Kracie Popin’ Cookin’ Marumete Pandango & Pudding

in Food & Drink
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This article is the first part in a series of eight articles where I will be reviewing a various items from the Popin’ Cookin’ and Happy Kitchen range by Kracie! I saw these Japanese candy and snack food products online and after watching YouTube tutorials on them and being intrigued by how bizarre they seem, I took the jump and ordered my own large package of a selection of Kracie Popin’ Cookin’ and Kracie Happy Kitchen items online!

Kracie Popin’ Cookin’ Marumete Pandango

The name of this is an amusing play on words; Panda Dango! The packaging is very cute with the cartoon photo demonstrations of the steps included in making the pandango. The panda-dango at the top right of the package looks slightly realistic but it is a well-rendered CAD mockup. Each Kracie product has the instructions in illustrated step-by-step diagram form showing you which sachet to put where and how much water, which is a great feature as all the writing on the packets is all in Japanese.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango Instructions

I like the cute little step-by-step diagrams, they really are helpful if you don’t know Japanese, and it doesn’t help just knowing Japanese romaji because it is all written in the symbols.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pandango Contents

In the packet are the following items:

  • Bowl with attached water scoop
  • Spot
  • Sachet 1
  • Sachet 2
  • Sachet 3 (Brown)
  • Plastic ‘bamboo stick’

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Pouring Red Sachet

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Making The Rice

First you will mix the red sachet, Sachet 1, with 3 spoons of water using the spoon provided. This will make the rice. You may need to mix the water and powder with your fingers instead of the spoon, as it is a little difficult to get all the powder mixed up unless you do it with your (clean!) fingers.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Pouring The Black Sachet

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Mixing Up The Black Sachet

Next you will need to mix the black sachet, Sachet 2, with one scoop of water using the scoop attached to the mixing bowl.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Making The Panda

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Assembling The Panda

Now, you will split the white rice into two balls and the black rice into 9 little balls for the feet, hands, eyes, ears and the mouth. The hands, feet, ears and eyes are just rounded and pressed onto the body and face, and then for the mouth roll the ball out and pull a bit off the end for the nose and the rest for the mouth. Once it is all stuck onto the face and the body, you want to push the body onto the stick so that the panda looks as though it is stood up, leaving just enough room above it for the pandas head to fix on. You will have your pandango on a stick like this, although no doubt yours will be a lot neater than mine!

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Completed Panda On Stick

Now for the caramel, this was the disappointing part. I was expecting the caramel to smell and taste really sweet but oh how wrong was I. It had the same scent as fake tan, and tasted absolutely rotten. It is safe to say that the eastern idea of caramel is a lot different from ours; it is savory and doesn’t quite fit in with the sweet flavour of the rice. You make this by mixing Sachet 3 with 2 scoops of water. Then you can dip your pandango in it and taste it for yourself! The pandango itself, the rice, tastes very sweet, almost like soda or bubblegum, it is quite tasty, I enjoyed eating the rice but I didn’t actually eat any of the sauce after my first little try was rather disgusting.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Marumete Pandango - Panda And Caramel Sauce

Overall, I would try this again but I wouldn’t bother making the sauce as it was unpleasant, but everyone’s sense of taste is different so you may like it, you just don’t know until you try it! The panda dango itself (the rice) was very yummy though.

Kracie Popin’ Cookin’ Pudding

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding

This pudding looked really yummy on the packet, I was really looking forward to trying it!

