Castella or Kasutera Cake

This is a really good cake. I first had it a few years ago when a family friend made it- I got the recipe from her, but I was never able to really duplicate it. I found this recipe online and it magically worked. The cake is really light, like a spongecake, and only slightly sweet from the honey. I'm not sure why it's so light considering the amount of eggs and oil... but it was really good and maybe the small amount of sugar makes up for the amount of eggs?

Funny thing is that this is actually a Portuguese cake. It was brought to Japan in the 16th century by Portuguese merchants (according to wikipedia).

Focaccia Pizza and Green Tea and Chocolate Marbled Cake

Just look at this magnificent pizza! It combines focaccia bread + pizza. I freaking love focaccia- this was awesome. It's still a thin crust pizza so it doesn't turn into a chicago deep dish, but enough bread so you get the focaccia feel in the crust- still chewy, crisp on the edges.


Okay now look at my new measuring spoons- aren't they awesome? They're skinny so they can fit into all sorts of spice jars. I got them from Sur La Table.

Okay now look at this awesome mixing bowl! I had to buy new stuff since I was using my old roommates baking equipment. This one is from Giada De Laurentiss' line for Target. I was debating between this plastic set and the stainless steel and decided I needed the larger bowl so I got these. I like that there's a little spout so it's easy to pour batter out and a rubber ring on the bottom so it doesn't slide everywhere. The only problem is when I need to melt chocolate or use it over a hot pot of water, but I can switch to the various glass bowls I have instead.

Anyways... I made green tea and chocolate swirled cupcakes. I like the way the loaf looks, but it's easier to hand out cupcakes. It's really good, but possibly too moist? I guess I like my cake a little dryer, but the 1 cup of yogurt really made these sticky/fudgey despite being cooked all the way through. They looked great though! Chocolate and green tea are a great combination.

Broccoli Garlic Quiche and Matcha Mochi Cupcakes

perfectly done.

slightly overdone.

I still had mochiko leftover from making daifuku so I found this great recipe for Matcha Mochi Cupcakes. Maybe it should be called a bread or muffin since there isn't a frosting for it. The mochiko flour makes the bread squishy, but it's still crisp on the outside. They were really good right out of the oven, by the next day they were already getting stale despite being saran wrapped.

I love making pastry dough, it's so much easier with a dough blender! The all-butter pastry dough for the Broccoli Garlic Quiche is pretty good. I love quiche, everything about them. I had a stockpile of Trader Joe's quiches, but I thought it'd be fun to try and make one too. They're pretty easy to make and are good at room temperature too so they make great leftovers. Sorry no photos!

Sugar-crusted popovers and Daifuku

Sugar-crusted popovers, aka donuts you don't have to deep fry AND you can use your muffin pan! This recipe comes from David Lebovitz, again. Every recipe of his that I've tried has been amazing.

Right out of the oven, they're sort of bland (already deflating) popovers. Soft and fluffy, but otherwise not very flavorful. Brush them with a bit of butter and roll them in cinnamon and sugar and they are ready to be devoured. They were still good the next day- the butter kept them crisp.


Daifuku: otherwise known as filled mochi. I didn't realize that average home bakers could make daifuku! I always thought the process was complicated and involved top secret home equipment. I had fresh mochi when I went to Japan in spring and it was so good. This doesn't taste quite like the one I had in Japan- theirs was more sticky, pliable and liquid. Jenny showed me this recipe and it turn out you only need FIVE ingredients. And a microwave. Seriously, you can make this!

Blast the mochiko and water in the microwave and then roll it out- you will need a lot of corn starch! And you have to work quickly before the mochi gets cold and hard, but carefully since you just microwaved it for several minutes.

Trying to combine the strawberries and red bean paste (anko). Turns out they do not like to stick to each other.

Testing one out- so good! I made this lumpy, delicious blob!

For the second batch, we added some food coloring.

Look how pretty they are! These are Jenny's, mine did not turn out this pretty/smooth/rotund.

