green tea marble cake

I wasn't kidding when I said I'd backlog on all the stuff I've created in these eight months. It's not a lot, but it's definitely a bit more content for this tiny blog.

Normally, I sit around on foodgawker and look at something that strikes my fancy, but this time, two things were certain. One—I was in the mood for something green tea flavored, because I have an obsession with tea and baked goods. Two—I wanted something that could satisfy my sweet tooth, but not something overwhelming like a chocolate pound cake. So I went to Kirbie's Cravings, because I love going there when Foodgawker doesn't have anything that I'm immediately attracted to...and I found this little gem. (Well, I always find a little gem there. That site! Just... so full of gems!) Anyways, green tea marble cake! After skimming the instructions, I decided to give this a spin.




Green tea marble cake (Recipe from Kirbie's Cravings)

 Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 1 tablespoons matcha powder
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Line 9 x 5 loaf pan with foil.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Put the butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Mix in eggs, one at a time. Mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with sour cream. Add vanilla, and mix 1 minute.
4. Portion out 1/3 of the batter into a small bowl. Mix in matcha powder, stirring well to combine.
5. Spread one-third of the plain batter into prepared pan. Use a small offset spatchula to ensure an even, flat layer. Dollop with 1/3 of matcha batter and use a spatchula to gently spread the matcha layer on the top of the other. Spread another third of the plain batter on top, followed by another third of the matcha batter. Repeat one more time so that the final layer is the rest of the matcha batter. Run a thin knife through batter to marbleize. Run spatchula over top to ensure the batter is flat in the end.
6. Bake until a cake tester inserted into center comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire cooking rack for a few minutes. Lift cake out and allow to cool completely on rack.

The result came out pretty nicely! Not too sweet, but not bland, with just a hint of matcha that made this stand out a bit more than the standard marble cake. I think I baked it for a little too long (I left it in there for around 55 minutes) so it was a bit browner than I'd have liked it to be, but the inside was still moist, so I can't complain, right?

giga pudding

What do you know—eight months later and I've finally remembered to update this thing. I'm sorry for the two followers that followed me expecting updates... College for the most part is extremely time consuming, and I haven't been allowed to really jot down my baking adventures. Not that I have a lot when I'm in college anyway. Well, that's not entirely it. Part of it is because I get super lazy when it comes to blogging, and I got into a cooking/baking slump towards the beginning of my spring semester in college. That semester was full of Chiptole and other sorts of fast foods that I don't want to recall.

But now it's summer, and I've decided to at give this another go. Currently, I'm in Hong Kong, the home of good foods and where everything is tasty and nothing hurts. (Just kidding, everything hurts because it's either stir-fried or deep-fried. Agony.) Regardless, expect posts related to Hong Kong food and Asian cuisine in general! While I might not be blogging about my own food, maybe you'll be interested in the food that I've been trying out here...? Maybe? Here's hoping!

I'll also probably post a couple of bread/baking recipes that I've done since the last time I updated. My memory's a bit fuzzy on some of the things, but if anything, it might still be good for reference or something!

 In any case, to make this entry at least a little bit relevant, here's a quick and easy dessert recipe. Giga pudding! My roommate and I made this the day before summer break started. We originally planned on making macarons, but due to lack of time and coordination and general procrastination, we decided to throw something together quickly so that we guaranteed ourselves a dessert at the end of the day, haha.



For those who don't know, Giga Pudding originated from this Japanese commercial, selling...well... a bucket-sized pudding. Well they call it pudding, but you know, it looks like flan to me. (I still refer to it as pudding though, too...) And seeing as we can't buy jumbo-sized pudding here, my roommate and I took it upon ourselves to make our own.

