The popular Japanese sweets maker suggests a bold new way to eat cake.

Ginza Cozy Corner, known for their wide range of attractive yet affordable cakes and pastries, are currently running an interesting campaign that combines western-style cake with Japanese culture in an unexpected yet delightful way.  To commemorate their 70th anniversary this year, the confection chain is now giving away gift sets of custom-made chopsticks and chopstick rests.

For a limited time, customers purchasing 1,200 yen (US$11.32) or more at a Cozy Corner shop will be able to participate in a draw to win a set of Cozy Corner chopsticks and one of seven delightful original chopstick rests modeled on yummy-looking sweets.

But why chopsticks? Apparently, Cozy Corner is suggesting that eating cake with chopsticks might actually be a good idea!

▼ Cake with chopsticks?
That’s not something we typically see in Japan.

On their website’s “cake with chopsticks” campaign page, Cozy Corner explains that while using chopsticks to have cake may seem quite unconventional, it can actually be efficient. Strawberries or chestnuts placed on top of the cake, which may be hard to spear with a fork, can be picked up relatively easily with chopsticks, and any crumbs or wayward pieces of cake can easily picked up with chopsticks as well. When you have several small pieces of cake to share, it’s also easy to pick up and move the pieces if you use chopsticks.

Now that makes it sound like we should have every reason to be using chopsticks to eat cake already, but the fact is it simply isn’t the norm in Japan to use chopsticks for cake, and you certainly won’t see it being done in Japanese restaurants or cafes.

Japanese people are happy to use chopsticks for a wide range of foods, as you can use chopsticks to eat most anything, but sweets seem to be an exception for some reason. Even traditional Japanese sweets are consumed not with chopsticks but with utensils such as small flat wooden knife or a thick wooden pick, so we guess it’s not surprising that using chopsticks for cake simply doesn’t come intuitively to the Japanese.

But as Cozy Corner’s explanations describe, there certainly seem to be advantages to using chopsticks to eat cake, especially when they’re giving out attractive original chopsticks and chopstick rests.

The special chopsticks created by Cozy Corner for their campaign are made of natural wood and decorated with Wakasa-nuri Japanese lacquer painting, in addition to being designed with a narrow square point to make the sticks easier to cut the cake and pick up small pieces with.

And sweets fans are sure to love the adorable dessert-themed chopstick rests Cozy Corner have also made for the campaign!

▼ They look like real confections!

The  chopstick rests come in designs that include Cozy Corner’s popular Strawberry Shortcake and Jumbo Cream Puff (Jumbo Cho Cream), as well as their eclair, Ginza Pudding, Strawberry and Chocolate Roll Cake, Baumkuchen cake, and Kitten and Puppy Cookies. They’re all handmade ceramic, created in shapes suited as rests for chopsticks, and as you can see from just looking at them, they should add a delightful bit of color and sweetness to your dining table.

The draw for the anniversary gift set is now being held at Cozy Corner locations across Japan, but only while supplies last, so hurry if you want to participate! You may also want to note that the draw doesn’t apply to dining and drinking purchases at their restaurant and cafes.

So the next time you have cake, why not consider using chopsticks? It might be fun and more practical than you think! And it’s almost certainly a better idea than eating the chopsticks themselves.

Source, images: Ginza Cozy Corner website special campaign page