What better way to celebrate the New Year than with a lovely cake in the shape of Mt. Fuji decorated with Japanese symbols of good fortune?
Popular Japanese confectioner Gin no Budo, operated by Grapestone Co., Ltd, will be coming out in the New Year with a special cake that not only looks striking but should bring you plenty of luck. It’s the “Red Fuji New Year (Akafuji no Oshogatsu)” cake, and it’ll be available only for the first three days of the year.
Gin ni Budo traditionally offers a New Year’s cake each year, and their cake for 2018 is a creation in the shape of Mt Fuji in a stunning, vibrant red color. The concept for 2018 is apparently a cake that allows you to “eat happiness whole“, and the cake appropriately contains multiple symbols considered lucky in Japanese culture.
Mt. Fuji, which the cake itself represents, is generally thought of as a place of good luck, and in particular, the mountain is regarded as the most fortuitous image that can appear in your first dream of the new year. (It’s said that the second most fortuitous image is a hawk and the third an eggplant, by the way.) Also, as the first sunrise of the year (hatsuhinode) seen from or against Mt. Fuji is also considered very lucky, this is recreated with a bright orange-yellow garnish of what looks like chocolate atop the cake. There’s also a chocolate dog decorating the cake to celebrate the Year of the Dog in 2018. Plus, the additional piece of chocolate with Chinese characters on it is a message celebrating the New Year and the new spring to come.
The Red Fuji cake is also made of lucky colors as well. As red and white are symbolic lucky colors in Japan, the outer red coloring of the cake and the white cream on top give it a distinct celebratory feel. In addition, the red and white theme is seen in the inside of the cake too, with layers of strawberry-flavored milk cream and sponge cake creating a beautiful reddish-pink and white striped pattern. Even the number of cream and sponge layers — eight in total — is a lucky number that signifies things spreading and broadening out.
▼ Gorgeous on the inside as well as the outside!
The Red Fuji New Year cake will be available for 1,620 yen (US$14.35) at Gin no Budo locations at the Daimaru Tokyo Department Store, Keio Shinjuku Department Store, Seibu Ikebukuro Department Store, Isetan Fuchuu Department Store, Sogo Yokohama Department Store and Lazona Kawasaki (and possibly several other sister shops across Japan), starting in the New Year from the opening day of the individual stores until January 3, so you’ll only have a short time to get your hands on them.
If you’re celebrating the new year in Japan, this super lucky cake should certainly be a nice, tasty way to wish for good fortune in 2018!
Source, images: PR Times