Shoyu Tofu Dango

Most commonly featured in animes and Asian dramas, dango is pretty much glutinous rice balls served on a skewer. They can be easily found in Japan anywhere for about 100 to 150 yen each. Well in the USA, that's a different story. I know they can be found at a stand in Little Tokyo in LA, and of course in the refrigerated section at your local Japanese market, but sometimes that may be a whole lot of trouble for something that can be so easily made. This recipe is a modification of ochikeron's recipe from youtube. The dango she makes look good but I do not entirely agree with putting potato starch in the shoyu sauce; it's just not traditional. Not that I am an expert at being Japanese or anything but here you go! (;

Shoyu Tofu Dango

Dango:
100 grams shiratamako flour
140 grams silken tofu, drained
1 teaspoon sugar

Sweet Shoyu Glaze
1 tablespoon shoyu
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoon brown sugar

1. Bring a pot of water to boiling.
2. Meanwhile, combine the shiratamako, tofu, and sugar together. Knead until soft but not sticky. Add a little bit more flour or water until the right consistency is reached. ("soft like an earlobe")
3. Separate the dough into twelve equal pieces and roll into round balls. Place the dango balls into the pot of boiling water until it floats to the surface. Allow to boil for an additional 2 minutes.
4. When the dango are finished cooking, immediately place them in a iced water bath for 1 minute. Strain and remove the dango from the iced bath.
5. Now we can make the shoyu glaze! Place all the ingredients in a small pot and heat under medium heat. When the sauce is bubbling, turn off the flame and allow to thicken.
6. Pour or brush the shoyu glaze onto the dango skewers and serve!

Green Tea Marble Chiffon Cake

As an avid green tea lover, I love all things green tea. Green tea candy, green tea drinks, green tea sweets, green tea! I decided to make this cake on a whim and loved it so much that I made the same cake in two consecutive days. It is so good that the first one was devoured within 24 hours. The original recipe of this cake came from Cosy Bake, however I ended up tweaking the recipe because it was extremely difficult to combine matcha paste homogeneously with batter. During the first attempt, there was pretty much huge undissolved chunks of matcha. I tried to combine it as best I could but the over mixing just destroyed the fluffiness of the whipped egg whites. In an effort to curb that problem I decided to go with a dual batter approach. Although it is a little more work, I can assure you that the resulting cake is beautiful, super moist, super soft, and delicious! Again, I recommend using a high quality matcha powder for a stronger and tastier green tea flavor.

Green Tea Marble Chiffon Cake
Note: We will be making two different batters to combine to create the marble effect.

Plain Batter:
90 grams cake flour
1 tablespoon matcha powder, high quality preferred
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
4 egg yolks
40 grams vegetable oil
40 grams sugar
90 milliliters water

Green Tea Batter:
90 grams cake flour
1 tablespoon matcha powder, high quality preferred
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
4 egg yolks
40 grams vegetable oil
40 grams sugar
90 milliliters water

8 egg whites
80 grams sugar

1. Preheat oven to 356°F.
2. Sift the cake flour and baking powder together. (Sift the matcha powder along with the flour and baking powder in the green tea batter.)
3. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, water and oil together until combined. Add the sugar into the mixture and mix well. Then in small additions, add the flour to the mixture until combined into a batter. Repeat for the green tea batter.
4. Whip egg whites until foamy and then slowly add in sugar. Continue whipping egg whites until stiff peaks form. Divide the whipped egg whites into two equal portions.
5.  Add 1/3 of the egg whites with the batter and mix to combine. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites into the batter. Repeat the same process with the other half of the egg whites in the green tea batter.
6. Fill the chiffon tin with plain batter and then layer with matcha batter in between. (You can combine the batter in any fashion you like. Play around with it to get a design you like! )
7. Bake cake for 10 minutes at 356°F. Reduce heat to 320°F and bake for another 40 minutes. To check if the cake is fully cooked, take a skewer and poke the cake from the top of the cake to the bottom of the pan. If the skewer comes out clean, it is finished! Remove the cake from the oven, invert the pan immediately and allow to cool.
8. Slice, serve and enjoy!

Kuri Manju

If you know me, you'd know that I am a sucker for all Japanese goodies and in particular Japanese sweets (aka wagashi). Additionally, if you do the grocery shopping or buy Japanese goods in general, you'd know that it ain't cheap. No sir. Typically different sweets go for at least a dollar a pop so why not make your own? So here is Kuri Manju: a yummy baked confection often filled with some sort of bean paste. Making manju from scratch takes a lot of effort especially if you're making it yourself but it's totally worth it in the end. I sort of cheated in this recipe because I bought premade adzuki paste and precooked/prepealed chestnuts but hey whatever works for you! Next time, I might try and lotus seed paste filling. Unfortunately I did not get to taste these clearly myself because I got hit by the stomach flu the night after making these but according to my grandpa, they were great! I hope you enjoy these as much as everyone else did.

Kuri Manju
Dough:
200 grams pastry flour (alternatively 150g cake flour + 50g all purpose flour)
50 grams sugar
25 grams butter
1 egg white
2 yolks
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Filling:
1 package adzuki paste
1 package peeled and cooked chestnuts

Glaze:
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Lightly beat the egg yolks and gradually add the mixture into creamed butter and sugar. When incorporated, gradually add in egg white. The resulting mixture should be smooth and velvety. If it is grainy, then you incorporated the eggs too quickly.
4. Mix flour and baking soda and add it to the wet ingredients from step 2.
5. Knead the mixture until it does not stick to your fingers and comes away easily from the bowl. Wrap the dough in plastic and set aside to rest for 30 minutes.
6. Divide rested dough into 20 equal portions. (If you have a scale, I think it is best to get the weight of the entire dough and pinch off the appropriate amount as you go so it doesn't dry out as quickly.)
7. Roll the dough into a ball and flatten dough. (I did not use a rolling pin but instead pinched and rotated the dough and flattened it between my palms.)
8. Fill the skin with a walnut-sized amount of adzuki and place half a chestnut in the center.
9. Stretch the dough over adzuki and chestnut and pinch the ends together to cover filling completely. Shape as desired. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
10. Arrange the manju on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with egg wash and bake for 20 minutes or until tops are browned as desired.
11. Serve with tea!