sakura roll cake

Over at Morino Café, a cake and coffee house in southern Takamatsu, they're serving up some delicious desserts and seasonal entrées. This being the sakura - cherry blossom - season, I'm seeing pink everywhere, and not just on the trees. Along with delicately patterned wagashi (Japanese confections) like daifuku and manju, cakes and even lattes have been put in pink to celebrate the season. And it's not only locals that catch the flower fever - The Starbucks uptown had sakura-flavored scones and macarons.

front - sakura roll cake, behind - matcha green tea roll cake at Morino Café

The roll cake wasn't nearly as sweet as I had imagined it would be, and this was quite a pleasant surprise. Light flavors in the sponge went very well with just a thin layer of pink whipped cream as a frosting, and they rolled the cake around the same frosting to create the filling, adding strawberries and the ubiquitous red adzuki beans.

Sakura flavoring, which can be bought as an essence, does have a unique flavor. The flavor is nothing like the flavor of cherries, and tastes somewhat like the smell of a flower mixed with lychee berries.


I do plan on talking about roll cakes more, since they are one of those versatile (one of my choice words, that) desserts that can be made easily and with lots of different results, by varying the filling. Roll 'em out!