Folded up at the edges with no tart pan, this free-form galette layers thin slices of Asian pear with ginger juice, brown sugar and cinnamon. Ginger brings warmth and a little heat behind the pear's clean sweetness without taking over.
Burdock, carrot, summer orange peel, and young ginger are each candied on their own, so every piece keeps its firmness and aroma under a coat of sugar crystals. Farm households in Chiba made them to stretch the harvest, and the name comes from tenmondo, a dried medicinal tuber that was once steeped in honey.
The pecans go into the bottom of the crust, but as the pie bakes they float up and pave the top. Underneath is a dense, sticky layer of brown sugar and syrup, very sweet, and although the middle still wobbles a little when it comes out, it firms up enough to slice as it cools.
Broken biscuits and dried cranberries folded into a fudge of butter, condensed milk and cocoa set into a thick log that slices to show a mosaic of pale biscuit pieces in dark chocolate. This Lithuanian treat is never baked; at least four hours in the fridge do all the setting. Plain, crisp biscuits without cream or chocolate filling work best, broken by hand into small pieces rather than crumbs, since crumbs leave nothing to show in the slice.
Ground perilla seed, a nutty seed flour common in Korean cooking, goes into both the batter and the tops of these muffins, so its toasty smell comes through first when they leave the oven. Honey and brown sugar share the sweetening, and neutral oil stands in for butter, so there is nothing to melt or cream before mixing. The batter fills one 6-cup muffin tray.
Both the whipped yolks and the beaten whites go into the mascarpone, giving a cream that is rich yet airy and firm enough to carry layers of espresso-soaked savoiardi. After a night in the fridge the biscuits turn soft and cake-like, and the layers slice cleanly.
Chopped dried persimmon (gotgam) studs this buttery loaf, and most bites catch a chewy piece of fruit; cinnamon is the only spice. The fruit is sweet enough that the sugar stays modest. It is moister the day after baking, once it has spent a night wrapped in plastic.
It is made with tofu, egg white, sugar and potato starch and no flour, yet once sliced it has a moist, firm crumb that looks a lot like castella. It comes from southern Akita.
Brown sugar and pineapple rings line the bottom of the pan under the batter, and the cake is turned out after baking so the fruit layer ends up on top. The rings sit close together, because wide gaps let the melting butter and sugar pool in one spot.
Toasted soybeans are packed tightly into wheat dough sweetened with brown sugar and sanontou, then steamed in log form. The name refers to beans shut inside the dough, and it also goes by tochiko-mame or toshiko-mame. Around Yamaga and Kikuchi in northern Kumamoto it was made at year's end alongside osechi, and it appeared at weddings, funerals, and as a gift or farm-season snack. Chilled until firm and sliced, it shows beans crowded through the brown dough.
Puff-pastry cups filled with egg-yolk custard go into a very hot oven for a short bake, which leaves dark brown spots scattered across the surface. The yolks go in off the heat and the custard is strained through a fine sieve, so the filling sets smooth with no stringy bits of egg.
Bite through a firm, crumbly white sugar shell and the tart juice of a fresh Koshu grape bursts out. One Yamanashi story traces the sweet to a grape that fell into boiling sugar at a Kofu confectioner in the Edo period. The shell is fondant, syrup boiled and then worked until it turns white, and the grapes need thick skins like Koshu. Thin-skinned or bruised grapes split open in the warm fondant.
The filling is pumpkin puree, cream and eggs with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. After baking, the pie cools completely at room temperature, chills overnight and is sliced cold. Bake it the day before you plan to serve it.
Softer than the rice-flour uiro of other regions, this one trembles slightly on the plate. In Yamaguchi it is made by stirring smooth red bean paste into warabi starch and steaming it, and this recipe makes just one small mold using store-bought paste. Chilled straight from the steamer, the starch firms up; it cools at room temperature instead and is eaten the same day.
Three layers stack up in this British pudding: a soft base of breadcrumbs soaked in milk and set with egg yolks, a thin spread of raspberry jam, and a cap of meringue browned in the oven. The dish bakes twice, the first time just until the base holds at the edges with a slight wobble in the middle.
Stirred without a break, the cloudy, thickening warabi starch mixture suddenly turns clear and starts pulling away from the sides of the pot. That is when it goes into the mold to chill; it is then cut into bite-size pieces, rolled in kinako, and finished with dark brown sugar syrup just before eating. It is softest on the day it is made.
Baked in a doughnut pan rather than fried, these rings have a soft, cake-like crumb. Chilled sweet red bean paste sits in the middle of the batter and is covered completely, so it only shows once you bite in.
Crushed blueberries and strawberries reduce slowly with a little water until the fruit itself thickens the pot, with no starch or sugar added. This version follows the University of Kansas American Indian Health and Diet Project in using berries that are easy to buy, and unidentified wild fruit has no place in it.
Almond shells sandwich a cream of red bean paste, butter and a spoonful of milk. Once filled, the macarons spend a day in the fridge, where the shells take up moisture from the cream and soften, and they are served cold. On humid days, give the piped batter an extra 10 minutes to dry before baking.
Whole peanuts, sunflower seeds and black sesame are scattered through white puffed rice, and each bite crumbles lightly before meeting something firm. Rice syrup boiled too long sets rock-hard once cool; the heat goes off as soon as the spatula pulls a thin thread. The pressed slab is scored while still warm and broken apart only after it has cooled completely.
With only 20 g of cocoa, the cake does not taste of chocolate; the red comes from 2 tablespoons of food coloring. The layers are made with oil and buttermilk, and baking soda fizzing with vinegar is folded in at the very end. Cold cream cheese, whipped with butter and powdered sugar, fills and covers the layers.
Sesame oil is rubbed into the flour first and the dough is folded and rolled twice, so a fried yakgwa breaks open in layers. It fries low until cooked through, then the oil goes up to crisp the outside, and the pastries sit in honey and cinnamon syrup for two hours or more. Ginger juice in the dough leaves a slight bite after the sweetness.
No yeast and no butter folds: this dough is just flour with cream cheese and butter worked in, then chilled until firm enough to roll. Apricot jam, finely chopped walnuts and cinnamon sugar are spread over each round, which is cut into 12 wedges and rolled into crescents, 24 in total. If the dough cracks at the edges while rolling, give it a minute to soften rather than forcing it.
Four steamed buns go onto each bamboo skewer and are grilled under a sweet red miso glaze until they shine dark with small charred edges. Gunma traces the snack to miso-zuke manju made by Harashima Ruizo in Maebashi at the end of the Edo period; the glaze turned sweeter once kuromitsu syrup arrived. The rice-koji starter ferments for a day or two and the glaze rests in the fridge for 2 days, so the work begins well before grilling day.