I tried to experiment with a new recipe but the ratios just didn’t work. The first try was Jasmine Tea Cupcakes with White Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting. I think there was too much Jasmine Tea so it became quite disgusting. I think I must have put too much vinegar. It was the grossest cake I’ve ever made. I wanted to make it look like hydrangeas too but I was so bummed I couldn’t be f-ed to do it. I just colored the frosting to look like hydrangeas. Anyway, this is something I must try again. It just sounds like it could be so good.

Because I didn’t have much time left, I had to quickly conjure a batch of cupcakes for the next day, which was Mother’s Day. I looked around the kitchen and the pantry for ideas and ingredients I could use. I had Milo, Kinako, and Cream Cheese. So, I put together Milo Cupcakes with Kinako Cream Cheese Frosting. My sister and I also mad some pink carnation toppers. And voila! Superbness in a hurry. 

For Milo Cupcakes, you’ll need:

• Milo
• Milk
• Flour
• Sugar
• Baking Powder
• Salt
• Cocoa
• Egg
• Butter

For the Kinako Cream Cheese Frosting, you’ll need:

• Kinako
• Cream Cheese
• Icing Sugar
• Whipping Cream
• Butter
• Vanilla Essence

Is Milo international? Does everyone know what it is? It has a Wikipedia page! Milo is a chocolate and malt powder drink. I grew up with it. I drank it almost everyday, I ate it regularly. It tastes so good when you pour some condensed milk over wonderbread and sprinkle it on top. It is produced by Nestle and made by this guy called Thomas Mayne in Sydney, in 1934! OMG, look at that vintage tin. I want one!

My mom set off for Singapore about three weeks ago for a family emergency. She will be spending day and night with my beloved grandma. I always try my best to impress her and I know she appreciates it all, even though she’s not really good at expressing it. I guess I don’t express myself well enough to her either. I blame half of it on language barrier. Plus, her hearing is deteriorating. So one way that I express myself to her is by showering her with my cooking and baked goods.

This time I was/am (?) on a macaron hype so I decided to make her some. Yes, it is not easy to make but I have gotten lots of inspiration and the only way to get better is to practice, like a ton, right? Grandma likes blueberries so I decided to make blueberry macarons. I didn’t have any blueberry jam and I didn’t want to make blueberry an overkill so I used marionberry jam instead. What is that you say?

This is what it looks like. According to Wikipedia, it is a hybrid caneberry developed by the USDA ARS breeding program in cooperation with Oregon State University in Corvallis. The berry has a somewhat tart flavor, fairly earthy with traces of sweetness. It is often used as an ingredient in pies, ice cream, jellies, jams and other foods, over other blackberries. The cross was made in 1945 and the berry was released in 1956. The marionberry’s growing conditions are perfectly adapted to the mild, maritime Oregon climate, with its mild rains and warm summers. I got mine from my MIL, with love.

So anyways, I used Italian meringue to make the shells. There is an extra step for this method, with the sugar + water boiling part; but I enjoy this more. All you need are:

• Egg white
• Sugar
• Water
• Almond meal
• Icing Sugar
• Coloring (I used fabulous blue)
• Blueberry powder
• More egg white

Blueberry Macarons with Marionberry Jam

My only regret was that I didn’t have time to let them sit before oven-time so the feet weren’t as what I wanted them to be. I packed them up in a nice box and crossed my fingers, hoping they won’t crack, shatter and break while being transported from Tokyo to Singapore. Looks like they made it there unharmed!

I had some meringue left over so I experimented some more and made some black sesame bamboo macarons with home-made umeboshi jam. What the what is whaaa?

Bamboo?　竹炭 (Takesumi) - which basically means bamboo charcoal. It is bamboo that has been carbonized under very specific conditions. According to this guy, it is a supreme detoxification product. It appears to absorb myco and endotoxins from various organisms, take the load off the liver and kidneys and act in an anti-aging fashion. And oh, apparently it absorbs radiation as well. Hoozah!

It adds a bit of crunch to the macarons. Biting into it is weird. Good weird. I also kinda feel that the takesumi is also cleaning out my teeth at the same time. However, if you are gonna buy some bamboo charcoal to cook with, make sure you buy the type that is suitable to be eaten. You can find and buy bamboo charcoal to make soaps and stuff too- these are not to be consumed internally.

Now for some umeboshi talk. It is pickled ume fruit. People call it a plum but actually, it is closely related to the apricot. They are extremely sour and salty. I think for a lot of people, it is an acquired taste. It is claimed to fight off bacteria. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true because the saltiness and sourness of umeboshi  can punch the cr*p out of anything bad. It also helps digestion. According to wikipedia, they were esteemed by the samurai to combat battle fatigue. Also, the Japanese folk remedy for colds is okayu (congee) with umeboshi.

Eating umeboshi in Japan is the equivalent of the United States “an apple a day.” My dad and I will be making umeboshi tomorrow, so wait for that blog entry! As for the jam that I made for my bamboo macarons, I used the umeboshi that the lady at my parents’ country house local restaurant in Yamanashi gave us. They are so uber yummy. 100 times better than any I’ve bought from the supermarkets and I don’t know why! Anyways, all you need for the jam are:

• umeboshi
• sugar
• umeboshi vinegar

Maybe I should have put some coloring into the macaron shells. What do you think? The texture looks grainy, and it is, but that is because of the bamboo charcoal. If I had a super food processor, maybe I could have turned them into super powder.

