Strawberry Daifuku, the second challenge

There were a few things I learned from my first experiment making strawberry Daifuku.
First of all I had too much mochi and it got harder to form as it got colder. Besides that it was simply difficult to form and took too much time for each daifuku.

This is the modified version but it'll still need to be adjusted, so don't follow quite yet...
-mochi
1 cup glutenous rice flour
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
-bean paste
1 can of white bean (Lazy me! Next time I should do this properly by cooking my own bean, preferably Azuki bean )
1/4 cup white sugar

8 strawberries

-Steps
1. Canned bean has to go through a strainer. (this took some time)
2. In a pot, melt the sugar with some water at medium heat, adding the bean. Mix well.
3. Keep stirring until it reaches to the desired consistent (in this case, it could be quite dry)
4. Move to another container and place a plastic wrap to avoid drying the surface, wait to cool.
(540 ml can gave me about 1 1/2 cup of bean paste this time. I ended up using the half for 8 daifuku. The other half is in a freezer)

5. Wash and dry strawberries.
6. Make a ball with some cooled bean paste (about 1 Tbsp) and a strawberry.
7. Prepare Mochi.
8. Form each Daifuku.

----After thoughts: Over all it was good, but the skin tasted too thick. I ended up with 8 Daifuku but it could've been 10 instead. Mochi stayed warm until I finished forming, adding two more wouldn't be too much of a problem. The bean paste tasted alright, but it's not my favorite. I think I should just get some Azuki bean and prepare it by myself next time. Hopefully after the third try I will have a final recipe which is "perfect"...

Strawberry Daifuku with chestnut cream

I haven't made cupcakes lately...

Last month I had a dinner with some friends. One of them brought Strawberry Daifuku. She didn't make them but her Japanese friend did, who makes Japanese sweets for her friends as a small/private business. I don't know how much she paid for them but what a great idea. The strawberry daifuku was heavenly! It was tiny (two bites size) and delicate. It was very good. Since then I had the idea of making one by myself, but I was in Brazil for two weeks soon after that dinner, then I've been sick for a week since I came back from the trip, and finally I had some time to try.

For the filling, I was too lazy to make or even go to the China town to buy "anko" (sweet azuki bean paste). Instead I decided to use this half emptied jar of chestnut puree. White anko could taste like this when flavored, maybe? This was my impression when tasted it for the fist time. I love this cream but at the same time I don't know any better way to consume it very well. Sometimes I spread it on my toast, and the other week I used the half of jar to make a cheesecake which was very good. But I wish to know more recipes...


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup Glutenous rice flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup water
some potato starch

1 cup anko, red or white (for traditional style) but I used a sweetened chestnut puree (about 1/4 cup)
10 strawberries, washed and dried

Preparing Mochi (glutenous rice dough):
1. Mix rice flour, sugar and water in a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, microwave for 4 minutes.
2. Take it out immediately (at this point, the middle is still liquid) then mix it well with a spoon until smooth.


3. Cover it again then microwave for another 2 minutes.
4. Mix the mochi well again. It is ready when it is slightly transparent-like color. Also taste a small piece. If it tastes "flour" or "powder-ish", it is not ready yet, try another 1 minute. (or repeat until it's ready)

5. Spread some potato starch on your hands and on a working table, then place the mochi. Roll it to form a log, then divide into 10. Sprinkle the starch whenever it is sticky.

Up to this stage, it didn't take much time, but then...

Forming Daifuku:
I find it was very hard to form a perfectly evenly round daifuku. I can't explain how to do it. There got to be some tricks. There are professional people who make their living doing this, so this probably requires some practice. There are many websites with the instruction so I will need to do some more study/practice.

Keep the strawberry daifuku refrigerated and consume within the same day, they don't keep well.

The next time when I make this, I think I will try to make my own anko or mix the chestnut puree with white anko. It is probably easier to fold if used rounder strawberries as well. The real strawberry season will come in a few months!!!

Vegan Smoothy Muffin-Strawberry Banana

A few days ago at a grocery store, there was 2 strawberry packages for $2 deal. I love strawberries. I know it is not the season but whenever I see those really cheap deals, I have to grab them and so I did. But then I forgot about them for a while in my fridge. I know I'm supposed to finish those liquidation stuffs within the same day or so. When I realized that I had them, I selected good ones for the Daifuku. Some were bruised, but still eatable.

