Japan has given us culinary wonders from green-tea-flavoured Kit Kats to curry doughnuts, but - even for a nation that invented cubic watermelons - a vegan, calorie-free dessert seems far-fetched. Enter the raindrop cake, known in Japan as mizu shingen mochi. The most-discussed piece of confectionary since the Cronut has been the subject of many less-than-flattering comparisons - from breast implants to jellyfish - but that hasn’t stopped it from gaining a cult following, both at home and abroad.
First developed by the Kinseiken Seika Company in Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture (located just southwest of Tokyo), the treat caused an Instagram frenzy a few years ago - and triggered countless pilgrimages to the mountainous region where just two shops offer the delicacy. Made simply of water from the Japanese Alps and agar, a gelatin replacement derived from seaweed, it has to be eaten on the spot; left for more than twenty minutes, it melts and evaporates.
If a trip to Japan is impossible, you can now try the otherworldly pudding for yourself at London restaurant Yamagoya. Owner Fah Sundravorakul spent four months developing his version of the raindrop cake, with just 20 available each day. Each one is presented on a wooden board with kuromitsu, a molasses-based syrup, and kinako, a roasted soybean flour, for flavouring. When you eventually finish prodding the dome of see-through jelly (if there was ever a moment to play with your food, it’s now), use the cooling treat, which dissolves in your mouth as you eat it, to cleanse the palette after a spicy bowl of ramen. Consider it this summer’s trendiest alternative to ice cream.
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