not sure if anyone still reads my blog but i took an (almost) 2 year hiatus and i've settled into my new home, finally! so i've decided to come back to blogging at least for now and will be sharing recipes once again. so if any of my followers are still here, a big HELLO to you all!


as always spring is my favorite season at least when it comes to sweets making, so i've decided to start my series of hinamatsuri/girls day/hanami spring sweets with a tri colored pound cake! this turned out beautifully with a split down the center top. i used raspberry powder for the pink layer and it has a nice tangy taste to it not unlike yogurt. the 3 colors from bottom symbolize grass, snow followed by flowers, very apt for spring.


i've stopped using my DSLR & pc for awhile now. they're still in storage so im now using my phone solely to blog. hopefully my photos still look fine. the web version for blogger is not exactly user friendly but this will have to do, for now.

recipe is from cookpad

(makes 1 loaf)

ingredients :

100g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp matcha powder
1 tsp strawberry powder (i used raspberry powder)
100g butter, softened
80g caster sugar (i reduced to 60g)
2 eggs, room temp

method :

1. preheat oven to 170C.
2. sift together cake flour & baking powder.
3. whisk together butter and sugar until pale, then add in eggs one at a time. whisk until combined.
4. fold in flour mixture.
5. separate mixture into 3 equal portions then add in matcha powder & strawberry powder into the 2 portions respectively..
6. put batter into piping bags and pipe the matcha batter in the bottom of the loaf tin followed by the original then the strawberry batter.
7. smooth mixture with a spatula with the two ends taller than the center, like a concave shape. this is to ensure that the cake rises evenly with a crack exactly in the center. that way you dont have to draw a line down the middle like some recipes do.
8. bake for 40-50 mins, remove cake from tin and leave to cool.

and bonus pics! a preview of my kitchen :


my kitchen is relatively small this time round, but i do have dedicated prep areas for baking (two, to be exact) which is great. they're not in the pic because i didnt take pics of them yet.


sink area. totally digging the black granite sink and champagne gold faucet.


i also have two built in ovens now since i make lots of macarons. have got a couple of orders since i moved in and the ovens really made a helluva difference! makes me life so much easier.

making sakuramochi again and using my last stash of pickled sakura leaves. remember the first time i made these i used a german blogger wagashi maniac's recipe. i thought the recipe was a little complicated and time consuming since it involves soaking the sweet (glutinous) rice for 12-24 hours, pounding it followed by steaming. this one is really easy and uses a rice cooker.

its now spring and of course my favorite season to make spring wagashi and sweets. i actually had intentions to start making spring sweets much earlier but due to lunar new year, my fridge was sooo packed with stuff you wouldn't believe it.

the first half of 2014 went by in a blur. i felt that i haven't been baking much but looking back, i actually made tons of stuff. some of them were uploaded on flickr and forgotten but most of the time, i didn't bother using my DSLR so i just took some shots with my phone and uploaded them on instagram. here are some of the stuff i made + orders i took as well.


i had a couple of orders for japanese-inspired macarons. this is my first year making sakura ones and according to my customers, they were pretty well received. i guess the saltiness of the sakura flowers and leaves offset the sweetness of the macarons. i also experimented with jasmine flavored macarons. jasmine tea is dirt cheap so i had no qualms in dumping a whole lot of leaves in the cream. yay to pronounced jasmine flavor!

i hope its not too early to start on some springtime sweets! ukishima translates as "floating island" which is one of the simpler wagashis to make. its a steamed cake made of anko (or shiro-an, in this case) and is usually done in two or three layers. basically it symbolizes the arrival of spring, with its soil layer in brown, followed by a white layer which represents snow, then green (sprouts) and pink (flowers). i made only two layers since i really like the combination of matcha and sakura.

its funny how things work sometimes. pickled sakura used to be one of my most sought-after baking ingredients until i managed to find it on rakuten two years back. i thought it was plentiful and could last me awhile and then two of my friends bought me more on their trips to japan (i didn't request for it actually). so now i have too much, 3 big packs in total. i think they would last me another two more years at least. not that i'm complaining, they're so pretty and versatile and lots of spring desserts use them. but i don't wanna make another batch of sakuramochi so i decided on something i've seen but never made before - sakura jam.

i wanted to make mitarashi dango again after my first attempt was less than satisfactory. i remember the first recipe i tried, the joshinko to shiratamako was 2:1 and it was really tough and chewy. a few of my readers who made it said the same thing. this time round, i came across another recipe that looks relatively different from the traditional one. there's no skewering, no grilling so its basically just dango served in a bowl with sauce poured on top. the proportion of joshinko to shiratamako was 1:2 so i thought, why not? i bet this recipe would be better and it was!

i believe taiyaki, or japanese fish-shaped pancake requires no further introduction. it must be one of the most common snacks around that i don't even take second glances whenever i pass by stalls selling them, at least not until some of the interesting flavors like chocolate banana and pumpkin started appearing.

its impossible to find shiro-an locally, not to mention sakura-an therefore when i chanced upon a recipe i was really happy. sakura-an is cherry blossom bean paste made with shiro-an (regular white bean paste) and chopped bits of sakura leaves plus pink food coloring. i never thought it was possible to make my own but well, i now can. even though spring has long gone and this post might be somewhat irrelevant, i didn't want to wait until next spring to make these. afterall, using ingredients like pickled cherry leaves, you can make these anytime and freeze until you need them.

