Chocolate-Almond Genoise Layer Cake with coffee butter cream

This is the birthday cake I made for my dearly god sister's birthday this year. My god sister has been deeply spoiled by me in the past few years being my dessert tasting guinness pig. Now she's more picky on cake than ever - she specifically requested from me not to bake her any green tea red bean favor cake for her birthday as she is tired of it! To make the remaining choices even more limited, she doesn't like any fruity favor cake. So cakes like strawberry shortcake, Chinese style fruit cake, or any type of cake with berries are all out! In researching for a cake she would like, I knew I had to go along the line of chocolates or coffee. This chocolate almond genoise and coffee butter cream layer cake has the best of both favors. It's a hybrid recipe I combined together from two recipes, neither of which I had tried before. But I think after making them and having to receiving good comments, I am confidence that they taste pretty good and more importantly they are not difficult to make.



The cake layer is created based off a simple Italian genoise sponge cake recipe using almond flour and the chiffron cake technique (beating the egg white separately).

Chocolate genoise
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 cup almond flour
• 6 tablespoon chocolate powder
• ¼ cup all purpose flour
• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 4 tablespoon white granulated sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease an 11×17(or 12×16) sheet pan with shortening. Line with parchment and grease parchment paper. Set aside.
Combine the 2 whole eggs, confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a bowl. Combine with a hand-held mixer until batter has lightened considerably in color.(Should be a pale yellow.) Add the 1½ tsp. matcha powder and mix on low speed until combined. Set aside.
Whip the egg whites in a clean bowl on low speed until they start to froth. Add the cream of tartar and increase mixer speed, whipping until stiff peaks form. Add the 2 tbsp. granulated sugar and whip for a few seconds longer to incorporate.
Sift the flour over the pale yellow egg mixture, then scoop about ⅓ of the egg whites into the egg mixture and fold together gently with a rubber spatula. Add the remaining egg whites and fold in until uniformly mixed.
Pour the batter into the sheet pan and distribute it evenly with an offset spatula, making the layer as level and smooth as possible. Your batter will be spread very THIN.
Bake for about 8-12 minutes until the cake is just firm. Keep an eye on the cake as it bakes! It will burn easily!
Remove from the oven and turn out cake onto a cooling rack. Remove parchment. Allow to cool slightly. Cut cake into four even pieces.

Coffee butter cream (recipe adopted from Chef Defontaine's popular Paris pastisserie- Le Royale au Cafe)
• ¾ cup (or a bit less) cup sugar
• ½ cup water
• 6 large egg yolks
• 2 ½ sticks unsalted butter (cut into pieces, softened)
• 1 (starbucks) expresso shot (about 2-2.5 tablespoon)

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar, about 4 minutes. Let the mixture boil for 3 or 4 minutes, until it forms a soft ball (234-240 degree).
Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer until fluffy.
As soon as the syrup is ready, with the machine running, pour the syrup onto the beaters in a very thin, steady stream until all the syrup is incorporated. Continue to beat until the mixture is fluffy and cooled to room temperature.
Add the butter, 1 or 2 pieces at a time, beating until the mixture is well blended and fluffy. Add the expresso to the butter cream and beat until well blended.

Assemble the cake:
Cut the cake into 4 even pieces
Place the bottom layer on a platter or a piece of card board cut slightly larger than the cake. With a spatula, spread about butter cream (thin layer or a bit thicker depending on one’s taste) on the layer. Gently place the second layer on top, spread another layer of butter cream, repeat to have 4 layers of cake and 4 layer of cream fillings (total of 8 layers).

