Christmas Sushi and Bread

Hello from Japan! I had wanted to do up one or two posts to auto-post while I'm on holiday, as I've quite a few Christmas creations to share. However, I was busy right up to the day of departure, so it did not work out the way I had intended. I did managed to get the photos uploaded for this post, planning to type it out if I had any free time on my trip. I finally found some time to update as these few days we are just relaxing and enjoying the snow and onsen, after a hectic and tiring one week of theme park and sightseeing.


I did not managed to make any Christmas bentos so far, I do have some from past years and you can check them out over here. The first food art I'm sharing today is a set of Christmas sushi.


I'm quite happy with how they turned out, I've made similar snowman sushi before, and this time, I added in Santa and reindeer as well.


The sushi are mainly made from rice stuffed into aburaage, details were done using ingredients like cheese, nori, crabstick, Kombu and fish sausages. I've served them on a sushi board but they can be packed for bentos too.


I also baked Christmas themed chigiri-pan. Chigiri-pan or pull apart bread buns are quite fun to make. For this, I made snowman, Santa, reindeer, reindeer, gingerbread man, present and berries.


I used cocoa powder and matcha powder for the brown and green respectively. I used food colourings for the rest of the colours. Just stocked up on vegetable powders, will have to try them out when I'm back.


I know some of you want to recipe for these, but I'm not able to share as I was still experimenting so I did not take down the exact measurements.


This was actually the first version of the Chrismas bread buns I made, but I was not happy with it. I wanted to attempt it again with some changes, but could not find the time to do so, looks like I will have to try to attempt this next year.

Christmas Cheese Wedge

More Christmas food art ideas to share for today's post. This time I'm sharing Christmas themed snacks you can make using The Laughing Cow cheese wedges, these are great for serving on a platter for Christmas parties too.


I made snowman, Santa, reindeer and Christmas tree using cheese wedges. I took some photos to explain how I craft them and will share them later in this post.


Which design do you like best? I think mine is the snowman. :)


I'm sure most of you are familiar with the cheese products from The Laughing Cow. They have a wide range of cheese products, and my boys' favourites are Belcube and Cheez Dippers. They have been snacking on them since they were toddlers and they still love to eat them now.


From now till 31 December 2015, you can receive a free Happy Bowl with any purchase of two The Laughing Cow® products. The Happy Bowl is made of high-quality, non-toxic plastic and is microwave-friendly. There are 3 colours for collection: red, yellow and green. I've the one in green. You can redeem at supermarket customer service counter. While stocks last.


Alright, now I'll go through how to create the snowman first. Use knife to cut out triangles for the hat and nose, from bell peppers and carrots respectively. Use a straw or round cutter to cut out circles from ham.


Place the cut-outs on the cheese wedge. Using a nori punch, cut out circles for eyes from nori. Use black sesame seeds for the mouth.


For the Chrismas tree, cut out a strip of cucumber first, then cut them into smaller squares or rectangles.


Cut out a star from carrot using a star cutter, arrange the cut-outs on a slice of cheese wedge.


For Santa, cut out a triangle from bell pepper using a knife. Use a round cutter or scissors to cut out circles from bell pepper and ham.


Use a flower cutter to cut out the Santa's beard from cheese.


Arrange the cut-outs on the cheese wedge. Use a nori punch to cut out nori for the the eyes and mouth.


Lastly, for reindeer, you will need two pretzels and a round bell pepper, which you can cut out using a round cutter or a pair of scissors.


Use a nori punch to cut out circles for the eyes from nori.


You can serve the cheese wedges on crackers, they go really well with them. :)

Santa & Reindeer Bento

Happy belated Christmas! I was hoping to get this post up on my blog before Christmas, but I was both busy and lazy, which explains why this post is only up on the blog today. -_- I still have quite a lot of backlog to blog, not sure when I'll ever get them done at the rate I'm going. Hiaz.


Reindeer and Santa were made from mashed potato and sausage, their red noses are bubu arare ( rice puffs). I did not do a good job on the moulding, this was actually a last minute charaben, everything was done in a rush. I was busy baking that day as well. Reminder to self to not try to multi-task too much.


I actually have a few more Christmas ideas, but I got a little caught up in baking recently, guess I will just have to leave those ideas till next Christmas.


My boys made this very simple santa from strawberry and marshmallow before our vacation. They also helped to cut out the star shaped christmas tree at the back from pandan bread. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Santa & Snowman Pancakes

I'm sharing two christmas pancakes idea for today.


Santa pancake, made out of whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries.


Definitely something easy to whip up for breakfast.


Here's an even easier one, pancakes snowman.


The details were done using blueberries, melted chocolate, strawberries and Pretz sticks.

Where to get same or similar item used in today's post:

Santa & Snowman Christmas Sushi

Christmas is around a month away, have you started making any Christmas themed food yet? I started on Christmas themed food just before the school holidays started, as I will be away for the first two weeks of December. I still have so many more ideas I want to try but I'm running out of time. I hope I have time to make them after I return from my trip.  If you need more ideas, you can click HERE to check out all my past Christmas foodart. :)


I got this santa sushi idea from a decor sushi book. Snowman sushi idea was from a Japan site. There was no instructions for the snowman sushi but it did not look too difficult, so I went ahead to try. It's not perfect but I think it did not turn out too bad either.

The pink coloured rice was coloured using sakura denbu, green rice was with deco furi and orange rice was mixed with steamed pumpkin.


LT wanted to bring the sushi to school, so I packed one in his bento box, along with gyozas.


Found a picture of these lovely flowers in my camera, so I thought I'll upload it as well. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Santa and Snowman Bread Roll

This shall be my last Christmas bento for this year. I still have a few more ideas but I've no time to make any more bentos before Christmas. Still lots of things I've yet to clear before School reopens. :( I am sorry I've not had time to visit blogs or reply to comments much either, but I hope I will get my act together soon. :)


I made a simple snack bento for the boys today. Jam filled bread roll, decorated as Santa and snowman. I added some grapes and strawberries in the box.


The toppers hats came in really handy. :)

My Christmas giveaway will be closing tomorrow, last day to enter if you have not. :) And here's wishing everyone a blessed Christmas! :)

Where to get same or similar items seen in today's bentos: