How to Make: Japanese Strawberry Almond Tart (Sugar-Free)

 

Hello, long time no posts... I've finally have had time to make something again, and this time, I made a Strawberry Almond Tart, a recipe that I stole from Ochikeron, on Youtube.   It is ridiculously easy to make and it looks like a patisserie made it at the end.  I used coconut oil, but use butter instead if you prefer.  You can use whatever fruits you have, strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, mangoes...

How to Make: Japanese Style-Christmas Cake (クリスマスケーキ) Kurisumasukeki

Today is my birthday!  Yeah... So I made myself a cake.  Since it was close to Christmas or X-mas, I made a Japanese style X-mas cake, which is not too hard to make, and very yummy.  It's usually whipped cream and strawberry in a Asian style sponge cake.  It's also sold in Vancouver from many Asian bakeries most notably is the Chinese-Canadian supermarket chain T&T. This kind of cake, from what I hear, is almost like a tradition in Japan along with eating KFC (fried chicken).  This type of cake is sold at bakeries before Christmas and eaten on or before Christmas.  Strawberries are very expensive at this time of year, which make this cake even more special than a summer Strawberry Shortcake.  My decorating skills are not perfected yet by any means, but it turned out okay.  Try it out, it is very easy to make!  The sponge cake is a very good recipe, very light and fluffy.  It's another not too sweet cake, but be careful not to eat it all at once, I ate half in one sitting, but it's my birthday.

How to Make: Red Bean Paste (Anko) used in Chinese, Japanese and Korean sweets.

Red bean paste is a sweet bean paste that is commonly in East Asian sweets. Red beans have a slight sweet taste even without having sugar added to it.  However, it is most commonly sweetened, and used to flavour, fill or as a base for sweets.  It is used to make Japanese jelly (Yokan), to fill Korean doughnuts and Chinese pineapple buns, as a topping of the Malaysian Ice Kacang and many, many more.  There are 3 main types red bean pastes.  There are the whole, the chunky and the smooth.  The whole one consists of the red beans being whole which is all slicked in a sugary syrup.  The chunky one has the beans mashed with the skins on with a few addition of whole beans for texture. The smooth one is the most common one to be filled in pastries, and cakes.  It is completely mashed and have been strained through a sieve to remove the skins leaving a satiny smooth dark paste.  

   Red bean paste is extremely easy to make, and it can flavour almost any sweets and desserts like red bean cake, red bean pie, red bean pancakes, or just on top of vanilla ice cream.  The best ratio I've found to make red bean anko paste is 1:4 (red beans to water, respectively).  So please multiply or divide according to the amount you require. Both metric (left side) and imperial measurements (right side) are listed.
    Red beans (commonly labelled, ''Anko'') are very easy to get at any Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, almost all East Asian markets.  They are in packets and usually inexpensive, perhaps $1.29-$2.50 CAD a packet.  There are pre-tinned and pre-made pastes available as well, but you can't control the sugar content and the addition of preservatives.  I think it's best to make your own, and it's easy too!

How to Make: Japanese Chocolate Truffle Sponge Cake (チョコレートケーキ)

Yesterday, almost all the shops were closed in the city because of Hurricane Irene.  So what to do when you have the extra time to stay in all day?  Well I baked a Japanese-style chocolate cake!  It is my moist, dense, and fluffl-y at the same time, Chocolate Truffle Sponge Cake.  Beware thought, it is extremely rich. You really only need a tiny slice of it to get satisfaction.  If you have a huge piece, you might actually throw up. Since this is a sponge cake, the amount of butter or oil in the cake is much much less and the texture is lighter which contrasts with the dense chocolate ganache.  I baked mine in a 16 cm (6 inch) cake tin, to make a smaller cake but if you're using a 20cm/8 inch tin, just multiply it by 1/3.  I use 70% chocolate for the frosting. You can always use semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips for this cake.  This is my favourite type of cake, which is also known as Japanese style, because it tastes like chocolate, not sugar, and is not too sweet all. Japanese cakes don't use buttercream frosting recipe because it's way too sweet. Instead they use what I made a ganache which is just chocolate and cream, like a truffle.  I see these types of chocolate cake in Asian Supermarkets all the time, so I thought of giving it a go!  It is the best! The finishing touches are the dusted cocoa powder and the piped whipped cream, it makes it so elegant! It's best to use the metric system when baking (actually for any cooking), but for those people that have not converted, I've listed the imperial measurements on the right side of the page.  There's no reason for you not to try it now!

How to make: The Best Banana Chocolate Chunk Loaf/Cake Recipe

Having bananas that have too many brown spots is not the most appetising thing to eat, but they're super for making banana cake or bread! I had 3 bananas that had would not be so pleasant if eaten as is, so I used them to make a cake! The addition of chocolate and nuts make this really stand out! This recipe is one that I made up right on the spot too, and it better than all the other recipes I've tried out before.  Give it a go and you'll be happy you did.

How to make: Japanese Chicken Curry Rice カレーライス- Shortcut Version

My Easy Japanese Curry In a Hurry on Rice

Japanese Curry
I love all types of curry.  Who doesn't?  But there are so many different types of curries, you've got the curries of different regions  of India, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Singapore, Japanese, Chinese, United Kingdom.... the list goes on!  Each one of these curries are so varied and so different, and yet, when you taste each curry from a different country, you will still know that you're eating some form of curry.  I find that really amazing.

How to Make: Dairy-free Pineapple Bun (Bo Luo Bao) 菠蘿包 Recipe

Dairy-Free Hong Kong Favourite- Pineapple Buns 菠蘿包

So I made this recipe a couple of weeks ago now.  It was my first attempt at making the iconic Hong Kong, ''Buo Lo Bao'' (translates into Pineapple bun), it is very similar to the Japanese, 'Melonpan'.  This recipe was a little altered from Christine's Chinese Recipe Blog because the people I was making it for are allergic to dairy products, so I adjusted it with the ingredients I had on hand- Coconut oil instead of butter and soy milk instead of milk.  The end result was pretty good, I let it go a little too brown on some of the buns, but they kept well for a couple of days, staying moist.  I microwave them for 20 sec before I eat them to soften them up a little.  It goes great with a cup-full tea!  I think they could've been more airy though, they were a little on the dense side.  I might try and let them rise a little longer.  The cookie crust was a little flour-y (is that a word?) but with many recipes to go with, it went pretty well.  SO HERE IS PINEAPPLE BUN ATTEMPT NUMBA ONE!!!