dessert

Baked Kuri Squash and Apple Maple Pudding (and it's vegan too)

maki — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:33:06 +0100

This very healthy squash pudding from the archives manages to still taste good. I think it would make a very good side dish to a Thanksgiving dinner, from which vegans and vegetarians can partake of without feeling deprived. It is not that sweet - probably less sweet than many traditional side dishes. I hope you give it a try! Originally published November 19, 2007, and tweaked a bit - note the addition of a little miso!

You know how certain diehard carnivores react to words like ‘vegan’ ‘no dairy’ and, gasp, ‘tofu in a sweet dish’. There’s no reason to tell them that all of these phrases are applicable to this smooth, creamy baked squash pudding, until they’ve actually eaten and enjoyed. It even is devoid of white sugar, though it is sweetened with maple syrup. The simple combination of creamy squash pudding, flavored and sweetened with real maple syrup with the pure sweetness of the squash shining through, and sweet-sourness of the apples works perfectly together. (The tofu merely adds the creamy texture; you don’t taste it at all.) It’s rich, but rests very lightly on your stomach - not a bad thing after a heavy main course.

This recipe is adapted quite heavily from one in a Japanese cookbook, Saisai Sweets (Vegetable Sweets), by the wonderful Yumiko Kano, who I have mentioned previously. The original recipe called for soy milk, but I’ve used silken tofu instead for a richer, thicker consistency. I’ve omitted other things like rum-soaked raisins, and upped the maple syrup for more sweetness.

Vegan Baked Kuri Squash and Apple Maple Pudding (or crustless pie)

This will make a pudding or a crustless pie that is about 10 inches / 28cm or so in diameter, enough for 6 to 8 servings (though I’ve seen one disappear in one person recently).

I’ve given weight measurements rather than cup measurements, because the proportion of squash to tofu is what’s the most important thing here. Scale up or down according to your needs.

1 lb (450-500g) of cooked red kuri or Hokkaido squash, skin on, or roasted butternut squash or other sweet, dense winter squash, flesh only (see below for how to cook the squash)
1 block (300g / about 11 oz) silken tofu, well drained
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
A few gratings of nutmeg (about 1/4 tsp.)
2 Tbs. neutral tasting vegetable oil, such as sunflower
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 Tbs. mild, smooth white miso
8 Tbs. real maple syrup (not ‘pancake syrup’ or ‘imitation maple syrup’), plus extra for drizzling on top
2 medium sweet eating apples
1 Tbs. lemon juice

Equipment needed: food processor, a pie or quiche or tart dish

If you are doing this for Thanksgiving, cook the squash ahead of time - up to 2-3 days in advance.

To cook the red kuri squash, either: cut in half and scoop out the seeds and fluffy bits in the middle. Poke several holes in the skin side with the point of your knife. Lay cut side down in a baking dish filled with about 1/2 inch / 1 cm of water. Bake at 350° F / 180° C until soft - a skewer poked through the skin side should go through easily. Drain away any left over water.

Alternate method in a pan: de-seed, de-fluffy bit and cut up the squash into about 1 inch / 2cm chunks. Put in a very heavy pan (such as a cast iron enamel one) with enough water to come up to about 1/2 of the squash chunks. Simmer, lid on, until the chunks are tender; drain away any excess water.

If you are using butternut squash, which has a much harder skin than red kuri squash, bake in the oven cut in half as above until tender.

Cool the squash after cooking to about room temperature. Store, tightly covered, in the refrigerator.

To make the pudding:

Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C (if it’s not already on of course.)

Put the cooked squash (skin and all if you are using red kuri squash - see notes), tofu, oil, salt, miso and maple syrup into the bowl of a food processor with the steel chopping blade. Process until totally smooth - you may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times. Taste at this point, and see if you want to add more maple syrup (but remember you will be drizzling more syrup on top later).

In the meantime, peel and core two medium eating apples. (I used Cox’s Orange. You want a sweet, eating apple, not a hard, sour cooking apple here. Golden Delicious is a universally available type that will work fine here.) Slice into thin wedges, and toss into some acidulated water (water with a little lemon juice in it) to stop the slices from turning brown. Drain well and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel.

Fill the tart or pie dish with the pumpkin cream. Arrange the apples in a nice pattern on the cream, pushing down each slice a bit (they will sink a little, but this is a very dense cream.) Drizzle the top with more maple syrup. Alternatively, sprinkle with maple sugar if you have it.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is lightly browned.

This pudding, or crustless pie, is great warm, at room temperature or chilled.

Notes

If you don’t have real maple syrup, try a flavorful clear runny honey instead.
If you can’t get a hold of kuri squash, you can substitute another squash, preferably a kabocha type, that is denser and sweeter than most other types. Try butternut squash, rouge d’Etampes or Muscat (Musque de Provence). Do not use regular pumpkin - it is far too watery and fibrous.
The orange skin of the kuri squash cooks up quite soft, and the orange adds to the vibrant color of the pudding. If using other, more tough-skinned squash varieties, just scoop out the flesh and discard the skins.
If you don’t care about keeping it all vegan, use butter instead of the oil. Dot the top with more butter. Butter does tend to improve everything.
Try ripe pears instead of apples.

Leaf shaped black sesame cookies with matcha tea icing

maki — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:34:18 +0200

[From the archives. These sesame cookies with matcha icing look and taste quite dramatic. In leaf shapes they are rather spring-like, but try simple rounds or squares for year-round appeal. Originally published in April 2007.]

Flavor wise black sesame seeds aren’t that different, if at all, from white or brown sesame seeds. But there is something about their dramatic black-to-grey color that is quite exciting. At the moment I’m quite enamored with black sesame seeds, and have been using them instead of the regular brown ones in everything from sauces to salads.

