Today is Hina Matsuri! I still haven’t found any proper doll displays of ひな人形, the dolls I mentioned in yesterday’s post. I did, however, find these adorable creations at the Lawson’s by our house.

Seriously, how adorable are they? It’s ridiculous! They’re almost too cute to eat, with their sweet little smiles. The little Empress on the right is wearing pink and a star shaped hat, and the little Emperor on the left looks dashing in green and his little…well…let’s ignore the hat, shall we?

They’re one of my absolute favorite desserts too–Strawberry Daifuku! It’s lightly sweetened mochi (“Glutinous rice cake” according to my students’ dictionaries) wrapped around a lovely filling of sponge cake and sweet whipped cream. There’s a whole strawberry for heart, and overall are just sweet and yummy. The special thing about the Hina Matsuri version is of course the sugar heads, which are attached with a dollop of whipped cream. Delicious AND adorable!

I spotted these on Sunday actually, but didn’t pick them up. Sean went back out later and snagged them, because we’ve learned that if you see something seasonal, you should grab it because you may NEVER SEE IT AGAIN. In fact, it did sell out quickly, and today there were none to be found. On the festival day itself! There were cakes at Ginza Cozy Corner, and Basken Robbin’s even has special Sundaes, but these were long gone. Oh, Japan…

Want to learn more about Hina Matsuri? Check out Haiku Girl’s write up here!

Would you like to  try these cakes? Do they look cute cute to you? What do you think? 😀