Okashi: Sweet Treats Made With Love

Supper happy when I found this little treasure book!! Can't believe that I missed it before!!! The "plain" cover is like a disguise. Inside, there are tons of beautiful recipe, each have a whole page of EACH final product, step-by-step pictures with recipe + lots of useful tips. I'm in love with Japanese pastry & bakery - their cake are normally very light & fluffy (compare to the overly sweet + thick American version). Plus, their cream & custard is subtle & fresh... Yum yum yum!!! I never worry about gaining weight from making & consume Japanese sweet!This book mostly cover cake section - from basic, favorite to advantage. The book also include lots of tart, tiramisu, muffin, Swiss Rolls..etc. There are lots of sponge cake recipe & the author will tell you how are they difference from other, and which recipe you would use it!! Huge section of Japanese chiffon cake!!! Yum!! I tried the Green tea Chiffon, and it was fantastic! Gone within few hours!! (even though I still need to adjust my oven temperature, which varies for each person).Btw, it's best to "weight" the ingredients properly - go and invest in a digital scale (cost less than $30). Japanese eggs are much "smaller" than American Jumbo eggs... 5 eggs in Japan would weigh about 180 gram, while 3 American egg would weight over 220 gram already. So figure it out yourself, of what to adjust and what not!Japanese cook books, although are very beautiful & simple & lots of graphic pictures (more than French bakery books), they are rarely translate to English - so if you ever spot one, GET THEM ASAP! I also recommend "Soy-milk Desserts" - a Japanese cook book. I've made most of the recipes in the book, and they all WORKS!! *eye rolling* (Normally, I'm lucky if 3-5 recipes work per book), but heck, most recipe in that book work perfectly!!! Another reason for me to trust Japanese book, over any French & American books (which I have hundreds of them *sigh*).Another very good Japanese book is "Chilled Dessert," which is supper yummy & delicious as well!!

So far I’ve made three from this book and plan on many more. If you plan on getting this book, you may need to either be a decent baker already or read and triple check instructions. I took a star off based on some issues. For instance the recipes don’t give how much time is needed for each recipe at the beginning so you could get thrown off a bit. For example, the Pineapple cheesecake made to the recipe actually takes two days. 1 for compote to rest and another for cheesecake to set. You can speed some of it up, but read closely.The other is some things were lost in translation. Using same recipe as example, it states 1 pineapple is needed, but you only need 130g when you read further into it which is maybe a 1/4 of a pineapple which means you can either buy some fresh prepped or have another use for the rest. The orange almond cake calls for ground almonds but what they really mean is almond flour. I’ve had to make that recipe 3 times to really get it right and adjust the ingredients etc.otherwise the flavors are exceptional. Just don’t try a new recipe for an important occasion.Last note, many of the pans used are much smaller thank the usual pans so you’ll want to buy ahead or learn how to adjust volume, temp and baking time if using different size pans.

Tried the french style strawberry cake. It was really delicious, light and not too sweet or tart. The trouble was that the creme mousseline set before I had the chance to incorporate it into the whipping cream so I ended up with little bits of smashed up tofu-like chunks in my mixture.The Austrian Coffee Cream Sponge Cake looks interesting too: rows of meringue and sponge sandwiching coffee cream and decorated with sliced almonds.

I purchased Okashi last year, and since then, it has become a favorite. If you look beyond the plain cover, you will find a variety of truly clean, elegant, and lovely desserts.Since these are Japanese desserts, the flavors, such as red bean, may not appeal to everyone. If you have an open mind, or are already a fan of Japanese sweets, there is much to love about this book. The recipes are delicious and light, missing the "heavy" feeling that many American desserts have.I highly recommend the vanilla cheesecake, banana caramel swiss roll, and the soy bean chiffon cake. Heavenly.I only wish the author would release a sequel.

Very creative and excitingly unusual flavor combinations. BUT you need to have a good background in classic french pastries to get a good, consistent results from the baking. The author's directions are very sparse, and bakers need to fill the gap with their own knowledge. For example, with the strawberry sponge cake: 1) you need to whip the egg, sugar, and glucose until thick/ribbon stage. when you lift the beater from the bowl, the trails/ribbons should keep their shape. author just said "whip until light and creamy," and frankly "light and creamy" could be at any stage 2) add the melted butter & milk mixture to the sponge mixture AFTER you've incorporated the sponge with flour (which btw you need to do in 4-5 additions. unless you have a partner that can sift the flour to the bowl as you are folding); the flour in the sponge will soak up some of the liquid and prevent the liquid from sinking to the bottom. Also, when adding 1/6 of the sponge to the liquid mixture, don't fold. WHISK VIGOROUSLY. This will ensure that the liquid is fluffed up evenly. then you can fold it in carefully back to the main sponge. Anyways, great book nevertheless, but just be sure don't rely on it for techniques. I always cross check the techniques with Alice Medrich's cookbooks.

So happy to have found this book. After living in Asia and relocating back the US, I miss the delicate and less-sweet Japanese style patisserie found all over Southeast and East Asia. Cakes in the US are often way too sweet or rich for my taste. The recipes are clear, and my results are improving, after adjusting for things like egg-size and metric measurements.

Very good cake bakery book.

The Japanese learned a lot from the masters of fine cake making - the French . This book provides all those refinements-

Well when I brought it I was expecting a collections of recipes of Japanese sweets, and I was wrong. This is a book about western cakes and cookies with a Japanese twist. If you are looking for traditional Japanese recipes you might be disappointed, otherwise, this is a really good book.

Libro que incluye muchas recetas de postres que combinan lo japonés y lo europeo. Recetas exquisitas de té verde, sésamo... con toques europeos para que no sepan demasiado "raro". Me ha encantado. Está en inglés pero se entiende perfectamente.

Ich kann nur zu den Bildern etwas sagen, die sind hübsch gemacht! Um dass Buch jedoch entziffern zu können, benötigt man eine Lupe oder ein Mikroskop . sehr schade, so ist es für mich nutz- und wertlos