These leaf shaped cookies contain toasted and ground black sesame seeds, dark brown muscovado sugar, and whole wheat flour, and are decorated with matcha (powdered tea) royal icing. The sweetness is quite restrained, both in the cookie and in the icing. You are first hit by the tea-flavored, very slightly bitter icing, followed by the nutty darkness of the cookie. It’s an intriguing combination. They are a wonderful accompaniment to tea, black or green, hot or iced. If the ultimate cookie to you means something very sweet and gooey you may not like these. They are quite adult cookies.

I had to shoot the pictures in a hurry, because they were disappearing faster than almost any other cookie I’ve made recently.

Since I don’t have a leaf shaped cookie cutter, I just made a simple paper template and cut the leaves out with a knife. You can cut them out into any shape you’d like of course, though given the coloring leaves seem appropriate. Quite spring-like, in fact.

Black sesame cookies with matcha icing

For the cookies:

50g / 1.75 oz. raw black sesame seeds
120g / 4.25 oz. dark brown or muscovado sugar. In Japan I would use kurozatou （黒砂糖）preferably from Okinawa.
250g / 8.8 oz. whole wheat flour
100g / 3.5 oz. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt
1 large egg
A few drops of pure almond extract

For the icing:

8 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
2 Tbs. matcha tea powder
1 Tbs. egg white or egg white substitute

Equipment needed:

kitchen parchment paper or baking paper
cookie cutter or sharp knife and a paper template
mortar and pestle or suribachi for grinding the sesame seeds
rolling pin

Toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until they just start to pop. Immediately remove from the pan.

In a mortar and pestle or suribachi, or with an electric grinder, grind up the sesame seeds until they have turned into a fragrant powder.

In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the ground up sesame and almond extract. Beat in the egg.

Add the flour a little at a time. The dough may not form a ball - it will be a bit on the dry side. Put into a plastic zip bag, and roll flat with a rolling pin. Put in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon sheet.

Take the cookie dough out, and cut open the plastic bag with scissors. Cut out the cookies with cookie cutters or using a paper template and a sharp small knife. Place the cookies on the lined baking sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes. You may need to rotate the baking sheets once if the cookies are baking unevenly.

As the cookies area baking, make the icing. Mix together the icing (powdered) sugar and the matcha powder. Add the egg white, mixing well to a spreadable but not too thin paste.

When the cookies are baked, take them out and cool, preferably on a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

Once the cookies are cooled, spread with the icing. Let dry on the cooling rack until the icing has firmed up.

Store the cookies (if any survive that long) in a cool, dry place.

Notes

Make absolutely sure that the sesame seeds are fresh, and not rancid. Taste and sniff - if it seems even the least bit off to you, it’s Not Good and has to be thrown out. The best way to store raw sesame seeds? Well wrapped, in the freezer.

If you can’t get a hold of whole wheat cake flour, use regular white cake flour or all-purpose flour. Regular whole wheat flour might make the cookies a bit dry.

Use the best quality matcha you can afford - keeping in mind that matcha is not cheap at all.

You can also use white icing - mix powdered sugar with a little lemon juice and egg white to form a paste. Or, leave the cookies unadorned - they look quite interesting that way too.

(Want more matcha? Check out these matcha shortbread cookies by Clotilde on Chocolate and Zucchini.)

Roulade au Chocolat Saint Valentin: Chocolate Roulade Cake for Valentine's Day

maki — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:21:53 +0100

From the archives. The very iffy photo shows that it is from the very early days of Just Hungry! I look back at this with nostalgia, because not only have my photography skills improved somewhat, it reflects a time in my life when I was into a far more complicated kind of cooking than I am now. I no longer bake things like this, but if you want a pretty spectacular chocolate dessert for Valentine's Day, and have the time and patience, I do highly recommend this rich yet feathery light little confection. I've edited it slightly to be more accurate (what the heck did I mean by 'small container of cream' anyhow). Originally published on February 14, 2004.

This is a small but quite spectacular chocolate dessert, that I made this afternoon and now is waiting for us to devour tonight. It is basically a rolled cake, with a featherlight chocolate bisquit (sponge) made without any flour and rolled with almond buttercream; this is then covered with creamy chocolate ganache, and finally dusted with cocoa. It's not that hard to make but it is a bit involved, so if you'd like to try it please follow the steps carefully.

It's a perfect St. Valentine's Day dessert of course when it's formed into a heart shape as I did here, but it can be enjoyed at any time. You can simply make one round cake, or make little bite-sized rolls (rather like the big sushi rolls), and ice each one individually with the ganache.

Now, this recipe does use rather precise weights, unlike most of the recipes I post here. But in this case it really is worth the effort to take out the kitchen scales and measure everything.

Since the recipe is given in steps, here's the whole shopping list:

200g / 7 oz (2 bars) of best-quality Swiss or Belgian dark chocolate, 70% cacao content
180ml / about 3/4 US cups, or 1 container of whole or heavy cream
1 block of unsalted butter
Pure vanilla essence
200g / 7oz of ground almonds
White sugar
5 large eggs, pasteurized or very fresh organic
Cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate powder!)
Powdered sugar (optional)

Incidentally, you can tell that it was originally a recipe from a Japanese source because of the rather precise amounts listed for the ingredients - for some reason, Japanese recipes are very exact. This originally appeared in a 1970s issue of Today's Cooking Magazine, the companion magazine for a long-running cooking show on NHK TV of the same name. I have more than 100 of these magazines, and I treasure them dearly. The older issues belonged to my mother but now I own the lot, from the '70s up to 2009.

Recipe: Roulade au Chocolat Saint Valentin: Chocolate Roulade Cake for Valentine's Day

I've divided this into 4 steps: the bisquit or sponge, the almond buttercream, the ganache, and finally the assembly. [Edit: I had an extra egg in the original ingredients..there is no egg in the almond buttercream. Also, the yolk is just mixed in at the very end to the chocolate ganache.]