Ingredients:

• 2 packs Royal Flan Mix
• 2 quarts milk

Directions: 

1. Open the caramel sauce packet and pour it into a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Pour milk into a large pot, and add in the flan mixture. Stir until smooth.
3. Stir frequently, and turn off the heat when it comes to a boil.
4. Pour the milk/flan mixture into the large bowl. Let cool.
5. Store in refrigerator for 2-4 hours, or until firm to the touch.
6. When firm, use a plastic knife to go around the outside of the pudding to loosen it up.
7. Grab a large plate, and flip the pudding onto it!
8. Jiggle your giant pudding in satisfaction.

 Ta-dahhhh! Easy, right? We don't have large pots or bowls in our teeny little college dorm, so we had to improvise. We used two pots to make the mixture (1 packet/1 quart of milk per pot) and we ended up using my rice cooker pot to pour/solidify the flan in. That's why you can see the little notch markings on our giga pudding, because the notches are there to measure water and rice levels for cooking rice. (Teehee.)

It didn't come out as big as the Japanese giga pudding, but if we had used 3 packets of flan mix, we wouldn't have been able to pour all of it into one container. My rice pot simply isn't big enough—it fits exactly two quarts! Our giga pudding came out very syrupy too, because we used a lot of caramel sauce, but if you want it less sweet/less brown/less caramely, just eyeball it and see how much sauce you want to put. Our pudding resulted in something that was rich, smooth, and very fun to eat—we were surprised because we had such good results, despite it being box flan. And we had a lot of fun sharing it with our friends...no one could stop jiggling the pudding around, so we made a mess.

And just as a side note: The instructions say to add egg or use a richer (larger fat %) milk if you want a richer flan, but we used 2% skim milk without any eggs and it still worked out rich enough for us!

cookies 'n cream cookies

I'm back! It's been awhile, huh, blog? *blows dust off*

Well, college has been intense and it's done a good job of keeping me busy, so I haven't had much time to update. I've made simple dishes here and there, since I do need food in order to live and all, but I haven't felt the need to take pictures of the dishes I've made, sine they're so simple, even a five year old can do them. Oh well. Maybe I'll take some pictures and blog about it one day, if someone's really curious. Or if I'm really bored. Which sounds more likely, seeing as this blog isn't quite popular enough anyway, haha!

In any case, I decided to use some of the free time I had today to bake cookies with my roommate. We're both pretty crazy about FoodGawker. No lie, it's what I read every morning while I eat breakfast, and what I check right before I go to bed every night. It's a little scary how obsessively I can scan for recipes and favorite things left and right. And we just so happened to settle our little eyes on this particular recipe for oreo cookies.

The problem was finding the time to actually make them. So we kept this recipe tucked in the back of our minds, biding time until the day we could make them... Which was today. We initially wanted to make them for a friend, especially since he drives us around for groceries and stuff. We're really grateful, Eric! We just wish we could express it through baking a bit more often. Sigh, if only we had more time during the day...

So these babies popped out of the oven after about maybe ten minutes of prepping and talking. I guess it helps when there's two people making things instead of just one! I'll save the rest of my rambling for a little later... I'm sure the recipe's a bit more important right now.

Cookies 'n Cream Cookies (Recipe from Sweet Tooth)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 12 Oreo's, broken up into small pieces

Directions:

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).
3. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well mixed.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
6. Gently fold in Oreo pieces.
7. With a medium cookie scoop, scoop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 1-2" apart.
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes*, until the edges JUST start to brown. Let cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

They're deliciously cookies and cream-like. But I think I actually liked the cookie dough more than I liked it when it was baked. I mean, it had a wonderfully moist yet slightly crunchy side that I adore in cookies, but for some reason my roommate and I could not stop licking the batter when we were mixing.

Speaking of mixing, I got carried away mixing, so that's why ours are so evenly grey and brown from the oreo cookies being mixed in... It's supposed to look a bit like a chocolate chip cookie does, with the brownish golden yellow color of a cookie, speckled with bits of oreo, but I guess we'll strive for that next time.

black sesame brownie

My little babies! Have I mentioned that black sesame seeds are my new favorite obsession right now? I love these things so much. The flavor, and the nutty aroma are definitely the two things that managed to capture my heart. I had wanted to buy some black sesame seeds ever since summer started, but I hadn't been able to get ahold of them until the last week of my summer break - right before school started. Still eager to make something out of it, I wasted no time and decided to make something instead of packing up for college. Oh well.

