Sakura Cake

Brand: Meika (Excellent Sweets)

Found at: Bokkusu

I’ve talked before on this blog about how I feel towards “sakura” flavoring. I have never known cherry blossoms to have a scent, and as I have never attempted to eat one, I cannot say if they have a flavor either – but as far as I can tell, “sakura” flavoring is just cherry flavor and pink food dye. I’m willing to accept that there’s something more nuanced going on that I am missing, but no one has ever convinced me that this is anything more than a marketing ploy.

This cake, for example, tastes like a cherry cough drop. It evokes a weird sort of cognitive dissonance: the name places me under a cherry tree in full bloom but the taste brings me back to every childhood sore throat. The mental image this creates is of a Hanami season where I am too ill to really enjoy myself. And in a way, I can think of no better pastry for a spring forgone by illness – a hybrid flavor of the strange season we’ve had. But as I’m still in lockdown, I am not removed enough to fully savor the culinary symbolism: for now, I’d rather just have cake that tastes like cake.