00:03 John Daub: How you doing everybody? So today we have a very special treat. It is the end of summer. Well, I would say September 1st being the end of summer is the end of watermelon season. So to celebrate the end of summer, I have bought this Suika Baum (watermelon cake) made in Chiba, which is our neighbor. We're in Tokyo right now. It's an autumn sweet. You can see that. Well, watermelons are for summer. So we're going to cut this open and it is pretty interesting. I'm going to show you what it looks like when they make it. All right. See you Frosty. Thanks for keeping us cool. After this, I'm going to probably be doing a game night or a little bit of games on Twitch following this. But joining us today is Kanae Daub and Leo. Leo just happens to be here.

01:09 John Daub: He just happens to have watermelon clothes on there. What's going on with that? Hello. So let them eat cake. Let's try this here. So I want to show you before we start on our living room TV. This is where we ordered it off of a site called Rakuten. And they have also a melon bomb, which is really interesting. Baumkuchen (roll cake) is like a European or German style of cake that they roll. And so it's really interesting. You can see they have all these different kinds of them. We got the normal one. And comes from Chiba's rice. So it's made with natural ingredients. That's what the cake looks like. And check it out. This is how they roll it on. So the cakes are rolled like this. And you can see they start making like round shape to them, which is really unusual. And then they cut them and then they put the watermelon design by branding it onto the green cake. Then they fill it with the inners. And look, I guess that the black chocolate chips would be the seeds.

02:20 John Daub: So I'm pretty excited about this. And then it takes them day two, they package it up and then day three, they send it out to us. And that's what it's going to look like, hopefully. And it cost us $40. It's for the end of summer. So we celebrate. So cutting the cake is going to be Kanae Daub because I want to eat the thing. Let's put this here. We have two cameras going on here. Over here. All right. All right, Leo, stay with daddy. You can sit here. He is going to enjoy watching the cake cutting. That's why he's dressed appropriately.

03:33 John Daub: This is crazy. I know, right? It does look heavy. Oh, inside the box. Is there anything? I think there was some sort of paper here. This is made in Chiba once again, like right down the street. I guess they have other confections that they're making. I'll probably order stuff from them. I'm always looking for ideas for the Patreon support. Oh, oh, wow. That does look like a shakudama (fireworks shell). Ice cream cone. Hold on a second. We got to get that looks like a shakudama like one of the fireworks shells. That's crazy. I gotta take some pictures of this. Leo, do you see this? It's a thing of beauty. Watermelon cake. Oh, there's one with a knife. We're not cutting that watermelon. We're gonna stick with this one. All right, here we go. So just cut it in half, I think. Yeah. Is that Michael Sassana's here for the cake? Yeah. Little family party. Hi, Kanae Daub and cutie Leo.

04:57 Kanae Daub: Anything? Love anything watermelon flavored? Do they make watermelon flavored sake? Really? I don't think so.

04:57 John Daub: Is it still frozen, huh? I don't think so. Wow. Wow. It's beautiful shape. Whoa. That's interesting. So the best way that they cut it, I saw this. Chocolate? Yeah. Well, the seeds are chocolate chip. Oh, it's still kind of came in with the freezer oh look at this now you can see the cross sections do you see that so the Baumkuchen they roll it so it's a cake that is continuously rolled and rolled and rolled and on the outside they use like a green cake to finish it and that's how they do it and you can see the branding on here that is super interesting it's a little bit hard and this part's soft so when they branded it they really pushed it down the branding makes a natural black pattern to it because it's sort of burned this is a cake and it's gonna be delicious i i'm really curious about the pink frosting here so the way that they cut it i've seen on the on the website is like this in threes so that looks like a slice of watermelon you want a big slice Kanae Daub alright.

06:42 John Daub: This is so cool this is so cool what this is man-made never mind mother nature this is the coolest thing. Who came up with this? Only in Chiba. That's crazy. Alright, we gotta take some pictures of this here. You guys wanna take some pictures? This is live right now. If you think this is interesting, go ahead and take a screenshot and send it to me. This is pretty funny. Can you remove this one here, the plastic?

07:21 Kanae Daub: Sure.

