Uiro is a sweet made by mixing sugar and water into rice flour or other flours and steaming it. It is soft and chewy with a light sweetness, and is also known as a specialty of Nagoya, Odawara and Yamaguchi.
In Kyoto it is sometimes used for minazuki, the sweet of June: a triangle of white uiro topped with adzuki beans, traditionally eaten on June 30, the day of the Nagoshi no Harae purification rite. The triangular shape is said to represent ice that drives away the summer heat, and the adzuki beans to ward off evil.
In jo-namagashi, uiro dough is used to wrap bean paste or rolled out thinly to suggest flower petals — it shines in designs with a sense of translucency.
