Puff City!

Image from Big Island Grinds

My last trip to Hawaii brought me to a little hole-in-the-wall pastry shop called Puff City. The hype on Yelp as well as hype from an uncle of mine got me to the humble establishment at a honking 6am! First of all, I am not, by any means, a morning person, so you can imagine how important this foodie trip was for me. Or you can imagine the fear of getting there at 8am and only being able to grab what's left! Anyways, now you reap the rich rewards of my puffy reviews as well as that of my puffy ego. Here you go!:

Lilikoi (passion fruit) Mousse- exquisite! Definitely my favourite puff of them all; with rave reviews of it on Yelp and and awarded most-popular-puff from Michael at Puff City, that seemed to be the flagship puff that simply doesn't mess around. Coated in a lilikoi ganache, it really does earn its esteem: light and fragrant, it captures the essence of the fruit without compromising in sweetness (far too many lilikoi products are overloaded with sugar).

Lychee- delightful! The mousse is literally like a flower, being very aromatic. Much of the lychee fruit's sweetness and character is in it's juicy and somewhat meaty pulp. While a pastry can't really capture that, the lychee puff does maintain the floral fragrance of the tropics-loving fruit. It makes me hungry for more possibilities of flower-scented morsels; reminds me of rose and lavender gelato I had in Nice, France. :)

Coffee Mousse with Chocolate Ganache & Heath Bar Bits- the highlight of this puff is the coffee mousse! Accompanied by the chocolate ganache, this puff has a good marriage of flavour... and then you get to the toffee, which really sells this puff. I would almost like to see what Puff City could do with a sea salt caramel puff. :)

Coconut Mousse with Chocolate Ganache- the coconut flavour in this isn't as strong as it would be in haupia (a Hawaiian coconut milk pudding), but I respect it as an artistic choice. Nonetheless, the coconut scent still shines through in this puff. The shredded coconut marries the puff together amidst the chocolate ganache (which is a tad bit overpowering)--the trick is to take a whiff of the shredded coconut with your bite (like the strawberry daiquiri at the Noble Experiment in San Diego).

Mocha Rum- the rum flavour is evident in the mousse and the mocha is subtle behind the rum. I do find that this puff relies heavily on the ganache for its taste.

Teshima Restaurant- Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Teshima Restaurant (located at 79-7251 Mamalahoa Hwy, Kealakekua, HI 96750) is a family restaurant, with 3 generations currently working in the Japanese-style joint. Shizu-Obaachan, who recently turned 107, is still running the place as cheerfully as ever. It's a little in the middle of nowhere on the Kailua-Kona-side of the Big Island, but if you're in the area and want a nice lunch or dinner, stop here!

Price: $$

Overall Experience: 4 stars/5 stars

Teshima is best known for their tenpura/tempura, or Japanese battered and deep fried foods dipped in a brothy-sauce, so naturally I had to sample this on my first trip to the restaurant. ("What the Big Island Likes to Eat" highly recommends the kettle-cooked tofu dish and I can say that was also fantastic--my huge family ordered basically half the menu, so I had a good go at everything.) I ordered the Thursday lunch special, which comes with a cup of miso soup, a tray of pickled veg, a bowl of rice, barley tea, a side of really tasty and well-marinated spare ribs and gorgeous platter of golden tenpura. The tenpura was traditionally done and perfect--not over or undercooked, not too oily, great colour, etc... Teshima served up these things in my tenpura: ahi, yam, zucchini, eggplant, green bean and a lovely surprise of purple potato! Look at that colour!:

The dipping sauce was also great, not overly salty, with a nice sweetness. The spareribs were magnificent (I'd just gotten my wisdom teeth done, so a bit tough to eat for me still) and soo well-marinated! Just the smell of them would do a number on you! It sat on a bed of lettuce, which I was really yearning for (local Hawaiian food does not generally serve up much veg, just a lot of meat, starch and gravy). The tenpura was definitely the star of my plate and I would order this again when revisiting Teshima Restaurant.

Don't worry, eat happy!

-Raechel

Son of a Gun! It's Matcha!

Today we're saluting matcha green tea powder... the holy baking element that punches a hole in your wallet like a 24 karat fairy dust. Sometimes racking up to $15 per ounce, matcha is made through a crazy process in which only the finest, shade-grown leaves are picked, de-stemmed and deveined and stone ground, a process which can take up to an hour for only 30 grams of the stuff! Talk about labour. But, man-oh-man, it's freakin' beautiful:

Matcha has other purposes besides being used in baked goods. Although it's super fine and pure, I don't think snorting it is  a golden idea.

