Say goodbye to boring old plates with these adorable designs!

Summer is well and truly here in Japan and that means only one thing – ice cream! While Japan has a great variety of delicious frozen treats, nothing beats a Yukimi Daifuku for me. Yukimi Daifuku is ice cream lovingly wrapped in a layer of mochi (rice pounded to a gooey pulp. It tastes better than it sounds). You can get them in a range of flavours, or you can create your own original taste at home by frying them. And while Yukimi Daifuku is usually associated with the winter months, now may be the perfect time to enjoy them thanks to the new campaign by confectionary company Lotte.

Fans of Yukimi Daigaku already know it’s important to wait a little while before you tuck in to your tasty mochi snack. After all, if you eat it straight away it’ll still be frozen solid, and you won’t be able to enjoy the chewy texture. It’s recommended to wait for around eight minutes for maximum chewiness, and therefore maximum pleasure.

If you weren’t aware of the eight minute mochi rule, don’t worry; you’re certainly not alone. Check out this CM of actress Tao Tsuchiya explaining the same rule to a rabbit.

Of course, eight minutes is a long time to wait for a snack, so what better way to spend your time waiting than with an impromptu photoshoot?

Pictured above are Yukimi Okigami, essentially paper plates designed for your Yukimi Daifuku mochi. With every purchase of two packets of Yukimi Daifuku, stores across Japan were offering one of these designs at random. There are twenty four different designs in total, representing different points in the traditional Japanese lunar calendar. Each Yukimi Okigami has a spot strategically chosen to place your mochi for optimal adorableness.

Instagram-savvy mochi fans leapt at the chance to beautify their glutinous rice paste snack, and now the Yukimi Okigami are pretty difficult to obtain. But If you couldn’t get your hands on one, Lotte are now running a Twitter campaign offering all twenty-four designs to a hundred lucky winners. Winners will also receive six packets of Yukimi Daifuku to take some pictures with. Follow the official account @yukimi_lotte and retweet their campaign tweet below to be in with a chance, but be quick, as the campaign ends August 7.

If you’re keen to make your Instagram sweeter but aren’t a fan of mochi, this store in Nagoya has manju buns that are almost too cute to eat!

Source: Lotte
Images: PR Times
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