A Traditional Japanese Sweet That Can Be Served In Two Ways

 

These are a traditional Japanese sweets called "Shiratama-Azuki”. Shiratama means one kind of plain rice cakes which have small round-shape as shown in the photos. Azuki means red beans, so "Shiratama Azuki" is a dessert of Shiratama rice cakes with sweet mashed red beans (Anko).

Shiratama Azuki has an interesting feature. It can be served with hot temperature and cold temperature. It's similar to the situation which apple pies can be served as both of a hot dessert and a cold dessert. Regarding Shiratama Azuki, people tend to order cold one in summer and hot one in winter.

I'm showing both version in the photos above. For the cold version in the left hand side photo, Shiratama rice cakes are on top of chilled syrup style of mashed red beans. People scoop the rice cakes and sweet red beans sauce together to eat it. 

On the other hand, for the hot version in the right hand side photo, many small rice cakes are soaked in hot water. people pick those warm rice cakes up from the hot water and eat them with the sweetened mashed red beans on the small dish. The yellow powder beside the mashed red beans is sweet soy beans powder called Kinako and it is an additional topping.

Now the temperature is getting cooler day by day, and under nice fall weather either version would be nice depending on your mood of the moment!