Butternut Squash Soup

Hi everyone! It’s been a long 4 months since I updated this blog. It’s been a very difficult and busy 4 months at work. My life was literally put to a pause during this period. Hence, this blog as well. Nevertheless, my passion for cooking and baking never died. I still managed to find myself slipping some simple recipes to cook out. It’s true that you will always find time for things you are passionate about.
This soup recipe that I am sharing here it’s a very simple 15 minute recipe that yields a very comforting soup, especially during the winter season. I made it several times during the winter but only have time to post now. Apologies for the delay.
Serving size: 4

Ingredients:
· small butternut squash, about 1.5 pounds, diced (1/2-inch)
· sweet potatoes, peeled and diced (1/2-inch)
· ½ to 1 medium onion, diced
· 3-inch sprig of fresh rosemary
· 2 tbsp butter
· 6 cups vegetable broth
· salt + pepper to taste
· cream (optional)

Procedures:
Melt butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Add vegetables and rosemary and stir to coat. Cover pot and allow veggies to sweat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After 10 minutes, add broth. Bring to a boil then drop heat to moderate simmer. Let soup simmer for an additional 20 minutes, until potatoes and squash are quite tender. Remove rosemary sprig. Using an immersion blender or a regular blender, puree' soup until smooth and creamy. Salt and pepper to taste.
Optional: heavy cream for garnish or add to soup for a more creamy taste.

Skillet Roasted Chicken

Long over-due for cooking new dishes! The last 2 months had been crazy busy for me. I went on a 3.5 week vacation, 1 week for work training, and then took another short trip. Finally I have returned back home for the holidays and had have the luxury to cook again.

This is one of the dishes I cooked for our Christmas dinner this year. This skillet roasted chicken was featured in the front cover of the Bon Appetit magazine which was lent to be from one of my favorite colleagues who was dying to share this with me when he first saw it. This skillet roasted chicken is from the #1 restaurant in the States. With this hype, I gotta try it out right?

I have never really roasted a whole chicken at home before. It always seems like roasting a whole chicken is a very troublesome process which involving preparing the whole chicken all the way to cleaning up the oven after all the splattering of the chicken oil. This recipe is a bit different than others I have looked at before. The key to this dish is prepoaching the chicken in an immersion circulator: cooking the chicken sous vide (French for “under vacuum”). This restaurant technique locks in moisture and keeps the food in contact with flavor-boosting seasonings. The vacuum-sealed item (usually protein) is poached in a bag at a low, controlled temperature that ensures optimum doneness. So the trick to this recipe is the “hot-water baths” used before the chicken is placed into the oven. Since most home cook at home don’t have a immersion circulator, this recipe teaches us a home-cook friendly method to get an almost-perfect vacuum inside an everyday resealable plastic bag (please look at the step 4 below to show you how).

Ingredients

· 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

· 3 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives

· 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme

· 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh Chervil (I actually skipped this one as I couldn’t find it in the super market)

· 1 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley

· 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh tarragon

· 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

· 1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

· ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

· 1 (2-3lbs) chicken, halved

· 2 ½ tsp. kosher salt

Procedures

1. Whisk 1/3 cup oil oil, 1 Tbsp. chives and next 7 ingredients in a medium bowl.

2. Divide marinade between 2 (gallon-size) resealable plastic freezer bags.

3. Season chicken with 2 ½ tsp. salt, place 1 chicken half in each bag. Seal bag, release excess air, chill overnight.

4. Place bags side by side in a large pot. Add cold water to cover by 2’’. Heat water over medium heat until an instant-read thermometer registers 150 degree.

5. Turn off heat, cover, and poach chicken for 50 minutes.

6. Transfer bags to a large bowl of ice water to cool, about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from bags; pat dry.

7. Preheat oven to 450 degree.

8. Heat vegetable oil in a large cast-iron skillet over high heat. Add chicken halves, skin side down, so chicken sits against sides of pan. Cook, moving chicken occasionally for even cooking, until skin is browned all over. Flip chicken and transfer skillet to oven. (note that I skipped this instead as I didn’t want to get the kitchen all smoky. As a result, I had to leave my chicken in the over longer (about 28 minute in the oven instead of 15 minutes)

9. Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of thight registers 165 degree, about 15 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Again, since I skip the skillet procedure, I had to leave my chicken in the oven to cook longer. I first tried 20 minute and the chicken was still a bit red in the inside and not too brown on the outside so I let it cooked for another 8 minute then it turn out almost perfect – got a nice brown coding outside and still very juicy inside the meat. I think the poaching procedures works very well on the chicken in order to give it moisture and tenderness. So the extra pre-poaching step here it’s actually worth a try!

