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The Buche de Noel cake comes from an old European tradition of burning a huge log at the winter solstice to end the year and bring good luck, and later during the Christmas season to celebrate Christmas. It’s a little unclear when exactly people started making cakes instead of burning giant logs, but it seems to be connected to houses and fireplaces becoming smaller. The French name and the use of thinly rolled sponge cake points to 19th century France. In any case, at some point, people started to replace their wood yule logs with delicious cakes and now everyone can enjoy them!

Japanese Buttercream (バタークリーム) is pretty much like European buttercream.  Soft butter is mixed into a sweet meringue with flavoring such as vanilla or liqueur.  Buttercream cakes used to be very popular in Japan. Ever since whipped heavy cream cakes emerged in the 1970s, though, buttercream cakes were eclipsed and have become next to nonexistent today.  That may be because Japanese people tend to like lighter and less sweet cakes, and they think buttercream cakes are overly sweet and heavy.

Choux Cream (シュークリーム) is a cream filled dessert and one of the very popular western style sweets in Japan.  It is better known as a cream puff in the US, and choux a la creme in France.  Japanese Choux Cream has a softer, chewier choux shell than the French one. It is one of the most beloved sweets of all time from the young to the old.

Satsumaimo Amani is sweet potato cooked in sweet syrup.  It is a great small side dish or snack. Satsumaimo Amani is not something you eat at restaurants, but it is often made at home in the fall.

Satsumaimo, Japanese sweet potatoes, are in season in fall and winter, so Satsumaimo is the taste of fall in Japan.  They are purple outside and yellow inside, dense and sweet, different from western yams which are usually orange inside.  Because of the sweet taste, Satsumaimo is used in many desserts, like simple baked potatoes or more complicated sweet potato cakes.  Satsumaimo are used for savory dishes too, such as using them in Tempura or adding to Miso Soup.  The sweetness of the potatoes and salty seasonings complement each other very well.