Cherry blossom time in Japan is all about appreciating nature and the transitive beauty of life, right? Wrong. It’s totally an excuse to stuff your face with delicious food during “cherry blossom viewing parties”, aka Japan’s über-picnics! Onigiri are usually a popular food to consume under those canopies of candy-pink petals, but cherry blossom-flavoured food and drinks are also unsurprisingly popular around this time of year.

Luckily, mega-popular chain Magnolia Bakery has a store in Japan, and they’re rolling out special cherry blossom cupcakes for spring!

The special seasonal cupcakes are made with cherry blossom paste and buttercream as well as lightly pickled cherry blossom petals. The result is a salty-yet sweet flavour combination that’s bound to make them a huge success when they officially go on sale in Japan from March 18. While the cherry blossom cupcakes are only available in the Japanese branch of Magnolia Bakery, the Japanese staff collaborated with the American HQ to create the new flavour, which is the first flavour to be created for sale outside of the U.S.

Magnolia Bakery has also been showing a lot of love for Japan in its stores back home, too. In 2011, the year of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the “Japan Cupcake” was created with a portion of the profits going to the relief efforts. The “Japan Cupcake” is a combination of chocolate with vanilla buttercream icing topped with a fresh raspberry, and this year it was revived for sale in Japan throughout the month of March. A portion of the profits will be donated to the Japan Red Cross, so they’re an ethical choice of cherry blossom viewing party snack for those who don’t like the taste of the blossoms.

▼ The Japan Cupcake – it kind of looks like the flag of Japan, doesn’t it?

Since everyone in Japan tends to go crazy for foreign stores, and since we’ve never met anyone who dislikes cupcakes, we can foresee these special limited-edition treats selling like, well, hot cakes.

Source/images: Entabe 1, 2