It was love at first sight the moment I set my eyes on dried sakura flowers. When my dear friend Joan went to Japan and generously brought back a small tub of pickled sakura for me, I just couldn't wait to try it! Being rather adventurous, I wanted to go beyond the usual sakura patterns on the base of the tin, and sought to pattern the sakura flowers on the side of the tin as well to create more 3D sakura patterns. I was surprised the dried flowers stuck well to the sides of the tin! I had been wanting to try the famed Okashi black sesame chiffon cake for the longest time and I thought that black sesame and sakura would pair up very well for a Japanese-themed cake.
I will not be blogging about the recipe since it was taken from the book, "Okashi, sweet treats made with love". However, I did make some modifications to the original recipe. Since I was a big fan of 3 egg yolk: 4 egg whites chiffon recipe for its softness, I reduced the number of egg yolks in the original okashi recipe from 5 to 4. I also reduced the amount of sugar in the original recipe by 10g as the black sesame paste I bought was already very sweet.
Care has to be taken to rinse and soak the pickled sakura flowers in hot water for at least 10 mins (repeat at least 2x), as they are originally very salty. It it also very important to pat dry the flowers with kitchen paper towel before arranging them on chiffon tin on the base and at the sides (refer to the photo above).
The pickled sakura flowers were still slightly salty in the cake, but I thought it was an interesting combination with the sweet black sesame chiffon cake. My hubby felt it was an acquired taste lol! But my parents loved it :) The okashi cake indeed has an interesting elastic light texture, perhaps due to the corn flour?
I will continue to use the pretty sakura flowers in my bakes! Seeing them makes me so happy!
With love,
Susanne
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