Oxtail stew in tomato red wine sauce 西班牙牛尾煲

Another one of my favorite dishes to cook. I usually make this dish when I am hosting dinner parties at home since it is well liked by most of my friends. It goes well with almost everything: pasta, rice, garlic bread....etc. It is also a good winter dish for thanksgiving dinner/X'mas dinner too. Who doesn't like oxtails right? This dish calls for a lot of ingredients. But don't let this overwhelm you! It's actually not hard to make. It just takes sometime because it's oxtail takes hours to cook to tender and fall off the bone.

Ingredient:

-2lbs Oxtail
-1 medium onion, diced
-2 medium carrorts, diced
-3 celery stalk, diced
-3 baking potato
-15oz of canned diced tomatoes (use fresh only at peak season)
-2 tbsps miced garlic
-2-3 medium bay leaves
-1 small bunch parsley, chopped (optional)
-2 cups red wine (dry red wine)
-1 can beef stock
-1 canned tomato paste
-1 tin water
-salt and pepper
-sugar to taste
-four for dusting
-oil for frying

Procedures - let the fun begins....

1. Season the oxtail with salt and pepper and then dust with flour


2. heat a large pan or casserole that will later hold all the meat, heat and fry the oxtail in batches until well browned. Remove and set aside


3. add a little more oil to the pan/casserole, add the onion, carrorts, celery and potato. Fry over medium heat for 2 minute, add in the garlic and bay leaves, fry for another 5 minute, stirring continuously so not to burn


4. Remove the potato from the pan and return the oxtail from step 2, add the wine, tomatoes, and broth, water, and season with salt, pepper and sugar to taste


5. Bring to boil, cover and place in the preheated over (350 degree). Cook for 2 1/2-3 hours or until the meat is very tender and starts to fall off the bone. If you do not want to use over, you can use stove instead.


6. add in the remaining potato during the last hour and let it cook for 1 hour.
   
   
   
   

Baked Mochi Cake 焗年糕

I had this baked mochi cake (or rice cake) from Rachel's place. It's tasted so comforting that I immediately fell in love with it at first bite! Thanks Rachel for sharing this yummy rice cake recipe with me. It's very easy to make. The preparation takes less than 20 min w/o the baking time. I thought this would be a good recipe to share :)

Ingredients:
Butter: 1 cube
Egg: 5 large eggs
Milk: 3 cups (i used 1% milk)
Baking Powder: 2 teaspoon
Sugar: 1 cup
Rice flour: 1 box of Mochiko rice flour (can find in most Asian market, i.e Ranch 99)
Red Bean: 1 can

Procedures:

1. Warm up milk in the pan with sliced butter, turn off the heat when it gets luke warm.



2. With electric mixer, mix eggs well. Add in the sugar and baking powder. Mix well until creamy



3. Pour the milk and butter mixture (from step 1) to step 2 and mix well.



4. Add rice flour, little by little, to the above mixture.



5. butter a cake pan (~8'')or a glass pan, spread the red bean over the bottom of the pan, and pour in the batter



6. Pre-heat over at 350, bake for about 1 hour

Miso Glazed Black Cod 西京燒銀鱈魚

I first saw this miso black cod recipe from one of my favorite food blogs I followed. I had always loved black cod. Love its silky texture and dedicated favor. Until I came across with this recipe, I never knew that black cod could go so well with miso! And neither did I know that this is a famous Japanese dish serve in most fancy Japanese restaurant as a delicacy. I fell in love with black cod with miso since the first time I made it at home. While this recipe is not too hard to make at home, ordering it at Japanese restaurants here in California is quite expensive. Until Masha asked me for the recipe a few month ago, i never thought I would want to share it here. I guess a lot of people would be interested in making this at home too. So here you go..especially dedicated to Masha...

