Recipe
- Make Uiro with no changes.
- Color, then make 20g balls of uiro and 20g balls of shiro-an.
- Do this by putting the uiro on a baking sheet. Keeping your hands wet at all times, add color and knead in-hand.
- Use a bench scraper to cut the uiro into pieces. If you cut pieces too big or too small, uiro tolerates adding more material and re-kneading well.
- Flatten, wrap.
- Flatten in-hand, still wet.
- Try to put the finished ball on a damp surface whenever possible. It will make it easier to pick up. (see note)
- Roll in katakuriko.
Don't let the balls be too wet before rolling in katakuriko
Everything should be wet until the very end, when you roll the finished ball in katakuriko.
However, when you put it in katakuriko, it shouldn’t be that wet. If it’s dripping wet, the katakuriko will clump and get stuck in big chunks.
Try using a damp sarashi to place the finished wet balls on. That may be enough (?) to keep from being super wet for the katakuriko.
Notes:
- DO NOT USE AKA-AN. USE SHIRO-AN.
- The uiro thins out surprisingly a lot, and it really shows the color underneath. Aka-an just ruins the color.
- Make sure the uiro is completely smooth before starting to wrap the ball of anko. Otherwise, it will end up with clumps of katakuriko and white sections on the exterior.
- If the uiro gets sticky after dusting, don’t put more katakuriko on directly. Instead, dip the brush itself into a bit of katakuriko, then brush that onto the surface.
- On 2024-11-01, we tried to do a vertical split with orange on one half, yellow on the other half. The split was very hard to get nice. Particular notes:
- It’s easier if the entire surface is even. An option to get more color is to use white as a base, flatten it, then imprint sections of color on the inside. Wrapping the anko will cause that imprinted color to show.
- If you want to do a split, then just like in Ayame and Ichou, rub the hotdog! If it is anything but completely smooth, the seam will show. One way to solve this is:
- Smoosh the two balls together. Connecting plane is currently vertical.
- Rotate the balls by 30deg. Connecting plane is now slightly at an angle.
- Flatten with the connecting plane at an angle, then rub in the direction of the plane (ie top side rubs right, bottom side rubs left).
- Doing the above will help the seam not open back up. It will have the additional effect of a smoother color gradient.
