Myriad varieties of
manjū exist, some more common than others.
Varieties of skin -shaped Kuri manjū'' The most common type of
manjū uses
wheat flour-based skin or crust, which are steamed and thus called
mushi manjū. However, if the flour-based dough uses
sakadane (
sake starter, i.e.
kōji mold) as
leavening agent, the steamed
manjū is referred to as . There is also a type called the which uses dough combined with grated (general term for yam or
Dioscorea spp.). According to 1920s cook book, a of a sort can be recreated at home by dissolving
kuzu starch, wrapping bean paste into this skin or dough, and steaming. Nowadays, prepackaged quick mixes called
Mizu manjū no moto are sold in stores, with pre-combined kudzu starch, other starches, and
agar for easy preparation at home.
Regional manjū manjū'' with different fillings . A leaflet on the "3 great manjū of Japan" is visible underneath. As is the case with many Japanese foods, in some parts of Japan, one can find
manjū unique to that region. The maple leaf-shaped
momiji manjū (q.v., shown right) in Hiroshima and
Miyajima is fairly well-known. The (shown left) is a specialty of
Kōriyama, Fukushima, made at the shop founded in
1852. It is so named due to the thin skin wrapped around the sweet bean paste. It has a distinctive dark brown skin, since the dough is blended with dark
brown sugar (Japanese ) and brown sugar syrup; the thin skin is then wrapped around ample amounts of
koshi-an (strained
red bean paste) filling. The shop also now offers a
tsubu-an (unstrained paste) variety. Kashiwaya's
usukawa manjū is promoted as being one of the "3 great manjū of Japan", the others being the aforementioned now based in Tokyo (shown lower left), and the made by of
Okayama City. The three were named in a 1993 book compilation themed on top 3 rankers of various categories. The (), a type of
jōyo manjū (yam manjū) offered by a proprietor based in
Gyōda, Saitama, has become a specialty representative of the whole Saitama Prefecture. Although (shown right) bears
manjū in its name, this local slang around
Kumamoto Prefecture for what is otherwise known as
imagawayaki in Tokyo, etc., (Thus it hardly really counts as a subtype of
manjū). The hōraku manjū is described as a confection made by a proprietorship in
Minamata, Kumamoto, where
honey-added bean paste gets dropped inside the batter poured into hot plate molds, and fried into round shapes; the fillings may be black bean paste using adzuki or white bean paste using (large-sized variety of white
common bean). In
Hawaii, one can find
Okinawan style
manjū that are made with a filling of purple
sweet potato (i.e.
beni-imo or
ube). ==Gallery==