Traditional Japanese rice cake gets a western twist — with cream cheese and blueberry filling!

Here’s what you get when western cream cheese meets a traditional daifuku rice cake!

Bel Japon, the Japanese subsidiary of French cheese manufacturer Fromageries Bel, recently announced that they will be releasing a new rice cake-based dessert from Japanese confectioner Imuraya. What makes the snack unique is that it will be a daifuku rice cake made with some distinctly non-Japanese ingredients — cream cheese and blueberry!

For those of you unfamiliar with daifuku, they’re typically round cakes made of glutinous mochi rice filled with sweet bean paste.

▼ Some typical daifuku rice cakes

But the newly released Cream Cheese Daifuku Blueberry contains a cream cheese filling instead of  the usual sweet bean paste, making it a combination of Japanese and Western sweetness.

The content of the filling inside the rice cake is 45 percent Kiri cream cheese and also contains blueberry sauce made with wild North American blueberries.

Kiri cream cheese is one of the cheeses produced by the Bel Group, and its mild taste should contrast well with the strong, sour flavor of the wild blueberries. The blueberry sauce contains 26 percent blueberry fruit, so it should be extra juicy and flavorful. Yum!

In addition to the Cream Cheese Daifuku, they’re also bringing back the Blueberry Flavor Cream Cheese Ice Cream Bar, which was sold in May last year and was apparently quite popular with consumers.

▼ This year’s Cream Cheese Ice Cream Bar contains 70 percent Kiri cream cheese, also with blueberry sauce inside the ice cream, so it’s sure to be a rich, satisfying treat.

The Cream Cheese Daifuku Blueberry is already on sale, while the ice cream bar will be released on February 5. Although the official announcements so far don’t include information on where the items will be sold, we’re pretty sure they will be available at various convenience stores and supermarkets across Japan.

It’s always nice to see innovation in the daifuku world, and if you’re in Japan and looking for something delightfully soft and sweet, the Cream Cheese Daifuku certainly seems like a snack option worth considering!

Source: Digital PR Platform
Top image: Digital PR Platform
Insert images: Wikipedia/Luzzy, Digital PR Platform

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