Warabimochi わらび餅

Warabimochi わらび餅 is a jelly-like confection made from bracken starch and covered or dipped in kinako.

Bracken starch is hard to come by and many has substitute it with either potato starch, corn starch or Kuzu powder aka arrowroot powder.

For me, since I have kuzu powder on hand, which I wanted to make another dessert for it but my phone crashed and I lost that recipe and many contacts as well.

Years ago, my friend Rei actually made some and we really like it and making this now, reminds me of her.  I wonder how is she coping now.

Rei if you are reading this, please contact me.  

Findings: I can't really recall how was the texture that R made.  For this one, it is really refreshing to eat it cold.   The kinako powder gives this dessert a nice aroma and the black sugar syrup matches perfectly.

On its own, it is rather bland though.

What you need: 

100g kuzu powder

400ml water

60g fine sugar

Method:

Mix kuzu powder with sugar.

Add in water and stir until lumpfree.  Sieve.

Cook in a pot, keep stiring until the mixture turned to transparent.

Remove and pour into a small plate.

Submerge the plate into cold water and let it stand until cool.

Remove from water and drain a little.

Cut into cubes.

Serve with black sugar and kinako powder.

Perfect for a hot day!

Enjoy.

Japanese Soufflé Cheese Cake

I love Japanese Soufflé Cheese Cake but I have not bake one for the longest time.  

Now with a block of cream cheese in the fridge for me to clear, it will be perfect for me to pick up my mojo on this cake.

Findings: Am glad that my skill for such recipe did not gone haywired.  Pretty please with how it turned out too.

Source

What you need:

250g cream cheese

5 egg yolks (A grade)

50g butter

70g castor sugar

100g fresh milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

60g cake flour

20g corn flour

¼ tsp salt

5 egg whites

¼ tsp cream of tartar

70g castor sugar

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 160°C (Top and bottom heat, no fan force).  Line bottom of a 8” x 3” round cake pan and grease the sides.

Whisk the cream cheese, sugar and butter till smooth on a double boiler. Remove from heat.

Add cold milk and whisk until combined. (this is prevent the hot mixture to cook the eggs)

Add egg yolks one at a time and whisk until smooth.

Add salt, lemon juice and whisk again.

Sift flour and fold into mixture until fully combined. Set aside.  

In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites at low speed till foamy.

Add cream of tartar and beat at medium speed till bubbles become very small but still visible.

Gradually add sugar and beat till very glossy soft peaks. Use medium speed to avoid over beating.

With a hand whisk, fold meringue into batter ⅓ at a time until combined for each addition.  Last addition, switch to spatula to gently fold until smooth and no streaks of meringue is visible.

Pour batter into prepared pan and tap the pan on the counter to release air bubbles.

Bake in a water bath at for 1 hr 10 minutes.

Test by pressing lightly on the surface, if still soft and did not spring back, bake another 5-10 minutes.

Unmould once cake as pulled away from the sides of pan by inverting on to a smooth non-stick pan, peel off the lining paper and invert it back on to a rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Mom's Braised Mushroom

I love eating Mom's Braised Mushroom and I realised that I didn't not have this documented here.

My family enjoy this dish alot and it is often missed.  So today, I shall prepare some.  Since this dish keeps well, it is nice to have it standby.

What you need  

200g mushroom (wash and remove steam, soak over night in hot water)
dried oyster (soak about 10 mins and clean)
4 X 5 inches spare ribs
2 tbsp cornflour
4 - 5 tbsp ginger juice
2 tbsp oil
750 litre of water
½ tsp light soya sauce
Oyster sauce to taste

Method 

Marinate mushrooms with cornflour, ginger juice, oil. Set aside for 10 mins

Put mushrooms and water and boil for 1 hour.

Marinate oysters with light soya sauce and a few drops of oil.

When the mushroom has softened, add oysters and spare ribs to mushroom stew after it has been cooked for 1/2 hour.

Turned down heat to low and slowly simmer for an hour till spare rib has soften.

Seasoned with oyster sauce and salt.

Note: you can put in Fatt Choy only the last 5 mins of cooking. 


Enjoy!