Seventy percent dark chocolate and butter far outweigh the flour, so the cake bakes dense and close to a truffle rather than a sponge. Separating the eggs and folding in a meringue keeps it from being heavy, and it melts softly instead of sitting like fudge.
Half-moon rice dumplings filled with red bean paste are steamed between two sarutori-ibara leaves. Using these leaves in place of oak is the Shimane way. When they are done, the skin turns translucent and springs back under a fingertip.
Kokuto, the Japanese unrefined cane sugar, goes into both the dough and the syrup, and ordinary light brown sugar will not give the same flavor. The baked slab is cut into triangles and dipped in warm syrup, and what clings to the surface slowly works its way into the cut edges. Unlike an iced biscuit, this Kagoshima sweet keeps its coating damp rather than drying it into a shell. The slab rises with baking soda, not baking powder.
A single ring of rice-syrup candy, dusted with glutinous rice flour and stretched and folded over and over, turns into a skein of hair-fine white threads. Syrup temperature decides whether the ring can be pulled at all: taken too far it sets before stretching, and too low it will not hold its shape.
Molasses turns the dough deep brown and gives the sweetness a slightly bitter edge. With ground ginger and cinnamon worked in, it is cut into little figures, baked, and decorated with icing eyes and buttons once cool. The edges should be crisp and the middle faintly chewy, and kept airtight, the spice grows stronger over a day or two.
Bite into one and the brown sugar, melted during steaming, runs out as a sticky syrup with cinnamon and bits of walnut. Breaking up any brown sugar lumps by hand beforehand helps it melt evenly. The cakes are done when the surface looks translucent and glossy, and a thin brush of sesame oil before the soybean powder keeps them from sticking together.
Rolled thickly in powdered sugar, the dark chocolate dough cracks open as it bakes, leaving white crackled tops over deep brown seams. A small amount of gochujang (Korean fermented chili paste) adds gentle heat and a savory, fermented note after the sweetness without announcing itself. The texture lands between a brownie and a cookie: a thin crisp shell around a soft, fudgy middle.
Soybeans roasted right through crunch inside a sweet flour batter in these bean cakes from the Kohoku area of Shiga. The beans are hard and round, so for small children they are roughly crushed before going into the batter.
Dried persimmon and cinnamon are already a familiar pair in Korea through sujeonggwa, a cinnamon punch traditionally served with dried persimmon. Here chopped gotgam (dried persimmon) is rolled up with cinnamon sugar, and it runs along the spiral of every slice and pulls apart chewy and jammy. The rolls come out as soon as the edges turn golden; any longer and the fruit dries out again.
Koppa, dried sweet potato, is rinsed, covered, and left for 6 hours so moisture spreads evenly through each piece, which is what lets it pound together with steamed glutinous rice into one smooth mass. Equal weights of brown and white sugar sweeten the dough, which is pressed into a thick slab and cut once set.
The round shape and sweet red bean filling come from Gyeongju-ppang, a Korean bean pastry, but the wrapper here is a soft milk-and-butter yeast dough. It does not try to copy Hwangnam-ppang with its thin skin and stamped top; expect a bread bun instead. Ready-made red bean paste skips the bean cooking, though the filled buns still need a second rise, which puts the whole schedule at about three hours. In a cool kitchen the dough rises more slowly, and its volume is a better guide than the clock.
Despite the name, there is no whale in kujira-mochi. One story traces it to kujimochi, a rice cake that keeps well, while another says old versions were as large as a whale. One account links it to provisions made for the Shinjo domain about three centuries ago. In the Mogami and Murayama areas of Yamagata it was set before the doll display for the Peach Festival on April 3. Brown sugar syrup, two kinds of rice flour, an overnight rest, and walnuts at the bottom of a deep mold give a dark, dense cake that slices firm yet chewy.
Hallabong, a Jeju citrus bred from mandarin and orange, comes into season from winter into early spring. Its zest and juice go into a cream cheese filling along with sour cream, which is poured over a buttered cracker-crumb base and baked. The peel's aroma is at its clearest when the bars are cold.
The New Year kuri kinton made with sweet potato and candied chestnuts shares only the name. The Nakatsugawa wagashi uses nothing but chestnut flesh kneaded with sugar, keeping the chestnut's crumbly texture and aroma. Boiled chestnuts stick to their shells once they cool, so only a few come out of the hot water at a time for scooping. Each portion is twisted in a damp cloth, leaving pleats on top that look like the tip of a chestnut.
Most lemon bars lean on lemon for their sourness, but here hallabong juice far outweighs the lemon, giving the curd a rounder, sweeter citrus flavor. Underneath sits a crumbly shortbread rubbed together from butter, flour, and powdered sugar, a crisp contrast to the smooth set curd.
Grated bottle gourd is sautéed in ghee, simmered down in milk, and finished with sugar and cardamom until it is thick as jam and holds the trail of a spatula. Only the firm white flesh goes in, with the soft seedy core scooped out, and the gourd is cooked until its water is driven off before any milk is added.
The classic hump needs two things together: a 30-minute rest in the fridge and an oven that starts hot and is then turned down. Hallabong marmalade stirred into the batter leaves small bits of peel throughout, so a faintly bitter citrus note keeps cutting through the butter. A little honey and milk keep the crumb moist.
A traditional Korean confection made for Seollal and Chuseok, each one is twisted into a ribbon by pulling one end through a slit in the middle. Even under a coat of honey and rice syrup it shatters lightly, with only the syrup-soaked ends a little chewy. Ginger juice in the dough leaves a faint bite at the finish.
Made as small thank-you gifts, these butter cookies are piped from the center outward with a petal tip, building each red carnation one bloom at a time. Egg whites only, no yolks, keep the red bright after baking, and a little almond flour makes them short and nutty. Clean petal ridges depend on steady piping pressure, so most of the effort goes into the shape rather than the flavor.
About twenty dried persimmons are joined into one tight cylinder, so a thin slice shows amber flesh and white sugar bloom layered like a rose. In Uki and Yamato in Kumamoto it carries the wish of raking in good fortune and is given as a year-end gift and eaten at New Year. Momi-gaki, kneaded by hand several times while drying, give the tightest and clearest pattern.
Toasted black sesame powder goes into a dark chocolate brownie batter, adding a nutty, roasted-grain note to the bitterness of the chocolate. Because the powder is oily and clumps easily, it is sifted in with the flour and salt. Cut only once the pan is completely cold for clean edges.
From the Nanbu area of Aomori, this fresh confection is mashed green soybeans pressed together with rice flour and glutinous rice flour, shaped into a long log like kamaboko fish cake, and cut 1cm thick. Small bits of bean are left unmashed and show in the crumbly cut face, and slices are also browned in a dry pan.
Split one open and you get orange kabocha crumb with white ribbons of cream cheese running through it. The cream cheese goes on unsweetened and stays tangy against the sweet, cinnamon-spiced batter.
This Thai dessert starts the night before, since the glutinous rice needs at least six hours of soaking and ideally a full night. Hot from the steamer, the rice gets warm coconut milk with sugar and salt poured over and sits covered until the grains soak it up, sweet with a little saltiness. Ripe mango is sliced just before serving and laid alongside.