Mufffins, muffins, muffins!
I’ve been having so much fun baking muffins lately.
I love everything about them, from making them, eating them, looking at them, to just thinking about them (lol).
I found these beautiful black plums at the local grocery store, and I added them to my muffins.
They were so delicious!
Loved the perfectly sweet (and slightly tart) plums with the vanilla.
Vegan and gluten-free brownies.
Made of rice flour.
It was okay when out of the oven, but it was SO GOOD after refrigerated overnight.
The texture changes in a major way.
This is great for my coffee time.
Another fun recipe from Ms. Shiori.
Isn’t this cake beautiful?
Who knew, the major ingredient of this cake is rice, not rice “flour.”
It was not too heavy and not too light.
And perfectly moist.
I enjoyed it with whipped coconut cream.
Scrumptious!
I found a banana in my produce basket that I had totally forgotten about.
I do eat bananas, but if I eat one fresh, I prefer it at the slightly under-ripe stage.
So this one I found needed to be used for baking.
I like banana cake, but I like to brighten up the flavor a little bit.
I soaked the cake with tangy lemon syrup while the cake was still warm first, and then I poured lemon icing later.
Delicious!
I loved the rice bread (made from rice, not from rice flour) so much that I decided to try another recipe from the same recipe developer.
Yes, these muffins were made of rice as well.
The result was absolutely amazing!
They are soft, moist, and perfectly (and not overly) sweet.
These muffins are so good not just for gluten-free, but just delicious period.
Rice must do some magic to create this great texture.
I flavored these muffins with caramel maple syrup and tea, and then added some blueberries (freeze-dried) on top.
Loved these!
The base recipe is here (in Japanese).
So we had 12-year-old twin nephews overnight last weekend.
They are picky eaters, but I know they both like sweets.
I wasn’t sure how long they were going to stay the second day, but I wanted to be prepared to have all the ingredients if I wanted to make something sweet for them.
Well, every kid likes banana and chocolate, right? (lol)
Unfortunately, they had to leave right after breakfast, so these muffins were not ready when they left.
But the muffins were fully enjoyed later by my husband, who is not even a fan of banana!
Since I started the plant-based diet, there have been a lot of surprises.
Meat dishes without meat, fish dishes without fish, and egg dishes without eggs, they all exist.
By now I know so many delicious things can be made with plant-based ingredients.
But I’m still amazed that a delicious cheesecake can be made without cheese!
I have made vegan cheesecake before.
But my husband declared that this is the best cheesecake I’ve ever made.
And I loved it too.
It’s delicious as is, but I dressed it up a little with lemony persimmon sauce.
I was not happy with my first attempt, so I had to try this again.
I made a few changes, and I already knew by the firmer consistency of the batter that I was going to have a better result this time even before I put them in the oven.
And I was right!
I’m super happy with how they turned out.
These cream puffs do not contain egg, dairy, or wheat flour.
I filled them with maple yogurt cream.
Scrumptious!
Sweet bean paste is very popular in Japan.
Using beans for dessert/sweets may sound strange to Westerners, but it’s something many Japanese people who live outside Japan crave.
There are three main types of sweet bean paste.
One is “Tsubuan.”
It’s typically made of Azuki beans.
It’s the chunky type, and you keep the beans mostly intact.
Today you can find dried Azuki beans at many Co-op stores in the U.S., so I could make it myself if I really wanted to (it’s not difficult but time-consuming), or I could also buy premade one at Asian grocery stores.
But the other day I asked myself, “isn’t there a different way to make sweet beans that makes better sense to someone like myself who lives outside Japan?”
Why not using an ingredient which is easy to come by in the U.S.
So I decided to use canned black beans.
I drained the beans, removed the excess liquid as much as I could by folding the beans with a few paper towels and pressing them, added sugar and a little salt, and cooked.
A good thing about it is that I can control the amount of sugar.
Here is the “Tsubuan” I made with the black beans.
If you really love the Azuki taste, or if you are teaching someone traditional Japanese cuisine, you should definitely use Azuki.
But for me this black bean version completely satisfies my craving, and it’s so (ridiculously) easy to make.
This is “Koshian.”
Traditionally, again it’s made of Azuki beans.
Here is my black bean version.
Koshian is the smooth-type.
I just used my hand blender and made it into paste.
Another main sweet bean paste popular in Japan is called “Shiroan.”
It’s made of white beans.
For this I used canned butter beans.
How to make it is the same as the “Koshian” version.
I drained the beans, removed excess liquid, added sugar and a little salt, cooked, and made it into paste with a hand blender.
Shiroan is versatile, and you can add different flavors and colors.
Here is something I created by adding raspberry powder.
This raspberry Shiroan is sweet but slightly tart.
Again, these are NOT how to make traditional Japanese sweet beans/bean paste but super easy ways to satisfy my craving.
You probably noticed, but I’ve been really enjoying making muffins lately.
This one is Kinako flavored.
Kinako is Japanese roasted soy bean powder, and it’s one of my favorite things to use for baked goods.
Simple, yet so tasty.