i've always thought theres only a kind of ichigo daifuku (strawberry mochi) out there, that is the one wrapped with anko. lately i've been seeing a few variations, some wrapped with matcha, some sweet potato. even this shiro-an (white bean paste) version is becoming quite a common sight, or maybe it was all along common but i didn't realize it. with a huge batch of shiro-an stashed away in the freezer and some leftover strawberries, this is a perfect dessert to make. since the mochi uses microwave method, it only takes about a minute and a half to do so its very quick.

i made kanto style sakuramochi over the weekend. as you know, there are two styles of sakuramochi - kansai (western japan) and kanto (tokyo & eastern japan). i made the kansai one before therefore it would be good to try this out as well. kanto style's a crepe-like pancake roll filled with anko red bean paste then wrapped with pickled sakura leaf.

mitarashi dango (みたらし団子、御手洗団子) is japanese skewered rice dumplings originated from kyoto and commonly sold in teahouses and outside temples. first boiled then grilled and accompanied by a sweet soy glaze, i love its charred fragrance and the teriyaki-like glaze. they're fun to eat and so yummy as well.

mushipan or japanese steamed cup bread (actually they taste more cake than bread) seem to be all the rage these days. i've tried them from a few local bakeries and thought they tasted artificially soft and fluffy, as if emulsifiers had been used. the cute shape and endless flavor combinations caught my attention so i bought three books on mushipan just to try out (crazy, i know).

sakura mochi is eaten during the cherry blossom viewing festival as well as hinamatsuri (girls' day) in japan. there are generally two kinds of sakuramochi - the kanto (tokyo) style one where azuki bean paste-filled pancake/crepe is wrapped with pickled sakura leaf and the kansai style's which is made with domyoji-ko, a kind of glutinous rice flour that is steamed and filled with azuki. when a blogger friend asked if i needed anything from her tokyo trip, i jumped at the chance to request for these pickled sakura leaves. she also came back with an additional pack of pickled sakura flowers and some limited edition kitkats for me, so thank you, CY! i really couldn't wait til next spring to make these :p

for as long as i can remember, i detested chiffon cakes and pound cakes alot. i used to associate them with local old-school kinda bakeries where the only flavors available were pandan and chocolate. but ever since coming across them in french and japanese cookbooks where the flavor combinations and decor wise were anything but boring, i started looking at them in a different light.

today is chinese mid-autumn and chuseok (korean thanksgiving day). i wanted to make songpyeon initially, a kind of crescent shaped korean rice cake which also has three colors but i didn't hv any pine needles so i decided to make these instead. though its not exactly a suitable time since hanami dango is made during the cherry blossom viewing season in spring where its a big event and widely celebrated in japan, i'm still glad i made these coz they're really quite good.

"you eat with your eyes first" is my belief when it comes to baking so i always aim to make pretty looking (of coz delicious) desserts and cakes. ever since knowing the existence of pickled cherry blossoms and how the japanese use it extensively in their beautiful wagashi and sweets, that came top of my most-wanted baking ingredient. so when i made the shiro-an white bean paste, i actually had this in mind already. this sakura roll uses the shiro-an both in the sponge and mousseline filling which i find it a really novel idea. having made sponges which require the use of almond or pistachio paste, i really liked the taste so i wonder what it'll be like to use white bean paste instead.

i've been fascinated with wagashi (和菓子) for the longest time. dainty morsels of bite-sized japanese confectioneries used in traditional tea ceremony, they're just so beautiful and intriguing. looks aside, i really like what goes into them - matcha, purple sweet potato, black sesame, pumpkin, sakura etc. so before venturing into any of the wagashi recipes, i figured that i should start with the basic filling. since koshi-an/tsubu-an (adzuki red bean paste) is so common and readily available, i decided to make the white bean paste ( しろあん or 白餡) instead. so far i don't think i've seen shops carrying it in singapore, or maybe i just haven't looked hard enough.

i bought some really beautiful purple sweet potatoes during the weekend and immediately set my eyes on this. i've seen this on several blogs and the violet amethyst-like cubes embedded within the cake really caught my attention. i guess i just hv this weakness for pretty desserts (and purple sweet potatoes).




the cake turned out fluffier than i thought, consider that the purple sweet potato puree was rather thick and heavy. tastewise its pretty mild since the sweet potato doesn't really hv much taste/aroma to begin with but i do like the subtle sweetness and the contrast of the cubes with the cake. i also think that its better eaten fresh from the oven coz that raw eggy smell will be more apparent upon cooling.



recipe is adapted from here and the original yields a 17cm cake but i scaled it up since i only hv a 22cm tin. also, i don't like the idea of using cream of tartar when whisking egg whites coz i don't see a difference in the results. japanese pastry chefs don't use it in their recipes either so i'll usually omit. sugar and egg whites alone will give you a beautiful meringue so you don't need cream of tartar, or vinegar, or lemon juice.

i made purple sweet potato mont blanc again last week upon hubby's request and got some leftover puree from it. its not easy to find purple sweet potato recipes out there especially dessert ones (so far i only came across a few blogs using the same purple sweet potato chiffon cake recipe). i wanted to go for that at 1st but the thought of having to use 5 eggs in a cake just don't appeal to me. and having to work with egg whites all day while making macarons, the last thing i wanna do is whisk more egg whites so i decided on something simple and i made this without a recipe. drawing my inspiration from the korean hobakjuk (sweet pumpkin porridge) and the chinese black sesame seed paste, i decided to make a paste/gruel of sorts and then topped it with glutinous rice balls and sesame seeds. surprisingly it tasted quite good.