DIY Dessert Stand

Everyone and their mother has made one of these cake stand thingies before, but hey, what's one more? :P

After a particularly stressful day at work, I went somewhere "safe" for retail therapy: the thrift shop.  I picked up random squirrel plate and a candle holder for a couple dollars.

Doesn't the squirrel plate have something of an Alice in Wonderland vibe to it? For a common squirrel, it's pretty fancy with a gold rim and all.

Anyway, rule #1 of thrift items, wash everything thoroughly.  Then turn the candle holder over and glue the base with industrial glue.

  *ka-chunk*

Let it cure completely before flipping it back over.

Sweet. All done. And it's crazy strong glue too. Sak and I tried ripping it apart with no luck.

Let's test this fancy thing out with some Japanese sweets.  This one is called Shibuya potato cake.

Supposed to look like a purple sweet potato?  It's funny looking, but pretty tasty! I served it warm and paired it with some white tea.

It tastes like either slightly drier mashed sweet potato..or really really moist sweet potato flavored cake.

Interesting.

Anyway, have you made a cake plate yet?  They are easy to make and come out so cute! But the problem is storage! Cake plates are notoriously hard to find room for in small kitchens :P

Butter Mochi

One of my favorite island treats would definitely be butter mochi. It's like mochi, only not as sticky and fifty million times better. It's similar to my other favorite, bibingka malagkit, and takes less effort to prepare.

They sell it at most stores in Hawaii, so when I got home I had to make my own to curb the cravings. >.>"

Butter Mochi (adapted from allrecipes with help from my church cookbook)

1 box of Mochiko (sweet rice flour)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups milk (I used 2%)
5 eggs
12 oz. can of coconut milk (don't confuse it with coconut cream!)
coconut flakes or shreds (to spread on top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients - sugar, mochiko and baking powder together. Mix wet ingredients - butter, vanilla, milk, eggs, and coconut milk. Stir in the dry mix to the wet.

 Pour into a greased/floured or parchment lined 9x13" pan. Sprinkly dried coconut on top.

Bake for about an hour, I think mine was in for an hour and ten minutes, until the top looks nice and toasty.  You may want to put a tray underneath the rack, because mine bubbled over a little. It will "deflate" once you take it out though.

Cool/chill until it's fully set. It tastes better the second day, but you don't have to wait until then ;)

YUM.

Sak isn't a huge coconut fan, so he scrapes the crust of the top. The coconut milk inside is much more subtle, so that doesn't bother him. I like it all! Which is unfortunate, cause this thing is pretty fatty with the coconut and butter. Haha.

Anyway, it's a great dessert for bringing to potlucks, since it's served at room temp and holds up well. Or you could just eat the whole tray yourself. If you don't judge I won't either ;)

Umai! : Hedgehog Bao

Deep in the frozen tundra of the Asian freezer food aisle lived a band of spiky little fellows.

A warm trip to the sauna warmed their cute buns to a perfectly squishy state.

Why hello there, little guys!

Mr. Hedgehog bao, you are so adorable!

I must take a bite.

Red bean blood! Eep!

(Found them at Marina Food Market in San Mateo for about $3.5)

Sweet Treats

So I'm supposedly on a healthy-penga diet so I can fit into my sundresses again for when we go back to Hawaii this winter (YAY!). But I can't resist trying out a new food - especially if it's sweet!

How about an ice cream taiyaki?

So cute!

Filled with red bean and some sort of frozen soft cream/whip creamish stuff.

Or this candy, that promises an archaeological dig inside it's milk chocolaty goodness?

Okay, so this one was pretty disappointing. I thought it would come with an mini tool for digging. Nope, nothing! And I'm not sure the gummy inside really resembles a dino, but then I did let it half-melt in the car for a while...

A little more grown-up, how about a tasty thai tea popsicle?

These are seriously amazing. One of my favorite drinks, frozen on a stick! How can one resist? They also make a melon flavor that I really like too!

Anyway, it's good I have Sak and other family to help me eat all the interesting stuff I find. Or maybe I just need to stay in the vegetable aisles of grocery stores from now on. :P

Have you discovered a new sweet treat to indulge on this summer?

Pandan Cake

Have you ever had these green Vietnamese waffles? They are sooo good, especially when piping hot with a crispy outside and soft, steamy center...Mmm.

(source)

Only recently did I learn why they are green though. :P It's this plant, pandan!

(source)

Well, sometimes not the plant itself. Sometimes it's the plant extract and some green food coloring. :P I bought some from Ranch 99. :)

It smells terrible.  There's alcohol in it, to keep it fresh I guess? Don't do a direct sniff. Waft like a high school chem student!

