Chinese Steamed Buns - Mantou (饅頭)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the soft inside fluffy parts of bread.  Crust can be ok, but by and far it is always the fluffy insides that I love to sink my teeth into when eating a piece of a bread.  Chinese steamed buns, or mantou (饅頭) are like the fluffy insides of a fresh baked loaf of bread, without any of the hard or dry crusts that comes with regular bread.  Unfortunately, most of the mantou you can buy at the grocery stores here in the U.S. are always too dense or dry for my liking, and I missed the ones my mom used to make which were chewier and fluffier, with a bounce.

 

Asking my mom for a recipe though usually amounts to "just add a little of this, and some of that and mix until it looks/feels about right." So... I turned to Google Search and browsed a bunch of sites, read some comments, and chose to Frankenstein together several of the ideas.  I specifically wanted to try and make black sesame and sweet potato versions.  It took a few batches, but I'm pretty happy with how it finally came out for the sweet potato and plain versions.  The black sesame ones, alas, will still need some work (didn't help that I overcooked them and they kinda burned too - I REALLY want to make a Totoro version!!!). （。-＿-。）

My poor deformed and burned Totoros

Feel free to play with the ratios of flours.  If you like a denser feel, you can try replacing some of the AP flour with bread flour (50% AP, 25% BF, 25% CF for example).  Most recipes call for adding a bit of lard or canola oil - I chose to use butter instead, but you can replace with equivalent amount of lard/shortening or 1TB of oil.

I need to start my baking earlier for better lighting... (^^ゞ

Green Tea Macarons with Black Sesame Buttercream

YUUUUSSSS!!! >50% of this batch of macarons came out perfect. （*/∇＼*）And they were all smooth topped and had proper feet! The failed ones were the ones that came out hollow but hey, those are still edible and I'll take it! It's been ages (if ever) that I've been this happy with a batch of macarons.  They are the cookies that refused to be conquered.  Honestly, they aren't even my favorite cookies!  I keep making them though because I'm stubborn and I love the challenge of trying to make them precisely because I have not mastered it.  Every time I have an extra egg white I try to practice making a small batch, and although I sometimes feel like it's playing roulette, it is so rewarding when they do come out correctly.  There is also an infinite number of flavor combinations that one can play with so it never gets boring.

This attempt came about because I've been on a black sesame kick and had a spare egg white left over from making kasutera.  I love this recipe from the food blog Shiawase Days as it makes a small batch using just one egg white (extra large egg), has a simple ingredient list, and her ingredient amounts made exactly the right amount of batter and filling.  One thing she does differently that I hadn't seen much of was to bake at a much lower temperature for a longer time to prevent browning, which I think I will be doing now too as my oven tends to run hot.  She also piped 2" rounds, resulting in fewer cookies, but my template was closer to 1.5" so I was able to get about 26 shells.  I still need to work on my technique (sometimes I wonder if it's the way I pipe the batter that causes some to be hollow and others not??) but will definitely be using her proportions going forward.  (⌒▽⌒)☆

Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

Been months since the last post...but o welps, better than no post right? (#^.^#)  I made this cake completely on a whim - just randomly thought to myself, "Hm, wonder if there's a good black sesame cake recipe out there?" and of course there was.  Yay Google Search.  This recipe comes from a Taiwanese food blogger from Australia going by Green Cilantro, though sadly, it seems she hasn't posted anything new in the last couple of years.  I pretty much followed it to the letter with an extra step, and listed more weight measurements.

For the most part I think the cake turned out great, except mine was no where near as tall as hers, despite using a pan that was about 9 1/2"- 10" in diameter like she had said in her post.  Perhaps I over-mixed it and deflated the egg whites too much when folding them in, but my batter just did not fill up my pan very much even before baking.  The finished cake was still plenty fluffy and light in texture though, so not sure what's up with that.  ヽ(￣д￣;)ノ At any rate, it was an after-the-fact trial run for my tot's birthday cake next month and I was pretty happy with the results, especially as it is not overly sweet.  Hopefully I will get better pictures of it next time with a proper camera and update this post later. （＾ｖ＾）

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Spring is in full swing here - with some days so blazing hot it feels like summer.  Thanks to that, my allergies are also on full throttle with all the blooming plants everywhere.  Though we are still getting the occasional chilly day here and there, the weather otherwise has been going to the mid 70s and up, bringing with it the first batches of beautiful ripe strawberries for the season.

Even though there are at least 6 other vendors selling strawberries at different stands throughout the farmers market we go to, one vendor consistently has the longest line for their berries - often to the annoyance of their neighbors since the line blocks their stalls.

Since we bought quite a few strawberries, I wanted to try my hand at a fresh strawberry pie - especially since I failed to make a pie last week for Pi Day.  I grew up eating mostly Chinese and Japanese food, but my mom would occasionally buy American food as a treat for us - usually in the form of Western-style desserts or fast food and frozen food when she didn't feel like cooking.   My hands down favorite was when it was strawberry season and she would buy a fresh strawberry pie on sale for $5 from the Marie Callender's restaurant near our house.  Piled high with strawberries that glistened like jewels, and topped with whipped cream, those pies never lasted more than a day in our house.

I tried a few times in my early 20s to bake pies...but they always ended up completely and utterly DISGUSTING.  Uncooked gummy dough.  Dull and tasteless fruit.  Tons of wasted ingredients.  It was enough to turn me off trying to bake pies from scratch for nearly 10 years!

I finally got up the courage to try again after coming across this recipe for a sourdough pâte brisée from the Bojon Gourmet while chatting with a friend and wondering if there was such a thing as a sourdough pie crust.  Who knew? :)  Being older and wiser (and with a bit more means than a recent college grad), I now had proper baking tools at my disposal, including an investment into a nice ceramic pie plate from Emile Henry for this new attempt at pie-making.  It also helped to watch YouTube videos on how to fraisage dough. (^_−)☆ 

Much to my surprise, the blueberry-apple pie I made using the recipe from the Bojon Gourmet was an edible success!  As was my attempt at a banoffee pie a few weeks later!  All of which led to today's attempt to do a fresh strawberry pie and recreate my childhood tastebud memories. The result?  My tastebuds (and tummy) were pretty darn happy. （⌒▽⌒）