Vanilla Pudding Cake

This is another of my wife’s baking projects. This is a variation on the various flavored pudding cakes she has been making recently. This time it was “Vanilla Pudding Cake” . This reminded her of PA Dutch cakes she likes to make. The recipe went together rather quickly and we had it as a desert. The cake layer on the top with vanilla sauce on the bottom. Very nice desert.

The recipe is based on one in the Simply Recipes.

Ingredients
1 stick (4 ounces or 113g) unsalted butter
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (143g) all-purpose flour, divided: 1 cup or 120g for the batter and 3tbs or 23 g for the topping.)  
1 1/2 cups (300g) granulated sugar, divided: 1 cup or 200g for the batter and 1/2 cup or 100g for the topping.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups hot water
Powdered sugar, for serving

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Put the butter in a glass 8x8-inch baking dish. Set it in the oven so the butter melts as the oven preheats.

Meanwhile, make the batter:
In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 cup (120g) of the flour, 1 cup (200g) of the sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk in the milk and vanilla until smooth. When the butter has melted, remove the baking dish from the oven. Pour the batter over the butter.

Make the topping:
In a small bowl, mix the remaining 1/2 cup (100g) sugar and 3 tablespoons (23g) of flour. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the batter. Slowly pour the hot water over the topping (do not stir).

Bake the cake until the top is golden brown and the cake is set on top with a gooey pudding layer underneath, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and let it stand until slightly cooled, about 10 minutes. Dust evenly with powdered sugar and serve warm.

This is a very satisfying desert. Like the other pudding cakes my wife has made it has a slightly crunchy crust on a soft layer of cake with a layer of pudding underneath. While my wife had made chocolate and blueberry flavor this one was a very nice vanilla. Can’t go wrong with this as a desert.

Octopus Carpaccio 蛸のカルパッチョ

This is another variation of octopus carpaccio. In this iteration, instead of using balsamic vinegar I used  balsamic glaze which makes it less acidic and slightly sweet which went well with red wine. Since I had roasted red pepper sauce and “ikura” salmon roe I also added them as a garnish. We bought the octopus, which was from Japan, from Weee. The most common Japanese way of serving octopus is dressing it in miso-vinegar sauce or “sumiso 酢味噌” which goes well with sake but not with red wine. This version went very well with the red wine we were having..

Ingredients: (2 servings)
One octopus leg thinly sliced (The one we got was boiled and frozen).
1/4 sweet onion, very thinly sliced, 
1/4 small jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined, thinly sliced 
thinly sliced  parmigiano reggiano, amount arbitrary
dabs of roaster red pepper sauce (or pesto)
Ikura salmon roe, not too much

Extra- virgin olive oil, balsamic glaze
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the bottom of the plate, drizzle on some thin lines of the balsamic glaze and olive oil. Spread the onion and Jalapeño pepper slices over the drizzle. Spread on the octopus slices. Add thin lines of the glaze and olive oil on top. Sprinkle on the ikura and dabs of the red pepper sauce. Top everything with thin slices of Parmesan cheese

This is a really good appetizer. I also tried it with pesto instead of red pepper sauce and we like the red pepper sauce better. Although we like to have octopus in Japanese style with either wasabi and soy sauce or with sumiso sauce, this type of carpaccio really works with wine but do not over do the ikura.

Ricotta Rolls リコッタチーズ入りディナーロール

While my wife was looking through “The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook”, she came across a recipe for “Ricotta Pepper Bread”. She thought using ricotta cheese in bread was a bit unusual and decided to make this bread. She made some changes, as usual, including making it into rolls instead of a loaf, using buttermilk instead of regular milk and cayenne pepper instead of black pepper. The result was quite good dinner rolls. They have a nice soft texture but not too soft, a very fine crumb and a nice flavor. Although she put in a good amount of cayenne pepper, it did not come through much.

Ingredients:

4 to 4½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast
2 tsp salt
1 tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (Maybe 1/2 tsp next time since the pepper taste didn’t come through with 1/4 tsp.)
½ cup milk, (she used buttermilk)
6 tbs. (¾ stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs

Directions:
Combine 3 cups of the flour with the yeast, salt, sugar and pepper in the bowl of a stand mixer. Slowly add the milk with the mixer running. Then add the ricotta cheese and eggs. As a dough starts to form add pieces of the butter so they get incorporated into the dough. Slowly add additional flour as needed to make a smooth soft dough. Knead for 7 to 10 minutes. 

Place the dough in a buttered large bowl and turn to coat with butter. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise in a warm spot until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1½ hours. Punch the dough down and let it rise again for about 1 hour. Butter a large pyrex baking dish . Punch the dough down, shape it into small buns (2 1/2 oz) and place in the baking dish. Cover and let rise until double in size, (about 45 minutes). Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake 15 to 25 minutes until the loaf is nicely browned. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

Condensed Sweet Milk Bread with mistake バターミルク、コンデンスミルクパン

Over time my wife has made several variations of Japanese milk bread*. Recently we bought some commercial bread from Whole Foods advertised as Japanese milk bread. While it was not bad, it was certainly not as good as the milk bread my wife has made. As a result, I found myself yearning for the taste of the bread she makes. At my request, she agreed to make some. In previous versions of milk bread, she used cream cheese and/or sweet condensed milk. In response of my request, she made the version that uses condenses milk; condensed milk bread. After making it, she realize half a can of condensed milk was left over so she decided rather than letting it go to waste, she would make another version of sweet condensed milk bread.

