Bontan-ame

the Kagoshima sweet made since the 1920s: a soft chewy mochi-like candy of glutinous rice flour and pomelo juice, wrapped in edible rice paper that dissolves on the tongue

Origin: Kagoshima, Japan

From the journey of Pomelo.

Bontan-ame has been made in Kagoshima since the mid-1920s and is one of the oldest branded confections still in continuous production in Japan. Bontan is the southern Kyushu name for the pomelo and ame means a sweet or candy. It is sold in a distinctive slim yellow box and is the standard omiyage, the gift a traveller brings home, from the Kagoshima region. Two things make it worth attention. The first is the texture, which is neither a hard boiled sweet nor a toffee but something closer to a firm mochi: glutinous rice flour and starch syrup cooked together give a dense, springy chew, and the pomelo juice goes in as flavour rather than as bulk. The second is the wrapper. Each piece is enclosed in oblaat, a translucent film of potato or rice starch that looks like cellophane and is entirely edible, dissolving on contact with saliva. Its function is practical, since it stops the sticky pieces adhering to one another, and it is a small piece of confectionery engineering that predates plastic wrap in Japan by decades. The sweet is also a rare case of the pomelo's flavour being used on its own, detached from its texture. Everywhere else on this fruit's journey the point is the dry separating flesh or the absorbent pith; here only the juice is taken, and what it contributes is a mild, floral, faintly bitter citrus note quite unlike the sharpness a lemon or yuzu would give.

Ingredients

Candy

  • 200 ml pomelo juice, freshly squeezed and strained
  • 2 tsp pomelo zest, finely grated
  • 100 g glutinous rice flour (shiratamako or mochiko)
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 120 g glucose syrup or mizuame (starch syrup)
  • 1 tbsp orange or mandarin juice, for depth
  • 1 pinch fine salt

To finish

  • 40 g potato starch or cornflour, for dusting
  • 30 sheets oblaat (edible starch film), or rice paper wafers

Method

  1. Line a 20 cm square tin with baking parchment and dust it generously with potato starch.
  2. Whisk the glutinous rice flour into the pomelo juice a little at a time until completely smooth with no lumps.
  3. Combine the sugar, glucose syrup, orange juice, zest, and salt in a heavy pan and warm over a low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved completely.
  4. Pour in the rice flour mixture and cook over a low to medium heat, stirring constantly with a spatula, for 25 to 35 minutes.
  5. Cook until a small piece dropped into cold water forms a soft pliable ball that holds its shape, around 118°C on a thermometer.
  6. Scrape into the prepared tin, level the surface with a starch-dusted spatula, and leave uncovered at room temperature overnight to firm.
  7. Turn out, dust off the excess starch, and cut into 2 cm squares with an oiled knife. Wrap each piece in a sheet of oblaat.

Notes

Oblaat is sold at Japanese grocers and online; rice paper wafers of the kind used for nougat are a workable substitute, though thicker. Mizuame is the traditional Japanese starch syrup and glucose syrup behaves identically. This is a genuinely difficult confection and the two failure points are both temperature: under-cooking gives a sticky mass that will not cut, and over-cooking gives something hard enough to pull a filling. Keeps three weeks in an airtight tin at room temperature, and must not be refrigerated. Pomelo juice may be replaced with yuzu or grapefruit, giving a sharper and more aromatic sweet.

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