Playing with Daifuku

Fruit and cream daifuku What’s “IN” now among young Japanese women is using pastry cream and fruit for daifuku filling in place of traditional “an (sweetened bean paste).” On several Japanese foodblogs, I’ve seen combinations like pastry cream and strawberry (or melon or banana), or pastry cream and chestnut cream, or even pastry cream+whipping cream+fruit. Someone did cheese cream (mixture of cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice) daifuku without fruit but it could be good with some kind of fruit, too. I’ll give it a try next time. Today I tried: 1) Strawberry, pastry cream and whipping cream 2) Strawberry, pastry cream, whipping cream and coffee-an (dissolve 1+1/2 teasp. instant coffee with 1+1/2 teasp. hot water and mix with 100 g sweetened white bean paste) 3) Banana, pastry cream, whipping cream and coffee-an ← No photo. 4) Pastry cream, whipping cream and chestnut cream. The ones on the right are the chestnut-cream version I liked the ones with coffee-an. The coffee-flavored sweet bean paste may not be great with all kinds of fruits, but I liked it very much with strawberry and it was OK with banana. I’ve learned that piping cream into small flat balls and freezing them beforehand helps a lot when making cream-filled daifuku. You need to wait until the cream thaws before you take a big bite, but it doesn't take too long, so no big deal. For daifuku recipe, click here. (I updated the instruction :)) P.S. * My friends just told me that this type of daifuku was probably "in" a couple of years ago and nothing new any more... :P I guess many women got inspired by the wide variety of flavors that "MOCHI CREAM" (franchise confectionery by comme ca ??) introduced. I heard they have more than 20 different flavors of sweet bean paste, cream and their combinations. Categories: Sweets