I must say, in my past baking experience, I tried to get away with baking cakes by using the tea leaves (also called "matcha green tea") in the packets sold at stores. No can do. I even put a sackful in my Magic Bullet in vain hopes of reproducing the powder. It was like watching a five-year old try to drive an Escalade through a Gymboree... sheer hilarity. Not only were my cakes missing the bamboo-green hue of the powder, they were also lacking the quintessential flavour of matcha. Tragedy. First world tragedy, but nonetheless a tragedy. My success began when I finally grabbed the situation by the balls and put my baking before my penny-pinching tendencies (I found a small bottle of culinary matcha--pictured below--at the local Mitsuwa for $6). And boy, was it worth it...

Here's the recipe for ya! (adapted/size-adjusted from here because I made it for a small dinner party and didn't want a monster-sized cake, whose remains would have to sit in the refrigerator waiting for the Cretaceous period.)

Oven at 350*F

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp matcha powder 
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, softened (1/2 c)
• 3/4 c granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 sour cream or plain yogurt

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and matcha powder. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Next: mix or fold in the dry mix. You're ready to bake! Put it in a 9" round or something of a similar size and in the oven she goes for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven. Give it the good ol' toothpick test before removing your beautiful cake. Let it cool before turning it out, slicing it, and dressing it with powdered sugar (use a sifter, or else you'll end up with  a hot, chalky mess).

So if you're a dedicated baker and now have this little can of matcha sitting in your cupboard, what else do you do with it? Well, if it's not baking matcha, treat yourself to a cup of tea! You deserve it. OR you can let you imagination fly with it! 

My friend Steven made matcha-frosted cupcakes filled with azuki (bean) for his birthday. Beautiful, no?

 One of my favourite treats with matcha are these suckers:

Yes, matcha macarons! Catherine of TheFoodCult gang helped me (literally) whip up this batch and they were brilliant! Another plus: these babies are gluten-free--almond flour is traditionally used to make macarons rather than all-purpose flour! To add matcha to your macs, just sift it in with the dry mix. Use enough to change the colour of the mix (the colour will also enhance during baking). If desired, you can mix matcha into your ganache, but I highly recommend "dissolving" it in the heated heavy cream first (dissolving it in water will make the fats in the ganache freak out--it's not worth the mess or the emotional distress) as opposed to adding it later.

Did you learn anything? Anything at all? Well, I hope this was a decent introduction to my slightly-expensive and bougie friend matcha powder. If you think of any crazy inventions with the elegant green fairy dust, send them along this way as I'd love to hear them!

Mitsuwa's Santouka Ramen: A Hit!

Mmm! Love my ramen! It's definitely one of the best anywhere, really--my first time at Santouka ramen was actually in Torrance, CA and when I found out there was one in San Diego... STOKED. 

You know how there's that one special item on the menu that you try and you like it so much that you never order anything else ever? The shio-ramen (salt broth) is IT for me. :) Basic and delicious! I like to keep things simple anyways!

The broth is wonderful, noodles are great, there's a good amount of toppings (there could always be more, haha, but this is pretty good) and it's served nice and hot! I'm pretty confident in my assessment of ramen just because I eat a lot of it (and not the instant stuff, mind you!) My other fave place is probably Tajima (oh dear, so good as well!), but Santouka is a wee bit cheaper. The toppings are also vary: Tajima offers egg but Santouka has bamboo!--at both places, you can customise for an additional price though. :)

One drawback: CASH ONLY! 

Other than that, I can't wait to eat these golden noodles again!

Cake Decorating!

Oh, it has been too long... since my last post! Except I've been really busy with uni, and that's my excuse! But that doesn't mean that the cooking has stopped, no! 

A little blurb on cake decoration for ya!

My friend, Ashley, and I made this cake for our friends who had their birthdays this past weekend! Awesome, no? If you couldn't tell, it's the house from the Pixar/Disney film Up! The balloons are made from food-coloured french vanilla cupcakes and the cake that makes this house is german chocolate cake. Both were from box recipes because I really wanted to focus on decorating here.

Before laying on the frosting, you should know that you can shape the cake however you'd like! You should also slice/trim the rounded top off of the cake if you want it to lay flat. 

TIP: You can use a knife, fishing string, a clean potter's wire tool, etc... to take off the rounded "muffin top." I used a clean steel guitar string because I was strapped for tools. ^^; If using any of the latter three, be sure to pull it taught and pull it across the cake for a straight trim. Now you can eat the best part of the cake separately. :)

I shaped the roof and dormers on the house before actually frosting it; this took quite a lot of thought because I didn't sketch it out--I recommend doing a quick doodle on some scratch paper before taking to the knife. I used a basic Cutco knife to shave off the corners and cut around the eaves of the roof. The chimney is a separate part made from the shaved off scraps. It was pasted on with frosting. 

The frosting is just regular frosting with food dye, laid on with a spatula/spoon. 

TIP: make sure the cake is properly cooled before you start laying the frosting on--the cake will begin to crumble if it's not cooled. Be patient! 

I split the frosting up into portions, one for each colour I wanted. The roof is done with chocolate frosting. No dye needed there. :) I then applied the light colours first. The thin lines are done with a piping bag--which I didn't actually have.

