Super mochi mochi

Improved cooked rice bread

This might be it! I have been experimenting with the cooked rice bread recipe for a while and I think I achieved near perfection! It’s moist, soft and awfully pale. Though it has almost no nutritional value compared to its whole, 7 or 10 grains dark, chewy and hay like aroma counter parts, many Japanese prefer it that way. Thanks to the bread machine doing the most of work, my part is easy – just two extra steps to reach this super mochi mochi texture! I adore this method better than one that I posted before.

This recipe is like a blank canvas. The possibilities are endless. Just by changing the filling you could make a savory roll or a sweet snack. My husband’s favorite is custard cream filled bread (クリームパン）and my favorite is always savory curry bread (カレーパン) - deep  fried, crusty outside with warm curry filling inside is hearty and satisfying. There is bread called Melon pan  (メロンぱん) which usually does not have melon as one of the ingredients. The name came from the shape; it remotely resembles a cantaloupe melon? Whether there is actually melon in the bread or not it is still quite popular among Japanese. Then there is this sweet azuki bean bread (アンぱん) that is the go-to bread with the older, I mean rather distinguished generation. My friend, who is not that old, at least not at heart, makes incredible sweet azuki bean bread. She gave me her recipe but I don’t know where it is now due to my stupendous disorganization skill. I hope she coincidently sends me the recipe via email.

Ingredients

2 8-1/4 X 4-1/4 loaf pan lined with parchment paper for plain loaf style bread

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper if doing the filled buns

I made both kinds of breads with this so you’ll see each of them in the pictures below.

• Cooked rice 100g
• Water 100g –substitute plain yogurt to give the bread sourdough flavor.
• Milk 20g
• Heavy cream 20g
• Bread flour 250g
• Sugar 25g
• Salt 1/2 teaspoon
• Unsalted butter 1 Tablespoon
• Dry yeast 4g about 1/2 packet

1. Put rice in small sauce pan. Add water and bring to boil. Turn off the heat and cover with lid. Wait for 30 minutes.
2. Put rice in food processer and make loose paste.
3. Set the brad maker to the dough setting. Put the rice, milk, cream, flour, sugar, salt, butter in the pan then sprinkle in the yeast.
4. When the dough is done, turn onto a flat clean surface dusted with flour. Roll out dough with flour-dusted rolling pin to a rectangle of about 10 x 8. Cut into 8 pieces or if making small buns, cut 16 equal parts.
5. Make balls and lay the ball seam side down then cover with clean moist towel and rest for 15 minutes.
6. Roll out the ball of dough to about 7 x 4 oblong shape or about 6 diameter round for filled buns. Picture below is sweet azuki paste.
7. Roll up the dough and put in the prepared loaf pan seam side down or fill with your favorite stuffing then gather the dough together on top, lay on cooking sheet seam side down.
8. Let the dough rise in warm place to double in size. About 40-45minutes.
9. Heat oven to 302 F. Bake for 20 minutes (stuffed dough take 5-7 minutes more). If you want the color to stay white, cover with foil half-way through. For shiny look, brush with an egg yolk and 1-2 tablespoon water or milk mixture on top.
10. Take out from pan and cool it on a wire rack. Keep the bread in a plastic bag after it cools down bit so that it stays moist.

I had a swell time in Utah last weekend. My friend as promised made us a mont blonc cake.Yes! It tasted like one I had in a famous pastry shop in Tokyo.  I didn’t take my big camera with me so the photo doesn’t do it justice but it was amazing!. Oishii (美味しい) was the word that we repeated many times without effort. Thank you so much.My friend who made the cake is on the left.

It was the very first time that I drove a rental car. Although the Garmin GPS my daughter gave me for last Christmas was very helpful, it tried to take us to a wrong but same name store in Las Vegas. It recalculates way too often. Sheesh!  And I don’t want to name anybody (because I can’t) but Utah drivers were awful!. Can’t you see I’m driving at the speed limit?

Snow in front of the Swadee Thai Restaurant

Skate rink at the downtown Marriott

Brunch at the Copper Onion Restaurant

It snowed Sunday. Not frost but actual snow.

