KONAPUN Japanese Sweets

February 23, 2011 February 23, 2011 Juju Kurihara Entertainment, technology Tags: japan 0 Comments

Revival KONAPUN!! Perhaps there were more women in 30's shouted for joy than actual children in Japan. KONAPUN KITCHEN series have just revived after 20 years with the strong desire from many adults who back then were kids and played with it.

One of the image comes up to people's mind about Japan is its advanced technology. With China's recent growth, Japan is no longer the top of Asia and even having difficulty to rely on the brand name "Japan", but still Japan's technology has a good reputation.

Japanese technology team doesn't cut corners even in kids' toys because this skill can develop when they are little. To be honest, as I spent most of the time as a tomboy and played baseball and football with boys more than playing house, I didn't even know about this toy. But this is not just a toy. This is a technological experiment which educates Japanese kids without even knowing it.

This is one of the series, "KONAPUN Doughnuts", available for 3,675 yen in Amazon Japan.

This is the contents. All you need is KONAPUN powder and water. Mix them and pour into the mold and wait for 15 minutes, then mix KONAPUN fried oil and water. Insert the doughnuts into the oil. Strange, the bubble starts appearing as if it's really frying! When the doughnuts come up to the surface, it's cooked. At the end, mix KONAPUN sugar powder and water, pour over the doughnuts and done. Just so real.

But why? What's the secret about frying doughnuts?

According to the producer of this toy, BANDAI, the base of this powder is citric acid and the acid reacts to the dough and fries it. The fundamental ingredient of KONAPUN is alginic acid which is extract of seeweed and is often used for gelatin type facial pack or pasta. This means, all the sweets you make are not edible but are child free products. Also it doen't use any preservatives, so you can't keep them even though they look perfect sweet sample.

This is osushi kitchen, 5,600 yen in Amazon Japan.

With this package you can make, salmon roe (IKURA), tuna, eggs and sea urchin (UNI).

As you drop the salmon roe mixture into KONAPUN water, how curious, it changes into fish eggs. The rice is the same, you just "cook" the rice mixture in the KONAPUN rice cooker for 15 minutes. Look, it has the real rice texture.

Look at these sushi. They are perfect food sample and it's a big shame that you can't keep them. Don't forget to take photos when you make one.

As you can see, Japanese kids are having contact with the technology in daily bases through play and develop their imagination without knowing it.

Those Japanese kids' who are not satisfied with just making them as the recipe says, there are competitions held. Repeat, these are not edible.

Girls channel KONAPUN patissier contest was held since 2006. It seems like it has stopped at the moment.
The 12th contest, special prize went to the 5th grade HARUHI's "super tasty cheese hamburger steak curry"
The 14th contest, special prize went to the 4th grade SAKIPIE's "special An-mitsu"

Brilliant creativity as little kids. Maybe they are the ones who will take over Japanese technology in the future.

KONAPUN Kitchen series have variety of sweets and food and are available more than 10 series such as cookies, pizza, takoyaki (Japanese octupus balls) etc… as well as doughnuts and sushi. Kitchen series cost 2,000 yen to 5,000 yen but also refill packages are available for 700 yen to 1,000 yen.