Part 1: The bisquit (sponge cake) base

3 large eggs, separated
45 g / 1 1/2 oz. sugar
30 g / 1 oz of dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 150°C or 300° F. Line a sponge pan (or a metal pan about 30cm x 20cm, or 12 inches x 8 inches or so, with a lip) with a teflon baking paper like Bake-o-Glide or buttered kitchen parchment paper.

Add 30g/ 1 oz (or about rounded 2 Tbs) of sugar to the egg yolks, and beat at high speed until the mixture is a very very pale yellow (sort of the color of undyed cheddar), and it falls in ribbons from the whisk.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the rest of the sugar (15g / 1/2 oz, or about rounded 1 Tbs) and beat until it forms soft peaks. Don't overbeat or your sponge will be rather dry.

Microwave the chocolate for about 45 seconds to 1 minute until softened. Beat it with a spoon to liquify it. Add 1 Tbs of hot water drop by drop (it will seize up, or turn stiff and dull looking, at first, then loosen up) to the chocolate.

Add the chocolate to the egg yolk mix. Mix in half of the egg white into this, then fold in the rest, being careful not to over mix. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth out the top with a wide spatula or even a piece of clean cardboard.

Bake for 20 minutes. Take out and let cool. Put a damp kitchen cloth over this to prevent it from drying out.

Part 2: Almond buttercream

80g / 2 1/2 oz finely ground almonds
50g / 1 1/2 oz unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
33g / 1 oz sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Put the ground almonds in a frying pan over medium heat and toast lightly, stirring all the time. As soon as it is toasted just enough so that it has turned a golden brown and smells great, take it out of the pan (or it will continue cooking and may get burned and bitter tasting).

Whip the butter and sugar together until the sugar is totally incorporated into the cream. It shouldn't feel gritty when you are done. (Do this in a small food processor if you have one.) Add the vanilla.

Mix in the toasted almond powder.

Part 3: Chocolate ganache

170g / 6 oz. dark chocolate
160g / 5 1/2 oz heavy cream
100g / 3 1/2 oz unsalted butter
1 egg yolk, very fresh organic or pasteurized

Heat the cream in a low heat in a thick-bottomed pan until hot but not boiling. Add the chocolate, cut up into chunks or shredded, and mix until thoroughly melted.

Pour out the chocolate mixture into a bowl and let cool for a bit until it's just rather warm when you stick your finger in. Add the butter to this, mixing rapidly until it's totally incorporated. Mix in the egg yolk. Let it cool in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Part 4: Assembly

Cut the bisquit (sponge cake) into strips about 2 inches / 5 cm wide. You want them to be pretty even, so it's helpful to use a ruler to make sure the strips are of the same width. Spread the tops with the buttercream.

Carefully peel the cake strips off the parchment paper with a spatula. Don't worry if the strips tear though. Roll the strips one by one around and around until you end up with a roll about 15cm / inches in diameter.

With a knife and your hands, form the roll into a heart, by pressing the back of a knife into the top indentation, and making the end rather pointy. (Of course, you can just leave it as a circle too.) Smoosh the top a bit if necessary to make it more or less even.

Cover the sides of the heart or roll with a thin layer of the chocolate ganache. Cover the top with a thick layer of the ganache, smoothing it out so you keep the heart shape.

Dust the top with cocoa, through a fine sieve or tea strainer.

To make the heart pattern, cut out some hearts in a piece of paper about the same size as your rolled cake. Place the paper on top of the cake, and dust lightly with icing / powdered sugar.

Some other chocolatey things from the archives

For something more manly and assertive, try Guinness Cake with Whisky-Sour Icing. This remains a favorite cake in our house, since it's very easy to make and creates a bit of a sensation.

This mousse au chocolat is also a perennial favorite - very easy and very delicious.

If you are a vegan or on a strict diet, try the chocolate version of this tofu-based pudding.

On the other hand, what could be more indulgent than homemade dark chocolate peanut butter cups?

Melt In Your Mouth 'Raw' Crème Fraîche Caramels

maki — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:37:39 +0100

Since last year, there has been a craze for something called nama kyarameru (生キャラメル, raw caramel) in Japan. The demand has been so great that people form long lines to buy it, and at least at the beginning of the fad there were frequent reports of sell-outs and long waiting lists. Raw caramel means meltingly soft caramel candies that have been made with fresh milk, fresh butter, and no additives. It’s been a great marketing ploy for some dairy farmers in Hokkaido.

Given that getting nama kyarameru from Hokkaido is not that easy for me, and believing firmly in the superiority of Swiss dairy products, I set about to make my own version. After many attempts, here is my version of raw caramel. They have a very slight fermented-sourness from the crème fraîche, and the pure salt flavor from the fleur de sel. And the sugar component is made richer by using golden syrup.

I have a feeling I will never buy caramel candies again.

Before you proceed: Some notes about making sugar candy

Melted sugar can get very very hot, and since it clings it can burn you very badly. Be very careful when making candy. Do not have little kids running around you when you are cooking candy - let them enjoy the results afterwards.

Keep your pan, spatula and so on dry. Don’t let water splash into a bubbling pot of sugar syrup - it may spit at you.
When adding liquid ingredients like cream, take the pan off the heat before adding. The liquid ingredients should also be at room temperature; cold liquid straight out of the refrigerator has a bigger chance of bubbling up violently and spitting when added to boiling hot sugar syrup.
Never, ever, leave a pan of boiling sugar syrup unattended.
A candy thermometer is useful to have, but not absolutely necessary.
A digital scale is good to have to measure your ingredients accurately.

