Cheese Manju & Choco-Man: Modern Wagashi

“Wagashi (和菓子)” is the word that mainly refers to traditional Japanese sweets, and “Manju (饅頭)” is one of the representative confections in the category.

Cheese Manju & Choco-Man

Modern Wagashi Choco-Man & Cheese Manju

Manju is a small round fluffy steamed bun traditionally filled with sweet red bean paste called “Anko (餡子)“. But in modern times, it comes in many variants, which include these Cheese Manju and Choco-Man.

Cheese Manju (チーズまんじゅう)

Cheese Manju

As cheese is rarely used in traditional Japanese sweets, Cheese Manju is a kind of modern Wagashi. According to this article on Japanese Wikipedia, it was first made around 1980 in Miyazaki Prefecture. 

Unlike regular Manju, Cheese Manju is not steamed but baked in the oven. The dough is similar to cookies, while the filling is a processed cheese paste, typically cream cheese.

Ingredients 

Cheese Manju Ingredients Nutrition Facts Calories Label

Based on the list pictured above, the ingredients in the dough of this Cheese Manju are wheat flour, condensed milk, butter, egg, sugar, and honey.

Choco-Man (チョコまん) or Chocolate Manju

Choco-Man Chocolate Manju

Choco-Man, also known as Chocolate Manju or Choco Manju, is a popular modern Manju cake produced by many confectionery makers around the country. But I’m not sure when it was created.

The inside of Choco-Man is typically “Shiro-An (白餡)” or sweet white bean paste, which is sometimes flavored with cocoa powder. Meanwhile, the dark color of the outer dough literally comes from chocolate.

Ingredients

Yamazaki Choco Man Ingredients Nutrition Facts Calories Label

Specifically, the dough of this Choco-Man mainly consists of wheat flour, sugar, egg, chocolate, and cocoa butter.

Tomo

Hi, I'm Tomo, a Japanese blogger living in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. For the purpose of enriching your life, I would like to introduce things about Japan on this blog, especially unique Japanese products, cooking recipes, cultures, and facts and trivia.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: