Unagi Mochi

Looks like standard one, but not a sweetfish but an eel.

“Unagi Mochi” made by Taihei An, a confectioner in Hyogo Prefecture is a rice cake wrapping sweet bean paste and then wrapped by sponge cake dough. It resembles the shape of an eel.  That can be an eel version of “Wakayu”, young sweetfish, which is a major Japanese confectionery.

Such arrangement makes me lauch.

This is not a sweetfish but an eel, so the shape is long and slender. Moreover a letter of  “eel” is clearly is marked on the surface of the sponge cake dough.

It is filled with azuki bean paste and gyuhi, rice cake made by kneading. It is also made of the same ingredients as the young sweetfish, and it is a little difficult to see their difference when we break it open.

The texture of the rice cake is quite original, and it is like a paste-like gyuhi. It is firmly sweetened, so in that sense, it may indeed have the concept of a stamina-enhancing eel.