I had one banana in my freezer. So I decided to bake some muffins. Not cupcakes? I know that making muffins is a bit more tricky but I can just mix everything with a single fork. I was too lazy to take out my electric beater...

Preheat the oven at 375 F degree. Place papers in a muffin tin. Makes 9 muffins.

Dry ingredients:
150 ml flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp brown sugar

1. Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix, leave it aside.

Wet ingredients: Place the following in a measuring cup in this order,
50 ml oil (I use canola oil)
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1 banana mashed
some strawberries mashed, make the whole thing reaching at 300 ml

2. Combine the wet to the dry, do not over-mix. (Over-mixing will create heavy, rubbery, hard and flat muffins that you will not love) Fill the muffin papers to 2/3 full.
Bake for 20 minutes or until they are done.

Vegan Jasmine Tea Cupcake

I have eaten Jasmine flavored ice cream long time ago, and if I remember correctly the texture was between ice cream and sorbet. It was extremely delicious. I like jasmine tea served with DimSum, but at home when I make some for myself, I always add some a bit of vanilla added soy milk.

The cake turned out ok, but I'm not too crazy about it. I was expecting more intense Jasmine flavor.
The cake sticks to the paper and does not come out easily. Maybe the tea should be less than half a cup, it seems that it lacks in fat. Maybe more oil to add...The recipe needs a serious improvements!

Cake:
Basic vanilla cake recipe, replacing only the liquid>3/4 cup strongly brewed tea + 1 Tbsp vinegar + milk makes 1 cup
Also added was 1 tsp Orange Blossom water, but the flavor seemed somewhat disappeared...

Icing:
1 Tbsp strongly brewed tea
1 Tbsp flour
5 Tbsp Almond milk (or other milk)
3 Tbsp Vegetarian Shortening
5 Tbsp Powdered sugar
2 tsp crushed Jasmine tea

Cook the first three ingredient over at low heat, constantly mixing. Eventually it becomes like custard cream. Remove from heat and wait to cool down a bit. Add the rest and with an electric mixer, beat until it is hard and creamy.

Vegan White Sesame and Rosewater Strawberry Cupcake with Strawberry Glaze

I love strawberry & rosewater combo. This time with some white sesame seeds to add some rich flavor, but to be honest I'm not sure if it really fits. I think this could go without it. Dried strawberries are added to the dough.

The glaze is made by:
1Tbsp margarine
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp rosewater
2 Tbsp of strawberry syrup (my friend gave me a jar of strawberry jam which was very watery, but delicious)

The pink glaze is girly, and tastes good...

Vegan Black Sesame Cupcake with Vanilla Icing topped with White Chocolate

Very long title...

I made this when I had some friends over for dinner. A day earlier, I stopped for a church bazzar in my neighborhood. This two layered plate thing (thought it was perfect for English afternoon tea themed party) for $2! Wow, cheap. I brought it home and my boyfriend told me this was for a religious ceremony...is that so? in anyhow, the cakes looked very cute.

Vegan Lemon Cupcake with Lemon Tarragon Icing

Tarragon?! It does go well with lemon! Delicious.

Vegan Gluten-Free Chinese Five Spice Cupcake with Crystal Ginger Frosting

This is my first attempt baking gluten-free cupcakes. The dough turned out to be a little thick, but the cake came out of the oven beautifully. The only thing I'm concerned; the unsmooth top! I wonder, should the liquid need to be more, or is it because of the buckwheat flour again? I have baked gluten-free cakes (without buckwheat flour) before and the dough was usually more watery. I will have to readjust this for the future, but anyway, the cake is fluffy and moist, with a little chewy feeling. It is not very sweet and so the sugar could be 1/2 cup or more, instead of 1/3 cup.

*The sponge became much harder the next day. So, this is something to be adjusted for the next time, I don't know how yet...

Cupcake (makes 12):
-dry
3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 Tbsp Arrowroot flour
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/3 cup coco
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp Chinese Five Spice
-wet
1/3 cup sugar
100 ml olive oil (a little less than 1/2 cup)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1Tbsp vinegar + rice milk = 1 1/4 cup

Direction:
preheat the oven at 350 degree.
Place papers.
1. Mix vinegar and milk, leave it aside.
2. Measure all the dry ingredients, mix well, leave it aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil, and vanilla. Beat well with an electric mixer.
4. Slowly introduce the milk mixture into "3". This will be very watery, but keep beating.
5. Add the flour mixture at once, beat well. There is no gluten so no worry for over-beating. The batter will be smooth.
6. Divide the batter into 12, filling about 2/3 each cup. Bake for about 20 minutes.
Frosting:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp shortening-room temperature
2 Tbsp margarine-room temperature
roughly 6 crystal ginger (leave 2 for the topping-each cut in 6)
a few drops vanilla essence
1 to 2 Tbsp milk

Direction:
1. Mix shortening and margarine with a fork, add the powdered sugar.
2. Add vanilla. Mix well while introducing a little bit of milk at a time.
3. When it reaches at a nice creamy texture, mix in the chopped crystal ginger.
4. Decorate the cakes when cooled.

