From Pennies To Yennies

When I first moved here, I was shocked at how few baking things I could buy here. Our local grocery store has nothing! A couple interesting looking mixes, some sprinkles, some nuts. It was very disappointing. Luckily my wonderful bestie in Seattle, Kelsey, sent me muffin mix for my birthday, and all you had to add was water! Sadly I had to put my cupcake tin in the oven sideways, as we have a tiny oven here, but nonetheless they were yummy and it felt good to be in the kitchen again.

I finally decided to be proactive on my hunt for baking supplies. I highly doubted that no one in Japan ever bakes cupcakes. So, I set out to find some supply! I decided to start with my cooking basics- sugar and flour. Just by learning the kanji it turned out to be right there at my local grocery store. with these two ingredients, plus some vanilla extract, in addition to the eggs and butter I had at home, I knew I could get liftoff on some baking projects.

I turned to Google and found some specialty shops around Tokyo from forums and traveler’s blogs. I recruited Dan and we first headed out to Okashi no Mori in Taito. Such a cute little shop! Soooo many cake and candy molds, cookie cutters and pans! Pans that would fit in our oven! I treated myself to some icing bags and tips and headed home as they were closing. It was exciting to finally find baking supplies, but there were still some goodies on my shopping list- I wanted to find specialty ingredients (like baking soda, peppermint extract, white chocolate) and some other tools, like a rolling pin so Dan and I could make some cutout sugar cookies.

A few days later I met Dan after work in Shibuya and we ventured out to Kichijoji to find a bake supply shop called Cuoca. we were in heaven the moment we got off the train! The shop was in a mall attached to the train station. En route to the shop we passed a market place full of delicious looking and smelling bakeries and delis. Everything looked amazing! We browsed the counters of a fruit and veggie stand, a couple bakeries and one of my faves, Dean & Deluca. Eventually we made our way to the other side of the mall where we found to cute bake shop called Cuoca. They had everything! I got white chocolate, cookie cutters, a rolling pin, baking soda and some other cooking goodies. Oh, it was heaven! The prices are definitely a bit steeper here but the hunt was fun and the end result will be delicious!

Since I had to get creative with ingredients before I found these bake shops, I’ve been doing a lot of searching and trying new recipes. It’s been deliciously fun for Dan and I! This holiday we’ve enjoyed soft peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip marshmallow cookies and tonight I’m making sugar cookie dough so we can roll it out and use our cookie cutters tomorrow. We’ve definitely been enjoying the holiday season!