Wagashi, Japanese sweets

Wagashi is a Japanese traditional sweets.
It is typically made from natural based ingredients.

There are many different types of Wagashi.
The one way to categorized Wagashi is according to its method of cooking and ingredients such as Rice cake type, Backed type, Sugar type, Jelly type.

【Ingredients】
Wagashi's main ingredients are beans(Azuki beans), grains(mochi-rice, rice flour, wheat), potatoes, sesame seeds, Kanten(agar)and sugar.

Azuki/Red azuki beans and White azuki beans : They are cooked into paste called "An"or "Anko" and used in a wide range of different confections.

Anko : prepaed by boiling and mashing azuki beans and then sweetening the paste with sugar.

Mochi: a Japanese rice cake made of sticky rice pounded into paste and molded into shape.

【Types of Wagashi 】
Manju : very popular Japanese confection.  a sort of dumpling made from wheat flour, filled with anko and steamed.

Daifukumochi(or Daifuku) : a soft round mochi stuffed with anko, sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans.  Daifuku means "great luck".

Yokan :one of the oldest wagashi, a solid block of anko, hardened with agar and additional sugar.

Dango : a small, sticky sweet mochi, commonly skewered on a stick.

Monaka : a center of anko sandwiched between two thin crisp wafers made form sticky rice.

Botamochi or Ohagi : a sweet rice ball wrapped with anko. Traditionally, they are made during Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. The term botamochi derivers from the spring flower botan, while in autumn it is called ohagi, after the autumn flower hagi.