A popular high end snack from Japan, cookie brand Press Butter Sand is opening its first store in Takashimaya’s Food Hall Singapore on Friday (Dec 8). Specialising in artfully crafted butter cookies sandwiched with buttercream and caramel, the brand was established at Tokyo Station in 2017 by Bake Inc, the same team behind Japanese cheese tart brand Bake Cheese Tart (the once-hyped dessert exited the Singapore market in 2019).
Press Butter Sand, is so named for its special pressed cookie baking technique, now boasts over 30 outlets in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.
The ‘sand’ in Press Butter Sand aptly refers to ‘sandwich’. But Press Butter Sand goes one up from your garden-variety cookie stuffed with cream.
The boxy-shaped bakes have a decadent double-layered filling of fluffy Hokkaido buttercream and “melty” butter caramel. They’re made using an “iron, press, heat” process, where both sides of the cookie are baked simultaneously with two iron griddles that are pressed together, like a waffle iron, but cooler.
This “Hasami-Yaki (Japanese pottery) technique”, says the brand’s PR rep, is supposed to bake each cookie evenly and give it a uniformly crispy texture.
While there are about seven flavours available in Japan (including the more exciting pistachio, chestnut, lemon and choc hazelnut), the Singapore outlet will carry only three basic flavours for a start: The original (from S$22.50 for five pieces to S$60 for 15 pcs), uji matcha (from S$24 for five pieces to S$40.50 for nine pieces) and chocolate (from S$24 for five pieces to S$40.50 for nine pieces).
It’s not cheap at roughly S$4 to S$4.80 per cookie. Probably because you’re paying for freight: Each box is shipped frozen from Japan and has a relatively short shelf life of around two weeks after being defrosted as they don’t contain preservatives.
Press Butter Sand opens on Dec 8 at B2 Takashimaya Department Store, 391 Orchard Rd, Singapore 238873. Open daily 10am – 9.30pm
CNA
