penny's kitchen takes japan

bakery travels in tokyo, nikko and kamakura

i am freshly back from a week in japan where i definitely indulged in a little ‘market research’ at the endless bakeries

here are a few of my favourite things i tried and saw

tokyo

starting strong, i was drawn into a bakery in shinjuku station by the incredible buttery smells

i stayed to sample the sweet potato butter bread and sweet potato chestnut bun

the butter bread was layered, almost laminated, with chunks of japanese sweet potato (yaki imo) with an salty-sweet almost movie-popcorn butter flavour (9/10)

the sweet potato chestnut bun was barely sweetened yaki imo and chestnut chunks in a delightfully chewy savoury rye bun (8/10)

i saw, but did not taste, this delightful selection of japanese-style scones in fun seasonal flavours like pumpkin & chestnut, black sesame, apple & caramel, and black tea. ?/10

there were a few rounds of testing dorayaki and taiyaki variants at various places through ueno, shinjuku, and ebisu. the taiyaki by ebisu station (rightmost photo) was served still hot and crispy. 10/10

speaking of hot and crispy, this chestnut croissant at tsukiji outer markets was delightfully warm and squishy from the oven. i still regret not also getting the red bean croissant below it. 7/10.

nikkō

i took the train up to the gorgeous mountain town of nikkō for one night

it poured freezing rain the entire time, so we retreated to a sweet family-run home restaurant where dessert was pumpkin basque cheesecake (6/10) and tofu pudding dusted with kinako powder and drizzled with black sugar syrup. the nutty kinako and soft, creamt tofu were nutty, umami and just sweet enough. will be recreating asap. 10/10.

back to tokyo

i love steamed buns, so spent the week hunting down this pair of steamed buns to try

the black sesame steamed bun was truly one of my favourite things, surpassed only just by the matcha steamed bun. fluffy bun, hot sweet filling, both 10/10.

kamakura

i spent a night in the surfy beach town of kamakura, which as it turns out has a delightful density of traditional sweet shops.

i went back a few times to trial a few flavours of the kintsuba, which was a bean paste filling (i tried kinako and walnut flavours) dipped in a thin flour mixture then cooked on all sides. 9/10

finally got my hands on a japanese scone! i was drawn into ekiyoko bake by these fat little red bean butter scone sandwiches. the red bean to scone ratio was phenomenal, and the japanese-scone was delightfully crisp, almost like a shortbread biscuit. 8/10

yokohama

stopped into yokohama on the way to the airport and stepped off the train into this vending machine stocking kinako-flavour soy milk. roasty, toasty, and not too sweet. 8/10.

themes

it is sweet potato season in japan, so no surprise that they featured heavily in most of the bakeries we visited and trialed! the japanese sweet potatoes are sweeter and more butter than the orange kind we get here in australia and were one of my favourite things i ate on this trip, even when just coal roasted and served hot and unadorned

classic japanese flavours like black sesame and matcha were everywhere and particularly prevalent in classical western formats like madeleines, donuts, scones, and loaf cakes

i’ve come away from this trip with a new addiction to red bean paste (anko / adzuki bean paste) which was stuffed into anything that stood still for long enough including pancakes, bagels, croissants, scones, steamed buns, mochi, buns, eclairs, and served on top of toast, ice cream, and yoghurt bowls

beyond inspired to come back to my kitchen and start experimenting!