Tokyo Desserts

Most people outside of Japan either love or hate green tea. Actually, a good tea is very tasty but there are a lot of poor products being sold. The green tea in this recipe is being paired with the taste of dark brown sugar.

The cake is decorated with powdered sugar on top with green tea sifted over the powdered sugar.

There are 3 items to make with this, the green tea cake, the brown sugar mousse and the green tea mousse.

Here is the recipe for a 16 cm ring.

Green tea cake:


Mix until yellow & fluffy

147 grams eggs
83 grams sugar
15 grams corn syrup (mizu ame)
34 grams milk
13 grams butter
75 grams flour
8 grams powdered green tea

1. Sift together the flour and powdered tea.
2. Heat the milk and butter in sauce pan just until the butter melts.
3. Put the eggs, sugar and corn syrup in a bowl and mix well. Put the bowl over a sauce pan filled with simmering hot water to warm the batter slightly. The batter will mix better when it is lightly warmed.
4. Mix the batter with a hand mixer until it is a light yellow color  and becomes slightly thickened then add the warm milk and mix with a spatula.
5. Add the flour/tea mixture and mix with a spatula. Pour into two 15 cm baking pans and bake at 170 Celsius degrees for 20 minutes.
6. Cool after removing from the oven.

 Brown Sugar Mousse:
54 grams egg yolk
45 grams dark brown sugar (darker than just regular brown sugar)
120 grams milk
4 grams gelatin
8 grams brandy liquor
180 grams fresh cream

1. Mix the egg yolks and brown sugar in a bowl.
2. Heat the milk in a sauce pan until just lightly boiling then add to the egg yolk mixture. Mix lightly and then add back to the sauce pan and heat on low temperature until it thickens lightly. Add the gelatin and mix with a spatula. Strain into a bowl.
3. Add the brandy liquor and let the mixture cool.
4. Whip the fresh cream until the cream is just lightly standing the add to the cooled mixture #3 above.

Green Tea Mousse:


Green tea & brandy liquor

22 grams egg yolk
33 grams sugar
6 grams powdered green tea
80 grams milk

Green tea mousse cooling over ice

3 grams gelatin
3 grams green tea liquor
180 grams fresh cream

1. Mix the egg yolks, sugar and green tea in a bowl.
2. Heat the milk in a sauce pan until just lightly boiling then add to the egg yolk mixture. Mix lightly and then add back to the sauce pan and heat on low temperature until it thickens lightly. Add the gelatin and mix with a spatula. Strain into a bowl.
3. Add the green tea liquor and let the mixture cool.
4. Whip the fresh cream until the cream is just lightly standing then add to the cooled mixture #3 above.





Putting Everything Together:

Ring & cake sits on  top of a cake board

1. Cut the cake smaller than the 16 cm ring and place at the bottom. Cut the other piece of cake smaller than the first. Put a piece of mousse film around the inside of the ring.

2. Pour the brown sugar mousse over the piece of cake and fill to about half full. Put in the refrigerator for a few minutes so the mousse begins to become firm.

3. Remove from the refrigerator and place the smaller piece of cake on top of the brown sugar mousse then spread the green tea mousse over the cake and fill to the top. Cleanly level off the mousse so that it is flat and put in the refrigerator for at least one or more so that the mousse can become firm.

4. Before serving, remove the ring and mousse film.


Creamy chocolate custard fills these cream puffs

The last couple of months were busy so apologies for no posts. I was baking just not enough time for blog updates.

A new year has started with high hopes for an interesting & fun new year!!  Let's start baking.

Tokyo's winter isn't dreadfully cold so if we can survive Jan & Feb, then the worst is over.  Many blossoms start blooming in the warmer parts of Japan in late Jan and early Feb so looking forward to seeing them.

Actually, winter is the best season for cooking with chocolate so I like to use these months to bake all of my chocolate recipes and creamy mousses.

Cream Puffs (Chou Cream)

60 grams butter (cut into pieces)
60 grams water
60 grams of milk
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
35 grams flour (sifted)
40 grams bread flour (sifted)
2 eggs (room temperature)

1. In a sauce pan, combine the butter, water, milk, salt and sugar and keep on a low heat until the butter melts. When butter melts turn up the heat so that the mixture is lightly boiling then turn off.
2. Add the flours to the sauce pan and mix with a spoon and until it is well combined. Put back on a low heat for about 2 minutes.
3. Put the mixture into bowl and add the eggs in portions. Mix well each time the eggs are added. Keep adding the eggs until the mixture can just drip from the spoon - it will be thicker than pancake batter.
4. Put the dough into a pastry bag and use a wide nozzle (opening about 1 cm in width).  Squirt the dough to about to about 4.5 cm circles. Makes about 12 - 13 pieces.
5. Lightly tap down the top of each piece and spray with water VERY lightly.
6. Bake at 200 Celsius for 20 minutes; reduce to 180 degrees and bake for 15 minutes; reduce again to 150 degrees and bake for 10 minutes. Pastries should be well browned but not burned.

