Merry Xmas Wagashi (Sweets)

By Kenji Miura

I celebrated Christmas in Japan by making wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets.

Santa is shaped out of shiro-an (white bean paste).

The holly is made out of ogura tsubu-an (red beans boiled with sugar, skin-on).

The tree is comprised of shiro-an and kanten (agar agar). The kinton (mashed substance, in this case the shiro-an and kanten) was then pressed through a special lattice seive. Thick strands pushed through the sieve were then arranged into a mound to depict a Christmas tree.

*Kenji Miura is a professional photographer based in Tokyo.

**Article translated by Yoko Kumano, from Japanese to English.