Trio Of Colorful Japanese Fruit Sandwiches Recipe

In recent years it's become quite trendy to use savory ingredients to elevate desserts — stirring bacon bits into peanut butter cookies, for example, or herbs into sugar cookie dough — but one Japanese dish goes in the opposite direction. Japanese fruit sandwiches turn a traditionally savory dish into a sweet one by using fruit and whipped cream as a filling. As pretty as they are delicious, these special dessert sandwiches combine bright juicy colors and flavors with subtly-colored whipped cream. As recipe developer Tess Le Moing says of them, "The taste of these sandwiches ticks every box. The bread is fluffy and the whipped cream is light and barely sweetened so the juicy, sweet flavor of the fruit shines."

While Le Moing does say that the sandwiches are best eaten right away, either as a dessert, a snack, or a breakfast or brunch offering, they can be prepared up to a day ahead of time. In fact, you will need to allot some advance time to make them since they need to spend at least an hour chilling before they're ready to eat. Don't leave them in the refrigerator for much longer than a day, however, or else the bread will start to get soggy.

For the sandwich filling, you'll need whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla extract, plus some matcha powder, turmeric, and ground freeze-dried strawberries to color it. The fruits Le Moing uses for this sandwich trio are mangos (you'll need one), kiwis (one or two, depending on size), and strawberries. If you want to make the sandwiches as traditionally as possible, Japanese milk bread is ideal. You can easily find it at most bakeries and grocery stores. If you can't find any, you can substitute with brioche or your favorite fluffy white bread, just make sure the sandwich slices are square, not rectangular so can fit in more fruit.

Using a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip ½ cup heavy cream, ¼ teaspoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, and the matcha.

Whip on medium-low speed until soft peaks form, about 2-3 minutes.

Transfer the green whipped cream to a bowl, then clean the bowl of the stand mixer.

Repeat with the turmeric, ½ cup heavy cream, ¼ teaspoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract and with the freeze-dried strawberries and the remaining ½ cup heavy cream, ¼ teaspoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract.

Dollop and evenly spread about ¼ cup of matcha whipped cream on two slices of bread.

Repeat with the remaining colors. You will have some leftover whipped cream to use later.

Place 3 strawberries along the center diagonal of one slice of bread with the matcha whipped cream, and 2 strawberries in the remaining spaces.

Place 2 halves of the kiwi along the center diagonal of one slice of bread with the yellow whipped cream.

Shingle the mango slices along the center diagonal of one slice of bread with pink whipped cream.

Fill the gaps between the fruit with the remaining whipped cream.

Top each sandwich with the corresponding bread slices.

Without changing the position of the sandwich, tightly wrap each sandwich with plastic wrap.

Draw a line on the plastic wrap with a marker to show where you plan to cut through the fruit for a beautiful cross-section.

Place the sandwiches on a baking sheet and gently compress them with another baking sheet.

Chill in the fridge for 1 hour or overnight.

Unwrap the sandwiches and slice off the crusts with a serrated knife.

Slice along the marked line you drew with the marker, wiping the knife clean before cutting the other sandwiches.

Serve and enjoy immediately.

Since fruit is the main ingredient in these sandwiches, Le Moing is picky about the fruit she selects, saying "For best flavor, use organic or farmer's market fruit that's in season. They'll taste better. My favorite rule of thumb is that if the recipe is simple with few ingredients, use quality ingredients." For her take on Japanese fruit sandwiches, Le Moing opts for a classic combo of strawberry, kiwi, and mango, noting that all of these fruits pair perfectly with cream and adding that they make the most eye-catching center cuts. 

If you're less concerned with aesthetics, though, you can use other types of fruits such as bananas, which are not as colorful, or blueberries or grapes, though due to their small size, it might be harder to get that perfect show-stopping slice of fruit. Fruits you might want to avoid, however, are those that are overly juicy or else citrus fruits like lemons, limes, and grapefruit as they are too tart for sandwiching purposes — although orange slices are bright and sweet enough and are commonly used in fruit sandwiches.

For a tropical take on fruit sandwiches, both papaya and pineapple work wonderfully. In fact, a filling made with the latter fruit would be somewhat reminiscent of that classic tea sandwich filling of canned pineapple and sweetened cream cheese, although using rings or wedges of fresh pineapple would give the sandwiches more visual appeal.

In this recipe, Le Moing uses natural ingredients to add tints to her whipped cream. She does say, though, that you can use food coloring if you don't care for the flavors of matcha or turmeric, or if you simply prefer not to purchase these additional ingredients. She adds that food coloring will provide more vibrant colors. Of course, you can always opt to go au naturel with your whipped cream, as many versions of the Japanese sandwich leave the cream white.

As far as changing up the flavor of the whipped cream, you can add or reduce the amount of sugar to suit your preferences, or you can use a different sweetener like honey. You could also replace the vanilla with a different flavoring extract — Le Moing suggests rum for a bit of boozy flavor, while almond extract would also complement her chosen fruits. You could mix some cream cheese or mascarpone into the whipped cream, too, or even replace it with plain or fruit-flavored yogurt to give the dish a nutritional boost. Yet another option is to turn this dish into a dairy-free dessert by replacing the cream with coconut milk, which is the ideal ingredient to make a vegan whipped topping. In this case, of course, you'd need to choose something other than milk bread for making the sandwiches.