Cake Day

Chocolate cake-Japanese style

What day is today? （今日は何の日？）is a podcast my husband listens to. It is a radio broadcast from FM Fukuoka (FM 福岡) everyday, he lets me listen to some of the interesting topics. In only a minute or two it tells you (official or non-official) what day today is. According to the broadcast, January 6th is Cake Day. Because a cake shop owner in Ueno, Tokyo first advertised his store on January 6th 1879 (明治12年). It goes on to say that for Japanese, cake equals strawberry short cake and it is a staple (定番）in every cake shop in Japan. But the original Western version of shortcake was simply whipped cream and strawberry between the two pieces of bread and not even close to today’s standard. Legend has it that in 1922 (大正11年）Fujiya the major cake/sweet maker company created the strawberry shortcake to be suitable for Japanese taste. And that is what is widely available today.

What kind of cake should I make for cake day? Ooooh, so many choices, so little time. I crave something chocolate. I love Beast’s flourless chocolate cake but for my blog’s purpose, I made Japanese style chocolate cake and it was good! There are so many steps in this recipe so that means plenty of pans to wash but no PANs no glory… something like that? More and more Japanese homes are equipped with an oven thus more people make or try to make cake at home - it’s like a PANdemic. But, no PAN intended. OK! That is enough playing with words!

Ingredients for cake base use 8-inch round pan lined with parchment paper (parchment paper should be a couple inches higher than side of pan)

• Weak power flour (薄力粉）or cake flour 40g
• Almond powder 40g
• Unsweetened pure cocoa powder 40g
• Powdered sugar 40g
• 4 eggs - separate white and yolk
• Sugar 80g
• Unsalted butter 80g melted.

1. Combine flour, almond powder, cocoa powder and powdered sugar and sift. Set it aside.*
2. Put egg white in a stand mixer and beat for one minute or so at low speed. Add half of sugar and make meringue - first 30 second with low speed then high speed for 2-3 minutes then lower speed for an additional 30 seconds-this will make smooth meringue. Transfer the meringue to other bowl or a gallon zip-lock bag. Set it aside.
3. In a same stand mixer (without washing), put egg yolk and rest of sugar then mix at medium speed until the color turns pale yellow.
4. Add about a cup of meringue into the egg mixture then mix at low speed. Remove the bowl from the stand. Preheat oven to 356 F.
5. Add flour mixture all at once to egg mixture and gently fold it in with spatula.
6. Add melted butter and mix well.
7. Add rest of meringue one cup at time and combine using a cutting motion.
8. Pour into the prepared cake pan and tap the bottom few times. Put in the oven for about 17 minutes.
9. Insert tooth pick and check for doneness. It’s ok if some crumb stick to the tooth pick. Do not over bake.

*It may be hard to sift almond powder, do best as you can.

While cake is baking, make syrup- 2 tablespoon of sugar dissolved in 50cc of hot water. Add a few drops of rum flavoring (optional or real rum 30 cc). Set it aside.

Chocolate cream

• Bitter or semi-sweet chocolate 100g
• Heavy cream 100cc
• Rum flavoring 2-3 drops. If you are using real rum 2 tablespoons.

1. Break chocolate in small pieces and put In a microwave proof bowl.
2. Add heavy cream. Microwave for 30 second at 60% power, stir well then repeat the process until melted.
3. Add rum flavoring and cool. Set it aside.

Assemble the cake

1. When the cake is done, take out the cake by lifting the parchment paper onto a cooling rack. Remove paper.
2. Brush entire cake with syrup and cool (use all the syrup for rich flavoring).
3. Slice in half and spread 1/2 of chocolate cream between the slices and the rest of on top so that when you stack the cake, cream is in middle and top.
4. Chill the cake for 1 hour.

Miroirs or Grasaju (ミロワール・グラサージュ)

Miroirs means mirror. Grasaju means glossy or luster. It’s chocolate coating over the pastry to give it a glossy surface. This is an optional step but gives the cake that polished look and people think you are brilliant and it takes you to next ‘sheen’ level for sure. When it’s all done, reflect your accomplishment (oops, I had too much fun with words today). Anyway, this simplified version is not as difficult, but a candy thermometer is recommended. For coating soft sponge cake you need to spread whipped cream first. Otherwise it absorbs too quickly.

