Category: recipe

Daifuku (Red Bean Mochi) Recipe

writ­ten 12/8/24, updat­ed 12/8/24

What

Japan­ese dessert. It’s mochi (sweet gluti­nous rice flour), a chewy rice cake, wrapped around a fill­ing, usu­al­ly anko (sweet red bean paste). Can be filled with oth­er ingre­di­ents like mung bean, fresh cut fruit, ice cream, or cus­tard, and col­ored with pow­ders (such as matcha pow­der), fresh fruit puree, or food col­or­ing.

This recipe is made in the microwave for ease, but can also be steamed

*See Notes for more details

Ingredients

1 Cup Shi­rata­mako or Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour (*See Notes)

¼ — ½ Cup Sug­ar (more or less as desired)

1 Cup Water

1 Cup Anko (sweet red bean paste, bought or made)

Katakuriko (pota­to starch or corn­starch as need­ed for dust­ing)

Supplies

Heat-proof bowl

Sil­i­cone Spat­u­la

Sil­i­cone Whisk

Plas­tic Wrap/Microwave Cov­er

Parch­ment Paper

Bak­ing Sheet/Tray

Time and Serving

Time: 5 min­utes com­bine + 2 min­utes microwave + 20 min­utes shap­ing = 30 min­utes

Serv­ing: 8 pieces

Directions

  • Pre­pare your Anko fill­ing
  • On a tray or bak­ing sheet, do the same thing and set aside (this is where you’ll put the formed dai­fuku)
  • Whisk togeth­er Flour (1 Cup) and Sug­ar (¼ — ½ Cup, to your desire)
  • Add the Water (1 Cup) and com­bine with the sil­i­cone spat­u­la until it forms a smooth bat­ter
  • Cov­er with either plas­tic wrap or microwave lid
  • Microwave for about 1.5 min­utes
  • Remove and stir well
  • Return to microwave for anoth­er 1.5 min­utes
  • It should have formed a shiny, smooth dough, a some­what hard lump, dif­fer­ent from the bat­ter from before
  • If not, then return for 30 sec­onds at a time, stir­ring in between
  • Dust your parch­ment paper work­space with either pota­to starch or corn­starch
  • Scrape the dough out onto your work­space (Be care­ful, it’s going to be HOT)
  • Sprin­kle starch as need­ed to make it less sticky
  • Divide the hot dough into equal por­tions
  • Roll them into flat disks
  • Put your Anko fill­ing into the mid­dle and pinch the ends to close them
  • Place it seam side down on your pre-dust­ed tray
  • Con­tin­ue to make the rest
  • This is best enjoyed right away, or cov­er and refrig­er­ate up to 2 days

Notes

Clean-Up Tips

  • Soak your bowls and imple­ments in water to help loosen it up
  • Try not to dump the wet flour down the drain if you don’t want to deal with a clog
  • If it’s being stub­born even after soak­ing, use the sil­i­cone spat­u­la to scrape the wet dough into the trash­can

Katakuriko = pota­to starch

Mochi vs Dan­go

  • Dan­go: term for ball-shaped foods
  • While these days the lines have blurred between the two desserts’ ingre­di­ents, tra­di­tion­al­ly, the dif­fer­ence is that Mochi was made from steamed gluti­nous RICE (grain) and pound­ed in a pes­tle, while Dan­go was made from non-gluti­nous rice FLOUR, mixed with water, knead­ed, then steamed or boiled.
  • Dan­go is made like boba, where the lit­tle balls are boiled

When made the same way (Flour, sug­ar, and boil lit­tle balls) tapi­o­ca starch (cas­sa­va) will make boba, while rice flour will make dan­go.

Mochiko vs Shi­rata­mako

  • Both flours are sim­i­lar to each oth­er but dif­fer in pro­cess­ing
  • Both can be used in oth­er dish­es like bak­ery goods and as thick­en­ing agents in savory dish­es
Mochiko
  • Ground when rice is dry
  • Less work­ing time until hard­en­ing
  • Sticky, chewy tex­ture
  • Stronger fla­vor
  • Fine­ly ground flour
Shiratamako
  • Ground when rice is wet, then dried
  • Stretch­i­er, even when cool
  • Smoother tex­ture, more del­i­cate
  • Good for refined desserts
  • Coarse, gran­u­lar tex­tured flour

Vegan Baking — Basic Recipes

writ­ten 4/22/24, updat­ed 5/22/24

What

Veg­an Pie Dough

Veg­an Sweet Milk Bread Dough

Vegan Pie Dough

Uses

Any pie: dessert, fruit, meat, ice cream, large, small, open faced, etc

Ingredients

Dough

2 cups All-Pur­pose Flour (+ dust­ing)
2 Tbsp Gran­u­lat­ed Sug­ar
¼ tsp Bak­ing Pow­der
1 stick (8 Tbsp) Veg­an But­ter (cold, small pieces)
2 Tbsp Veg­etable Short­en­ing (cold)
4–6 Tbsp Ice Water

Option­al: ½ tsp Salt

Time and Serving

Time: 20 min­utes prep, 2 hours set

Serv­ing: 1 stan­dard pie or 8 stan­dard hand pies

20 min­utes (dough prep) + 2 hours (refrig­er­a­tion) = 2 hours, 20 min­utes Total

