八ツ橋（やつはし）
Yatsuhashi / Sweet Cookie or Soft Rice Cake with Cinnamon Flavor

This is one of the most famous souvenirs from Kyoto. The cookie dough is also served without baking, which is called 生八ツ橋（なまやつはし） (Nama/Raw Yatsuhashi). The bottom side of the photo is Nama Yatsuhashi with Sweet Bean Paste, which the cinnamon powder is used in instead of cinnamon oil. The baked sweet is usually made in the half-cylindrical shape as like 琴（こと） (Koto /Japanese Harp), which is derived from the name of a master at playing Koto, 八橋検校（やつはし　けんぎょう） (YATSUHASHI, Kengyou). There is another derivation that the shape means the wood board of the eight bridges (= Yatsu-Hashi) from an old tale. Cooking this sweet is easy. (Cooking time: about 30 minutes)

Ingredients (for 16 eaches of baked cookies or 8 eaches of raw rice cakes)

餅粉（もちこ） or 白玉粉（しらたまこ） Mochi-ko or Shiratama-ko /Sweet Rice Flour	1 tbs.
上新粉（じょうしんこ） Jou-Shinko /Rice Flour	3 tbs.
Suger	4 tbs.
Cinnamon Powder	1/2 ts.
黄名粉（きなこ） Kina-ko /Roasted Soybean Flour (It is fine even without this.)	1/2 ts.
Water	3 tbs.
片栗粉（かたくりこ） Katakuri-ko /Potato Starch	suitable amount

Directions

1. Set a steamer on heat to boil water up.
2. Sieve and mix well Mochiko, Jou-Shinko, Sugar, Cinnamon powder and Kinako in a small bowl with a eggbeater. Add water bit by bit and mix well.
3. Put the bowl into the steamer which the steam comes out well from. Cover with the lid and keep steaming for about 15 minutes.
4. Squeeze a wet cotton cloth and fold it in four on a table. Pour the steamed dough from the bowl and fold the cloth in two to cover the dough. Roll it, uncover the cloth, and fold the dough in two. Repeat this process for about 10 times until the dough becomes smooth. Please beware against burning yourself by the hot dough or the steam.
5. Spread potato starch on a kitchen board or a table and put the dough on it. Spread the powder again on the topside of the dough, and roll it in the shape of rectangular until the thickness reaches around 2 mm (1/12 inches). Cut it into 8 square sheets with about 7 cm (3 inches) in side, by using pie cutter or knife.

For Yatsuhashi, baked cookie

6. Cut the square sheets in the direction #5 into halves, with about 3.5 cm (1 1/2 inches) in width. Brush the extra potato starch off from the surface of the sheets. Put them on a cookie baking tray with/without a parchment paper, and bake in a oven at 325 F-degrees (about 165 C-degrees) for about 15 minutes until the cookies turn to brown.
7. Move the cookies on a metal mesh and leave until they cool down. If you would like to make them in half-cylindrical shape, push each of the hot cookies onto a rod with a dry cloth, and leave on the mesh to cool down.

For Nama Yatsuhashi, raw rice sheet

6. Brush the extra potato starch off from the surface of the sheets in the direction #5, and serve. If you like An paste, put a teaspoon of 粒餡（つぶあん） (Tsubu-An) on the center of the sheet and fold it in two as triangle form.

Notes & Arrangements

• You can do the direction #3 with a microwave oven. Please use a microwave-safe bowl to mix flours and water, cover a plastic film on the bowl, and heat in microwave oven for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
• You can arrange the flavor of Yatsuhashi by adding black suger, Matcha, ground sesami seeds, ginger juice and so on. You can also insert fruit jam, chocolate cream, custard cream and so on into Nama Yatsuhashi.
• Kinako makes the taste milder for cinnamon flavored Yatsuhashi. If you use a bit of cinnamon oil instead of the cinnamon powder, you can make white Nama Yatsuhashi as like commertial products.
• There is another way not to mix cinnamon powder in the dough, but to spread the powder on the surface of the sweets. In this case, please use mixed powder of cinnamon and Kinako instead of potato starch in the direction #5, and then roll the dough on the powder.
• Please seal Yatsuhashi in a container in order not to get damp. In the case of Nama Yatsuhashi, please wrap each with a plastic film and keep in refugirator or freezer.