Green Tea Ice Cream and Shortbread cookies

My favorite ice cream is probably green tea ice cream, with taro a close second (not sure where to get taro powder in the US though...). This recipe is awesome- it tastes exactly like the ice cream you get in the stores, but you can make it for half the price! Just make sure you go to a Japanese supermarket to get the green tea and not somewhere like Whole Foods where it's $30 for a tiny container. Also this ice cream doesn't have any egg yolks in it so it's thankfully not as rich as the other ice creams I've made.


Another favorite of mine is Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies. These are so freaking good and buttery. But this recipe for a green tea shortbread beats it. The only cookie cutters I have are candy cane and stocking shaped so I used those. These cookies disappeared in a few days (good thing one batch makes a ton of cookies!).

Still using my trusty salt shaker as a rolling pin.

The underbelly full of nooks and crannies.

Stir Fried Beef Udon

Originally stemmed from a conversation with a friend about stir frying udon with Memmi, here's a random recipe I came up with. I decided to spice it up a bit with a nice touch of extras.

Ingredients

• Fresh udon noodles - 7.25oz x 6
• 2/3 cup Kikkoman Memmi Noodle Soup Base
• 1 tbsp fresh minced garlic
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 lb beef flank cut into stir-fry strips
• 5 eggs
• 6 oz oyster mushrooms, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce

Directions

• In boiling water, cook udon noodles for 2-3 mins, drain, and set aside
• Stir fry beef with pepper and salt to taste to just-done and set aside (you'll mix it back in to finish cooking later)
• Beat eggs in bowl and fry in pan to just-done and set aside
• Using a wok, heat oil and toss in garlic and drained noodles
• Add oyster mushrooms
• Add Memmi sauce, soy sauce, and salt & pepper to taste
• Stir fry for about 3 mins and toss in the beef and eggs to finish

This turned out pretty yummy but not quite how I expected. It wasn't as "stir fry" as I wanted, mainly because the noodles weren't drained well enough and the beef had lots of extra juices that took away from the oil's effect. I'll keep this in mind for future reference, but otherwise the flavor combination is pretty good!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Last weekend I went to Japan town's Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco to try some new good eats... and boy, did I find some surprises!

SPAM MUSUBI

(Can't tell too well from the picture, but this is wrapped in seaweed.)

This savory treat is absolute genius. It's probably among the simplest of creations and yet it tastes so amazingly good! I bought 3 (took two home) of these from two different booths but I noticed there was a difference in taste. So far I can tell you that the sauce is the biggest determiner of a "good" spam musubi, and that too little seaweed can be a bad thing. I even went home and bought a musubi molder off eBay for about $10 including shipping. I'll be making these in the near future.
*One small note about these: they're not Japanese! I wikied it and it actually turns out that these are a Hawaiian creation, probably Japanese-influenced. Still good, though.

BEEF BALLS

What the heck are those?? Beats me. Really beats me. I waited in a half an hour plus line for these so-called "amazing" beef balls and when I took a bite I tasted... starchiness???? Beef balls my butt! Most of the ball is made of a doughy-sponge cakey-batter, and there was maybe a tiny piece of meat here and there. What you really taste is the batter, the sauce (some kind of teriyaki sauce I believe), and the ginger. Below is what's actually in it:

All I can say was that I was pretty disappointed for the nice list of ingredients they had above. If only they had focused on the beef!

GREEN TEA ICE CREAM

No pictures here for this once; it was a basic two-scoops of green tea ice cream on a regular cone. It is honestly some of the best green tea ice cream I've ever had, and I've had green tea from quite a few restaurants and quite a few ice cream brands. This was some good stuff I had... it's possibly where many Japanese restaurants get their green tea from (because it tastes quite comparable if not the same). What has two thumbs and knows the source of great green tea ice cream? This one! *Points thumbs at self* I found out where it's from. Hard to find in your local markets, but definitely available through special-order. Guess where it's from. You'd never believe it. It's Dreyer's.