TIP: you can use a ziploc bag just as easily. I did! Just fill up the inside corner of the bag with the respective frosting, twist the bag to seal it off, and snip off the corner of the bag. How much you snip off depends on how thick you want your line of frosting to be. I snipped off about a quarter to a half of a centimeter. 

Practice piping evenly on some scratch paper before putting the makeshift piping bag to your masterpiece. Squeeze the frosting out with one hand while guiding with your dominant hand.

These really are just basics of what you can do with cake and frosting! Fondant is another popular cake-decorating item. Some people are not fond of the taste or texture of it, but it's very popular among the cake decorating shows. Cream, icing and ganache are more alternatives. Whatever you decorate, be sure to think of the texture you want--if you're baking a cake in the shape of the abominable snowman, how about using shredded dried coconut to bring out the texture? Are you baking a Ferrari-shaped cake? Maybe consider using icing instead! Don't limit yourself to the possibilities! :)

*I should have taken more pictures of the construction, but I honestly did not think this would turn out half as good as it did. Perhaps I'll do it again and do a more thorough how-to, but for now this just has some little decorating tips!

Macaron Madness!

Macarons are pretty much the most pretentious cookies on the planet.



I've been obsessing over these little suckers over the past few weeks; I've done about a dozen batches before my mother called her friend to get tips for me! Finally I got a batch that *looked* right! They have the little feet and everything! I adjusted the proportions from several recipes to make smaller batches to just do test runs. Here's my recipe:

1 egg white
40 g almond flour (I just measured sliced almonds out and put it in a my Magic Bullet)
60 g powdered sugar
1.5 tbsp granulated sugar
Piping bag (ziplock bag if you don't have one)
Parchment paper
Oven at 275-300*F

You probably want to make the dry mix first. Do this by measuring out the almonds and blending it with the powdered sugar in a food processor. Next, sift it all out to get a fine powder.
Egg whites! When whipping egg whites, start adding the 1.5 tbsp of sugar when the whites start to foam. Continue the beatings till morale improves. When you pull the beater out of the egg white, the egg white should come up stiff (and not collapse back down). Disaster can also strike if you beat the white too much so be on the alert!

Next, fold the dry mix into your stiffened whites in 4-5 batches. If you're colouring your macarons, put the food colouring in now. Fold enough so it's mixed in and the dry mix is no longer visible, but not too much. If nudged, the dough should slowly sink back down.

Now, fill your piping bag with the macaron mix and pipe little circles onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Leave space in between as they will spread out as they start to rest.

Let stand until film forms over macarons--a "skin" MUST form on the macarons. May take about 30 min. or possibly longer, depending on the humidity of the air; I find it best to make macarons when the weather is relatively dry. Test the macarons by gently touching the surface. If the dough does not stick, you're good to pop it in the oven. Let it bake for about 10-12 minutes.

When checking the macarons, they should have risen a bit to form "feet." They also should come off the parchment paper effortlessly if they're ready. If they're still stuck to the paper, they're not done yet! But watch them closely--if they stay in too long, they could crack, sag, or just get plain rock-hard.
Once again, this is a really pretentious cookie to bake, so don't be discouraged if you don't get 'em right in 10 tries. Seriously. Even professionals struggle with these.

To make a filling, you can use fruit preserve, whipped cream, peanut butter, Nutella or ganache, all which taste great! To make ganache, bring some heavy cream to a simmer and then pour it into a heat-safe bowl of chocolate or white chocolate chips. Stir until even and let it cool off until it's easier to work with. It should be like the consistency of Nutella when it's cool. If it's too liquidy, mix some flour or corn starch in to thicken it.

Fill your macarons with the filling of your choice and then they're free to eat. I have found them best at a day old, as the moisture in the filling seeps into the cookie at that point. Just store them in an air tight container and they're good for a couple days, but I doubt they will last that long! Happy baking! xx

I do believe I've found a ramen place that tops Asa Ramen... oh dear, I am smitten...

4681 Convoy St., #1, San Diego, CA 92111
(858)576-7244

Tajima is in San Diego county on Convoy, frequently known as the Asian area in SD, where 99 Ranch Market resides. Their website is here.

I had the opportunity to try the ramen with the house broth, topped with the pork belly fat, sliced pork, seaweed, an egg and green onions! Not only was it plenty of food, but the taste was fantastically flavourful and rich and not overly salty! The piece of dried seaweed was actually a nice touch and you can ask for extra if you like. :)

Another bonus is that they give student discounts!! Just bring your ID with you and set it on the table when you order and they'll knock off a percentage! I don't know if you can top a restaurant that pays attention to the fact that us students are actually kinda poor like we say we are!

I do recommend going early if you don't want to wait. The place does start to fill up at around 6 or 6:30 and if you go at peak hours you might have to wait.

Definitely going back to this ramen house for more!