This spring treat is perfect for cherry blossom season and super easy to make. You only need 3 ingredients and it is completely vegan as well, as most of Japanese tea ceremony sweets are.
I embedded a how to video at the bottom as well – it will show you how to easily achieve the desired shape.
Sakura Konashi
KONASHI is a typical Kyoto tea ceremony sweet. It is moist and easy to make and pairs perfectly with green tea.
The name comes from the Japanese word for kneading “konasu” and this shape is modeled after cherry blossoms aka “Sakura”.
ingredients
- 200g white bean paste for dough
- 20g wheat flour
- 5g sticky rice flour (MOCHIKO)
- 200g bean paste (red or white) for the filling
directions
- Sift rice flour and wheat flour over the white bean paste and mix well with a spatula. When combined knead with your hands until everything is incorporated.
- set up your steamer: put two chopsticks and a bamboo mat down in the steamer basket so the dough does not touch the hot metal later. Put a moist cotton cloth on top. Turn on the heat and wait until steam starts to appear. Break up your dough into smaller pieces, cover with cloth and steam them for 15 to 20 minutes.
- take out the hot dough and start kneading it with the cloth that you used for steaming so the dough does not stick to your hands. Knead until smooth. Let it rest for 3 minutes and then knead again.
- once the dough reaches room temperature you can start colouring it with food colours of your choice: I used a little bit of red this time to make a pastel pink cherry blossom colour.
- weigh out 20g of bean paste for the filling and 25 to 30g of dough for the shell.
- roll the dough into a ball and flatten to a circle about the diameter of your hand. Encase bean paste (for tips and tricks please watch the video).
- shape into cherry blossom shape (video shows exactely how). If you can not get the original tool that I used don’t worry. You can use a popsicle stick or the back of a butter knife. Just make sure that you wipe the popsicle stick with a moist towel beforehand so the dough doesn’t stick 🙂
For your first try maybe be a bit more generous with the dough so you can get used to encasing it nicely. The optimum is 25g, but you can try with 35g first and see how it goes.
As writing recipe posts is a quite lonely endeavour (feels like talking into the void sometimes 😀 ) I highly appreciate your comments! Feel free to share your experiences or ask questions. I would love to hear from you!
Kaiseki at Home 
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