Vegan Banana Cupcake with Chocolate Almond Butter Glaze

I was expecting this cake to be more dense and heavy but it turned out to be very very light. I even feel it is rather dry a little.
The buckwheat might have contributed greatly for this light texture. I hardly smell any cardamon, so the next time I will add more of it, or cinnamon could be a good replacement. The batter was very thick, compared to my other ones.

Cupcakes: (makes 12, 350 degree for 18 to 20 minutes)
1 cup flour
2/3 cup buckwheat flour (2 Tbsp tapioca flour)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cardamon

1/3 sugar
1/3 olive oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp almond essence

1 1/2 banana mashed + rice milk + 1 Tbsp vinegar = 1 1/4 cup
1/4 cup dried coconut

Chocolate Glaze:
40 g chocolate
1 Tbsp almond butter
2 tsp shortening
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
a few drops of Vanilla and almond essence

Vegan Orange Cranberry Cupcake with Rum Glaze

Cranberry and Orange combo is my favorite.
This cupcake is very fluffy and moist.
It tastes even better a day later as the dried cranberries becomes more moist.

Cupcakes:(makes 12, 350 degree for 18 to 20 minutes)
1/3 cup almond four
1 1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup olive oil

1 Tbsp vinegar + rice milk = 1 1/4 cup

Grated orange rind (1 orange)
1/4 cup dried cranberry

The rum glaze...

Vegan Strawberry Basil Cupcake

I followed the Basic vanilla vegan cupcake recipe, substituting 1/3 cup with cornmeal, and about half a cup of sliced strawberries & 1 tsp dried basil were added.

Very moist and fluffy. No frosting this time...

Vegan Black Sesame Cupcake with Fake Cheese Frosting with Green Tea

I love black sesame. I'm trying to find what could go well with it, though. I looked some Japanese dessert sites, and there were some with green tea, hmm, maybe they are a good match. There are other recipes with chocolate. That could be good too. I think I just have to do some experiments.


ingredients for the cupcake (makes 12):

1/3 cup black sesame (roughly ground) + flour makes 1 and 2/3 cup
1 tsp Baking Soda and Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Vinegar + Rice milk makes 1 and 1/4 cup
100 ml oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

direction:
preheat the oven at 350 degree.
Place papers.
1. Mix vinegar and milk, leave it aside.
2. Measure all the dry ingredients, mix well, leave it aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil, vanilla, beat well with an electric mixer.
4. Slowly introduce the milk mixture into "3". This will be very watery, but keep beating.
5. Add the flour mixture at once, beat quickly for about 10 seconds, scrape off the side once and then beat for another 5 seconds. The batter will be smooth.
6. Divide the batter into 12, filling about 2/3 each cup. Bake for about 18 to 20 minutes.


The cake turned out to be amazingly soft and fluffy, full of sesame flavor. I like it as it is, this doesn't really need any frosting, in my opinion. But to make it a little fancy, a thin layer of dark or white chocolate might be good...
===
The fake cheese frosting turned out to be somewhat acceptable, but not sure if I like it or not. Definitely the choice of tofu was wrong; I used the hard tofu because that was all I had. The result was too rough. And maybe the lemon should be reduced, or not used at all. I list what I did with it anyway for my own purpose, but this really needs more experiments, so please don't follow the recipe yet...

ingredients for the vegan cheese icing with green tea:
1/4 cup hard tofu
1/2 cup powder sugar
1/4 lard
1 to 2 Tbsp lemon juice (or just plain soy milk might be better)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp green tea/sencha (+ 1/2 tsp matcha)

direction:
Blend tofu with some lemon using a hand blender. Then in a separate bowl, with a fork, mix lard and sugar, slowy adding the tofu mixture until the right consistency.

