Baking in Japan - challenge mode
When I first arrived at my new home in Saga, I was told the previous resident loved to cook and bake. Being a huge fan of cooking myself, I was over the moon to receive a lot of equipment to do just that. But very quickly did I realize that what was an easy task back in the UK wasn’t so easy in Japan. Within the first week, I had been told stories of ALTs having breakdowns in supermarkets over the fact that salt was kept next to the sugar and items being kept in places that don’t make much sense to someone used to Western supermarkets.
Fast forward a year, and I often cook and have dabbled occasionally in baking. So, what are the takeaways, and what advice can I give?
Firstly, baking is harder. Cooking in Japan has been a challenge; however, I overcame it quickly and adapted. But baking is still a challenge for me. For starters, flour and pastry are a big hurdle I never fully overcame, not impossible, but it requires planning and timing online orders. If you are placed somewhere extra rural, you will have a similar experience to me. But if you are in a bigger city, you can take my advice and stories as entertaining reading, as the bigger city experience is unlikely to be the same. Cities often include many more options for buying ingredients, such as larger import stores. In Japan, your two main import stores are Kaldi and Jupiter.
Hunting for self-raising flour, short crust pastry, and bulk raisins felt like a treasure quest, with only snack-sized boxes of raisins as my reward. My baking dreams leaned Western and South Korean, but Japan’s culinary landscape is a different world. Short-crust pastry is a stranger here, and even though Kyushu sits close to South Korea, the ingredients I craved remained elusive. My one promising lead from Kyoto fizzled out when puff pastry arrived instead. Baking is beloved in Japan, with cooking lessons woven into school life and patisseries on every corner. Social media overflows with adorable cakes almost too charming to eat. Japanese universities and cooking schools are famous, but the art of baking here dances to a different rhythm than in the West. Even sugar comes in fewer varieties, and I spent ages searching for a stand-in for caster sugar.
My first piece of advice would be to plan and time your orders as best as you can. Scout out local stores and what can be sourced in person and work out what is missing. Some items can be imported but be prepared for the cost in time and money. You can try your hand at Japanese baking in the meantime! You may also have to make things like pastry from scratch, which I find fun, but not everyone I know is successful with pastry creation. It is also time-consuming and difficult to do in a standard-sized Japanese apartment.
On that note, Kitchens in Japan are tiny. If you are renting or live in a big city, most apartments come with kitchens so small they are viral. My own kitchen has space but would benefit from a kitchen island; however, as it’s only temporary, I am in no position to make changes. But if you are coming to Japan and love to cook, you need to prepare yourself for a downgrade in space and firepower. Most homes are equipped with little more than a stove top with a small fish oven, if you're lucky. When my third-hand toaster died, I was able to upgrade to a toaster oven, which allowed me to make more. But it’s no replacement for a full oven with a grill. All homes come with rice cookers almost as standard, so learning rice cooker recipes will be a fun adventure.
People are often shocked at the capabilities of rice cookers and my travel buddy with little cooking experience was amazed to learn things like soups, pizza, fried rice and even stews can be made in them. I have seen people get creative with them to create their own hotpots and shabu shabu. The more pricier rice cookers also come with steaming options, meaning buns and Chinese cuisine can be created.
Another item which took me a while to source was cookie cutters bigger than an inch. I went through a phase of wanting to make jam tarts, and it took multiple store hunts to eventually find a circle cutter. I found it in a home store that mainly sold wooden furniture. There are baking sections in supermarkets, but these only cater for cake toppings. Amazon is your best friend when it comes to equipment, or if you're short on time to hunt your local malls. Amazon is also where I order cheddar cheese. Costco carries real British cheddar; however, it’s not feasible for me to get to my nearest Costco without a car.
Learning supermarket layouts is your friend, as you will be able to navigate better if you’re searching for items. In Japan, the salt is often next to the sugar because it’s used in sauce creation. Flour is usually close by, too, because it is used frequently in tempura dishes and batter for tonkotsu. But be careful that the flour you're holding is suitable for your project and that you’re not picking up starch, which is also in the same section.
It isn’t just Western dishes that can prove challenging. I have cooked Vietnamese pho and struggled to find thick rice noodles and dabbled in Korean dishes and struggled for a while to find gochujang sauce. If you are adventurous, you will run into challenges, but finding ways around them can prove rewarding. In the end, I found my gochujang sauce, and I found smaller rice noodles. The end results were still very tasty, and I felt like I had levelled up in my cooking skills.
The more you experiment in the kitchen, the more treasures you uncover, from clever tricks for Western dishes to the joy of crafting comfort food in your Leo palace. I have a handful of go-to recipes that always satisfy my cravings for something familiar. Cooking in Japan feels like embarking on a new quest every time, and with a bit of determination, you emerge with a real sense of accomplishment. You might even find yourself drawn into the world of Japanese baking, where university competitions heat up, and local specialties test your skills but reward your efforts. Many of my students come from families who run patisseries, bakeries, or create traditional Japanese sweets; each treat is a tiny masterpiece. A box of these handcrafted delights from a famous artisan can cost a small fortune, but the artistry is worth every yen.
Japan also celebrates Valentine’s Day and white day, a chance for you to dabble in chocolate creations, which is harder than it looks. A friend of mine in the UK is a professional chef, and he always says chocolate crafting is often the harder skill and takes a lot of time and patience.
In Japan, there are many chances for the cooking-minded to level up their skills and learn new ones. What you get out of your stay in Japan is down to how much you put in. Many fall into relying on convenience foods or takeouts. But to save yen and eat healthier, or just create a sense of achievement, cooking does not need to be scary. There are fun, easy, quick recipes to follow, and the fun of food shopping in Japan will eventually hit you once you are more familiar with your local offerings and even discount days. Remember that anime where characters get very excited over half-price meat day? Or the salary man who goes to the supermarket very late to make use of the discounted foods of the day. Those are all real things.
In my own experiences in Saga, when doing food shopping, I have had friendly people ask me if I need help or even ask if I teach. The people in Saga are very friendly to me, and because I use the same stores, the same people are used to seeing me. Shopping for food can be your chance to interact with your community, something ordering online doesn’t give you. It teaches you Japanese and broadens your vocabulary. Learning the names of ingredients can also make your restaurant experiences better, as your recognition of words will increase.
Regardless of your placement on JET or if you are coming to work in other companies, your Japan story will be unique. For me, those early experiments with cooking and slowly building confidence in the kitchen will always be something I can be proud of. From cooking dishes to sharing with others at flower viewing, cooking to look after a sick travel companion, or even just cooking because I crave a certain dish. It has all been an adventure. I have discovered ingredients unique to Japan and flavors that are familiar but different. When you come to Japan, do not be scared to dabble and save yourself some yen. Cooking at home will also be a good way to budget and save the yen for your adventures in other prefectures. Give it a try and see what recipes you fall in love with.
