Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Sprouts Under the Snow (Japanese Sweet)

Sprouts Under the Snow

Recently, we had snowy weather in Oregon!  I was also playing around with my first batch of shiro an, a sweet bean paste made from white beans.  I'll write more about the process of making the bean paste soon.  But for now...the sweet.

This type of sweet is served with matcha, powdered green tea, during the Japanese Tea Ceremony.  It's customary to provide a poetic name to things...to utensils, the tea bowl and to sweets.  So in that spirit and given the weather, I named this sweet "sprouts under the snow".  This sweet is nothing more than bean paste and sugar (with a dot of food coloring).  It's naturally vegan and gluten/soy/dairy-free, so a great sweet for anyone with food allergies.  It's also DELICIOUS!  I know that sweetened bean paste sounds a little funny to most of us Americans, but it really is yummy! 


Daffodil sprouts under the snow

6 comments:

Steph said...

PS - The green is a little too bold for my preference above. "=) I learned that a tiny little bit of food coloring goes a LOOOOONG way!

Angela McRae said...

I love the name "sprouts under the snow." Reminds me of a friend's dessert recipe with cherries and vanilla ice cream, called Cherries in the Snow!

Steph said...

Angela, I love the name, too. I can't take original credit, tho. I read of the name. ;-)

Margie Yap said...

In Japanese the poetic name is yukima no kusa

Steph said...

Thank you Margie!

Marilyn Miller said...

Very pretty!
One of these days I would like to make a Japanese sweet with you.