How to make Sakura Wagashi

January 19, 2022

Sakura wagashi is a Japanese dessert made of bean paste and glutinous rice, coloured and shaped like cherry blossom flowers to celebrate the beginning of spring.

 sakura wagashi

What is wagashi?

Wagashi (和菓子)  is a Japanese word for sweet or dessert. 

Wagashi is consist of two component; one part is the sweet bean paste filling known as shiro-an.
The second element is the dough to wrap and shape wagashi is known as nerikiri dough.

Nerikiri dough is made of bean paste (shiro-an) and glutinous rice mixture.

Wagashi is to mark the start of spring, thus they are shaped into beautiful flower like sakura (cherry blossoms), of course.



How to make wagashi?

There are only few ingredients needed to make Japanese wagashi recipes : white bean, sugar, glutinous rice flour and water.
And few steps that you have to do before creating beautiful wagashi.

Wagashi consist of 2 components : Shiro-an and Nerikiri dough.

First you have to cook white bean and make them into a paste. This paste is called Shiro-an.

Then you prepare nerikiri dough to wrap shiro-an.

We will not be able to shape wagashi into any flowers by just using shiro-an, you have to have nerikiri dough.

 練り切り

How to make Nerikiri dough ( 練り切り) ?

I will explain step by step using the photos below. I think it is much easier to understand that way.

Anyway, in a nutshell, nerikiri dough is made of mixing glutinous rice flour with water and then add shiro-an. 

It requires heat to form a dough. I used microwave to make nerikiri dough.
Then once the dough has cooled down by stretch and fold method, some colouring were to the nerikiri dough.
You can divide the dough into few colours depending the type of wagashi you would like to create.

Point to note : Always keep nerikiri dough under a damp cloth. They gets dry easily if left uncovered, especially during hot summer heat.

 Mix glutinous rice flour with water
1. Mix glutinous rice flour with water

 Add shiro-an to the glutinous rice mixture
2. Add shiro-an to the glutinous rice mixture

 Microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds for 3 to 4 times until the nerikiri become dough
3. Microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds for 3 to 4 times until the nerikiri become dough and not stick to the spatula.

 nerikiri dough

 Stretch and fold in a damp cheese cloth for 20 times.
4. Stretch and fold in a damp cheese cloth for 20 times.

 Tear into small pieces
5. Tear into small pieces to expedite the cooling process

 This is how Nerikiri dough should look like when pull.
6. This is how Nerikiri dough should look like when pull.
It yield to that 'pencil' tip shape like!

 colour nerikiri dough in pink
 quite a substantial amount of white food colouring
7. Adding smidgen of red colouring to nerikiri dough, but quite a substantial amount of white food colouring

 nerikiri dough is ready for sakura wagashi
8. Now we are ready to make sakura wagashi.

How to make Sakura Wagashi {桜の和菓子}?

Sakura is a Japanese word for cherry blossoms. 
Hence Sakura wagashi means cherry blossom wagashi or cherry blossom dessert.
Once you mix the nerikiri dough to pastel pink, we can now start making Sakura wagashi.

I will try to explain through these photos.

 Flatten the pink dough and place white dough in the middle.
1. Flatten the pink dough and place white dough in the middle.

 Fold in a ball of shiro-an
2. Fold in a ball of shiro-an

 Using a toothpick, mark the centre of the cheery blossom flower.
3. Using a toothpick, mark the centre of the cheery blossom flower.

 Using the sharp end of the triangle wagashi tool, make some marking
4. Using the sharp end of the triangle wagashi tool, make some marking and divide the sakura wagashi into five petals

 Using finger and push the sakura petal towards thumb of the other hand
5. Using finger and push the sakura petal towards thumb of the other hand.

  Place the yellow nerikiri dough at the centre of the sakura wagashi.
6. Place the yellow nerikiri dough at the centre of the sakura wagashi.

 bánh wagashi

Other Japanese dessert that I fully recommend!

These two are my most favourite Japanese sweets.
Not only they are tasty, they are easy to make as well :D

Red Bean Mochi (Daifuku Cakes)
Red Bean and Matcha buns

A complete wagashi tutorial video on How to make Sakura Wagashi





XX

XX



Cherry blossoms known as sakura in Japan marked the arrival of spring. Sakura wagashi is a Japanese dessert made of bean paste and glutinous rice, coloured and shaped like cherry blossom flowers to celebrate the beginning of spring.

Comments