Initially, I wanted to do a black sesame tang yuan - a sweet and chewy ball of rice flour that has black sesame in the middle - but that seemed a bit too difficult for me to make since I was particularly pressed on time that day... I'll make it over winter break or whenever I get back home though, because tang yuan is amazing and I could have it every day if I had the option to!

I settled for doing black sesame brownies though. Except I didn't really "settle" for them - I more like pounced on the idea and the recipe, because it seemed like such an easy thing to bake, and also because brownies have never failed me in the history of ever. And it really was a breeze to make, although there was a bit too much butter for my liking. I was a little grossed out to see so much butter swirling around in my pan, so I think I'll lower the amount next time...

Black Sesame Brownies (Recipe from Pig Pig's Corner)

Ingredients:

• 150 g unsalted butter - melted
• 100 g black sesame seeds
• 140 g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
• 2 eggs
• 100 g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbs black sesame seeds (to sprinkle on top).

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 160°C (fan).
2. Combine melted butter and sesame seeds in a food processor or blender and blend until a paste is formed.
3. Add sesame paste to a pan, add sugar and soy sauce, fry for a few mins until fragrant (oil will start to seaprate). Remove from heat and leave this to cool.
4. When sesame mixture is cool to touch (warm is fine), mix in eggs one by one.
5. Gently fold in plain flour until just combined.
6. Pour batter into a lightly greased and lined square tin.
7. Sprinkle black sesame seeds on top. [Don't omit this step, as the sesame seeds add a nice crunch to the cake!]
8. Bake for about 25 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.

They came out a little too sweet for me... It goes nicely with a cup of warm milk, but I know that if I remake this, I'll definitely cut down on the sugar and the butter. When the sesame seed paste is being stirred in the pan, you could really see the sesame seeds release their oils, and that along with the butter was a little too much for me. I even decided to pour some of the butter out so that I wouldn't have to work out for five hours or something. It tasted wonderful, but I know that this kind of thing isn't healthy at all - it made me feel a little guilty afterward, but it's not like I'll bake something like this all the time.

Now I wonder if I can do something similar to this but in a cupcake form...? I'm just eager to be reunited with my black sesame once again because I have so much planned for it.

green tea wassant-style rolls.

I made these maybe two or three weeks ago, but I've been so behind with everything lately (in preparation for college!) that I hadn't got a chance to share this until now. I guess being inspired by the finale of Masterchef had something to do with it, but I think the larger factor is just my boredom combined with the need to do something productive late at night.

In a lot of blog posts, and especially on Foodgawker, everyone's green tea treats always look so bold, vibrant, and green. Delicious. Inviting. And then I try out those same recipes to get a completely different shade of green. It would be discouraging, if it weren't for the fact that the things usually at least still tasted great. But I'm trying to figure out what it is I'm missing. Is it the powder that makes a difference? Do people add green food coloring secretly and not tell me about it? I just want to know what I'm doing wrong with my green tea! I hope for that bright green color just as much as everyone else who loves green tea, you know?

So I decided to challenge myself, and use green tea powder even though I knew that my results wouldn't look as deliciously green. I ended up getting drawn in by a particular recipe for green tea brioches. It looked exciting, and I was itching to try something new apart from the standard loaf of bread - even the directions seemed a little bit more difficult compared to what I usually followed... Like, what the heck was a tour double? I had no idea, just that it involved a lot of folding, and a lot of rolling. Oh well, what better way to find out what they meant...by testing it out?

