It’s coming soon! White Day is this Friday! It’s our day ladies! Our day to rake in the goodies after we forked ‘em over on Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day in Japan, to those who are unfamiliar, is a day when women give men chocolate (choco) and don’t get diddly in return. That’s right, nadda. Women even have to go so far as to give choco to men they might not even like. Isn’t that a shame? Well, a candy marketer came up with the concept of White Day to correct this injustice.
White Day, which falls on March 14th, is the day men return the favor of candy giving, and pony up the treats to the women who gave them chocolate the month before. Originally, marshmallows were given on White Day, hence why it was dubbed White Day. I think that’s uber weak, and so did the ladies who eventually received white and/or milk chocolate and other goodies instead of marshmallows.
So you gents who were showered with choco last month need to get some treats handy for this Friday. For those who didn’t get showered with choco, no problem, show that special gal in you’re life there’s no hard feelings by making her some white chocolate chip cookies or better yet, by making her some Chizukeki Chichi Dango.
Chizukeki Chichi Dango is an easy chichi dango with the rich taste of cheesecake. Tell her your feelings for her are as pure as the white mochiko this treat is made from!
Chizukeki Chichi Dango
- 1 3/4 cups mochiko
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 packages cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/2 Tbls lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup water
- potato or cornstarch for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil enough water to fill a shallow baking pan.
Whisk together the mochiko, sugar and baking powder. Set aside.
Cream the cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla and water with a hand held mixer on high. Add the mochiko mixture to the cream cheese mixture and mix on high.
Pour the mochi batter into a greased 9×13 pan. Cover the top of the pan with aluminum foil. Place the pan in a shallow baking pan and place the baking pan in the preheated oven. Pour the boiling water into the baking pan till it’s full. Cook at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Let the chichi dango cool completely then turn it onto a starch dusted cutting board. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out hearts. Dust the hearts with starch and store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week. Heat briefly before serving, if desired, for a softer texture.
Makes 12, 2 inch Hearts
Difficulty: Easy | Time: 1 hour 30 minutes | Ingredient Availability: Moderate
That sounds delicious. Unfortunately, I think I’ll be getting my strawberry “shortcake” and another hand towel this year.
@Caitlin, it really was delicious and just got better with time. It didn’t last long either and got eaten quicker than most mochi treats.
You get hand towels for White Day? Huh? The shortcake I can understand, but hand towels? Is this a local thing? Anywho, I wish you a Happy White Day!
Here’s a dorky question, do you use glass or metal pans? Or does it not make a difference?
@TwiRp, I used glass for this but you can use metal. As long as you have a water bath and check it midway, I don’t think you’ll have issues. Keep in mind dark metal will cook much faster than lighter metal but dark metal pans and glass pans cook about the same. Maybe raise the temp in the oven about 20 degrees if you’re using a light metal pan.
@Rachel: I used a light metal pan and the cook time seemed about the same, I can’t say about the taste yet though as it is still cooling.
I have another quick question about the potato/cornstarch. Where I live, I can only find cornstarch, but I heard that the potato starch tastes better on treats as cornstarch is supposed to be used as a thickening agent and potato starch is more of a duster. Have you tried them to see if they’re different?
@TwiRp, I’ve used both cornstarch and potato starch as thickeners and dusters.Potato starch is a faster coagulant and I don’t have to use as much, but I notice the sauce, or whatever I use it in, is a little different than when I use cornstarch. Cornstarch doesn’t taste much different than potato or tapioca or wheat starch, to be honest. I’ve used all of them to dust mochi with at one time or another.
I promise you your mochi will taste fine with cornstarch. Most people can’t get their hands on potato starch and use cornstarch instead, and they don’t seem to notice a difference. I think the main difference in the two is location, location. In Japan, potatoes are used to make starch, which is used to make mizu ame. They have potatoes, we have corn. I tend to list the Japanese ingredients because I’m hella spoiled where I live (three blocks from an international grocery).
Tell me how your chi chi dango turned out!
They turned out so-so. They didn’t have as much flavor as I expected, but I left them in the fridge for a while, and then tried another and it tasted much better than the one earlier, maybe I didn’t let them cool enough. I was expecting something a bit sweeter, so next time I might try something else for the water, like coconut milk or a condensed milk.
@TwiRp, these get better with time, seriously, they’ll taste better tomorrow, and even better three days from now!
Sweetness is a personal preference. What’s sweet to my friend tastes sour to me so totally finagle the recipe to your taste. I’m always looking out for calories so I try to cut them when I can, but condensed milk will add more richness and sweetness to the recipe. Let me know how your revisions turn out next time ^^. Oh, and wouldn’t blueberries be nice to top this with? They’re in season here in the Midwest.
I tried it with a strawberry glaze and it was delicious, but I think that adds more calories. For less calories, I also tried it with toasted coconut, which was good, but not as good as the strawberry glaze…
I think we need to have a White Day in the US of A, mainly because of personal experiences (through elementary school I kept giving this girl a bow of chocolates for 5 valentines strait, then gave up, but the year I decide not to get her something, she makes me a bunch of cookies and chocolates, then I felt guilty). I’d probably stick to a white chocolate creation though.
Blueberries sound like they’d be a great topping, but they’re too expensive here. I think a small box is about $5-6.
I wish that my Japanese friend give me chocolate when I get in Japan. hehehe ^^