Does it look like cheesecake? Desperate times call for desperate measures. What do you do when you’re broke but have the urge to bake and create? You look through your refrigerator and see what you can do when you’re #bakingonabudget. This time, it was Daikon Radish Cheesecake.

I love daikon so I’m gonna talk about daikon for a bit now. Daikon (大根) means “large root” in Japanese. If I could, I’d eat it everyday. It’s cheap and healthy. The daikon did not originate in Japan (although some Japanese would probably think it’s a Japanese and Japan only thing). It came from continental Asia. Daikon is very low in food energy but provides 34% of the RDA for vitamin C.  

Anyways, I experimented with daikon in cheesecake, hoping it will be a tad healthier but who am I kidding? Real cheesecake is just sinfully good. This is good for those days when you feel bloated and greedy and in need of cheesecake. Adding the daikon in it will make you feel better. You can still taste a bit of the daikon in this cheesecake and the trick is to squeeze out as much water content as possible. What you need to do first is to prepare your graham cracker crust. After that, all you need are:

• Daikon (grated)
• Cream cheese
• Sugar
• Egg
• Cream
• Lemon juice

Basically, bake your crust, grate the daikon, squeeze the sh*t out of it, mix the rest of the ingredients, pour onto crust, and bake. One thing to be careful about is, the enzymes of daikon can make your skin itch when you grate it. Use gloves if your threshold for pain is low. Otherwise, deal with it. I wouldn’t recommend making a rare cheesecake with daikon.

Looks good? Tastes good!

I have a good friend who is into classic, old-timey things, artsy stuff, beautiful pieces, nature and gardening, music, tasty coffee, cats, shoes, crafts, everything! For his birthday this year, I wanted to create something healthy, unique and tasty because it reminds me of him. Or maybe the other way around. I baked him Vegan Chocolate-Basil Cupcakes with Silken Tofu Chocolate Ganache Frosting. Did some of you roll your eyes? Did some of you re-read that sentence again? You’d be surprised. They turned out fabulous.

For the topper, I used a pin brooch of a penny farthing to emboss blue and yellow fondant. We used to go to bicycle shops together to ogle together. I also had to reuse the box of my TOMS shoes. I hope one day he’ll get a pair of TOMS shoes. I know he would totally rock them and also be into it for the cause.

All you need are:

• Flour
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Cocoa
• Sugar
• Soy milk
• Casil leaves
• Tofu
• Vinegar
• Vanilla
• Water
• Oil

For the frosting:

• Tofu
• Sugar
• Chocolate

The two work well together. However, the texture of the ganache is grainy and there is no sheen. It looks like matted ganache but it tastes awesome. People who look at it will definitely know how healthy it is.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t give the cakes to my friend. Just ONE MINUTE before I was about to leave my apartment to meet up with him, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake happened. The cakes were safe but things fell off my shelves, my family and I were freaking out at the doorway, the trains stopped running, phones weren’t working and chaos and radiation erupted. I managed to give the cupcakes to my family and friends who dropped by after things calmed down a bit later on in the week. I’ll just have to make a new batch for my friend.

Yellow. What a great color. So bright and happy, especially on a gloomy day. Imagine wearing a yellow raincoat on a rainy day. Nice! Today I decided to make some yellow-colored macarons. Before I started on that, I made some filling to go with it. I chose Soy Milk Caramel Jam.

I had a huge collection of nice bottles a while back but since we downsized our apartment, we had to leave it at the country house. A cutesy little jam bottle would have made this look nicer. For this jam, I used brown sugar (I usually only use brown sugar anyway) so the color of the jam is a bit darker than I would like it to be.

All you need are:

• Sugar
• Fresh cream
• Pectin
• Soy milk
• Condensed milk
• Vanilla bean

This would totally taste good on regular toast, and little crackers. Try it!

So anyway, back to my little pockets of sunshine. I decided to use kinako for the macarons. Kinako is basically soybean flour. So tasty! It is uber healthy, with Vitamin B and protein. We always have buckets of kinako stored at home so don’t be surprised if you continuously see postings of kinako after kinako after kinako.

All you need are:

• Egg whites
• Sugar
• Powdered sugar
• Almond meal
• Kinako powder

Kinako macarons and the soy-milk caramel jam work really well! The macarons were gone in less than ten minutes. I hope they made my family happy. Yummy!

Not many other things give me this particular sense of excitement that baking and cooking do. As I sat by my kotatsu, the thought of finally starting this blog excited me. I’m not so into scrapbooking and the such, and I’ve always thought that keeping a blog would just mean digitally scrapbooking. That would just be めんどくさい (mendokusai/troublesome). I do however, like creating, making, and producing. I do it almost everyday, and tonight, I’m making a Cheese & Caramelized Onion Bread Loaf.

All you need are:

• Butter
• Onions
• Poppy seeds
• Cheese
• Flour (I used whole wheat and rye)
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Buttermilk
• Salt
• Pepper

Prep is about 15 minutes, baking time is 30 minutes and cooling time is about 15 minutes.

After having a slice of this, I was inspired to make balsamic reduction to go with it. The two go together phenomenally well! Yummy!