De Baking Psychopath

Sorry for the absence of posts lately. I have lately gone through the rigors of what is called the "Comprehensive Examination," which to those of you who may not be familiar with it, suffice it to say that it is the mid-way point of Hell for a graduate student. There are many variations upon Hell that can be inflicted upon the unsuspecting graduate student, but mine came in the form of independently (no help from my advisor) writing a proposal on a project and then defending that project in front of a committee of SIX professors over the course of 2 hours. One of the ways I attempted to ease the pain of the gauntlet run I was about to embark upon was to prepare token offerings in the form of muffins and the Green Tea Mochi Cake for my judges. I made Raisin Bran Muffins and Blueberry Pecan Muffins, both from the book Once Upon a Tart... , brought fresh brewed coffee from my special stash of Casi Cielo (it's a seasonal special roast from Starbucks, a Guatemala Antigua be...

That mochi cake was such a hit last time that I knew I had to try it with the quintessential Asian dessert pairing: matcha (green tea powder) and azuki (sweetened red bean). The recipe is exactly the same as before , except I used 2 tablespoons of matcha and one 7-something ounce can of sweetened but whole azuki (you can find it in the canned sweet things in your Asian grocery...don't get the red bean paste, but the whole beans) in place of the blueberries. Oh, also, this time I used the mochiko from Koda Farms rather than the other brand I used the first time...and it made a big difference in the thickening properties of the batter. So use the Koda Farms mochiko if you can! The results? DELICIOUS. Soft, moist spongy, chewy, crunchy top, fragrant with tea, awesome with tea or coffee....addictive.

This week, Michael found out that he passed the PA Bar and is now a licensed attorney!! Yay! It was high time I made him a cake he could keep (almost) all to himself. In the past, I've not made cakes for our birthdays or special occasions unless there was a large crowd to help eat most of it. After all, an entire two-layer, 9-inch cake to yourself may be a delicious and greedy prospect, but in the end, as we get older, we start to notice that our metabolism is just not up to the task of efficiently dispatching of the extra calories. But this time he gets most of the cake to himself, as we only had a couple of people to share the cake with--the surprise party planners! A good friend of Michael's who graduated the year before him suddenly e-mailed me out of the blue on Tuesday, asking if we had plans to celebrate the imminent Bar results (they were estimated to come out on Friday of this week) and if not, if he and his wife could come over and surprise Michael with a bottle of ...