Vegan Vanilla Cupcake for BD

This was almost a month ago, I went to my friend's BD party.
One cupcake with a stick of candle, that was a small gift for him. We never got to fire up the candle, sing the BD song nor made him blow it. I missed the right moment to do any of it, as I knew nobody there except the BD boy and two of my friends. Oh well...

For the first time I got to use the piping tube kit thing I just got recently. It is fun. I used to use it when I was small but it was such a long time ago.

The icing is a standard vanilla icing:

1/4 cup margarine (room temperature)
1/4 cup vegetarian lard (room temperature)
1 cup powder sugar
some vanilla
(and I like some almond essence and a bit of rum added)
and some soy milk

Just mix everything above with a fork and gradually add the milk until the right consistency.

Vegan Rosewater Pistachio Cupcake with Velvet Vanilla Frosting

This recipe comes from the book called "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World", the book just arrived last week. I modified a bit as I did not have any soy yogurt. Even though I already knew how to bake vagan cupcakes, I enjoy this book very much. I brought it with me to my boyfriend's aunt's cottage one weekend, and read through the whole thing by the lake! There are a lot of mouth-watering beautiful cupcakes introduced in this small book. The frosting is also from the book, I find the process was very interesting. It is sort of like, first you prepare eggless custard and then beat with butter(vegan, of course!) and sugar. Surprisingly, it works. The great thing about this is that it is less sweet, has larger volume, and super creamy.

I don't know what happened but the cake did not rise enough. :(
Anyway, the rosewater & pistachio combo gives a special romantic flavor, perfect for a small cake like this.

Vegan Raisins Cupcake

This reminded me of the steamed cupcakes I had when I was small.
Very simple, but I loved them. There weren't many fancy sweets out there that time.

I added 1 Tbsp rum, to give some flavor. But this could've been 2 Tbsp.
I'm a little self conscious on my waist these days. I love my yoga pants for its amazing stretchyness and comfyness. I get used to this over the weekend, then when Monday comes, all my jeans feel too tight, I hate this.

So, sadly, I'm skipping the frosting to cut down some calories.

Vegan Rosemary Cupcake

The cake came out somewhat dense, not very fluffy :(
The cake usually reaches to the edge of the paper and rise over, but it didn't :(
I might have mixed the dough too long since the lumps didn't seem disappearing. It was my mistake. It's been a while and I could easily forget how small details should be adjusted.

Nonetheless, the flavor is very settle and pleasing.

(After learning that I could grow baby rosemary by just planting its branches into soil, I cut off three branches (about 20 cm) and took off the bottom leaves, leaving about 1/3. The branches are still in water since yesterday, I have to get a proper pot. )

I added about 1Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary and lemon zest into the basic vanilla recipe. The rosemary leaves could be added more, maybe. I didn't use any lemon juice, but could be used as well.

Vegan Vanilla Almond Cupcake

The mint plant in my small balcony garden is growing crazy! Why don't I use some for decoration?
It's been a bit cool these days and the temperature yesterday was very low, for the season. I thought of baking something with an interesting flavor, but then I was too tired from my day job to think of anything exciting. So yes, vanilla! It is always safe to be basic.
I used the slightly larger cupcake recipe. This is now my basic recipe to follow, as it gives me the 12 perfect cakes. The cake volume came out beautifully. I baked for 21 minutes at 350 F, the color looks good this time. While in the oven, they rose like mountain but then came down, the surface is somewhat flat when cooled. The 1/3 cup of 1 + 2/3 cup flour is almond flour. The sugar I added is 1/3 cup. The cake itself (without the frosting) is not really sweet.

I used the electric hand mixer for the first time to whip the frosting, worked well without having a tired arm.

The texture is very fluffy and moist!

Vegan Lemon Blueberry Cupcake

Another freezing day! I hate this weather. I miss the sun, hanging out on a sunny balcony with a beer...
I was so annoyed about yesterday's failure. So I had to bake again (and also to heat up this place! )
Ok, so this time I only used one kind of measuring cup, and I measured carefully.

I modified the basic vanilla recipe a bit;
For the liquid part, 1/2 lemon juice + 1 Tbs Vinegar + Rice Milk + 1/4 cup Soy milk = 1 1/4 cup
One lemon zest
about 1/2 cup frozen blueberry


This time the batter consistency was right. They came out great, just as I hoped to be, fluffy and moist are back again : )
The baking time was about 18 minutes (a little longer for the frozen fruits). The cakes are done but looking pale, so the next time I should just leave them in the oven for 20 minutes.