Ever heard of Kuri Kinton?
Eaten on Japanese New Year's Day - If you know something like sweet potato paste in Osechi, that is it!

You can eat it as it is, or use it for the filling in the sweet bread or even cakes I sometimes make sponge cake with Kuri Kinton and whipped cream for dessert if I have leftover!

Ingredients:
250g of sweet potato
7-10 sweetened chestnuts
1 dried gardenia fruit (Kutinashi no mi) (Tumeric)

(A) 50g of sugar
(A) 50cc of Sweet syrup of chestnuts
(A) 3 Tablespoons of Mirin
(A) a pinch of salt

Dried gardenia fruit makes the dish a bright yellow colour. So naturally I would substitute this for Tumeric spice.

1. Peel off the skin of sweet potato and slice into 2-3 cm pieces. Soak in the water.
2. Add Tumeric
3. Boil the water, place the sweet potato and the fried gardenia fruit. Cook them until the potatoes become soft.
4. Drain the water, and remove the fried gardenia fruit. Place sweet potatoes in a food processor then mash it.
5. Place the mashed potato and all the (A)s in a pan and heat it up. When the potato paste become shiny, add the chestnuts then stop the gas. Cook it down.

Yum!

Amazake - sweet drink from fermented rice Recipe

It's very sweet drink which Japanese drink on New year's day.

Some make it all around the year since it's very tasty and good for your health!
There're no sugar in it, natural sweetness from the rice and you'll be amazed how sweet it is!

Ingredients:
3 cups of rice porridge
3 cups of Rice Koji

1. Make rice porrige with 1 cup of rice and 5 cups of water.

1. Place 3cups of rice porridge in a bowl then cool it down until it became 65degree C. ( very important)

2. Add 3 cups of Koji then mix well. Replace the mixture in the rice cooker then leave it for 6hours at least with lid open and place clothes on top to prevent dry.

Please don't push "cook" button, push "keep warm" button. Then the Koji can frament in the warm environment

1. After 6-7 hours, it became like this (thick liquid). then place in the pot and boil it for few minutes to stop framentation.

You can use it as many ways.
I often drink it deluted with hot water with ground ginger in winter.
Or I use this pase instead of sugar to make sweets

This time I used brown rice and brown rice Koji, but people usually use white rice and white rice Koji.

Amazake recipe

It's super good for your health, we sometimes call it as "drinking IV (intravenous infusion". Amazake includes a lot of Vit.Bs and amino acid.

I love to drink just hot Amazake, but today I iwant to introduce you how to use it for sweets. You can keep it in the fridge about one week, so please use it for your main dish/sweets etc instead of using sugar, you will taste the deepness of the flavor

Amazake Cookie Recipe (non egg, non sugar, non daily product)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour 100g
Whole wheat flour 60g
(A) 110g Amazake
(A) 40g oil
(A) a pinch of salt

If you like, please add any kind of nuts or chocolate chips or dried fruits. This time I use carob chips

1. Mix whole wheat flour and all purpose flour well.

2. Mix all the (A)s in the other bowl until the color became whitish color.

1. Mix (1) and (2) well. This time I add some carob tips at this point.

2. Make the shape. about 7-8mm thickness and 3cm circle shape.

1. Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes with 160 degree C.

2. Enjoy!!

If you make this cookie without any carob tips or dried fruits, it's not sweet compared to pre-made cookies since it doesn't include any sugar. But you can taste very natural sweetness from the Amazake (the sweetness is like crackers) and the texture is crispy outside and a little moist inside. It's very nice! If you like more sweet one, please add chopped dried fruit or carob chip etc. I made plain and carob one, half and half
And you can also make it with rice flour as well, in this case, please adjust the oil or Amazake amount (liquid amount) depends on the dough!