Fujipan Lemon Cake

 "Born from an exhausting research of fine tastes. We provide a first-class taste brought directly from the earth." This is what Fujipan has written in elegant script on the front of the package of the lemon cake I'm about to review. I think that means these are baked by Morlocks, or the mole people. Either way, I'm inspecting it carefully before I take a bite to make sure there aren't any Eloi baked inside.

I found this cake in Seiyu supermarket's giant ass pile of baked goods. It looks like a yard sale of consumer-grade pastries after it has been liberally picked over and fondled by retirees and housewives who would rather fondle the baked goods than attend to their irate children. It was next to a lemon melon pan, and this won the contest for which one I'd buy because I knew my husband would split this large cake (about the size of two Hostess cupcakes) with me but not the melon pan. It cost a mere 100 yen ($1.21).

The cake has a lemon glaze on the outside and is split open ostensibly to pipe lemon cream into the center. While the glaze covers all of the top, the lemon cream is extremely sparse. In fact, there was probably a smidge (that's a technical term equivalent to about half a teaspoon) in my half. This is unfortunate because the cream is delicious with a strong zesty lemon flavor and a creamy richness. The rest of the cake is mainly skating by on two things, the texture and glaze.The cake iss moist, tender and slightly dense. The glaze is very lightly sweet and only cares a hint of lemon.

At about 340 calories, the whole cake is a bit of a calorie bomb, but if you can manage to muster up the self-control to only eat half, it makes a very nice treat for tea time or dessert. The texture is exceptional for a packaged cake and, while I could have done with more lemon in the glaze and definitely more of the lemon cream filling, I'm satisfied with the taste and sweetness level as well. I could definitely see buying this again.

Twin Dome Vanilla Cream Cake (Japan's Twinkie)

Imagine finding a Twinkie that had a sponge cake that was fresher and softer. Further, imagine the cream filling is actually made with whipped cream and milk rather than vegetable shortening. If you can wrap your head around such a fantasy notion, then you can imagine what the Twin Dome cake by Fujipan is like. This cake is the closest Japan has ever come to the Twinkie in my experience.


You can pick up a package with two cakes for about 100 yen (about a dollar) at some convenience stores. The cakes are 202 calories each and each is about 8 cm (3.1 inches) in diameter at the widest point along the base. Note that a Twinkie, which is the closest comparison, has only 150 calories for 1.5 oz. of cake and cream filling. I'd say that the Twin Domes are about the same total volume as a Twinkie, but the higher calorie count is the price you pay for the real cream filling with its higher fat content.


Each cake is blessed with a generous dollop of very soft and smooth whipped cream in the center. The cream is lightly sweet and the cake tastes like good, fake vanilla and is sweeter than the filling. The cake is a soft, fresh sponge. It's not really dry, but also not really moist. It's an excellent combination of textures and mild flavors. It's a little more on the sweet side than usual for Japanese cakes, but not cloyingly so.

I recommend sampling these with no reservations. This is one of the best snack cakes I've ever had, and even my fussy husband likes them. The only thing is that I'd recommend buying one only if you have someone to split it with so you don't end up gobbling down 400 calories of delicious cream-filled cake in one sitting.

Crispy Ring Doughnuts

I can't remember when "Crispy Ring" doughnut were introduced in Japan, but I suspect that they came after "Krispy Kreme" opened up its first shop in Tokyo. The first branch opened about two years ago and there are still lines of people waiting to get inside that branch nearly every hour of every day. One can see how businesses may want to capitalize on Krispy Kreme's success by introducing a product with a similar name.

I should note that doughnuts are something that the Japanese bakers do very poorly unless they are doing so through a branch of a foreign doughnut maker. The only places to reliably get good doughnuts are dedicated doughnut shops like Mister Donut, Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme or New York Donut. It's almost impossible to get a good doughnut at the average Japanese bakery (though they have great bread) or at a market. Such doughnuts are usually either way too bread-like, too cake-like, too dry, or just plain freaky in some fashion. Any doughnut you buy in a plastic package with a tray is to be regarded with suspicion.


The Crispy Ring doughnuts appear to be aping the classic Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut both in shape and with the amount of glaze. The size of the doughnut though is much smaller than a conventional one. Each doughnut is about 110 calories and there are 4 to a pack so I'm guessing it'd take two of these to equal the volume of a Krispy Kreme ring.

