DIY Popsicle Kit

Summer is rapidly approaching, and though it's still a little chilly outside here, TokyoTreat comes to the rescue for those hot days with this popsicle kit. Oh, you mean there's no actual freezing involved? Well then it's perfect for days like today! It'll be interesting to see if they try to still make this kit have the cooling sensation that popsicles are known so well for.

Much like the candy apple kit, the contents are simple: some pre-made candies and two toppings. I'm not sure what exactly the toppings are, looks like a syrup and... powdered sugar? I taste a bit of the syrup and it seems to be ramune flavored, and the powder... what is this stuff? It has such a cooling sensation to it, I'm really impressed, whatever this is. The ramune candy doesn't have much of a smell, but there's an intoxicating strawberry smell coming from the entire package.

The assembly process is not the cleanest one. The syrup adheres well, but the cooling powder in turn doesn't seem to adhere that well to the syrup. It actually seems to merge with it a bit, which is a little odd. But here we go! It's an odd combination of flavors. The strawberry candy is nice, but I feel like it needs something different than what's presented to it. The ramune syrup and cooling are nice touches, but it still doesn't give me a popsicle sensation. I guess I am crunching it and not licking it after all, but what's a hungry pup to do? The ramune one is even more questionable. It comes off a little strong at first, but has a weird aftertaste? Something about it is not pleasant and I can't put my finger on it, but it crosses the flavor line into a not-so-great place. Overall I can't really recommend this one, the strawberry candy is okay, but every other decision going into these popsicles is questionable.

Rating: 2 - Awrr

DIY Candy Apples

I've tried one variant of carnival food with the chocolate banana, why not another one? This one is a particular favorite of mine: something about candy coating mixed with apples makes the vibrant sweetness of apples even more pronounced. And this one has all the fun of being a DIY kit!

I was surprised in this one to see that the candy coating was not a powder, instead a very thick liquid in a packet. Not that I'm complaining, let's me get to the eating that much quicker! The apple candies in here absolutely explode with delicious apple smell, and while likely artificial it's got that richness to it that I'd expect from a real apple, with all the candy sweetness. The candies are a bit thicker than I expected, only changing in shape with a little force, but all the better to stick a toothpick in. From what I licked off the packet, the candy has a very nice sweet taste.

The whole process of putting a candy apple together is quite seamless. The candy coating sticks easily, and the sprinkles stick to that in turn with no mess. The taste of these is absolutely divine. The apple candy is everything I'd want flavor and texture wise, with sweet and rich apple flavors, but not overpowering or too much richness, and the candy aids in making it even sweeter, but more importantly supplying some liquid texture that these would desperately need otherwise. And lastly the sprinkles make it crunchy and soooo satisfying to eat. Everything is so perfectly balanced that I couldn't stop eating these, and I think given infinite amount of these I'd eat them all day! Good thing that's not happening, as I need to stay in hunting shape...

Rating: 10 - AWOOOOOOO!!!

Maruta Nericcho Soft Ice Cream DIY, Strawberry and Cider

Japanese candy includes many attempts at imitating ice cream without the meltiness, with varying but usually positive degrees of success. Now we have it in DIY form, with two flavors and these very happy little ice cream cones filling each other. The cider flavor (which likely means ramune) is of particular note, as I haven't had ice cream quite like that before. Maybe it'll work, maybe it'll be a disaster, or somewhere in between.

The contents of this DIY are quite simple, but simplicity can be sweet. A packet representing the ice cream, a spoon, and three cones. Which seems like a bargain considering only two are shown on the package!

DIY Dino Island Pudding

RAWRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Sorry, just have to get in the spirit here, as we're going back into prehistoric times where canines definitely weren't a thing. Sad days those were... but instead we have these giant (well, actually small green plastic) dinos roaming the earth. And what better surface to roam in than scrumptious pudding? At least I hope it's scrumptious. And hearty enough to satisfy my inner T-rex.

The contents here are surprisingly simple, just a mold, the two dinos, and packets for the pudding and sauce. Sadly the utensils needed, as well as the cup to mix the pudding in, nor the milk to mix the pudding with, is not included. Thankfully I have all the necessary things. But for those who don't and want to follow along, get them or you'll be disappointed.