Recipe: Melt In Your Mouth ‘Raw’ Crème Fraîche Caramels

Makes a slab of caramel about 25cm / 9 inches square, to be cut into as many pieces as you like. The quality of your ingredients will really shine through, so get the best, freshest butter, crème fraîche, etc. that you can.

160g / 5.6oz granulated sugar
150g / 5.3oz Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup or clear runny honey (see notes)
70g / 2.5oz unsalted butter
200g / 7 oz. crème fraîche, or the same amount of heavy cream (NOT sour cream) with two tablespoons of a yogurt with active cultures, heated up to lukewarm (see notes)
1 tsp. fleur de sel, or similar sea salt

Equipment needed:

1 small heavy bottomed pan
Another pan, for heating up the cream
Wooden spatula
1 25cm / 9 inch or so square brownie or baking pan
Kitchen parchment paper
A bowl or large glass

Make ready a bowl or large glass or measuring up filled with ice water.

Line your baking pan with the kitchen parchment paper. I just use one large sheet, and fold in the corners. No need to grease the paper.

Heat up the crème fraîche or the heavy cream-yogurt mixture in the secondary pan until it’s lukewarm. Set aside.

Put the sugar and syrup into the main pan. Over medium heat, stir until it is all liquified. Lower the heat to a simmer, and keep stirring. The syrup will get progressively darker. Periodically put droplets of the syrup in your bowl or cup or ice water, and scoop out the little balls to see the texture. Once the balls are of the consistency of hard candy, the sugar syrup is ready. You can continue cooking it a bit longer for caramels with a more assertive flavor, but do not let it burn. Note that this part goes rather fast, so check the sugar syrup in the ice water several times.

Once the sugar is of the darkness and consistency you want, take the pan off the heat. Add the salt, butter and cream, and stir until well blended.

Return the pan to the heat. Cook over low heat, at a gently foaming/bubbling state, stirring continously. This stage takes a while - 20 to 30 minutes. This cooking stage is what determines the softness of your caramels. Let it cook down until the syrup is very thick. When you draw your spatula firmly across the bottom of the pan, the syrup will part for a split second so that you can see the pan bottom. At this stage, put droplets of the syrup in the ice water (you may have to change the water if it’s gotten too warm) and test the consistency. When it reaches the stage where when the cooled syrup rolled between your fingers it forms a soft yet cohesive ball, it is ready. (If you’re using a candy thermometer the temperature should be around 120°C / 250°F.) You can cook it a bit longer for a firmer caramel - keep testing the consistency every couple of minutes. (Note, you can stop the cooking at a softer stage for the most amazing caramel syrup or jam.)

Carefully pour the caramel syrup into the lined baking pan. Let it cool until the caramel is firm - when you touch it, it should not stick to your fingers. Cut it into strips, then cut the strips into squares. I like to cut it into tiny little squares, resulting in about 120 or so squares from this amount, but you can cut them smaller or larger. Any ragged edges on the cut pieces can be gently smoothed over with your finger.

For gifting purposes, wrap each piece in little cut squares of cellophane, wax paper, or kitchen parchment paper. You may want to keep this in the refrigerator if it’s very hot where you are right now, but do not keep longer than a month or so (if that will ever be an issue).

Notes

I have specified Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup (also known as Lyle’s Golden Syrup), which is a boiled down pure sugar syrup. Using this makes the initial part of the sugar cooking process go very quickly and without hitch. If your local supermarket, Whole Foods etc. doesn’t carry it, you can get it from Amazon Grocery in the U.S. I’m assuming it’s no problem to get it in the UK or Australia/New Zealand. (In Switzerland you can get it from Britshop or any place that caters to the Brit expat community.) If you must use a substitute, use a liquid (not solid) honey. Do not use corn syrup or pancake syrup.

If you can’t get a hold of crème fraîche, use heavy cream with some active-culture yogurt instead. Sour cream is not an option, since it can curdle when heated.

Variations

Add a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract for vanilla caramels.
Experiment with different flavored honeys.
Try using molasses or treacle instead of golden syrup - be very careful of burning the initial sugar syrup in this case though. This will make something very similar to, and more intense than, “Black Sugar Caramel” (黒糖キャラメル), a popular kind of caramel from Morinaga. (If you don’t want to bother making your own, J-List sells it by the individual pack or the caseload.)
Melt half a bar of dark chocolate into the caramel syrup near the end of the cooking process for chocolate caramels. To make them even more chocolately, dip the cut caramel pieces in melted chocolate. (This is a messy process though.)
Add a tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel on top for salt caramels.

Apple crumble cake (an everyday favorite)

maki — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:29:22 +0100

[From the archives. This very easy cake is especially nice at this time of year, when apples are in season. We don't actually eat this every day, but it's one of my go-to simple sweets to make. Originally published January 11, 2006.]

Sometimes, you just don't want to fuss, but you still want something a little sweet and homemade. At times like that, I sometimes make this simple cake. It combines two of my favorite foods, apple and crumble topping; the cake part is a simple mix-and pour affair; and it can be served warm, or at room temperature. And, the sweetness of it doesn't hit you in the face. The only mildly fiddly part is peeling and cutting up the apples. It's a perfect accompaniment to tea or coffee.

To me, it's a very American kind of cake - the crumble part of course, and the ease of making it, and the apples. The only thing you need to be careful of is to make sure that the cake part is cooked properly. The part underneath the apples cooks a bit slower than the rest of the cake, so once your toothpick comes out clean, bake it a few more minutes to ensure you don't get any doughiness. For my oven that's about 40 minutes total.

This gave me a chance to use a new discovery - organic raw cane sugar from Italy, called Panela Granulata. Here in Switzerland it's always been impossible to find the kind of soft brown sugar with added molasses that you get in the U.S., but the regular Rohzucker (raw sugar) is is a very light brown. This Italian brown sugar is already quite dark without any added molasses, and tastes delicious just out of the bag (not that I'm eating sugar out of a bag, mind you...of course not...)