When you open the package, you smell a good doughnut smell with the distinctive sweetness you associate with glazed doughnuts . This is actually a very rare experience for a packaged doughnut in Japan. The doughnuts are a little dry, but they don't have the tendency to make your mouth feel like the Sahara as most dry doughnut do. They are quite light, but not as airy as a Krispy Kreme glazed. The glaze on these is actually good, though not as heavily sweet as what you get from a doughnut shop's fresh doughnut .

These are surprisingly good for what they are, though I'm betting the average packaged doughnut in a Western country would beat them by a country mile. In Japan though, you have to modify your expectations. That's my way of saying doughnut beggars can't be too choosy. If you're in the mood for a doughnut and not near a real doughnut shop, these would definitely be a reasonable choice to accompany your coffee. They don't compare to a good fresh doughnut, but they have the benefit of being only 99 yen (about a dollar) for 4 small ones. They also have better shelf stability so you can buy one package, have two for breakfast and save two for the next day with little drop in quality.

Maple Melon Pan

One of the first things you notice when you enter a convenience store in Japan is that there are many different and highly interesting looking baked goods on display. It's a bit like the Hostess displays that you might see in American 7-11's or Sheetz. The main difference is that the Japanese ones are not nearly as sweet and have a much heavier overtone of bread rather than cake. Also, there is rarely a pie of any sort in sight.

After you sample a few of these things, you find that a lot of them are pretty vile and bland white bread-based items. Many of the savory options are little more than hot dog buns with corn, mayonnaise, and small quantities of tuna, eggs, ham, or sausage.

The sweet options sometimes provide a little more promise, but they also tend to be your basic white bread buns or rolls filled with various flavors of whipped cream, jellies or beans. I've got nothing against the fillings, but putting them on a hamburger or hotdog bun is just gross.

Fujipan (the "pan" means bread) makes a variety of bread products in Japan with a heavy emphasis on sandwich bread, "stick" bread, and various snacks. They also market bread snacks based on the Japanese animation character "Anpanman". In various convenience stores, it's not uncommon to run across one or two of their current line of snacks in the baked goods area. At my local shop, two types of Fujipan melon pan were in stock. One was chocolate chip and looked suspiciously like it may actually have been melon- flavored. For the record, a lot of melon pan doesn't taste like melon. It only looks like it.

Since I am not keen on the idea of chocolate flavor mixed with melon, I decided to give the maple flavor a go. A bag with 4 pieces cost 100 yen (about 95 cents USD) so they're fairly cheap. Each piece is more like a soft cookie than a bit of bread. Melon pan is actually made of both bread and a cookie topping. The inside of these cookies is like regular bread dough that has been spread with a maple-flavored fat spread (this is literally what it's called in the ingredients list) and then a cookie dough topping is poured on top of it. It is baked and the bread rises a bit, the filling is largely absorbed into the interior, and the cookie shell is supposed to get a bit hard. The inside is actually hollow and is coated with the residue of the maple fat spread.


The main problem with buying melon pan in these sorts of plastic packages for mass distribution is that the cookie shell gets soft. Half of the pleasure of a melon pan is the crispy shell on top of the bread. You only get that half if you buy your melon pan at an actual bakery. That doesn't mean that the texture of these is not interesting or enjoyable. It just means that it is not an optimal melon pan experience.

When you open the package, the melon pan smells of maple. They are soft, but not spongy. The texture is tender and they get a bit doughy as you chew them. The maple flavor is not overwhelming or overly artificial. I'm pretty satisfied with the flavor balance, but I think many Western folks might like them to be sweeter.

Whether or not you like this is going to hinge heavily on how you feel about the texture. The doughy quality and varied texture of the bread and cookie shell may or may not suit some people. I found these pleasant and think they'd make a nice occasional snack with tea or even a light breakfast with coffee. The only thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to eat too many at once as they are 110 calories apiece and almost certainly contain "bad fats". I'm guessing that the "maple fat spread" is probably made with margarine or some other fat mixture that includes trans fats, though it is impossible to know for sure since there's no explanation on the package.

I might pick these up again some day, but I can't see putting them into any sort of regular rotation. Since they seem to be a seasonal item for autumn, there may not even be a choice in the matter. I think sampling these once or twice a year would be just about right.