I don't usually arrive at the final conclusion so early with these DIY kits, but alas there wasn't much to show in the middle. The steps basically are: mix the pudding powder with milk, microwave it, leave it in the fridge, and then pop it out of the tray and put the sauce and dino toys on top of it. Pretty straightforward, though I didn't know how long to leave it in the fridge. I left it in for an hour, maybe should've been two. As I can't read Japanese, who knows.

Despite being a little messy, the pudding is still delightfully eggy, with more richness as this one takes on a darker color than some of the other pudding I've had. I have conflicted feelings about the strawberry sauce though: well it seems like a nice idea, every bite I have with it completely masks the pudding flavor, and you know I wouldn't want that.  It's nice on its own though, a little oversweet. I find myself wanting more from even the pudding component though, it's nice but not with the depth and perfect balance of sweetness and richness that I'm used to. If anything it needs some more sweetness and a stronger pudding flavor to really draw out what makes this great. I do have to say this is a really nice concept. Visually one of the best DIYs and it's such a simple idea too.

Rating: 6 - Aruff!

Kracie Popin Cookin Japanese Festival

After going through the large box of Kracie kits I had, I found another one. Guess this calls for a celebration! Thankfully this kit has everything I need to do that. Four different components here being french fries, candy apples, chocolate bananas, and corn on the cob, so it's sure to be involved but no short on fun.

I expected a lot of components in this kit, and that's exactly what I got. Three different mats, 5 packets of powder, some yellow soft candy, sprinkles, toothpicks, and a shovel-spoon (my favorite!). The cutting board mat in particular seems rather excessive, but I guess it's nice to create the mood.

One Piece Bubbly Jelly DIY

 

Been a while since I've had a jelly DIY! These are always pretty fun except for figuring out how to eat them of course, because those tiny straws never cut it. This one also comes in the slightly more unique flavor of melon, which I at first haven't been a fan of but it's certainly growing on me as I try more and more melon snacks. Japan just does the flavor justice. This one also seems to come with a reusable cup, which actually worries a bit because the snacks with reusable cups I've had before haven't been good. Can this one break the mold?

Pretty simple setup this time, but also more involved than the other collectible cup DIY drinks, haing two packets. Likely this means there's a soda and jelly layer, like a DIY drink I had a while back. There's also a spoon instead of a straw, yay! No issues with trying to slurp up thick jelly, which is always a plus. The souvenir cup is nice too, but these are always so tiny that I don't know what to do with them.

Meiji Tsukorou Kinoko no Yama DIY

A while back I had one of these biscuit snacks from Meiji and it was quite yummy! But this one looks to take it up a notch, being in DIY form and having different shapes and many different layers. Already looks like ton of fun and hopefully not too much work between me and the delicious chocolate biscuits.

Thankfully it seems that'll be the case as the contents are quite simple: biscuits, molds, and three squeeze bottles with the different toppings.

Meigum Puchi Puchi Sherbet

Many of the DIY kits I've gotten outside of the Kracie ones have been very simplistic and nothing groundbreaking (but still very fun and delicious). This one from Meiji looks to buck that trend as there is a lot going on here. It seems to have three molds, all with different textures and colors, and some spherification action going on! Haven't seen that since the sushi kit. I'm not really sure how this is considered sherbet, considering it doesn't resemble the ice cream style dish at all, but no worries. Going to be a lot of fun either way!

About the number of components expected here lies inside. Three bags for the different layers, along with the animal molds and square containers. More animal molds than I thought - there's a snail, cat, pig, panda, owl, and turtle. How exciting! Also the only tool included is a dropper which is good for the spheres but could be trouble for everything else.

Kracie Popin Cookin Bento

Alas, this is the final Kracie product that I ordered from a box on the internet... for now. I'm sure there will be more, but for now it's been a fun journey, wading through all the powders, generic fruit flavored chewy candy, triangle cups, weird utensils, bags, molds... they've really made something special with all of these, where anyone can play with their food and eat it too. And speaking of playing with your food, I've always had an appreciation for bento. It shares a lot of the same concepts, so in a way this is a meta-DIY kit of sorta, and even has some of the cuteness that bento is known for with that panda face!

This one, as expected from the large number of items on the picture, is quite heavy in components: a whopping 7 packets, a bag, fork, lots of molds, and some guides. Unfortunately the bowl shown on the box is looking a little flat and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.

