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1. Now honey, start off by mixing that sweet rice flour and sugar in a big bowl, just until they're friends.
2. Slowly incorporate the warm water, stirring until you've got yourself a nice, smooth dough. You're lookin' for a texture similar to playdough – pliable, but not sticky.
3. Divide the dough into three equal parts. Leave one plain (white), knead a drop of pink food coloring into another until you've got a soft blossom color, and for the third part, well, go ahead and give it a grassy hue with the green food coloring.
4. Roll each colored dough into about twelve little round dumplings, each the size of a cherry. Heat up a pot of water until it's boiling gently, like a mountain stream, then cook the dumplings – they’ll plump up and float to the top when they're done. That takes about 3-5 minutes, but trust your eye more than the clock.
5. Fish those tender dumplings out with a slotted spoon and give 'em a quick bath in ice-cold water. That stops the cookin' process and keeps 'em nice and chewy.
6. Thread the dumplings onto bamboo skewers in a pattern – one white, one green, and then pink on top, just like the spring blooms that inspired them. If you're using the soybean flour, now's the time for a light dusting.
**Variations & Tips
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Darlings, feel free to swap that soybean flour dusting with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds or even a drizzle of honey. And if food colorings don’t sit well on your pantry shelf, get creative! Natural colors work just fine – think a touch of matcha powder for green and a pinch of beet juice for pink. No matter how you spin it, the beauty of Hanami Dango is in the making as much as the eating, a chance to slow down and savor the moment. Enjoy it, sugar.
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