You can use any kind of apple, but a slightly softer eating apple like Golden Delicious really fits best. Don't use a sour cooking apple for this.

Incidentally, how do you peel your apples? After struggling for years to peel apples with a paring knife and such, trying not to cut off too much of the flesh with the skin, it finally dawned on me recently - just use a vegetable peeler. It was one of those 'doh' moments for sure. No one sticks around to admire those one-long-piece apple peels anyway.

Apple Crumble Cake

A note about the measurements: If you aren't in North America, 1 U.S. cup is 220ml. Remember that all the ingredients here are proportional, and can be scaled proportionately up or down.

4 to 5 medium or small apples - about 4 cups worth of cut up apple, but you can do it with a bit more or less
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1 'large' egg, beaten
1/3 cup melted butter, or a combination of melted butter and neutral-tasting oil such as safflour or canola

For the crumble mixture:

3/4 cup of raw cane sugar, muscovado sugar, or regular light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. butter
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180° C / 350° F.

Grease a standard square cake pan (20cm x 20cm x 5cm, or 8" x 8" x 2") with butter.

Sift the flour and baking powder together, and mix in the granulated sugar. Add the milk, beaten egg and melted butter or butter/oil combo; mix together just until there are no huge lumps. Pour into the pan.

Make the crumble mixture: melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, sugar and cinnamon, and mix well until it become crumble.

Peel, core and cut up the apples, and put on to of the cake batter. Sprinkle the top with the crumble mixture.

Bake for about 40 minutes. Cut into squares. Serve warm plain or with whipped cream. You can nuke this to warm it up quite successfully. Also nice at room temperature, such as in a lunch box.

Daigaku Imo - Japanese University Sweet Potatoes

maki — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:29:02 +0200

In the fall, many universities throughout Japan have big festivals called 大学祭　daigaku-sai, meaning university festival, or 文化祭　bunnkasai, Culture Festival. They are basically street fairs held on campus, with lots of food and fun stalls, concerts, even ghost houses and amusement rides. Many of the big ones also hold concerts in which top Japanese singers and bands appear. Daigaku Imo, which means University Potato, are candies sweet potatoes, a sweet and slightly savory snack that is often served at university festivals in Tokyo.

The snack itself probably originated as a cheap, calorie-rich, affordable snack sold to cash-poor students around universities in Tokyo around the turn of the 20th century. The idea for deep frying and then sugar coating potatoes most likely came from similar snacks in Chinese cuisine.

Daigaku imo is simple to make, yet a bit tricky. You ideally want to coat the sweet potato slices completely with a hard caramel sugar coating, but too often the sugar gets crystallized. It doesn’t taste bad when it does, but it looks far better with a shiny, smooth coating. I’ve found the best way to accomplish this is to make a fresh batch of the sugar coating for each batch of potatoes cooked. This is not diet food by any means, but regardless, to me they are one of the main treats of fall.

Recipe: Daigaku Imo

Ideally you want to use Japanese-type sweet potatoes, which have a pink-purple skin and white flesh (see how they look like). You can use the orange-fleshed kind if that’s all you can get a hold of.

1 sweet potato makes enough for 2 to 4 people, depending on appetites, though I’ve seen the whole lot disappear into one mouth quite quickly too.

1 medium sweet potato
Oil for frying
2 Tbs. white sugar
1 Tbs. sugar syrup (see notes)
1/2 tsp. soy sauce
Gomashio (sesame salt) - homemade recipe

Scrub the sweet potato very well. Cut the sweet potato into wedges, leaving the skin on for color (you can peel it if you want). Put the cut pieces into cold water.

Heat up about an inch or so (3 cm) of oil in a large pan, or use a deep fat fryer. Drain and pat dry the sweet potato pieces, and put into the hot oil. Fry on medium heat until cooked through and lightly browned.

In the meantime, mix up the sugar, syrup, and soy sauce in a small pan over medium heat, until the mixture is completely melted and very syrupy. Take off the heat.

Take the potato pieces out of the oil, drain and immediately put the piping hot pieces into the sugar syrup mixture. Be careful - both the potatoes and sugar are very hot! Mix and toss to cat the potato slices. Sprinkle with some gomashio.　Separate the potato pieces so they don’t get stuck to each other.

They are best served warm, though are still tasty when cold.

To make more, just repeat the whole process, making the sugar syrup mixture fresh each time as the potatoes cook.

I know you are going to ask…

…if you can you oven-bake the potato piees instead of deep frying them. Well you could, but the potatoes won’t have the piping hot surface to which the sugar syrup mixture adheres to, forming the caramel coating, and the potato pieces will probably turn limp. However, the flavor will still be good, so if you’re deep-frying phobic by all means bake your potato pieces, coated in a little oil or butter.

Notes about sugar syrup

Using part sugar syrup and part sugar helps to make a that fine, brittle caramel coating that is desirable. In Japan you would use 水飴　(mizuame), but different parts of the world seem to have different forms of sugar syrup. In the U.S. use corn syrup. In England, golden syrup will do. Molasses is a possiblity, though it will affect the flavor a lot. You can also try it with just sugar (use 3 Tbs.), though this may result in crystallization. It will still taste good though.

Botamochi for spring, Ohagi for fall: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

maki — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:31:05 +0200

[From the archives: Today (September 23rd) is the first day of the fall o-higan (お彼岸), when ohagi or botamochi are offered to ones ancestors, as well as oneself! My mother and my grandmother always made these at home around this time of year - I love their not-too-sweet stickiness. O-higan ends on the 26th, so if you like wagashi, why not give these a try? Originally published March 2007.]