Kracie DIY - Colorful Peace

This one might be one of the cutest Kracie kits I've seen! But also one of the most intimidating. After all there are so many options! Does this make me actually have to be good at sculpting things? I hope not, I'm better at making and eating delicious things than making good looking things. But there seem to be a lot of options here and some easy-make molds shown on the back. So hopefully like all Kracie kits this'll be fun to make, but also relatively simple, and of course, delicious.

This kit seems to be open ended like I thought, a few templates to work off of and five candies, and the bag has instructions for a number of things. I guess as I'm not feeling creative I will try those ones. There are also sprinkles and a makeshift rolling pin. And I see that the candy is supposed to combine to make different colors! That's certainly unique.

I ended up picking a few of the designs on the bag to make, and because I'm a hungry wolf, I couldn't do any more of these before my mouth started watering. It was a bit difficult to mix the colors as expected, since the candy is very sturdy, but after time they do combine colors quite well. The rolling pin was also a little stickier than I would have liked.

As for the taste, the blue and white candies are tangy (in that generic Japanese fruit flavor way) and the rest are a sweeter generic fruit flavor. They do blend quite well this way in taste, it's quite delicious to eat, though I would've liked a little more fruity variety, as every one of these creations tasted exactly the same. The sprinkles also seem limited use here. The only design on the box that even has them is the donut and well... I already made those. But I mingled the sprinkles with the rest of the candies, and while the crunch is nicely appreciated, I had the feeling they didn't belong here. This kit will probably inspire the artsy types to make great things, but I'm more of a musical pup when it comes to creativity (check out my howling symphony!). The taste however is pleasant but has a lot to be desired, it is an alright kit but could be much better.

Rating: 5 - Ruff!

Chocolate Kinako Mochi DIY

Not any especially new territory here, as I've had mochi and kinako snacks before, but the combination of them with chocolate is something I don't think I've had. It seems like it would make a good combination, with the sweetness of chocolate and the umami of kinako, with a solid base in mochi, but we'll see how this translates into DIY form.

Unfortunately, the mochi seems to have come to me broken, oh no! I'm also surprised that it's hard, as similar DIY packs have opted for soft candy here, but from what I see I'll be pouring water on the mochi to soften it up. There are also two packs consisting of the chocolate and kinako, and a utensil as expected.

After pouring the water on the mochi, things made more sense as it softened up almost immediately, and the texture definitely seemed akin to mochi. There seems to be much more kinako than chocolate which is surprising, both smell as I'd expect them to.

Maruta Purin Gokko

Ah pudding, my old friend. It's certainly been a while but don't think I've forgotten about you. How your eggy creaminess pairs perfectly with your gelatinous texture, throwing my senses into cloud nine floating on some light but tasty egg custard... and this time I get to have a part in making it myself! We'll see if that measures up, or it should stay premade.

Well the contents might be the simplest of any DIY I've seen so far, it's just a cup, powder, and straw. Though I guess that's all you really need. Only slightly disappointing is that this means there won't be a separate caramel layer which really does add a lot to the pudding. The powder, strangely enough, seems to be a mix of things, there is one part that looks like tiny white sprinkles and another that is purely powder. I guess this makes sense as several components are in there.

DIY Chocolate Covered Banana

This is definitely one of those DIY kits where I could easily do this on my own... but why spend all that time when everything is here in one convenient package? For that reason it's been a while since I've had a good chocolate covered banana, so I'm excited to taste what lies within here.

Awrr... definitely a bit worried about this one. The "bananas" seem to be these banana flavored chewy candy which smells a bit too much like the banana Laffy Taffys for comfort. Does anyone actually like those? The rest of it is rather simplistic, with a bag for the chocolate frosting and sprinkles, and a toothpick.

After I poured out the chocolate and sprinkles, I was a little bit reassured because the chocolate frosting does smell very good, and the sprinkles are all ball-shaped, which should actually be very good for dipping.

The chocolate required a little bit of pressure to get to stick on the banana, but the sprinkles stuck right on which was a very nice surprise!

As for the taste... it actually works. The chocolate supplies a lot of the flavor that the banana candy is missing. It's really good chocolate frosting actually, sweet and rich but not too much so. The banana candy is no slouch either. It's a bit different from the banana Laffy Taffy in that the flavor is just ever so slightly more authentic, and not as chewy, so it doesn't feel like a chore to eat. The sprinkles also add a well-needed texture element to this, some crunch that makes it actually feel like I'm eating a frozen banana - but no brain freeze!

