Green Tea Mochi Cake with Red Beans

After discovering how to make mochi cake a few years ago from a friend, I've been slowing experimenting with the mochi cake base (which is so quick to whip up!), adding various ingredients, with positive results.  So far I've made strawberry mochi cake, blueberry mochi cake, cherry mochi cake, pumpkin mochi cake.  A while back, I thought about making a green tea mochi cake, as green tea is one of my favorite mochi flavors.  I thought about what I would do for the filling: Add some red beans? Add a middle layer of red bean paste? My idea sat on the backburner for a while, until I saw the Food Librarian's matcha mochi bundt cakes.  This gave me the push I needed to bake my green tea mochi cake.

I ended deciding to try making it with red beans.  I had some sweetened little red beans (I got them in the canned food section of Ranch 99).  I took my mochi cake base, added 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of matcha green tea powder to it, creating a beautiful green mochi base.  Then I took some big spoonfuls of red beans and mixed it in.  An hour later, my mochi cake was ready.

Ingredients

• 16 oz Mochiko rice flour (or can substitute for any brand of glutinous rice flour)
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/2 tablespoons matcha green tea powder
• 1/2 can of sweetened small red beans (you can add more or less depending on your taste preference)

Instructions

1. Cream the butter with sugar.  It helps to melt the butter a little first.

2. Mix in the evaporated milk to the butter/sugar mixture.

3. Mix eggs into the mixture.

4. Mix in the rice flour, baking powder and vanilla.

5. Mix in the matcha green tea powder.

6. Mix in the red beans.  I had a 16 oz jar of them, and used approximately half the jar because I didn't want the red beans overwhelming the green tea flavor.

7. Pour mixture into a 9 x 13 pan.

7. Bake for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees.

8. Let cake completely cool, allowing the mochi to set, before cutting and serving.

Sinbala revisit

SinBala
651 W Duarte Rd
Arcadia, CA 91007
(626) 446-0886

After a revisit to Din Tai Fung, I had to make a stop at Sinbala again.  My previous Sinbala post can be found here. Boyfriend and I were really full, so we just got some stuff to go.  I ordered a sausage rice combination, an oyster pancake and their eight topping shaved ice.

The to go shaved ice came in two separate containers: one container with the ice, the other with all the toppings.  This allows the shaved ice to last longer during the car ride, as the toppings tend to melt the ice quicker.  Here is a quick picture of the toppings container:

Here is the sausage rice combination:

I enjoyed this a lot.  I wish I had a better picture.  The chinese sausage was good and there was a good amount of sausage in the combo.  There was also some sauteed cabbage, corn, and tomato and egg. 

Here's a close up of the sausage:

Finally, the oyster pancake:

A little too much sauce, but I thought this was a pretty decent version of oyster pancake.  There was a good amount of egg and the sticky starch substance that is in oyster pancake.  Sometimes restaurants make it so that the starch material is too much and there is barely any egg.  

While I was paying for the food, I noticed that Sinbala also sells their delicious sausages, meatball and some other Taiwanese goodies uncooked.  I think next time I'll get some meatballs and other items uncooked so I can bring it home and make it.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

I have a bone to pick with Martha Stewart.  Well, not really.  But every time I use one of her recipes, it never seems to turn out right.  Maybe it's because I don't have her great baking skills.  I don't know what it is.  But I've about given up with her recipes.

I found this recipe for Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies.  On her site, they looked delicious. The cookies were big, and they crackled nicely.  I followed the recipe exactly, but had quite a few problems in the presentation department.

The taste of the cookies came out great.  But the large cookies flattened a lot and were really thin.  They also burned around the edges.  I had to cut down the bake time significantly and make my cookies smaller.  A lot of my cookies still came out deformed.  None of them looked quite like the ones pictured on her site.  Next time I'll try a different recipe.

Boyfriend enjoyed the taste, and didn't mind stuffing on the deformed ones in his mouth. I liked how they tasted too.  Very chocolate and fudgy.  However next time, I hope to find a better recipe with prettier results

Chocolate Sugar Cookies (adapted from Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, substitute 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I used butter)
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted
   with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and
   fluffy. Mix in shortening (or additional butter). Add egg and vanilla;
   mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and
   mix until just combined.
3. Drop golf ball sized dough onto baking sheets
   lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until
   edges are firm, about 10 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.