Ah, Fall!

It's getting colder and colder these days ever since I got back from my vacation. (meanwhile LA, where I spent 3 days 2 weeks ago, measures to 110 degrees F.) Apples are on sale now in the markets, which can only mean that fall is rolling in!

Last fall, I took my grandma to the farm to pick her own apples and she loved it! She said she wanted to pick apples every year. I was thinking about it the past weekend but C said it was too cold to run around in the field last Sunday and that I should do it the week after. (Noted on Wednesday: Sunday's forecast is 3 to 10 C, that's worse than last Sunday!)

Thinking about the season too much probably, I have been thinking about apple pies the entire Saturday that I just have to get some apples and start baking. I ended up making apple brioches instead of apple pies, just because I need breakfast the next day and pie is too difficult to eat in the office.

Apple Brioche
Makes 8

Filling
Ingredients
2 small apples
1 tablespoon butterscotch sauce
1 teaspoon lemon juice
rind of 1/2 lemon
a pinch of cinnamon, to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Method
Peel apples with vegetable peeler. Dice into 1/2" pieces. Mix rind, juice and butterscotch to the apples and let sit for 30 to 45 minutes. Drain and reserve the juice. Mix reserved juice with cornstarch.
In a small saucepan, heat apples in medium heat. Add cinnamon and cornstarch mixture and cook until thickens. Let cool completely.

Brioche
Ingredients
A:
64g Bread Flour
64g luke warm milk
6.4g active dry yeast
B:
150g bread flour
4g salt
20g sugar
2 yolk + 1 egg (75g)
lemon rind
a pinch of cinnamon
vanilla
80g butter, room temperature

Method
Dissolve yeast in milk and add to flour. Mix, cover and let sit for 30 minutes.
Place all ingredients of B except butter on top of mixture A and mix on low speed for 2 minutes and medium for 5 minutes.
Add soft butter gradually while the mixer is on low for 4 minutes. Rest for 20 minutes.
Divide dough into 8 equal pieces. Detach a small piece off each for the top and round up.
Take the large piece, flatten and put one eightth of the filling and wrap it up, roll into a sphere and drop it in a greased muffin tin. Make an indent at the top and stick the small ball of dough on top. Brush with egg wash.
Proof dough in muffin tin until it increases 3/4 times.
Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes. Brush with hot butter for a glossy finish.

Chocolate Mochi Cake

Since I loaded up with my stock of Giradelli cocoa powder from SF, I need to use up my old stash in order to open up the new can. I picked a recipe online from Petite Chef, checked my barely empty fridge that I took effort to empty out before my trip, and started to go for it. I have changed a coconut milk to condensed milk as that is what I have got. It worked! So here is what I have done.

4 Tablespoons of butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 C dutch-processed cocoa powder

2.2 oz. mochiko (sweet rice, or glutinous flour)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons evaporated milk 

 I have used a silicon mini muffin mold so there is no need to spray and prep the pans.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C.

Cream butter and sugar together with a hand held mixer. Add egg to incorporate.

Sieve together cocoa powder, mochiko and baking powder. Add the sieved dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 2 batches and mix with the mixer until just binded. Add evaporated milk and mix until just incorporated.

Divide batter equally into 12 mini muffin tins and bake for 18 minutes. (A few more minutes for a silicon pan) Cakes should spring back with a finger test. Rest for 5 minutes in the pan before demolding.

A Perfect Ending

It's almost the end of my vacation. Time to get back to work tomorrow! But not just yet, this vacation yearned for a sweet touch to end. As I was still clueless in the kitchen after my time away, I tossed some hulled strawberries with some balsalmic vinegar glaze and added a touch of black pepper, 3 mini scoops of HD vanilla ice cream and vola! a simple dessert! Time to forget about unpacking and the loads of laundry ahead of me! Oh, and get up early for work tomorrow.

Mocha Mochi

"What? Tomorrow?"

I am going on vacation starting tomorrow and guess what? A friend's birthday happens to be tomorrow. And being such a nice friend we asked him to deliver us to the airport, not knowing it is going to be his birthday, at 7 in the morning. That means we made him to wake up at 6am on his birthday. How wonderful we are us his friend? Now he has a long day to celebrate his birthday!

I was going to try the matcha mochi cupcakes recipe to make some breakfast to eat at the airport, but since the birthday boy requested his belated birthday cake to be mocha flavour, I decided to switch the matcha into mocha. (This is so not recommended as I haven't even tried the original recipe yet.)

I haven't try these little guys yet, but they look cute and promising. Here is what I did:

original recipe from The Humble Bean

151g mochiko (1/3 box)1/3 cup sugar
1/3 tsp. baking powder
1/4  tsp. instant expresso powder
1/2 tsp. cocoa powder
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Whisk all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and oil. Add dry ingredients and stir until incorporated. Spoon batter in a muffin pan lined with baking cups and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Makes 6