The seven days centered around the bi-annual days of the vernal equinox is a Buddhist festival period known as higan (or o-higan for the honorific term) in Japan. The fall (autumn) higan is aki no higan, and the spring higan is haru no higan. Since the day of the spring equinox is March 21, we’re about to enter the haru no ohigan period.

During haru no higan, a sweet confection called botamochi is eaten. The mochi part means sticky, pounded rice, and the bota part comes from botan, or the tree peony. Botamochi is supposed to ressemble a tree peony flower.

During the autumn equinox (aki no higan or simply (o)higan)) period, a very similar confection called ohagi is eaten. This is supposed to look like a hagi or bush clover flower (Latin: Lespedeza thunbergii). Botamochi and o-hagi look the same to me, even though a hagi flower looks nothing like a tree peony flower, but the good old ancestors were probably a lot more imaginative than I am.

Botamochi and o-hagi are made of sticky rice and sweet tsubuan, ‘chunky-style’ sweet azuki bean paste. They are a bit fiddly to make but not difficult, especially if you use one of my favorite cooking helpers, plastic cling film. Since these are best eaten freshly made, it’s well worth the effort to make them at home if you like bean-based Japanese sweets. You can adjust the amount of sugar in the tsubuan to your taste. Here I have made three variations: coated with black sesame seeds; coated with kinako (toasted soy bean powder); and the most traditional form with the rice cake wrapped in a layer of the tsubuan.

Botamochi or Ohagi: Sweet Japanese rice and bean cakes

This makes quite a lot of botamochi/ohagi about 2 inches / 5 cm or so long. If this is too much, halve the ingredients. They also freeze very well - see Notes below.

By ‘cup’ here I mean the measuring cup that comes with a rice cooker, which has a capacity of 180ml. As long as you keep the same proportions you can use larger (e.g. American size, which is about 220ml) cups too.

For the mochi part:

1 cup regular white uruchimai or Japanese / japonica rice (the kind used for sushi and so on)
2 cups white mochimai or sweet rice (see Looking at Rice if you’re confused about which rice is which. You cannot substitute any other kinds of rice for this.)
About 2 cups of water (or the amount indicated for your rice cooker)

The tsuban:

1 batch of tsubuan

The kurogoma or black sesame coating:

3-4 Tbs. black sesame seeds
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt

The kinako coating:

2-3 Tbs. kinako (available at Japanese groceries and some healthfood stores)
1 Tbs. superfine white sugar
pinch of salt
Extra water for forming the dumplings

Equipment needed:

rice cooker (you can cook the rice in a pot, but a rice cooker is much easier)
plastic wrap / cling film (however you call it in your neck of the woods)

The day before, wash the rice well, and wash and sort the azuki beans. Soak the azuki beans and the rice (separately) in enough water to cover, overnight or at least 8 hours. Drain well.

Make the tsubuan following these directions.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker in the normal way, with the indicated amount of water for 3 cups of regular rice.

In the meantime, toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until the seeds begin to pop. Remove from the pan into another bowl and mix well with the sugar and salt.

Mix together the kinako and the sugar and salt in another bowl.

While the rice is still warm not not burning hot anymore, put it in a large ziplock plastic bag. Close the zip, pushing out as much air as possible. Pound the rice and squeeze it and knead it until it’s sort of half-crushed (it’s mostly paste but you can still see some rice grains in there). This state is called hantsuki, or half-beaten, mochi. Let cool a bit in the bag.

Divide the mochi into 24 or so equal pieces.

To make the kinako-coated dumpling: flatten a piece of mochi on a sheet of plastic wrap, trying to make the edges a bit thinner than the middle, with moistened fingers. Put a teaspoonful or so of tsubuan in the middle. Carefully gather up the mochi around the filling (just like you’d do with onigiri) to form a sort of oval-shaped ball, completely enclosing the tsubuan filling. (This oval shape is called tawara-gata, or rice bale shape.) Roll the dumpling well in the kinako-mix. You may need to roll it 2 or 3 times since the kinako tends to sink in to the rice.

Make the sesame coated dumplings in the same way. To make the sesame stick better you may need to lightly moisten the surface of the dumpling.

To make the tsubuan-coated dumplings, make a small oval-shaped ball with the mochi. Spread some tsubuan on a piece of plastic wrap, and gather up the plastic to make a ball. If the dumpling looks funny you can adjust it a bit after unwrapping it from the plastic wrap.

Serve with green tea, preferably while gazing at some beautiful spring (or fall) scenery.

Notes

In the photo at the top, I’ve presented the botamochi in a lacqured black wooden box. In the second picture the dumplings are on a black ceramic plate. Black seems to suit these better than white.

The traditional way of making this half-beaten mochi is to grind it in a suribachi, but the pounding on the plastic bag method is much easier, requires no cleanup and lets out your aggressions. (Web developers: imagine it’s a difficult client’s face and punch away.)

These do not keep well in the refrigerator since the rice hardens up, so keep in a cool place until it’s time to eat them. They can be frozen successfully though: just wrap them individually in plastic wrap, and defrost at room temperature or nuke in the microwave for about a minute per dumpling (depending on the wattage of your microwave).

I find that adding a bit more salt to the tsubuan for this makes the dumplings tastier.

Yatsuhashi, Cinnamon sweets from Kyoto

maki — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:43:11 +0200

Just about anyone who takes a trip to the historical city of Kyoto goes home bearing a box of yatsuhashi　（八つ橋）, a small delicate sweet that is flavored with nikki or cinnamon. While I am not from Kyoto, I get a fit of nostalgia for yatsuhashi on occasion. Fortunately they aren’t that hard to make at home.

Yatsuhashi, which means ‘eight bridges’, come in two basic forms: nama or ‘raw’ yatsuhashi which are soft, and yaki yatsuhashi which are hard and cookie like. Nama yatsuhashi, pictured below, are soft, thin squares of cinnamon scented mochi (sticky rice) dough, folded into a triangle with a filling of sweet azuki bean paste (tsubuan).