I'll admit I wasn't expecting much from this, and that banana flavor could still use some work, but it's much better than I thought it would be. Chocolate and banana is a dream come true no matter what form. Hear that Laffy Taffy? I got a product idea for you!

Rating: 8 - Rowf!

Kracie Popin Cookin Cake Shop

Many kinds of cakes here, and they all look so yummy! And rather difficult with all the shapes, but Kracie sure has a way of making it accessible to anyone. I'm interested to see how the solid components are done. There's also ice cream. Everything here looks so fun, and a bright pink color, which I assume is strawberry.

To my surprise, all the solid components are premade. That's a little disappointing, but hey, I guess it just means I'll get to eat everything quicker! That makes this one of the easier DIYs, with only two powders, a pastry bag, and sprinkles to work with. The bags I assume, are the strawberry frosting and the vanilla icing that is shown on the ice cream and wafers.

Kracie Popin Cookin Takoyaki

One of the Popin Cookin kits more focused on Japanese food, this one makes takoyaki, which are fried octopus balls. And it uses the microwave! Judging by how simple this one looks compared to the others, I think they will be going for accurate flavor recreation here, but I could always be wrong. Also like the ramen kit, it comes in a bag, not a box, so no serving mat, but not a problem because the circular mold can almost serve as that.

One thing that I haven't shown so far is the molds after I cut them, and I happened to cut them first this time, so here they are. It's cool that Kracie puts perforations in the molds to do this, stops everything from accidentally mixing together. Also only 4 packets this time, and one utensil, as well as the toothpick for eating.

Pokemon DIY Candy Kit

Who doesn't love Pokemon? I'll admit I was a little jealous when I saw that this was included in the February Japan Crate, so when I spotted it at a Japanese market I had to nab it for myself. I love how prevalent Pokemon themed products are in Japan, and considering how popular the series is in the US too, I have to wonder why we don't get more of them? Regardless, this seems to be a simpler DIY, consisting of a mold and some soft candy, though it could still be just as fun and tasty.

Kracie Popin Cookin Burger

Meat! AWRUFF! Okay so it's not actually meat, and thankfully I've already eaten dinner so it won't get my mouth watering like it is, but this DIY kit still looks mighty tasty. The bun could use a little more brown, but two patties on one of the burger, plus the fries look nice and potato-ey! My tail is wagging, telling me to dig in, but first I gotta make it.

As usual, we got packets, placemats, a molds, and two utensils! How exciting, not having to do everything with just a spoon or pick. Surprisingly low number of molds too, I see the hamburger buns, the cola, a stripey one for the fries, and a deeper one. Guess it does help that every component of a hamburger is round except for the cheese.

Pretty Cure DIY Strawberry Milkshake

The DIY item from the TokyoTreat box is, rather awrrr-worthy... a milkshake. Last time I had one of these it was just some kind of artificial powder that barely mixed well with the milk in the first place. And from the looks of it, it's made by the same company that made the Minions milkshake. I hope they get the flavor and consistency right, but I'm rather doubtful. At the very least it comes with a collectible cup... of some anime I've never heard of.

Kracie Popin Cookin Sushi

Next in line in the Kracie kits is this one, promising different types of sushi. There's probably no way to emulate the fish flavors with candy powder in this case, so I'm expecting some delightful fruit-flavored sushi instead. Would prefer meat flavored, but that's just my nature... maybe I should start making sushi out of the pack's hunts? Anyways one cool feature of this will be the "roe", which seems to be formed by dropping bubbles into the water. And there's even a fake soy sauce!

The pack once again has a mat that can be cut out from the bag, and I quite like the look of this one, has a fancy feel. There's also the standard array of packets, a solid piece of brown candy (which will likely be the nori?) and the utensils, which are a spoon and squeeze bottle.

Kracie Popin Cookin Donuts

Time for some more DIY fun! Everything Kracie has made so far has been delicious and more fun than any chew toy, so I already have high hopes. This one instead of Japanese food is donuts, so there won't be much manipulation of flavors here. I expect it to taste pretty close to the source material. Also look how cute that bear donut is!