Yamasa trip to Kyoto (Part 2)

The second part of our trip to Kyoto was to a confectionery factory and shop to make some sweets!

The shop has a Pepper robot!  If you speak Japanese carefully, Pepper will respond.  I've seen Pepper at Aeon Mall, too.  I got Pepper to answer one question for me -  お元気ですか (How are you?).

Each participant got a tray of supplies and tools.

Shop staff gave directions and demonstrated how to make the sweets. 

 First, we mixed the rice flour, sugar and water.

Pour it into a tray to be steamed.  While the staff steamed our batter, we went to look at the actual factory.

 Here are our instructions

 Here is what cinnamon looks like.  This shop makes some cinnamon flavored sweets, as well as green tea flavor, chocolate and sweet red bean paste.

After kneading the steamed dough, it's divided in to three, so we can make three sweets. 

The first one has cinnamon added.  I think I could have added more cinnamon to mine.

The dough is rolled out very thinly, then cut into a square.  I put some sweet bean paste ("an") inside, and voilà!  My first sweet is done!

The next one has powdered green tea (matcha) added.

Cut a square-ish shape.

Add some green tea flavored filling.

Done!

The last one has plain dough and some other flavor that was good, but I can't recall what it was, besides yellow.

We ate our sweets, then drank a bowl of tea.  Yum!

Some people in our group thought they tasted sweet, but I think Japanese sweets aren't too sweet. However, Japanese food is sweet overall compared to Chinese food, so that might be it.

Here are some shots on the highway as we went home to Okazaki.

 

 Here's a ship on the horizon near Nagoya's port.