Lemon Cookies
Ingredients
flour, butter, sugar, almond, egg, lemon, apiricot, leavening agent, flavoring
Contains wheat, milk, eggs, almonds
Kinako Bourdonage
Ingredients
flour, sugar, butter, almond, roasted soybean flour, salt
Contains wheat, milk, almonds
A relative newcomer to Hatsukaichi’s sweet scene, Suzu Yōgashi’ten is a boulangerie that specializes in the Japanese take on Western cookies and cakes. This style favors crispy cookies over chewie and turns cakes into a feast for the eyes as much as they are a treat for the tongue.
In Japan, people normally walk into a boulangerie to buy cake and end up buying cookies to go with it. However, at Suzu people visit for the cookies and, seeing their gorgeous cakes, can’t help adding a slice or more to their purchase. Among their famed cookies are lemon almond cookies and kinako bourdonage. Their lemon cookies squeeze the flavor of fresh Hiroshima lemons into a bite-sized square topped with lemon icing. The flavor of the cookie is brought together with apricot jam, the secret ingredient. Along with the lemon cookies are cute, tan kinako bourdonage. “Bourdonage” is the Japanese term for snowball cookies. Normally white, these light-textured cookies rolled in tan soybean flour just melt away in the mouth.
Suzu Yōgashi’ten is the 15-year-long career dream of patissier, Shohei Suzuki. Supported by his loving wife, who also worked in bakeries for many years, the two started Suzu in 2022. Since then it has developed a loyal following.
Suzu offers a wide variety of sweets. Its main case has 10 to 13 different kinds of cake for sale on any one day. They also sell around 15 kinds of baked goods including cream puffs, tarts, and donuts. The menu changes often and limited edition sweets can be found seasonally and on weekends. They are notable for their decadent cream fillings that melt in the mouth. The secret, says (owner’s name) is in where their cream comes from. Instead of Hokkaido, Japans most famous dairy producing region, their cream comes from nearby Kyushu. The cows in Kyushu produce a lighter and whiter cream, the product of being grass-fed instead of grain-fed. A slice of Suzu’s cake will set you back 400 to 550 yen.
Suzu is a two minute walk from Miyauchi Station on the Hiroden line and a five minute walk from JR Miyauchikushido Station — two stations on the route between Hiroshima Station and Miyajima.