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding Instructions

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding Contents

In this packet you will have:

  • Bowl
  • Spoon
  • Blue Sachet
  • Yellow Sachet (Caramel)
  • Brown Sachet (Pudding)
  • Water measure (cut-out tab on the box)

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding - Pouring Blue Sachet

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding - Pouring Mixing Pudding

First, you cut off the water measure on the box and use it to gauge how much water to put in the bowl. If you don’t want to use the water measure, as it isn’t exactly accurate, fill the bowl to about 2ml deep when looking at it from the side. Then you need to add the blue sachet and make sure the powder is completely mixed with the water. The consistency of the mixture will be slightly watery, this is fine but make sure you have taken all the lumps out by mixing it properly.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding - Making The Pudding

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Pudding - Adding The Sachet Of Caramel

Then, you will need to squeeze the contents of the brown sachet into the runny pudding mixture. The contents of the brown sachet is very thick and will be difficult to mix into the rest of the mixture, but if you separate it as you squeeze is out of the sachet then it will be easier to mix in. Once mixed in, the mixture will become thicker and slightly solid, this is because the pudding is turning into pudding. Now, you want to pour the yellow sachet, the caramel, on top of the pudding and then you can have a little caramel with each spoonful of pudding!

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Finished Pudding On A Spoon

 Oekaki Panda Yaki

Kracie Popin' Cookin' - Oekaki Panda Yaki Packaging

This little panda pancake is so cute! I loved making it and it tasted pretty nice too! I was so excited to try this when I looked through the items I received and it was one of the first items I tried. Again, this packaging also has the little step-by-step diagrams, just like all the packaging for every Popin’ Cookin’ and Happy Kitchen item from Kracie.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' - Oekaki Panda Yaki Instructions

Kracie Popin' Cookin' - Oekaki Panda Yaki Contents

In this packet you will have:

  • Water scoop
  • Tray 1
  • Tray 2
  • Black Sachet (sachet 1)
  • Red Sachet (sachet 2)
  • Pancake sheet
  • Piping bag
  • Spoon

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Pouring Black Sachet

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Drawing The Smile

First, you will need to mix the black sachet, sachet 1 with one scoop of water. When this is fully mixed, you will put all of the chocolate pancake mix into the piping bag before snipping off the end with a pair of scissors and filling in the black areas on the pancake sheet with the chocolate flavored mix. Remember to use up all the mix, I used too little and the panda ears were too thin and fell off after baking.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Pouring The Red Sachet

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Making The Face

Next, mix sachet 2, the red sachet, with two scoops of water and mix until a consistent texture throughout and is well mixed. Now you will just pick it up with the spoon and spread it on over just the oval face area, be careful not to smudge the chocolate eyes nose and mouth as the vanilla mix covers the whole head. When you have done this, microwave for 40 seconds at 800W. On the packet it says to microwave for 50 seconds on 500W or 30 seconds on 600W but I found that 40 seconds on 800W was perfect, even though it was longer than the packet suggested. Follow the guidelines for microwave times on the packet but if you don’t think it is as cooked as it could be then cook it for another 10 seconds at a time checking between each 10 seconds.

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Before Flipping The Face Over

Kracie Popin' Cookin' Oekaki Panda Yaki - Finished Pancake

This is your result! You tip it up so the pancake is on the plate and then peel the paper off very gently, one of the ears on my pancake came off because I put the mixture down too thin and also wasn’t gentle enough when removing.
I really enjoyed eating this panda pancake, the brown parts are chocolate flavored and the white part is vanilla flavored, it was very yummy if a little powdery which is to be expected, as it is a mixture of powder and water! I would definitely try this again.

If you like my nails in this article then check out the Nails Inc. review where I talk about the items I used.

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poop.
poop.
10 years ago

for the panda dango, the ‘caramel’ isn’t supposed to be caramel… it’s actually soy sauce, which is supposed to taste salty. so yeah, you pretty much got what you were supposed to expect XD

Helen-Ann Duff
Helen-Ann Duff
10 years ago
Reply to  poop.

My mistake! I thought it was caramel as I found a recipe a few months ago for dango and it recommended either caramel, chocolate or honey to dip the dango into. Knowing that it was soy sauce I can definitely remember it being very salty, but it really didn’t fit in with the sweet bubblegum flavoured dango. Thank you for your correction!

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