Ingredients

• Unflavored gelatin 1 packet
• 1/4 cup water for gelatin.
• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Water 80g
• Heavy cream 70g
• Granulated sugar 90g

1. Put the 1/4 cup of water in a small bowl and sprinkle on the gelatin. Do not stir. Set it aside.
2. In a small sauce pan put cocoa powder. Add the water, a small amount at a time, stirring to incorporate.
3. Add milk and sugar and heat at low heat. Stir the mixture when tiny bubbles show up around the edge of pan and stir again when bubbles show up, repeat as necessary. When the cocoa mixture starts looking glossy then remove from heat. Cool for 6-7 minutes.
4. Add prepared gelatin and dissolve in the cocoa mixture. Stir occasionally and it will thicken as it cools. Cool to 86 F.  If it’s too cold then it will be difficult to coat. Warm back up if it’s too thick.
5. Pour miroirs over the cake as quickly as possible. Tilt cake to cover sides too. Wait for the coating to dry. Put cake in fridge to speed up the drying process if you like. Do not cover with plastic until dry.

 

I am going to go Utah to see a friend for a few days. She is a fabulous non-pro pastry chef. She promised to make me a mont blonc cake, my fav, I feel lucky!. I will put the photo on next blog.

My orchid is in full bloom. I’m working on the macro lens I got for Christmas.

My husband uses the Stitcher radio app to listen to the podcast. You can find the podcast by looking in the iTunes store as well.

Dreamy

Dreamy Russian Cream

The Beef Wellington was baking in the oven on Christmas Day. My plan of making Christmas cake aka strawberry shortcake was altered to make this Dreamy Russian Cream (no, really, that is the real name of this recipe) because unlike my daughter’s kitchen I only have uno oven. The old newspaper clipping of this recipe was chosen for just that cause. 

For uneducated me, the images associated with Russia are very limited – the Kremlin, Lenin, Romanoff, Anastasia, crazy Rasputin, Chernobyl, babushka dolls, one of the 007 movies (From Russia With Love?), super cold and deep snow. Do they really have this for dessert? Though I have never been there, I know 5 people that have and 4 of them did missionary work in Russia (one of person was born and raised in Hawaii so it must have been quite an adjustment). I looked for a Jell-O mold in the house but could not find any. Right, I don’t make Jell-O but I have a Bundt pan. One thing that I was concerned about was will it come out from the pan cleanly? Or will we have to eat it from the pan with a spoon?

I needed to modify the recipe because I didn’t have one main ingredient- sour cream. Christmas day and Sunday so no store is open I bet. I substituted Greek style yogurt. It was better than I expected. The flavor is similar to panna cotta bit stiffer and as fans of panna cotta we’re delighted. I didn’t care for the old fashioned look of the dessert however and the ‘dreamy’ is overrated in my opinion but maybe not using sour-cream has something to do with that?

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin-use less if you like softer texture. 
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 pint half and half
• 1 cup sugar
• 16 ounces yogurt or sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla-for variation, try almond extract. 
• 2 cups strawberries, blueberries, peaches or other fruits- for Christmas color I used strawberries and kiwis.
• Raspberry sauce (optional)

1. Combine gelatin with cold water and set aside.
2. Heat half-and-half and sugar in a small sauce pan to scald stage over medium heat.
3. Remove from heat and stir gelatin into the pan with the cream mixture.
4. Add yogurt or sour cream and vanilla.
5. Pour into a 5-cup mold and refrigerate until set, about 2 hours or more.
6. Dip bottom of pan in warm water for 10 seconds or so to loosen. Put a plate larger than the mold over the pan and flip. Clap your hands if it comes out in one piece! (optional).
7. Decorate with fruits.

I love eating this dessert with raspberry sauce which is easy to make. Put however many raspberries you want in a small pan, add water just to cover the raspberries then add sugar and cook over low heat until it makes a syrupy sauce. Add a few drops of red food coloring if you have some to brighten the color. Add lemon juice. You can strain the syrup for a smooth seedless sauce. Now that’s more of a dreamy dessert!

Here is my husband with his Kindle. He is an avid and fast reader. The painting on the wall is one I painted in 2002. It’s my imaginary peaceful place I would like to vacation in.

I hope your 2012 will be healthy and happy and that all your dreams come true.