the Nom Lab.

Mushy mochi :3

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Black sesame mochi

I swung by the library last tuesday and was delighted to find my faithful cooking aisle replenished with plenty of new recipe books. It had been so long since I last set foot in there!
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Amongst the collections of turkish, portuguese, greek and italian cuisine... I fell on a cute japanese bento book featuring, on its cover, cute piles of pastel-colored mochi aligned like good as gold little munchkins on their first day of kindergarden. (oh. right. I like to call kids munchkins :) Just thought I should clarify that )
.It reminded me of how awful my first try at mochi turned out. However, browsing through the recipes, the quick-stir-microwave method seemed pretty easy so I figured I should give those japanese rice cakes a second try.
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1rst dusting: sesame seeds
2nd: cocoa powder

3rd: tapioca starch

Not too bad huh? :) Since i've recently converted into a big fan of black sesame (and that i

think with hungry eyes instead of a wise stomach) I bought an industrial load of black sesame lotus paste which I ultimately had to use all by stuffing the heck out of those mochis.

They don't beat the store kind (yet), but i'm hoping that they'll have developed a more intricate flavour after a few days' stay in the fridge.

I'll have to try doing them the traditional way next time (pounding and pounding mounds of fuming steamed glutinous rice) instead of using the sweet rice flour and a radioactive cooking machine. Maybe it'll give a fresher and more authentic flavour.

Black Sesame Mochi

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup black sesame powder

2 tbsp sugar

3/4 cup + 1 non-packed tbsp sweet rice flour (Mochiko)

Black sesame lotus past

Tapioca starch/sesame seeds/cocoa powder to dust

1) Make small balls with the black sesame lotus paste. The size of the balls will depend on how big you want your mochis to be. Those will be the fillings. I like to place them on a plate and stick it into the freezer while I work on the mochi skin to firm them up.

2) In a fairly large bowl that goes to the microwave, combine all the dry ingredients together and mixt well to get a greyish powdery mixture.

3) Add water. Mixt until you get a light grey paste spotted with dark grey speckles.

4) Put the bowl into the microwave and bip-set it to 2 minutes on high heat.

5) Take the bowl out to churn the paste a bit. The mixture should be less gluish-white than 2 minutes ago.

6) Put the bowl back and microwave it 1min15. This time, the mixture shouldn't be white at all anymore. It should be a shiny black with eeny black sesame spots. Churn it to make sure that the paste is uniformely black shiny. If you find some pale whiteish blot, just squish it into the black mixture until it combines with it.

7) Work fast while it's still hot! Once the paste cools it'll be much chewier and harder to handle.

Take a piece out of the mochi skin paste (I usually fill up to half the inside of my wooden spatula's bowl) and flatten it on your palm. Put a black sesame filling ball in its center and close up the mochi. Roll it between your palms to create a smooth sphere. Set aside on a pre-dusted dish of the components you want to cover your mochis with (that's to dust the mochis' butts to prevent them from sticking to the plate)

8) When you're completely done shaping, you can dust the mochis at your liking (it'll stick less to your fingers and be less messy if you don't do this step while shaping and filling your mochi)

9) Cool your mochis in the fridge (I put them in an airtight sandwich box to keep their humidity and restore the softness that they might have lost by staying exposed to the air for too long)

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It's the season of cherries!

By Passionthy 10:00 PM Baking, Desserts

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..And the trend seems to be Sweet Cherry Pie!! At every blog click I seem to fall on a red berry oozing pastry eyeing me. Of course, I had to jump on the pie train too.

I used the pie crust 102 recipe from SmittenKitchen which, in my opinion, is simply m-a-g-i-c. & This is coming from the girl who miserably failed every pie recipe and swore to never attempt to make a pie ever again.

The first and last time that I tried to make a pie, I thought the principle was the same as when you bake cupcakes and bread and I put everything to room temperature. Needless to say... you pie experts out there can picture what happened : the crust turned out to be like concrete. Literally concrete. It was hard, chunky and I couldnt even snap it into crumbs.
...There goes a fabulous hand-picked blueberry filling...

.Oh well. Pie failures happen.
Life goes on.

I have cherries.

I adapted a cherry filling.

And most importantly, it's good.

.Everything's gonna be juuust fine.

Bing Cherry Filling (Adapted)

4 1/2 cups Bing Cherries, halved and pitted (I pitted cherries by hand. ...*GASP*? ..Nah. It wasn't half as bad as I imagined)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons tapioca starch (you can use cornstarch but I prefer tapioca because it gives the fruits a glossier transparent look)

juice of half a lime

1/8 tsp salt

To assemble the pie:

Egg wash

An egg white

Raw sugar

1) Roll out half of chilled dough (use larger piece, if you’ve divided them unevenly) on a floured work surface to 13-inch round. Gently place it in 9-inch pie pan, rolling it around a rolling pin and unrolling it over the pan. Brush a bit of beaten-the-heck-out-of egg whites (it's to prevent the bottom crust from getting soggy).

Put the pan with the bottom crust back in the fridge for 15 minutes to relax the gluten.

2) Stir together the cherries, tapioca starch, sugar, salt, and lemon. Mixt to coat evenly.

3) Spoon filling into pie crust, discarding the majority of the liquid that has pooled in the bowl.

4) Roll out the remaining dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface, drape it over the filling. Fold the overhang under the bottom crust, pressing the edge to seal it, and crimp the edge decoratively. Brush the egg wash over over pie crust, then sprinkle with raw sugar.

5) Preheat oven at 400°F.

6) Cut an opening (it can be slits or whatever shape you want) in the crust with a sharp knife, forming steam vents, and bake the pie in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F. and bake the pie for 25 to 30 minutes more, or until the crust is golden. Let the pie cool on a rack.