Fruits mitsumame is a summer Wagashi, traditional Japanese confectionery featuring agar cubes, canned fruit, and red peas.
Fruits Mitsumame (フルーツみつ豆) is a traditional Japanese summertime dessert bowl. You can assemble the ingredients yourself or buy canned versions.
Table of contents
What Is Fruits Mitsumame
Fruits Mitsumame is a dessert featuring fruits, such as cherries, pineapple, mandarin oranges/mikan, red peas, shiratama dango or gyuhi (mochi bites), and agar-agar (AKA kanten 寒天) cubes. It’s sweetened with kuromitsu brown sugar syrup or simple syrup. It hails back to the Edo period (1603-1868) as a snack for children.
Mitsu (蜜・みつ) refers to the sweet syrup poured over the dessert; mame (豆) means beans.
While you can make agar/kanten from scratch and assemble the bowl with various ingredients, you could skip the hassle and buy it in cans containing all the ingredients.
What Does It Taste Like
It’s a dessert with different flavors and textures, but it’s sweet overall as it is soaked in simple syrup.
Varieties of Mitsumame
Here are some variations you may encounter at a Japanese dessert shop.
- Mitsumame (みつ豆): beans, shiratama or gyuhi, and kanten
- Mamekan (豆かん): beans and kanten
- Cream mitsumame (クリームみつ豆): soft serve ice cream and mitsumame
- Coffee mitsumame (コーヒーみつ豆): coffee jelly and mitsumame
- Anmitsu (あんみつ): anko and mitsumame
- Cream anmitsu (クリームあんみつ): soft serve ice cream and anmitsu
How To Use
You can eat canned fruits mitsumame straight out of the can. But I recommend loading it with red bean or green tea ice cream, fresh fruits like kiwi, banana, strawberries, anko sweet red bean paste, kuri kanroni, or coffee jelly.
Chill in the refrigerator before serving.
Recipes Using Fruits Mitsumame
Where To Buy
Find cans at Japanese and Asian grocery stores.
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