07:26 John Daub: That's awesome. This is too funny. Leo, it's watermelon cake. I know, Leo. This is crazy. It's not watermelon. It's watermelon cake, little boy. It's cake. Wow, okay. I can smell it. Do you smell it? It smells like watermelon cake. So you're gonna eat the first piece?

07:56 Kanae Daub: Okay.

07:59 John Daub: Hold on a second. Okay, the cake actually cost about $40. Which is kind of crazy, I think. But, I don't know. Is it though? I think it might be art. Can you move the... I think it could be considered art, in a way. I wanted to take a picture here. Right? I don't know. Is this art? I guess it's sort of. It's sort of like food art. You wanna eat some?

08:36 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you want some.

08:38 John Daub: Alright, let's try it here. You wanna eat some? This is how we feed the family, with cake. Alright, Leo. Okay. Wait, can he really eat?

08:53 Kanae Daub: He can't eat this. No way. It says Kanae Daub has to eat it.

08:58 John Daub: Here you go. He won. Let's get Kanae Daub's reaction here.

09:13 Kanae Daub: He doesn't want the watermelon. Okay, I'm gonna eat. Alright, itadakimasu. Do you supposed to eat it like... This way? Oh. It's cold. Yeah, there's still a little bit of... Frozen. It's a little frozen, but it's just... It is very frozen. It's like a fresh cream. It's not that heavy though. It's got a watermelon taste to it. I like it.

09:48 John Daub: That's so good. So, it's absolutely... There's a butter taste to it. The Baumkuchen... The cake part, a lot of butter. But it's a cream here. Really delicate watermelon taste. But very flavorful. They did an amazing job with this. And the chocolate chips are just awesome. Yeah. This is the one watermelon where you can't eat the seeds. You can see right there. It's crazy. It looks like watermelon. Actually, I think it's chocolate mugi (barley). Chocolate mugi. I don't know. Like chocolate barley. It's crunchy. Yeah. Very good.

10:42 John Daub: I think like... Yeah, it's probably $40 is really high price for this. But when you think about it, you know, we're always in Japan trying to have new experiences. With food. And you can see Japanese culture inside of the food. The details of it. And the desire to make something that is found in nature but make it like... Like change it is really creative. And I think that this bakery... I mean, I just really wanted to try it. So, today was a very special day. It's also the end of summer. And this is a food that we normally would eat during the summertime. So, saying goodbye to that. And it is pretty chilly. It's getting chillier outside. This is a good way to do it.

11:33 John Daub: How is it?

11:36 Kanae Daub: Is it good? I like it. It's nice.

11:39 John Daub: After, was this a rip-off?

11:41 Kanae Daub: I said no.

11:43 John Daub: She said no. It's nice. It's fun. There's no price on fun. So, there it is right there. That's the Baumkuchen cake that we just bought here. Hey, Phoebe. Stubblefield's here. You're brave to bite it. Cold tea. It's good. Hey, Jason's been a member for 16 months. Hey, Leo and Kanae Daub. Hey, Jason. Hello. Yeah. So, I think it's kind of worth it. And if you are staying in Japan and you're at a hotel, you can order this and have it sent to your hotel. But just keep in mind that it takes more than a few days. Sometimes it can take up to... I think we had to order it two weeks in advance, right?

12:22 Kanae Daub: So, you might have to order it two weeks in advance.

12:29 John Daub: But it is on Rakuten and Amazon. So, you can order it pretty easily with your credit card and we had that delivered to us. It came by Kuroneko Yamato (delivery service) and we put it in the freezer. Put in the freezer and we de-thawed it the night before. It's really good. It keeps pretty well. And look, I'll be honest with you. Watermelons are a little expensive, right? In Japan? Yeah. Watermelons in Japan are kind of expensive anyways. You can find up to a $200 watermelon that is bred perfectly. The flavor is amazing. The black watermelons of... What is the town up in the north? I forget the name of it. There are black watermelons up in Hokkaido. Each one is about $200. And that's cheap for that variety. It's pretty crazy.

