The Tokyo Talk
When Eriko Miyawaki agreed to bake for her daughter’s kindergarten class almost thirteen years ago, she had no idea that she would begin a baking career on that day. Today, with over a decade of experience, Miyawaki is a renowned baker, teaching the art of treat-making to hundreds of students in Japan, as well as baking desserts for people all across Tokyo—of course, still including her daughter’s now grown-up classmates.
Miyawaki was born and raised in Yokohama, the Kanagawa prefecture’s capital and the second-largest city in Japan. After getting married in her 20s, she relocated to nearby Tokyo with her husband. Despite having only lived in Japan’s two largest cities for her entire life, Miyawaki reveals that she actually greatly dislikes crowded places. “I don’t like busy areas,” she says, laughing at the irony. “Rather, I like making something at home.”
Miyawaki’s profession, then, comes as no surprise: baking. However, although her preference for staying away from big crowds may be one of the reasons she started baking at home, she reveals that her main motivation was actually her daughter. Miyawaki started baking about twelve to thirteen years ago, right as her daughter entered Pre-Kindergarten 4. “I started studying sweets because [my daughter’s] school had many events,” she says, explaining that parents were often tasked with bringing treats to share with their children’s classes. “Some mothers had a full-time job and can’t make handmade sweets, but I didn’t have a special job at that time. I wanted to make some sweets for [my daughter] and her friends.”
Miyawaki didn’t know it at the time, but baking for her daughter would eventually turn into an over-decade-long career. Throughout the past thirteen years, she has pursued a broad range of endeavors in an effort to expand her baking knowledge, from experimenting at home to attending a professional cooking school. At the same time, whilst learning how to perfect her own recipes, she discovered another passion: teaching. Miyawaki is now a baking teacher herself, helping others who are in the same position that she was in thirteen years ago. She runs baking classes out of her home, seeing several students per day. She notes that her daughter, who is now in high school, often comes home to the surprise of strangers in her kitchen. From cookies to Japanese traditional sweets, Miyawaki teaches classes covering just about every sweet that one could imagine. She explains that as much as her students learn from her, she learns from them even more. “I feel like I teach to get better myself,” she says.
From extravagant flowers, to Christmas ornaments, to animated characters, Miyawaki can replicate them all on her cookies. She makes dozens of different sweets, but if she had to choose one signature dessert, Miyawaki says it would probably be her famous icing cookie. This original recipe entails a classic cookie base with a hardened icing top layer, often decorated with various sprinkles. With each of Miyawaki’s homemade treat recipes, including her icing cookies, she is always thinking about one thing: her audience. “I always cater towards my audience,” she says. “For example, when my daughter was young and I was making sweets for school, a lot of moms had concerns with health so I experimented to make the cookies healthier.” Miyawaki’s desserts do not taste like the cookie-cutter (pun intended) sugar cookies that most would imagine, but are crafted specifically to match her consumers’ palettes. “Japanese people like more light recipes, so traditional frosted cookie recipes from places like the US don’t work here,” she says. “So I had to cater my treats towards a Japanese audience.” Miyawaki is always striving to improve, constantly accepting suggestions from consumers of all ages and backgrounds. She especially appreciates feedback from adults—although children are often her biggest fans. “I value adult feedback a lot,” she notes. “Like when adults say a cookie is good, versus a kid who just likes sugar,” she laughs.
Her icing cookies have become a phenomenon all over Tokyo, but Miyawaki reveals a secret: her favorite thing to make is actually Japanese sweets. Because her daughter attends international school, where many students are from the United States and other Western countries, she often finds herself making cookies and cupcakes. However, in addition to Western desserts, Miyawaki greatly enjoys making (and eating!) Japanese treats. “I love anko (a Japanese red bean paste incorporated in many traditional desserts),” she laughs. “But anko is not popular in foreign countries. So if I were to make it for my daughter’s school, it would not be so popular.” So when she does have the chance to make Japanese sweets, whether it be for her own classes or for her daughter’s school’s Japan Day, Miyawaki relishes the opportunity—and, not to mention, she is incredibly talented at it.
Currently, Miyawaki runs her business out of her kitchen—baking, decorating, and teaching. Many have asked her if she plans on expanding to a formal bakery or shop. “In Japan, to sell, you need your own separate kitchen and a lot of qualifications to be able to sell,” she says. “So it’s not very realistic.” Miyawaki explains that, to even consider having a formal establishment, she would need two kitchens in one house. Thus, at the moment, she does not have any plans to start a shop like many other bakers in Tokyo.
However, that’s not to say that Miyawaki does not have other expansion plans. She is always thinking of ways to broaden her own horizons in the baking realm, especially now. “My daughter will be going to university next year,” she says. “So I’ll have a lot of free time.” Recently, Miyawaki took a big step in her career, becoming a teacher’s teacher. Now, not only does she teach students herself, she also teaches other baking teachers. “I’d like to maybe expand and continue that,” she says, noting that she has thoroughly enjoyed beginning in this new role. While she does not have a set list of goals for the future, she hopes to utilize her free time to take on new experiences within baking.
When Miyawaki looks back at her thirteen year baking journey, she sees how one moment of curiosity and passion expanded into an amazing career. Now, when she looks at pictures of her first batches of cookies, she laughs. Yet, she acknowledges that everyone has to start from somewhere, appreciating how far she herself has come. “If you have a passion and want to continue it, keep practicing,” she says. Nobody is perfect from the beginning, but dedication and genuine commitment make all the difference. “If people usually take 100 times to practice and get better but you can’t, all you have to do is practice 1000 times.”
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