The entire process was simple enough, but it kept me bustling about the kitchen for almost the entire time. I thought I'd have enough time to sit back and relax while the dough was in for its first rise (2 hours!) I ended up having to make the matcha filling, and by the time I was done with that, I had to clean the mess of dirty pots and pans that had accumulated. As soon as all of that was over, the two hours I had intended on using to relax was gone, and I had to get back to work again.

This was my end result. A far cry from the pictures on the blog that I was following, but at least it still tasted good. And a tour double wasn't as intimidating as it seemed, even if I did such a poor job on it. Maybe the swirls of green tea and bread would have been more evident if the green was brighter, but we all know that's a problem I've yet to solve right now.

The recipe calls them brioches, but I'm not sure if they're really a brioche, or a wassant, or a weird hybrid of both. So if someone could actually clear that up for me, that'd be pretty neat. But for those who want to give this a shot, here's the recipe:

Green tea brioches (Recipe from Foodbeam)

Brioche dough:

• 300g strong flour
• 60g caster sugar
• 1 tsp dehydrated yeast
• 125g whole milk
• one egg
• 50g butter diced and at room temperature

1. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except for the butter and mix until it forms a rough dough.
2. On an unfloured surface, start kneading the dough incorporating the butter as you do so until it forms a smooth ball; around 8 minutes.
3. Place the dough back into the bowl – covered with a cloth – and leave in a warm place for 2 hours or until double in size.

NOTE: When forming the dough, it is going to be really sticky. It was a monster trying to knead this dough. What I found effective was this method of kneading the dough that.... really isn't kneading, but more like beating your dough up on the table by slapping it on there for like, 15 minutes or more. But for me and my lack of stamina and not-so-strong wrists, it was a little suffering, so I cheated a bit and added some flour... I couldn't handle how sticky it was... Oops.

Green tea filling:

• 80g milk
• one egg white
• 50g caster sugar
• 20g flour
• 20g matcha green tea
• 10g butter

1. Bring the milk to the boil. While it’s heating, mix the white and sugar in a bowl until combined. Mix in the flour and matcha green tea, and beat until homogeneous.
2. When the milk is boiling, pour it over the matcha mixture, whisking as you do so.
   
3. Transfer back into the pan, and cook on medium heat until thick. Mix in the butter.
4. Spread it on a baking tray lined with cling film, around 20×15cm. Chill.

Shaping the Brioche:

1. Remove any air from the brioche dough by gently patting it down, then roll it into a 30×20cm rectangle.
   
2. Place the matcha filling in the middle, then fold the dough over it, sealing the extremities together.
   
3. Roll into a longer rectangle, then make a tour double.
   
4. Repeat the folding one more time, then roll the dough back into a 30×20cm.
5. Roll the dough onto itself to form a log.
6. Trim the ends, then using a sharp knife, slice into 3cm-thick segments.
7. Butter 12 5.5cm-wide rings, and place the slices into them, cut side up. Or if you’re making a loaf, arrange six slices into a loaf tin, and the remaining slices into rings.
8. Cover loosely with cling film, and allow to rise for 30 to 45 minutes.
9. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

NOTE: View the tour double image that Foodbeam provided if you're a little lost! It helped me a lot when I was trying to figure it out. Also, if stuff starts leaking and oozing out, it's really not a big deal. It might be a little sticky to work with once the matcha filling starts to gush out here and there, but I think it's pretty normal. I was a little too nervous to roll my dough out too thin, so I didn't have that problem the first time around, but the second time, I had stuff oozing out everywhere... it's just a messy experience.

As you can tell, I decided to just cram them all together in a little loaf pan instead of putting them each in their separate metal rings like you'd normally do for brioches. I kind of liked them all sitting in their loaf pan, all nice and snug. And they tasted good! I wasn't so sure that they were going to taste of anything but just bread, because I wasn't sure how the green tea filling was going to work its flavor in there, but there was just a...a tiny hint of it, somewhere in there. I wish the green tea had a stronger flavor in the bread, but that might just be me and my love for green tea.

...But I still want to know why my green tea baked goods are always a poopy green. :(