13:19 John Daub: Hey, Baila is here. Start to the microwave fun. Baila, we're trying not to get a microwave but it looks like we're going to have to break down and get one. Jeremy Bewer, I could imagine them making one as a square watermelon. Jeremy, that is a really good idea. I wonder... I'm thinking of going down to Shikoku, driving down there next month for a project. I want to drive from Kansai Airport to Shikoku for a main channel edited episode. And I think I could stop off in Zentsuji where they make the watermelon, see some of my friends and ask them, maybe we should be making square watermelon cakes. Because it would probably be easier to make than a regular square watermelon. A lot of failures with that.

14:02 John Daub: Jennifer French is here. Nice to see Kanae Daub and Leo-kun. Genki? Are you genki?

14:07 Kanae Daub: Genki ne.

14:09 John Daub: Alright, they are genki. I'm genki. Thanks for asking, Jennifer French. Thank you. Yeah. So, it looks like everything is going well. The Paralympics ended yesterday. So, we don't have that anymore. And Tokyo is going to be having a new prime minister. And there's a lot of changes going on here. I think hopefully for the better. And I'll be able to start to travel. Again, as soon as the state of emergency ends on the 12th. I'm looking at the calendar. So, next Sunday the state of emergency ends and I'll be able to travel about. Of course, with precautions and show you some more parts of Japan, which is pretty cool. So, if you have any questions, you can leave them down in the comments below. Leo likes his dad's voice. I hope so. I'm making all sorts of animal sounds.

14:56 John Daub: So, this is the cake right here. There's a link in the description if you want to go check this out yourself. The pictures are pretty cool. But the process to make it is fascinating. Look at that. All these cake watermelons in a box. Looks like they're made by scientists. Being really careful to get the pink mousse goodness inside of there. And you can look at this from the link in the description. And I don't know. Maybe they will send it abroad. I don't think so. But it is a fun cake. And I will probably see if they'll let me go and film it at the factory next summer. See you then. So, you saw that here first. In a way, this is just scouting. The next cake I want to try, maybe next summer, is this one here. Hold on a second. No. No. Yes. Yes. This one looks incredible. They have a melon bomb. I guess this is slightly different. But that looks delicious. And I bet you the mousse inside of there is going to be wonderful.

16:05 John Daub: The cake is really well done. It's still a little frozen in there. But that's to be expected. But the green cake in there, that looks like the green that's the outside of the Suika cake, the watermelon cake. But it does look really delicious. And Japan does desserts like no other country. It's just so amazing. But it's not something just for the super rich. You know, like these weird desserts. Like this is priced for normal families. Like $39. You can get it for $39. You can get this. If I was a kid, I probably would rather have one of these than a normal cake. Just because it's so weird. You never, no kid's going to forget that. And you can see they have little teeny seeds in there made of chocolate. There's some good confections. They have a yakiimo (roasted sweet potato) too. No way. Oh, they do. What? Yakiimo. They have sweet potato looking cake. That is crazy. What? Leo, look at that. Look, they rolled it. That looks like a real sweet potato. Yeah, it's interesting. What? It comes in foil. Of course it does. With a question mark. What the heck is that? That's a sweet potato cake. No, this is awesome.

17:23 John Daub: Look at the arrow on the website. It's telling us. It's teasing us with hand drawn arrows. Whoa. Oh, that's got to be delicious. All right, maybe we're just going to do a cake series. We're just going to keep unboxing. We're just going to keep unboxing cakes here. There's some real ones in the back, but you can see they've done a great job. Look at that. And they roll the cake, so it's not quite as large as the Suika cake, but ... It's next to a yakiimo. Yeah, that looks like the real deal. Just right next to the diapers too, because that's where they end up if Leo gets ahold of them. They end up there. Whoa. All right, you know what? I'm going to have to try this. And with a real yakiimo. And we're going to have to compare the tastes. Oh, this looks like a good thing. So we'll do maybe a monthly series. Weird cake unboxings here on Only in Japan Go.

18:20 John Daub: Thanks, everybody. I appreciate you joining us for this Suika cake unboxing. It is pretty interesting for those joining us. This is what it looks like. It is branded on the outside. You can see the layers of cake. And then has a watermelon kind of mousse that has been in the freezer. It looks like a real piece of watermelon. And you too can order this when you come to Japan. All right, everybody. Have a good day. See you later. See you.