Ingredients:
2-3 black cod fillets (about 1 lb)
For the marinate:
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
5 tablespoons white miso paste
3 tablespoons sugar (or taste to make it right)

Note: this marinate base sauce is a keeper. It goes well with a lot of white fish such as chilean sea bass.

Procedures:

1) Mix the marinate ingredients in a small pot over low heat and bring it to boil, then set aside to cool down
2) Pat the fish fillets dry with paper towels and put them into the plastic container/plate with the marinate. (note that I marinate should be enough to cover the fish fillets). Cover the lid or with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 48 hours
3) Pre heat oven to 400 degree F. Move the oven rack to the second position from the top. Scrape any extra miso sauce off the fillets and place them on a rack on top of a baking sheet, skin side down. Bake for about 15-18 minutes depending on the thickness of the fillet
4) Then turn the broiler onto the “high” setting, put the pan under the broiler and broil until the Black Cod is golden brown on the top side. Flip the fillets skin-side up and continue broiling until the skin is lightly charred and crisp. If you have thicker fillets, insert a fork into the thickest part of the fillet to see if it’s cooked. The meat should be opaque and come apart readily. Cook for about 5 minute and the fillet is done.
5) With the remaining miso sauce, we can heat up to thicken to use for plating. We can use this sauce to garnish the fish when done and/or add a few drops to the side vegetables (e.g. bak choy). It tastes great!

Note: I like my miso cod more intense with the flavor of sake and miso so I would normally add more miso (like 1 more table spoon) to the marinate but that’s just a personal preference. Instead of using sugar, you can also replace it with honey too which makes it more caramelized when broiled.

Red Bean Mochi 豆沙糯米糍

Mochi, which is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice flour, is one of my family's favorite delicacies. My dad is a huge fan of glutinous flour and sweets. This little Japanese delicacy with the combination of glutinous rice flour and sweet red bean paste makes the perfect all year round prominent snack in my house. My mom almost makes it every other week, if not every week! Hence, this recipe I am sharing here is adapted from my mom's original recipe:

Ingredient
(note: makes about 20 mochi)
Glutinous rice flour: 1 Pack or 16oz
Water : 1 1/3 cup
Coconut milk: 1 can
Sugar: ¾ cup
Oi: 2 table spoon
red bean paste: 1 pack

A lot of friends had asked me what exactly is glutinous flour and where can you find it in the store. So I thought I would just show you guys pictures of what it looks like to make it easier to find. From left to right, they are: glutinous rice flour, coconut milk, and red bean paste. All can be found in any aisan market.
Procedures:
1. Combine glutinous rice flour and sugar together
2. Slowly add in the coconut milk and; mix until smooth
3. Prepare a glass shallow plate, brush with oil
4. Pour the mixture from step 2) onto the greased glass plate, steam over high heat with cover for 30 minutes. (hint: use a chopstick to test if the flour is fully cooked. If not much flour mixture stick to the chopstick, it’s done)
5. While the mixture is steaming, in a separate bowl pour 4 table spoons of glutinous rice flour and microwave it for 1 minute. This is for dusting the mocha at the end.
6. Transfer the cooked flour mixture (or the dough) to a greased surface and cut into small pieces using a plastic knife (depending on the size of the mochi you want to make, I usually cut into pieces a bit smaller than the size of a ping pong ball).
7. Note: the cooked dough is super sticky, so make sure you work with a pair of food gloves. Take one piece of the dough, stretch it gently so it will be large enough to envelop the red bean paste, and place it on the palm of your hand, then fold the edge to seal the mochi, lightly roll it into a ball shape using both palms, then coat it with cooked flour (or desiccated coconut).