Butter Mochi Cupcakes

For Annie's birthday party this past Sunday, I wanted to make ice cream and cupcakes and decided on black sesame ice cream and butter mochi cupcakes after she said she liked the Asian flavor ice creams and requested a non-citrusy cupcake. I've made mochi cake before, but when I looked up recipes for the cupcakes on-line, I noticed that there was a lot less milk used in the recipe I found than in the recipe I usually used. I also came across recipes for butter mochi, which used coconut milk in addition to or instead of milk. So I decided to combine the two to make butter mochi cupcakes!

Butter Mochi Cupcakes with Sweetened Red Beans
makes about 26 cupcakes

1 stick unsalted butter, melted (and cooled to room temperature)
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can coconut milk
1 pound (16 ounces) glutinous rice flour (the green bag with the 3 elephants on it)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (18.75 oz.) can sweetened red beans (or red bean paste)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners and spray the inside of the liners with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and coconut milk. Stir in the rice flour and baking powder and mix well.

Fill the cupcake liners about halfway with the batter. Place about a teaspoon of the sweetened red beans on top of the batter. Divide the remaining batter evenly among the liners. The liners should be 80-90% full.

Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden brown.

Since I wasn't going to frost these, I experimented with a couple of ways to decorate them. For the cupcake in the very first picture picture, I just left it as is with the red bean sandwiched between two layers of batter. I also tried using a toothpick to swirl the red bean layer around with the batter and putting some whole red beans on top in a flower pattern. I ended up liking the first kind the most because they were the only ones that got nice and golden brown on top. The swirls that I tried were really too thin and faint, and the whole red beans ended up migrating during the baking process so you couldn't even tell it used to be a flower.

In the end, I thought the cupcakes were just okay. They tasted fine, but they didn't develop the nice crust that I get when I make my normal recipe for mochi cake. Whether that's because of the tweaked recipe with less liquid or because there was no contact with a metal surface or a combination of the two, I'm not sure. I also didn't think the texture of the cupcake was conducive to cupcake form. It was soft and sticky (as it should be) which meant that it stuck to the cupcake liner (even though I sprayed it with cooking spray) and lost its shape as it was eaten. In my opinion, you should be able to easily peel the liner away from a cupcake, and it shouldn't turn into a blob when you try to eat it. So I think I will stick to making mochi cake in sheet cake form with my original recipe, although I may try it with coconut milk instead of regular milk next time.

Stay tuned for the black sesame ice cream recipe which turned out much better. =)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Red Bean and Black Sesame Ice Cream

After the moffle party a couple of weeks ago, I had a lot of leftover sweetened red beans and sweetened condensed milk left over so I decided to make some red bean ice cream like last time. Except I didn't have enough sweetened condensed milk so when I taste tested the mixture before churning it, it didn't seem quite sweet enough. I also happened to have some leftover instant black sesame powder, so I decided to add that to the mix, and voila! Red bean and and black sesame ice cream!

Red Bean and Black Sesame Ice Cream
makes about 1 quart

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sweetened red beans
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup instant sesame powder

Mix all the ingredients and freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Harden overnight in the freezer.

It was so simple to make and not surprisingly, perfect on moffles! I think next time I may try to make a black sesame ice cream. And I still dream about making a pure white almond ice cream....

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Red Bean Ice Cream

So I had some leftover sweetened condensed milk from making mayonnaise shrimp and some leftover sweetened red beans from making the nian gao and put them in the same container thinking I could make some shaved ice later. But then I realized that it's way too cold for shaved ice and decided to try to make red bean ice cream instead (don't ask me why ice cream is acceptable but shaved ice isn't; it just is, okay?) I also had some leftover heavy cream from making the peppermint ice cream so I added what I had left along with an equal amount of skim milk. Alternatively, you can use 1 1/2 cups half and half since half and half is half cream and half milk. And I just wrote "half" 6 times in that sentence. =)

Red Bean Ice Cream
makes 1 quart

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup sweetened red beans
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk

Mix the ingredients and chill in the refrigerator for a few hours until cold.

Churn in a ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Freeze for several hours or overnight until hardened.

Usually you don't add the non-liquid parts of an ice cream batter to the ice cream maker until the end, but I wanted to mash up the red beans a bit and get the red color incorporated into the ice cream so threw them in there from the really beginning. I love how you can taste the flavor of the sweetened condensed milk, and it reminds me of shaved ice without being all icy.

You know, I think this is the first recipe I've come up with all by myself without adapting anyone else's!

Next: My attempt at making red bean mochi ice cream....

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Nian Gao (aka Mochi Cake)

Another Chinese dessert that is traditionally eating in the winter, or more specifically, for the New Year, is nian gao. Similar to the Korean dduk and Japanese mochi, it is made from glutinous rice flour, which can be found in Asian grocery stores. Make sure you get the glutinous version (I buy the green bag with the 3 elephants on it) versus regular rice flour (the red bag with the 3 elephants on it). This recipe (from Joanna Lee) has sweetened red beans baked into it and is very rich because of all the butter. You could use a little less butter, but really, why would you want to?

Nian Gao (Mochi Cake with Red Beans)
makes 24 pieces

1 stick unsalted butter, melted (and cooled to room temperature)
1 1/4 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups milk, warmed to a little hotter than a fever
1 pound (16 ounces) glutinous rice flour (the green bag with the 3 elephants on it)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (18.75 ounce) can red bean paste or sweetened red beans

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and milk. Stir in the rice flour and baking powder. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Drop red bean paste by scant teaspoonfuls onto the top of the cake. If spoonfuls are too big, the filling will sink to the bottom.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cake springs back when lightly touched. It should be golden.

Serve small slices of this very rich cake at room temperature or slightly warmed.

The hardest part about making this dish is getting all the ingredients to mix. You don't want the butter to be too hot or else it will cook the eggs, but if the milk is straight out of the fridge it will solidify the butter. If you do run into that problem, you could try microwaving the mixture just enough so that the butter melts again, but I think it is easier to get the milk warm before adding it to the butter.

For extra decadence, you can slice the nian gao into thin slices, dip them in beaten egg, and pan-fry for Cantonese-style nian gao.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad