Special Valentine’s Day Totoro cakes also on offer from Tokyo bakery.

Valentine’s Day is when our desires for romance and cravings for sweets overlap, so it makes sense that there are so many chocolate treats in stores right now that are heart-shaped. But while that classic visual representation of love and affection makes sense, this year there’s another Valentine’s option that is going to be very hard to say no to: the Catbus.

It’s Tokyo cafe/bakery Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory that’s offering these adorable edible My Neighbor Totoro-inspired sweets. Called the Catbus Sandwich, this is a sandwich-style cookie carrying a cargo of ganache glaze made from a blend of two different types of chocolate. While this isn’t the first time for Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory to be baking batches of Catbus cookies, the standard recipe uses butter cookies with a rum raisin cream filling, but for the Valentine’s variant even the cookie dough itself is also chocolate-flavored.

Of course, Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory marque menu items are its cream puffs, which are shaped like the lovable Studio Ghibli forest spirit himself, and those two are featured in special seasonal desserts.

The Valentine’s-version Small Totoro Cake is offered in either caramel or chocolate flavors (pictured above on the left and right, respectively). The caramel promises a sophisticated taste with just a touch of bitterness from the caramel glaçage glaze, plus the Western pear gelatin mousse acting as an elegant accent. On the other hand/cake, the chocolate one features chocolate and raspberry mousses. Each cake is escorted by a Small Totoro cream puff with a custard cream filling.

Finally, if you want the most variety, there’s the Baked Chocolate Sweets Set, a bundle with cocoa cookies shaped like Big Totoro, Small Totoro, and a mushroom, plus a cocoa madeleine sponge cake.

The 800-yen (US$6.20) Catbus Cookies and 1,100-yen Baked Chocolate Sweets Set will be on sale from February 8 to 14. The window for the 1,000-yen Valentine’s-version Totoro cakes is shorter, only February 11 to 14, but they can at least be reserved with Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory now to make sure you get one before they sell out.

Related: Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory official website
Source: Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory via Ghibli no Sekai
Images: Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory
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