Directions

  • Whisk Flour (2 cups), Sug­ar (2 Tbsp), Salt (option­al ½ tsp), and Bak­ing Pow­der (¼ tsp)
  • Add half of But­ter (4 Tbsp) and all of Short­en­ing (2 Tbsp)
  • Rub until Short­en­ing not detectable
  • Add rest of But­ter (4 Tbsp) and work until pea-sized pieces remain
  • Mix in Ice Water (4 Tbsp) with fork or hands (option­al­ly can do all of this with a few puls­es of a food proces­sor)
  • Grad­u­al­ly add more of Ice Water (1 Tbsp at a time) only until dough sticks when squeezed (should look shag­gy, not super smooth)
  • Turn onto plas­tic wrap
  • Shape into a disk
  • Refrig­er­ate until firm (~2 hours)
  • OPTIONAL: For a more flaky crust READ THIS. Fold the dough in halves, thirds, or quar­ters, push down, then do it again. Refrig­er­ate and let rest for about 30 min­utes, then do it again. Don’t over­do it to the point where the dough is gum­my and forms gluten, but it will make the crust flaki­er.

Pictures

Whisk ingre­di­ents togeth­er
Ice water
First round of but­ter and short­en­ing
Rub until short­en­ing is gone
Pieces most­ly incor­po­rat­ed
Add remain­ing but­ter
Even with­out water, it’s already stick­ing togeth­er
Add water a Tbsp at a time!
Mix it togeth­er
Almost there, but still too crumbly
Look­ing shag­gy, but still not quite
Very close
THERE IT IS
Stick­ing togeth­er well, but not too well com­bined
Lay out a cross pat­tern of plas­tic wrap
Turn it out. Note how rough it is still.
Option­al fold­ing for flak­i­ness
Fold­ed in thirds
Wrap it up and refrig­er­ate it
When ready to use, light­ly flour, and have fun!

Notes

  • Some­times the dough comes togeth­er with more or less water
  • Can use food proces­sor, but I pre­fer by hand to real­ly feel when it comes togeth­er
  • Prac­tice makes per­fect!
  • Cold but­ter is real­ly impor­tant to flak­i­ness, as is rest­ing time
  • Over­work­ing can lead to gum­my, dense dough, so be care­ful
  • Can make it dri­er or wet­ter to your pref­er­ence for what­ev­er you’re mak­ing

Vegan Sweet Milk Bread

Uses

Pull Apart Breads, Dough­nuts, Plain Milk Sweet Bread, Fruit Bread, Bean Paste Loaves, Gar­lic Bread, etc.

Ingredients

4 Cups All-Pur­pose or Bread Flour (give or take)

1 Cup Plant-based Milk (e.g. Oat milk)

1 pack­et or 2¼ tsp Dry Active Yeast

2 tsp + ½ Cup Sug­ar

1 Tbsp Salt

4 Tbsp Veg­an But­ter

Option­al: 2 Large Egg Equiv­a­lent (e.g. egg replac­er), 2 Tbsp Cornstarch/Potato Starch/Tapioca Starch, some Hon­ey

Time

Time: 30 min­utes prep; 1–2 hours, or overnight in the fridge set

Serv­ings: 2 large bread loaves or 36 cup­cake sizes or 24 cup­cake sizes + 1 medi­um round

Directions

Yeast

  • Heat Milk (1 Cup) to about 100–115F (too hot and yeast will die)
  • Pour into stand mix­er bowl
  • Dis­solve Sug­ar (2 tsp) and option­al­ly, Hon­ey
  • Add Active Dry Yeast (2¼ tsp or 1 enve­lope)
  • Light­ly stir
  • Cov­er and let bloom for about 5–10 min­utes (until it foams and smells like yeast)

Dough

  • By now the yeast should have bloomed quite well
  • Melt then add Veg­an But­ter (4 Tbsp)
  • Add Sug­ar (½ Cup for sweet bread, less for less sweet)
  • Add Salt (1Tbsp)
  • Add Egg Replac­er (2 Large Eggs), if using
  • Add Starch (2 Tbsp), if using
  • Incre­men­tal­ly add Flour (~4 Cups) and mix until it starts turn­ing into dough
  • Using the dough hook attach­ment at lev­el 4 on a stand mix­er, fin­ish adding the flour in small incre­ments until the dough comes nice­ly off the sides of the bowl, about 15 min­utes
  • Oth­er­wise, hand knead 20–30 min­utes
  • When it is smooth and tacky, cov­er with plas­tic wrap and/or a dish cloth, and set it in a warm loca­tion to proof for about 1–2 hours
  • Option­al­ly: cov­er and let rise overnight in the refrig­er­a­tor
  • Poke Test: It’s ready when you poke it with your fin­ger and it does­n’t spring back

Pictures

Notes

  • Let­ting rise too fast can take away from the fla­vor. Yeast appar­ent­ly likes 70F — 100F tem­per­a­tures. It is rec­om­mend­ed to stay on the low­er end if you want to get the most fla­vor
  • Good added ingre­di­ents: dried fruits, nuts, sweet bean paste, gar­lic but­ter, etc