Unfortunately I do not have a waffle maker, so I thought I'd make a pandan cake instead.  I used this recipe from My Food Trail,  though I definitely whacked my way through it.  I used regular sugar in place of caster sugar, coconut cream and cow milk in place of coconut milk, and a square pan instead of a ring pan. Oh, and I also converted all the gram measurements to tablespoons and such.  A little rounding involved..

I've never made a chiffon type cake before, and I don't think my whipped eggs were quite up to muster.

They were okay, but not fluffy mountains or anything.

The one thing I was really bummed about though was the lack of greenness!

No green. :(

Apparently, my pandan essence didn't have enough food coloring in it. I should have added my own.

The taste, however, was pretty delicious! It was kinda like a fluffy spongecake (though probably not as fluffy as it could have been), and the coconut/pandan flavor came out nicely.

Still-frozen cool hwip on top.

I still prefer waffles, but this cake wasn't so bad! Definitely needs to be green next time though.

Have you had pandan flavored food before? Was it greeeeeen?

Umai! : Japanese Choco

Well, no dessert cooking trials for me this week since we got a box of Japanese chocolates in the mail.

We don't know why Sak's parents decided to send us chocos, but my guess is that it's a "sorry-BIL's-still-living-with-you" gift.  Peace offering? Ha... Well, I will say that they do know both our weaknesses well. Me = something I can eat.  Sak = chocolate.

Anyway, I really like Japanese chocolates because they are not nearly as sweet as your standard Hershey's bar.  I can eat a whole lot more of these types in one sitting before feeling sick.  I guess that could be a bad thing too!

And, to celebrate Pocky Day (today! 11-11!), we've got some Salty Pocky. I think it's a new flavor?

Because nothing says Asian quite like added sodium.

I spy hypertension in our futures.

Salty pocky was really good though.  I wonder if I could just dip a normal Pocky stick in salt and save myself the trouble of finding it again?

And obviously more important than Pocky Day, it is also Veterans Day.  Thank you vets for your service and for helping keep us safe here! May you enjoy plenty of Pocky today!

Umai! : Dan Tat

If I had to pick one family of desserts to be my favorite, I'd probably have to choose custards.  I love the creamy, sweet texture more than anything!  Creme brulee, flan, you name it, I'll eat it.

Dan tat, a Chinese egg custard, holds a special place in my heart.  I always ate them as a kid, pretending that they were baby pies just for me.  You can find them at any Chinese bakery, and though sometimes they come in normal-pie size, they are usually small and bite-size!

My favorite way to eat them is when they are super fresh and slightly warm.  I'll pop them right out of the tin and straight into my mouth!

Or, I'll pretend I'm a fairy and cut myself a little tart slice.

Actually that's still kinda big for a fairy.

But this time they ripped me off with the custard. Look at this big air gap!

Boo.

Anyway, apparently these are pretty easy to make since they don't involve water bath baking like creme brulee or flan, so I may try and make some for Thanksgiving. I wonder if I can find small tins somewhere, or will I just have to eat a bunch of dan tat and save the tins? :)

Are you a custard fan?

Other Desserts:

Red Bean Mochi Soup
Hawaiian Bread Pudding
Mooncakes
Tofu Pie
Bibingka Galapong
Wintermelon Cake
Sweet Almond Tea
Baumkuchen
Mango Sticky Rice

Umai! : Mango Sticky Rice

I'm sure many of you have had mango sticky rice before, as it's a popular item at any Thai restaurant.  It's simple ingredients would also suggest that it'd be easy to make at home.

I used the recipe from Cooking From Above, though it's a pretty simple dish and can be found all over the internet (here's a version similar to the one I used).

The book simplifies a lot of Asian dishes, but I love the overhead pictures of each step! So useful for noobs like me.

The hardest part about this sticky rice is that you have to let the rice soak overnight.  Which requires meal planning more than a couple hours in advance!  Not one of my natural abilities.

Rice after soaking.

This dish also called for a cheesecloth! (So exciting, I know!)  I found one at Safeway, opened it up and declared:

"Cheesecloth is gauze!"  Yes.  Figured that out.

Once the rice is soaked, I steamed it in the cheesecloth for about a half hour or so.

Fluffy and sticky!

Then I poured in some coconut milk and sugar, and let it all soak up into the rice.

Well, I mixed it in first, of course.

Top with some mango, and dig in!

Yeah, I don't have any clue how to cut mango.  You think islander-husband would have taught his wifu, but I don't think he knows either.

Anyway, the best part, to me, is the mango! So make sure you get a nice juicy sweet one (mine wasn't quite ripe enough).  Bananas also work really well with this dish if you're not a mango fan.

Though not a meal light on fat and calories, it's certainly delicious!

Other Desserts:

Red Bean Mochi Soup
Hawaiian Bread Pudding
Mooncakes
Tofu Pie
Bibingka Galapong
Wintermelon Cake
Sweet Almond Tea
Baumkuchen