Yatsuhashi (八ツ橋, Kyoto cinnamon rice wafers)

Yatsuhashi looks like a souvenir, which is a dangerous disguise. The hard-baked kind is older and plainer than the soft folded sweets many travelers meet first: a thin rice-flour wafer, sweet with sugar, warm with nikki cinnamon, curved while it is still willing to bend.

This is not a difficult sweet. It is only particular. The whole matter is thinness and timing. Roll the dough too thick and it turns tough before it turns crisp. Wait too long after baking and the wafer snaps instead of curving. Work while it is warm, and it obeys like a very small student with strong opinions.

The flavor is simple enough that nothing hides. Use fine joshinko, not coarse rice flour, because a smooth dough bakes into a clean, even wafer. Use nikki if you can find it, the Japanese cinnamon with a deeper, slightly woody warmth; cassia cinnamon is a sensible stand-in, but it is not quite the same voice. Honmono here is modest: thin dough, dry bake, quick curve, and enough empty space on the tray that each piece can cool crisp.