In her usual fashion she made several substitutions to the recipe such as replacing the plain milk called for in the recipe with buttermilk thinking it might add more flavor. She also adjusted the amount of flour so it made 2 loaves instead of one very large one. In addition, she made a mistake. The recipe called for one large egg. It was supposed to be used as an egg wash (which we usually skip). But not carefully reading the recipe, she added it to the dough mixture instead. Despite this, this bread turned out to be actually better than the original version. The first thing we noticed was an incredibly wonderful smell as it came out of the oven. The texture was very soft and pleasantly moist probably from the added egg. The most outstanding feature was its wonderful flavor from a combination of the rich slightly tart buttermilk and the pleasant sweetness of the condensed milk. Despite the changes my wife made (several intentional and one by mistake), this is a wonderful bread. This will be our “go-to” recipe for milk bread in the future. 

*What constitutes classic Japanese milk bread or “Shoku-pan 食パン” as opposed to just generic milk bread is debatable. For me, classic Japanese bread emulates the texture and taste of the thickly cut and toasted  shoku-pan I ate in Japanese “Kisaten 喫茶店” coffee shops. As far as I can tell classic Japanese milk bread is made with plain milk and tangzong or “Yudane 湯種” .  Since the classic milk bread in Japan is made with milk, a product for which Hokkaido is famous, outside Japan this kind of  bread is often referred to as “Hokkaido Milk Bread”. Where did this style of bread in Japan come from? The origin must have been “English bread” or Pain de mie which was emulated and modified by Japanese bakeries in the early days of Japanese contact with Europeans. The present style of Japanese “shoku-pan” became popular after WWII when wheat flour became ready available. The variations of milk bread my wife makes use ingredients other than just plain milk such as condensed milk or even cream cheese. So they may not be “classic” Japanese milk breads but variations that are enjoyable nonetheless.

Ingredients: (makes two loaves)
3 3/4 cups bread flour (this was a slight increase from the amount called for in the original recipe.)
2 1/4 tsp yeast 
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk (this was the substitute for milk called for in the recipe) 
1 Tbs. butter
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk (up to 1 cup will also work)
1 egg lightly beaten (added to the dough not used as a wash before baking)

Directions
Add 3 cups of flour, the yeast, sugar and salt to the bowl of the stand mixer. Stir in the butter milk followed by the butter, condensed milk and egg. Add the remaining flour a 1/4 cup at a time. Mix until a dough forms. Knead for 7 to 10 minutes then turn out onto a lightly floured board and form into a ball. Place dough in a greased bowel turning to grease all over. Place in the proofing box set for 81 degrees until double in size. Punch down and form 2 loaves and put into greased loaf pans. Put into the proofing box again until the loaves double in size. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Take-out Sashimi 刺身テイクアウト

Our long time go-to Izakaya/sushi bar “Tako Grill” quietly closed in December 2025 after nearly 40 years of operation. Since COVID, Tako Grill had been an only take-out restaurant. Take-out suited us just fine since it was relaxing to eat our favorite sushi at home without worrying about driving home in the dark after having some sake. Nonetheless while it was an eat-in restaurant, we really enjoyed stopping by after work.

In the absence of Tako Grill, we had been getting frozen sashimi items from several places but one problems was that we could not get a wide variety of sashimi grade fish and whatever sashimi grade fish we could get came in large portions. Once a large block of tuna sashimi is thawed, you have to finish it quickly. Under those conditions thawing other large blocks of sashimi items is not practical unless you are having a party.  More recently, we found a Japanese restaurant called “Rakugaki” located very close to us. It is part of a small chain of restaurants and the quality and variety of the food it sells is quite good. Although we occasionally eat at the restaurant, we kinda got spoiled doing take-out during covid, so we have continued doing that with Rakugaki. Our favorite take-out is ”Tokujo Sashimi 特上刺身盛り”. As shown in the picture, it is a large assortment of sashimi including tuna 鮪 (akami 赤身 and chutoro 中トロ), salmon 鮭, hamachi はまち, “tai” 鯛 red snapper, “kinme-dai” 金目鯛 golden eye snapper, as well as some other white fish. It also includes  “uni” 雲丹 sea urchin and “ikura” いくら salmon roe, “ama-ebi 甘エビ” sweet shrimp, “tako” 蛸 ocutopus and scallopsホタテ. We like this assortment because we can enjoy reasonably sized portions of so many different items at once and the quality is extremely good. 

As shown in the next picture, I usually re-plate the take-out order once we get it home. I slice each piece of sashimi into two pieces so we can prolong the flavor enjoyment by eating two slices instead of just one. (I know; silly but we like it that way.) I also serve the ikura in a cucumber cup and the uni on a cucumber boat (shown in the picture on either side of perilla in the 8 and 12 o’clock positions.) Since the octopus can be fairly chewy I shallow score the pieces and add some “perilla miso 大葉味噌” (shown in the 7 o’clock position).

Since the amount of sashimi included in this order is very generous we have the additional benefit of setting aside some of the tuna, salmon and white fish to eat the next day. I usually marinate the fish I set aside and then make it into a small appetizer dish. Any remaining sashimi, I re-plate in two servings. We usually include an order of California roll (made from real crab) which we share as a perfect ending of the meal.