Chrysanthemum White Bean Paste Nerikiri Cake

Prepare the filling: Weigh out filling paste into 16 nos of 0.71oz/20g portions and roll into balls. Cover and place in fridge to keep chilled.

Prepare the wrapper: Weigh out 16 nos 1.1oz/30g portions of dough. Take one portion and cover the rest to keep moist. Further weigh this one portion into 4 portions as follows and roll into balls: 1 no. 0.53oz/15g ball, 1 no. 0.35oz/10g ball, 1 no. 0.07oz/2g ball and 1 no. 0.11oz/3g ball.

Prepare the outer wrapper: Take the 0.53oz/15g ball and roll flat into 3 inch/7.6cm diameter circle. Cover and put in fridge to keep chilled.

Prepare the inner wrapper: Color the remaining three balls by kneading in gel food coloring. The color order is as follows: 0.35oz/10g ball shall be light blue, 0.07oz/2g ball shall be light green and 0.11oz/3g ball shall be yellow

Set aside 2/3rds of the yellow dough for the 'stamens' and roll remaining yellow dough back into a ball.

Roll out the colored balls as follows: blue ball to 2.75 inch diameter circle, green ball to 3/4 inch diameter circle and yellow ball to 1/4 inch diameter circle.

Center green circle on blue circle and press gently to attach. Center yellow circle on green circle and press gently to attach. Try not to stretch out the blue circle as you add on the other colors. Inner wrapper is done. Cover and chill for 10 mins.

Combine outer and inner wrapper: Place the inner wrapper, with green and yellow colors facing down, centered onto the outer wrapper. Press lightly to attach.

Wrap the cake: Place one filling ball centered onto the blue side of the wrapper. Gather into palm and close the wrapper around the filling. Use a ‘gather, turn, gather turn’ motion to pull the wrapper up and around the filling. Close the opening and smooth. Roll the wrapped cake gently between palms to shape into a nice oval shape. Cover and chill in fridge while making the rest of the cakes.

Decoration, adding lines: Holding one cake at the edge of your palm, use the ruler's edge to mark out 16 evenly spaced segment lines all around the oval. Please check out our little video to see the decorating method in more detail!

Decoration, making petals: Next use the clay tool ball stylus (diameter of ball tip should be slightly smaller than the segment size) to push out an outer layer of petals on every other segment. The petals should extend slightly beyond the nerikiri diameter. The blue underneath is revealed in the petal.

Next, change the ball tip to match the segment size, and push out a middle layer of petals on the segments skipped before, again on every other segment, but with a tighter circumference than the outer layer. The green underneath is revealed in these petals.

Last, push out an inner layer of petals. These will be above the first outer layer of petals, again on every other petal.

Decoration, making stamens: Press a shallow less than 1/4 inch hole into top center of nerikiri. Take the reserved yellow dough. Roll into a ball and push thru a strainer to form the flower stamens. Use a knife to pick up the stamens and place onto the hole.

Repeat until all nerikiri cakes are made. Gorgeous chrysanthemum done - enjoy the autumn beauty!

Storage: Keep covered in the fridge for up to three days.