Yukimi Daifuku
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Japanese snack food | |
| Yukimi daifuku | |
| Japanese name | 雪見だいふく |
| Maker | Lotte |
| Ingredients | ice cream, mochi |
Yukimi Daifuku (Japanese: 雪見だいふく "snow-viewing daifuku") is a brand of mochi ice cream manufactured by the Japanese/Korean company Lotte. It consists of a ball of vanilla ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of mochi, or rice cake. Lotte originally created Wataboshi (Japanese: わたぼうし "cotton hat or capped with snow"), a bite size ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of marshmallow in 1980. Marshmallow was quickly replaced by mochi that is favored much more than the western flavor by Japanese as the company perfected a technology to keep mochi soft in the freezing temperature in 1981.
It comes in three sizes, a carton containing two pieces of ice cream, with a plastic pick for eating it, a "mini yukimi dafuku" box with nine smaller sized ice creams, and "yukimi daifuku petit three colour box" (雪見だいふくプチ3色) containing three different kinds, a green tea ice cream, a chocolate ice cream, and a vanilla ice cream.
In the hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season, a seasonal variety with strawberry ice cream is also sold.
Yukimi is a seasonal activity in Japan, similar to hanami (cherry blossom viewing), consisting of watching snow falling. The name is a play upon tsukimi daifuku (月見大福, "moon-viewing daifuku"), the sweets traditionally eaten while viewing the moon.
