Wirastani: Popin' Cookin'

There is this DIY candy kit from Japan that is climbing the Stairway of Popularity. Its' name is Poppin' Cookin' and, boy, does it pleased the heart of this 18-year-old. Even the colorful and eye-catching box itself would make me go "EEEPPPP WHAT IS THAT I WANTS IT" without knowing what it actually is.

I got this as a souvenir from my Dad. He brought back home three boxes of Poppin' Cookin' and I went full glee. Each boxes was very colorful and bright, and each had different pictures of the DIY candy. I decided to try one of the candy-making kit one afternoon and ended up spending hours on the dinning table twisting my fingers.

Popin' Cookin': DIY Candy Kit

Some instructions on how to shape the candy and mix the color

To emphasize, the box of Popin' Cookin' is very bright and eye-catching. On the front side of the box, you will find neon-colored Japanese writings and adorable pictures of the shaped candy, and you will find quick instruction on how to shape the candy and mix the color of the candy. The person who designed this candy's packaging is a genius - because what would make people be interested in buying the product other than attractive colors and interesting pictures?

The box was not, in the slightest bit, difficult to open. You just have to tear the specific part and voila! you will find yourself another packaging locked inside it. The inner packaging is another adorable one, puffy wrapper made from plastic with colorful pictures of the shaped candy.

Dad, opening the Popin' Cookin' box

When you tear the plastic open, you will find a brittle plastic container, some play-doh-like object wrapped in plastic, colorful chocolate sprinkles, and a tiny rolling pin that looks like a pencil. I thought that I was going to actually make candy from scratch, but it turned out that I was only going to mold them into the desirable shapes I like. I concluded that what differs Popin' Cookin' from Play-Doh is that you can eat your masterpiece after you finished shaping it.

What you will find inside thebox

I decided to use a cutting board as a base to shape my candy on, otherwise the table would get dirty. Those clay-like candies were very sticky - it sticked to the board, to my finger, and even to the rolling pin. I had to glaze some margarine (Mom, you're a genius!) onto the shaping tools so that the candy would not stick every time it made contact with another object.

Popin' Cookin' really is a Do-It-Yourself candy-making kit as it displayed very few step-by-step instructions on how to shape the candy. They just glued the picture on the packaging and let us, the consumer, use our imagination to shape it. There were pictures of pancake-shaped candy, panda-shaped candy, mont-blank-cake-shaped candy, but not a single direction on how to mold it. To be patient and cautious is required in the process of shaping the candy, as well as being imaginative and highly logical. It was, like, being told "You have a brain. Use it!".

Le me, working hard to shape them candy dough

Roll 'em nice and slowly

I spent hours flattening those candies and shaping them, and I'm quite satisfied with the result. I managed to make myself a wide selection of desserts and dishes, such as Rolled-Cake, Crepe, Melon Pan, Pancake, Donuts, Mont Blank Cake, Sushi, and Spaghetti.

I shared my masterpiece with my Mom, Dad, and some of my friends who came by my house that day. I had me the Mont-Blank-shaped candy to celebrate the success of trying out my very first Popin' Cookin'. The candy was a hard-candy-kind-of sweets, similar to Sugus - a hard candy produced by the Wrigley's company. It was hard, yet chewable, and it got slightly gooey the more you chew on them. It tasted sweet, a little bit too sweet for my taste, yet still delicious and very enjoyable.

In my opinion, the best way to play Popin' Cookin' is when you do it with a bunch of people - friends, cousins, parents, grandparents, anybody! The more people join the activity, the more fun it gets. You can test your imagination and compete with your cousins in 'Who's Making the Most Awesome Candy' category, or simply make candies of your own then eat your friends' in the end. And don't forget to share it with other people. Just look at their expressions when they found out that the 'modeling-clay' that you played with is actually eatable.