix through.

Pour the “batter” into the mold lined with baking paper, smooth out the surface and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Take out of the fridge, dip a kitchen knife into warm water, pat dry and quickly cut the chocolate into shapes (squares, triangles etc) with the warm knife. Put some matcha powder in a plate and roll the pieces of chocolate to cover.

いただきます！

“Brown sugar” flavoured KitKat in Japan?

Yet another new exciting flavour of KitKat in Japan!

OK, now, brown sugar isn’t one of those flavours that would get you drooling just by thinking of it. I mean, it’s not Choc Banana, Green Tea White Choc or anything like that. It’s brown SUGAR!!! As if anyoen get excited by that idea…

So, with very (very) low expectations, I started yet another wonderful trip into the never ending world of weirdly flavoured Western candy in Japan.

I took a bite…and my, oh my.

It actually tasted like Brown Sugar. You know, that earthy sweet taste, kind of like… chocolate chip All Bran flakes with a tad bit of honey? Sorry for the weird comparison. In the past, KitKat Japan has released a few exciting sounding flavours (like “kinako”) that tasted their typical good, but you had to really struggle to feel that extra flavour, you know?

Well, but in the brown sugar case, you bite it…and you know something’s different…and you can even tell how without looking at the wrapper.

Haagen Dazs new flavors in Japan: Mille-feuille!

The ads for the new “collection” of Haagen Dazs ice-cream have covered more or less 96.4% of the available advertising space in Japan.

You simply cannot live your life here ignoring their existence.

The collection consists of three new flavors derived from famous cakes: Millefeuille, Tiramisu and Mont Blanc.

So, first up on the pedestal is the… Mille-feuille (ta-da!).

Truth said, it looks pretty damn nice as soon as you open the lid, although not being very careful I did spill most of the wonderful crumbs while removing the plastic cover. Guys, if you’re going to spend 326yen (which is about $3) on a tiny pot of ice-cream, at least make sure you get it all in your bodies, not on the bed or carpet around you… :)

While eating it, I was trying to figure out any resemblences with my old time favorite Mille-feuille. Quite honestly, I think the top crumbs played the major part there- for one thing, Mille-feuille has signature hard crunchy layers, and the ice cream didn’t (at least not that I felt them). Second, the original filling in Mille-feuille is custard cream as far as I know, but the ice-cream tasted more like cold condensed milk with occassional red blobs giving the colorific satisfaction.

OK, this might have sounded a bit harsh… Actually, the ice-cream is pretty damn good in itself. I guess I’m just slightly biased with my overrated love for Mille-feuille, the cake… ahhh, all the childhood memories coming back!

Yummy..