Like other mochi-based sweets, yatsuhashi are totally gluten-free, so if you are gluten intolerant you might want to try these out. They also happen to be more or less fat free and vegan too. (They are definitely not sugar-free though!)

Really traditional yatushashi calls for nikki sui or cinnamon water, but ground cinnamon is much easier to get a hold of so that’s what I’ve used here. I have also used natural or raw cane sugar for additional flavor.

Some notes about this recipe

You might hate me for this if you are in the U.S., but as a departure from my usual practive I’m only giving you metric weight measurements here. Because so little of each ingredient is needed, accuracy is very important. Fortunately most modern scales can switch from metric to imperial measurements and vice versa, and a good scale is really a good thing to have if you do any kind of baking, not to mention portion control!_

I’ve given two dough recipes here. One uses mochiko or sweet/glutinous rice flour only. Mochiko or the Chinese equivalent which is usually labeled “glutinous rice flour” seems to be quite widely available at Asian grocery stores and health food stores. Most Japanese recipes for yatsuhashi call for a mixture of medium-grain rice flour (joushinko) and sweet rice flour, but when I used this mixture for mitarashi dango I got a lot of comments and emails that it was hard to get the joushinko. Note that the amount of water is a bit different when you use 100% mochiko vs. a mix of mochiko and joushinko.

Recipe: Nama Yatsuhashi

This amount of dough makes about 12 small yatsuhashi, or a batch of baked yatsuhashi. For maximum cinnamon flavor, make sure to use fresh cinnamon powder!

Dough - Mochiko or glutinous rice flour only version:

100g mochiko or glutinous rice flour
60g raw cane sugar or light brown sugar (in Japan use wasanontou （和三温糖）)
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
85g (85cc) water

Dough - Mochiko and joushinko mixture version:

40g joushinko
60g mochiko
60g raw cane sugar or light brown sugar (in Japan use wasanontou （和三温糖）)
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
95g (95cc) water

Other ingredients:

3 Tbs. kinako (ground toasted soybeans)
1 Tbs. ground cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
3-4 Tbs. tsubuan or other filling (see notes below for suggestions). You can make your own tsubuan, or buy cans or bags at a Japanese grocery store.

Measure your ingredients accurately!

Mix the dry ingredients together well with chopsticks or a fork, add the water and mix very well. It will be rather loose and sludgy.

Microwave on HIGH for 1 minute. Take out and mix well again - most of the moisture would have been absorbed.

Put back in the microwave and cook on HIGH for 1 minute 30 seconds. Take out and mix again. At this stage it will form a rough ball and more or less clear the sides of the bowl.

Spread a large piece of heat-proof plastic wrap (like Saran Wrap) on your working surface, and turn the dough out on it.

Wrap the dough up in the plastic.

Knead the dough several times, using the plastic wrap as a heat barrier and to prevent sticking between you, the working surface and the dough. This kneading is very important to ensure the dough is smooth and pliable. You may have to open the plastic wrap and re-shift the dough a few times. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth and shiny.

The dough here is almost ready - it just needs a few more kneading turns to make it totally smooth.

Mix the 3 Tbs. of kinako and 1 Tbs. of cinnamon, and use this as the dusting ‘flour’ to roll out the dough as thinly as possible. It helps to use more plastic wrap to prevent sticking here. If you have trouble getting it thin enough, try dividing the dough and rolling out smaller pieces.

Cut the dough into 10 to 12 squares. Wet two sides, fill with about 1/2 tsp. of filling, fold up into a triangle and press hard to seal. I then like to coat them again in the kinako-cinnamon powder mix, and dust on extra cinnamon to serve, but this is optional.

Green tea is the perfect accompaniment to these.

Filling notes

If you can’t get or make tsubuan, you can try:

Sweet white bean paste
Nutella - this really fits!
Peanut butter mixed with a little sugar
Apricot jam

If filling the dough doesn’t work, you can just spread the filling of your choice on top of a flat piece and pop it in your mouth.

Baked yatsuhashi cookies

You can use the dough to make little cinnamon flavored cookies that are, of course, gluten and fat free.

Just cut the thinly rolled out dough into squares, or fancy shapes with cookie cutters.

Bake in a 170°C/335°F oven for 15 minutes, then turn the heat off and leave the cookies in there for an additional 15 minutes. The cookies may or may not puff up, but either way they will be very crispy. You can optionally sprinkle them with additional cinnamon or cinnamon sugar while still warm.

Red, White and Blue Dessert

maki — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:48:36 +0200

(From the archives. If you’re planning a big Fourth of July party, consider this very colorful, cool dessert, which I made for a party 2 years ago. There are a lot of steps involved, but you can cut corners with storebought meringue and sugar cookies if you prefer.)

I love outdoor parties (except for the bugs!), especially when it means a barbeque. July the 4th barbeque parties are the best, and I miss them sorely when I am not in the U.S. This year though, we are going to have a July the 4th party on Sunday (since the 4th is not a holiday here), complete with grilled hamburgers, wurst, and chicken. Someone else is going to do all that grilling, so I am making the dessert.

A good dessert for a barbeque party is ideally something that you can make in advance - or at least, make most of it in advance and then just assemble it before serving. Ice cream or other frozen desserts fit the bill, but I wanted to do something a bit different. Since this is a July the 4th party, even if it will be a bit early, I needed to have something that looked all-American. And what’s more American than the flag? I think that the two nations most obsessed with their national flags are the Swiss and the Americans, so I’m sure my Swiss friends will appreciate the symbolism of red, white and blue.

Right now, local strawberries are in full season and really delicious. So that’s the red. The only edible blue I can think of short of using food coloring is blueberry, so though they are a bit early they had to do. And the white? Whipped cream and meringue. I even added a few star shaped cookies, made from a typically Swiss cookie recipe.