Chocolate Custard

60 grams flour
80 grams sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
480 grams milk
2 egg yolks
70 grams bitter chocolate (chopped)
1 teaspoon cooking brandy


1.  In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla then add the flour.

2.  In a sauce pan, heat the milk until just lightly boiling. Add the milk to #1 above and mix then add back to the sauce pan using a strainer. Heat on a low heat until the mixture thickens to a consistency of pudding.

3.  Take off the heat and add the chocolate in portions and mix with a spatula. Add the brandy. Put in a bowl and cool over ice water.



Putting together

1. Poke a small hole in the bottom of each of the puff pastries.
2. Put the custard in a pastry bag with a small nozzle and fill each of the cream puffs from the small hole.
3. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving as well.

Cake is topped with chestnuts and small gold pieces

I decided that I needed to learn how to cook chestnuts since finding good cooked ones can be difficult
not to mention expensive.

As with many cooking techniques, there is more than one way to achieve the same result. I will explain my process but please feel free to check out options as well such as this one.

Preparing the chestnuts

I used about 30 whole chestnuts. First I peeled the outer shell using a pantry knife to knick the skin lightly then peeled it off. Usually the skin comes off fairly easily.

Outside shell has been removed

Put 6 cups of water plus 15 grams of baking soda into a large pot and bring to a boil. Add the chestnuts and reduce the heat so that it is not boiling. Cook for 15 minutes. Strain the chestnuts from the water and dump the water. Add another 6 cups water plus 10 grams baking soda to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the chestnuts  and reduce heat and cook for 15 minutes. Repeat one more time. The water that the chestnuts is cooked in becomes very dark so be sure not to wear white.

After the last batch of heating the chestnuts, strain the water again. Use the rough side of a sponge to brush off the rough skin pieces from the chestnuts. Don't scratch too hard since knicks in the chestnut do not look as nice for presentation.

Last step is to lightly cook the chestnuts in 5 cups water, 100 grams sugar and about half cup of dark rum. Bring all of these ingredients to a boil and after you removed the rough skin pieces add the chestnuts to this. Again, reduce the heat to a very low temperature and cook for about 45 minutes. Chestnuts should be able to be kept up to 2 weeks in this liquid if kept in the refrigerator.

Chestnuts in hot water

Cake
This cake fits a long rectangle pan (23 cm long x 6 cm high x 4 cm deep)

80 grams butter (slightly softened)
175 grams chestnut paste
80 grams powdered sugar (sifted)
65 grams eggs
45 grams almond powder (sifted)
dash of vanilla essence
20 grams flour (sifted together with baking powder)
2 grams baking powder

1. First, prepare the baking pan by lightly buttering and dusting with flour.

2. Use a hand mixer, and mix the chestnut paste then add the butter in a couple of portions and mix together. Add the almond power and mix - then add the powdered sugar & mix. Mix just enough to incorporate the ingredients, do not over mix.

3. Add in the eggs in portions and mix. Add the vanilla. Lastly, add in the flour and baking powder.

Add pieces of chestnut then add  remaining dough

4. The easiest way to fill the baking pan is to put the dough in a pastry bag and squirt it in evenly in rows. Fill about 1/3 of the pan then add small pieces of chestnuts in a row in the dough then fill the rest of the pan with the remaining dough.

5. Bake at 160 degrees Celsius for 50 minutes. Check doness before removing from the oven.

Icing
100 grams powdered sugar (sifted)
15 grams water
10 grams dark rum

1. Mix powdered sugar and water & rum with a small whisk. Brush on the cake.

2. Place in a hot oven (about 190 degrees Celsius) for about 4 minutes just to lightly melt the icing.

Chocolate cake with pumpkin cream filling

Time for Halloween decoration.
This roll cake is filled with pumpkin cream and a few pumpkin seeds. I added cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg to the pumpkin puree so it has a tasty pumpkin pie taste to it.

This recipe is fairly quick to put together but if another person is available to help it will go even that much quicker.

This decoration will be piped on top of parchment paper and then the cake itself will be poured over the decoration before baking.  For decorations, either draw on your own or use cookie cutters to make shapes and trace.

Decorations are ready

Decoration: