Sakura an-pan, blossom sweet bread

The sweet bread of the season is topped with a cherry blossom !

pickled sakura

It’s seasonal variation of anpan, a kashipan (Japanese sweet bread) filled with anko sweet bean paste. :

A sweet bread dough : 1 ts of yeast, 3 tbs of kurozato black sugar, 2 cups of AP flour, enough tonyu (home-made soy milk) to wet that. I’ve mixed it in the home-bakery machine.
Filled with sakura an paste and shaped.

DIY sakura bean paste (click here)

Baked 20 minutes at 180 C. OK, the shapes are… what they are.

Only one had a perfect aspect, but they were all delicious. I didn’t make enough.

Le nouveau gâteau truffe au chocolat , with soy yogurt

Not your grandma’s usual yogurt, not her salon de thé ‘s truffe au chocolat. I had no intention to remake them. The cake ended up similar just like that as I was improvising. Lucky !

Freshly made soy yogurt

It’s the greatest soy yogurt for me. Commercial soy yogurt are always on the runny side of creamy, or on the jello side. And the Japanese soy yogurt, oh my, I’d never eat that, it’s over-sweetened and flavored with with stevia that I loath.
This one has a texture of… yogurt. And a taste of soy. It’s perfect.
Don’t skip the sugar, it helps maturation and the result is not sweet at all.

Easy recipe :
-make one liter of thick tonyu soy milk (tutorial)
-in a small cup mix 1 tbs of potato starch, 1/4 of agar, 1/2 cup of soy milk. Cook a few seconds in the micro-wave till its thickens. You get a mess.
-in the blender, mix the warmed soy milk, the cup of starch, 1 tbs of sugar, 2 tbs of store bough soy yogurt
-let overnight in a yogurt maker

Tip : you can take a thermos/thick pot with a lid, place glass bin in the middle, very hot water around…and you have a yogurt maker. I do that for smaller batches.

Freshly made soy ‘Greek’ yogurt.
Drained in a cheese cloth (from the pharmacy), let overnight in the fridge. Drink the whey or use it for cooking, it’s full of healthy probiotics.

Other dairy-like ideas : my diary-free diary.

Now, let’s make the cake : I whip all that to make a chocolate mousse.

A nutty biscuit base (just blend all together).

Composition : the base, a layer of mousse, slices of kumquat, more mousse, cocoa.
The result is really bluffing. That’s not exactly looking like those from the pâtissier‘s, but that’s as close as you dream of getting for some sweet you make like that in 10 minutes. Taste is divine…

These kinkan (kumquats) are still in season and visible in the streets.

Preparing the tonyu nabe (soy milk Japanese hot pot)

The nabe (hot pot) has saved generations of Japanese from freezing in Winter in the chilly houses.

The broth makes the pot. It’s a tonyu nabe, the soup is tonyu (soy milk) that I freshly made.

Flavoring for the soup.

Veggies, many : spinach, bean sprouts, onion, carrot, red kabu turnip, edamame beans, shungiku, negi and nanohana greens.

Seafood : shrimps and cuts of tai fish. So it’s ready for tonight, when it will be too dark for photos.

It’s simple, heat the broth (don’t boil the soy milk), add flavoring… and dip in ingredients.

Tofu : tout !

Reblog from the “tofu page”

It’s compilation on the tofu topic…I add data regularly.

3 main tofu textures :

You have Japanese tofu that is :
kinu-dofu, silky tofu
momen-dofu, cotton tofu (translated as *firm tofu* in English)
Both are soft and watery. The first is very soft like egg pudding, the second is soft like starch pudding.
Really firm and dry tofu, the one that has a texture closer to meat is popular in China. It’s uncommon in Japan, except ….

Bottom line : If you like firm tofu…

Happy Lunar New Year ! With fried “snakes”.

Let’s start the new cycle with a Chinese brunch. Freshly made you tiao donuts and tonyu soy milk.

Yes, it’s a poor pun. LOL.

The you tiao had another name in each place I’ve seen them… or is it my Chinese sound hearing that is so random. This is fried bread. They surely make 2013 calories per snake, per stick. But, hao chi le, yum yum, that’s worth it

My recipe is super basic.

1 cup of bread flour (12% gluten or more, it’s important)
1 ts oil
1/4 ts of instant yeast
1/2 ts of baking powder
3 pinches of salt
water as needed (about 1 cup)

Mix. Let 5 minutes. Knead. Let one hour (till it doubles).
Spread a rectangle, cut strips, turn.

Bring oil to 160 degree, fry them to pale yellow. Keep them in the oven toaster to make next batches. Then fry them again at 190 degree just the time to get a golden color.