De Baking Psychopath

This is where my food picture documentation has started to be more patchy. First I went to Berkeley and also Chinatown with people, but I always forget to take pictures of the food when I am trying to catch up with people. We had some wonderful Taiwanese food in Berkeley, and then in Chinatown I had some decent dim sum and really awesome sizzling pepper steak and yummy bok choy.   But somewhere in between I went to Japantown. I got some mochi and salmon-stuffed rice ball (pictured above). And a ham and cheese and veggie crepe with sweet Japanese mayo. Yum! Not too heavy and crisp, and fresh. And today I took a bakery trip to Chinatown. From the top, going clockwise, we have an egg custard tart, paper-lined sponge cake, "dry pork" bun, and custard bun. Also from Chinatown was this beautiful baked pork bun from a really old school joint.  Inside was meaty and fatty and sweet and delicious. The bread was more brioche-y than a no...

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.

Today was a funny day. Michael and I had an early dentist appointment, and by the time we got back to the apartment, we were starving. At 10 am, we decided it was more efficient to skip breakfast and to just proceed to lunch. Michael prepared generous portions of spaghetti and sauce with some chicken tenders. Yum. However, the meal threw me off for the rest of the day--I was in continual surprise that it wasn't early evening already. At 12pm, I was fully in the state of mind of 4 or 5pm. The upside was that my one baking recipe of the day became three since I kept thinking, "Wow, so much time left in the day...what else can I make?" First recipe of the day was Hummus Bread . I had acquired a gigantic Costco tub of hummus for an event, and had severely overestimated the demand for pureed chickpeas, I guess. So I've eaten some of it, but I wanted to recycle it in a more creative way. Upon Googling how to use up leftover hummus, I found a link to this recipe fo...