When we arrived in Japan about 6 months ago I had to start my baking supplies from scratch. Japanese kitchens don't typically have a built-in oven, but a lovely lady who'd already been here a few years very kindly loaned me the cute little oven that she hadn't been using. An excellent start to my collecting!
We don't live too far from a Costco, and they stock decent amounts of flour, cinnamon and vanilla essence.
I tracked down powdered food colouring - not something I'd used before, but worth a try. I also got some cute measuring cups, cupcake liners, some spices, and some sakura (cherry blossom) essence to try out one day when I'm feeling adventurous.
My main annoyance was that I couldn't find cocoa powder or icing sugar in any decent quantity at regular stores, so I continued to search different places looking for options. Seriously, what are you going to do with 40 grams of cocoa?
I made these lists quite a while back when I was obviously feeling a bit nerdy...
Cocoa
- 40g for 228 yen at local supermarket --> 6 yen/gram
- 40g for 221 yen at foreign food store near Kobe station --> 6 yen/gram
- 226g of Hershey's cocoa for 647 yen at Jupiter foreign food store --> 3 yen/gram
Hershey's to the rescue!
Icing sugar
- 70g for 135 yen at local supermarket --> 2 yen/gram
- 250g for 336 yen at Tokyu Hands --> 1.5 yen/gram
- 200g for 221 yen at foreign food store near Kobe station --> 1 yen/gram
- 300g for 287 yen at Jupiter foreign food store --> just under 1 yen/gram
Looks like Jupiter wins for both! There are, of course, also some ingredients available here that wouldn't be so common at home. These powders, for example.
Anyway, fear not! I haven't totally abandoned my baking. And when I finally made my first batch of cupcakes they turned out pretty well :)