This red, white and blue bowl of fruity creamy goodness is a variation of a very English dessert called Eton mess. Eton mess is crushed strawberries and meringue folded together with whipped cream, and originated at the famous public school of that name where Prince William and (as far as I know) all royal family boys went to. I didn’t crush the strawberries - I sliced the big ones and left the little ones whole. I also gave them my favorite treatment: a short marinade in balsamic vinegar and a bit of sugar, which really seems to bring out the soul of the strawberry. Instead of dark balsamic though, I used white balsamic vinegar, which is mild, sweet and colorless. This left the redness of the strawberries without darkening it as the regular dark brown balsamic does. (If you can’t find white balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar is a good substitute.) Finally, instead of all whipped cream I used half whipped cream and half creme fraiche, just for a bit of added tartness and depth.

The most time consuming part of this is making the meringues. I’ve given a recipe for them which is easy to do if you have an electric beater. If you can find readymade meringues though, by all means use those.

The cookies are a type that is very popular in Switzerland called Mailander. I guess that means they originally come from Milan (Mailand is German for Milan), but they seem to be a part of Swiss culture now. They’re usually just served around Christmas, cut into little shapes. Here I have cut out tiny little stars and sprinkled them with sugar to give them sparkle. The cookies are so delicate that they crumble into the creamy, fruity, delicious mess.

The meringues and the Mailander cookies can be made way in advance (up to a week) of when you intend to make this. Here’s a rough schedule:

Day before or earlier: Make the meringues and the cookies, using the same eggs.
Night before: Prepare the strawberries and let them macerate in the balsamic vinegar.
1 hour before serving: Wash the blueberries and whip the heavy cream. Put them in the refrigerator.
Just before serving: Assemble.

The one I made and took a picture of is the rehearsal for the actual party - and of course, the model for this article! It’s not too sweet, and is really nice to eat. Don’t ask about the calorie content though…

Red, White and Blue Mess for July 4th

1 small carton of ripe strawberries
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. white balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 small carton of blueberries
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 carton creme fraiche
2 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
About 3 cups of roughly crushed meringues
Cookies for garnish

Wash and hull the strawberries. Slice the big ones and leave the small ones whole. Put in a bowl with the vinegar and sugar and mix. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, then whip in the sugar. Fold in the creme fraiche.

Drain the strawberries, reserving the liquid.

In a large bowl, put in half the blueberries and strawberries, the cream mixture and the crushed meringue, and rapidly fold together with a large spoon. Put into a glass serving bowl and put the rest of the fruit on top. Drizzle with the reserved strawberry liquid. Decorate the top with the cookies.

Serve immediately.

Meringue Kisses

3 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated (or castor, or superfine) sugar
A pinch of cream of tartar (optional: I find I don’t really need this)

Equipment needed:

electric egg beater/mixer. Whipping meringues by hand may be a rite of passage in a fine French restaurant but not for a warm summer day in a home kitchen.
a plastic bag
scissors
baking sheet
parchment paper
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Preheat the oven to 120°C/250°F.

Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

With an electric mixer/beater, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time, whipping all the time, until the whole thing is shiny and very stiff.

Put the meringue into a plastic ziplock bag, and squeeze the mix towards one corner. Cut off the corner with scissors to make a small hole. Pipe out the mixture into little mounds onto the baking sheets. (You can also make the little mounds with two spoons, but I find the bag method way faster.)

Bake for 40 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave there for an additional 5-10 minutes. Take out and let cool.

This will make more meringues than you need for the mess, but meringue kisses are great just as cookies.

Lemony Mailander Cookies

225g / 8 oz. unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. grated lemon zest
2 1/2 cups plain white regular flour (all-purpose)
Extra granulated sugar (or if you can find it, decorating sugar is nice; it’s more sparkly than granulated.)

Equipment needed:

baking sheets
rolling pin
silicon baking pads or parchment paper
small star shape cookie cutter
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Note: I do this in a food processor - it mixes up in no time. You can mix by hand too.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.

Add the flour gradually and mix until a soft dough forms. (If using a food processor, pulse to mix.)

Put the dough into a plastic bag and chill until firm.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

Roll out the dough to about 1/4cm / 1/8th inch thick (or fairly thin..it’s not an exact science!) on a lightly floured surface. Working as fast as you can, cut out your star shapes and put on the baking sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes or until very lightly browned. Take them out and sprinkle with the sugar. Let cool.

This will make a lot more cookies than you need for the garnish - just pass out the rest, they are sure to disappear. Or, keep them for yourself to enjoy later.

Strawberries, tsubuan, ice cream

maki — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:31:44 +0200

There are some food combinations that you think just shouldn’t belong together, but do so well. Strawberries with sweet beans? Surely not, you think, until you taste an ichigo daifuku - a strawberry wrapped in some azuki an and thin gyuuhi, a dough made of rice. I’ve had ichigo daifuku on my mind lately but have been too lazy to make the dumplings. This is a very easy alternative. Arguably it’s even better.

You need some tsubuan, sweet azuki beans that have been roughly mashed. I recommend my not-so-sweet tsubuan, which is easy to make in batches; extras can be frozen. Or use storebought—you can find it at Japanese groceries.

You also need some ripe strawberries, which are in season now around here, marinating them in balsamic vinegar.

Put about 2 tablespoons of tsubuan in a bowl, and top with about 4 (or more) spoonfuls of sliced strawberries, with plenty of the syrup that it’s in. Top with a little, or a lot, of vanilla ice cream, made with soy milk or cow’s milk, whichever you prefer. (In this case I prefer a soymilk ice cream, which seems to fit better.) Let the ice cream melt over everything while you eat.

It’s a cool yet quite filling snack for a warm day.