Momofuku Cornflake-Chocolate-Chip-Marshmallow "Cookies" :: Toffee x Cookie Time

I finally now have in my possession, copies of the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook. Yes, copies plural. My love of all things Momofuku is so widely known that I've made it dead-simple for people to shop for me. To all of you that gifted me with the Milk Bar cookbook, one million thanks to you. I will probably need all 3 copies, somehow, someway. 

People rave about the compost cookie and everyone is obsessed with the cheeky crack pie. Those are amazing, yes. But me? I love the Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies. It is everything I love in a cookie. Super chewy, super buttery, not too chocolate-y and has a nice texture. So naturally, when I got the book, I flipped right to this recipe and started gathering everything I needed. 

 

And that didn't take very long since I had everything but cornflakes on hand. This is a pretty basic cookie recipe...sort of. Before you start creaming your butter and sugar, you have to make the Momofuku Cornflake Crunch. Basically, you toss a box of cornflakes with sugar, milk powder, salt and melted butter, then bake until you get golden brown crispy clusters. It's not hard, just an extra but necessary step. If you've been to Milk Bar, this is the stuff they crumble on top of their soft serves as a salty-sweet topping. And yes, you can just eat it plain. I know because I've tried. 

After you have the cornflake crunch, it's pretty easy. I would highly recommend refrigerating the dough for at least 3 hours. The book says just 1, but these cookies spread like a motha'f*#%^ in the oven. Mine came out a little funky texture wise: crispy like toffee on the edge but gooey and cookie-like in the middle. Not necessarily a bad thing though! I brought a batch on a ski trip over the weekend and we renamed these "Tookies". 

Here's the recipe online, but get the book! It's filled with a lot of great stories and recipes.

Ice Cream Sandwich Meets Ice Cream Bar

Two of my favorite things had a baby AND got more environmentally friendly. What will you think of next Japan?!

My Funny Valentine

I really shouldn't be writing this post. My apartment looks like a giant explosion of toiletries, winter clothes, summer clothes and plastic bags. That's right, I'm packing for vacation! This time around, Blammo and I are hitting up New York, Chile, Argentina, Savannah and The Bay Area for about 2 weeks. Yeah. It's going to be nuts. And awesome. And delicious.

We will arrive in Santiago on Valentine's Day, so I decided to bake some vday sweets well in advance. One of the season cake classes at ABC is a White Chocolate Strawberry heart shaped cake. It was adorable but not really my kid of cake. Buttercream frosting seems to be exclusively American and cakes in Japan are almost always topped with whipped cream or ganache. Nothing wrong with that but just not my style. It's pretty though, right?

For my lovely coworkers, who I am getting to know more and more these days I made a batch of Pink Frosting Cookies. When baking for my expat office, I try my best to bring a little piece of home to them and one bite of these cookies will bring you back to elementary school. My birthday is in October near Halloween, so whenever it was my turn to bring in a treat to share for my class, I always got white sugar cookies with bright orange frosting from Safeway. Well, regardless of what color the frosting is the taste will bring you back to those store bought Lofthouse style cookies.

The batch I made tasted spot on and I was so pleased to hear all the Americans say "oh my gosh, these totally remind me of ". Because I always use a 50/50 mix of bread and cake flour, the texture of my cookies turned out more cakey than I would have liked. They were basically cupcake tops. Not a bad thing at all. I don't mind the softness but maybe next time I'll try an 80/20 bread to cake flour mix to see if it makes a difference. 

Ok, I'm running out of things to say about Valentine's Day. I've watched all the new TV shows on my Apple TV and washed every single dish in the house which means, I have to either go to sleep or finish packing.

See you in 2 weeks with lots of pictures and stories from far and away!

Brioche :: Eggy, Buttery, Sugary Good

I haven't done a lot of home baking in 2011. Maybe it's because I was burnt out from the Great Christmas Cookiefest of 2010 or pre-occupied with the half marathon healthiness. But now that things have calmed down, I've been turning to my trusty cookbooks for some at-home fun. I was feeling ambitious last weekend, so I gave Joanne Chang's Flour Bakery Basic Brioche recipe a try. The basic recipe can then be used to make different treats like gooey cinnamon rolls (the ones that beat Bobby Flay's throwdown) and various other morning sweets. I chose the Brioche aux Chocolat and Sugar + Spice Buns.

Fun fun fun! Ever since I started my bread courses at ABC Cooking Studio, I haven't really utilized the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. If I bake bread at home, it's a good opportunity to try out the tips and tricks I've learned in class and we always knead by hand. But that's messy. And this recipe  is especially messy, calling for 6 eggs and 2 1/2 sticks of butter. Plus, Joanne Chang gives really detailed instructions on making the dough in a mixer, down to the sounds (slap slap slap) and feel (cold playdough) of the dough. Seriously, it's really hard to mess up her recipes. From her book and some magazine interviews, I get the sense that she truly understands what it's like to be a baking hobbyist. She recognizes the motivations, struggles and insecurities we all face when baking at home, alone. Which is my way of saying, get the book.

Of the two, I preferred the Brioche aux Chocolat. The melted chocolate and warm pastry cream center go perfectly together. Again, the pastry cream recipe in the book is so detailed, it is pretty hard to botch. Timing and temperature are key but if you read the instructions a few times beforehand and are well equipped with your ingredients in place, you can't fail.

The basic brioche dough recipe in the book is BIG. Like I said, 6 eggs and 2 1/2 sticks of butter. But that is so that you have a dough large enough to knead properly in a standing mixer, so you can freeze the dough for up to a week and try out the various morning treats over the course of a few days. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Happy Japanese Birthday Party

 Friends are fun. I don't have a ton of them in Japan, but the ones I do have, I like very much. Quality, not quantity people! And even though I can count my buds on 1 hand, they somehow managed to extend my birthday celebrations to 3 weeks. My friend Natsuko invited me, Squids (who is requesting ANOTHER name change...Blammo) and my ABC Cooking Studio partner in crime over for a "typical Japanese birthday cake" party. It was a low key night in Saitama where we ate nabe, talked about appropriate x-mas gifts (Blammo: "Fireworks.") and listened to Spice Girls (only about 30 seconds of it...on accident...I hope.) 

Appetizer. Avocado, cream cheese and shaved bonito flakes with a soy dipping sauce. Pretty tasty and VERY Japanese. 

 キムキムなべ　

My friend made "Kimu Kimu Nabe". When Natsuko and I became friends, she said that I had to have a nickname because...that's what Japanese people do. So, she settled on "Kimu Kimu" which is my name doubled up and pronounced in Japanese. In honor of my birthday, she made Kimchi Nabe, a classic Japanese one pot winter dish with kimchi. Cute and delicious! 

More on nabe: Nabe means pot or hot pot. The clay nabe pot goes in the middle of the table and everyone sits around and eats it. It's filled with lots of veggies, tofu, chicken meatballs, pork, mushrooms...basically anything you want. They say that eating nabe brings you closer together, both physically and spiritually. 

Japanese homes get very cold in the winter, so nabe is a really popular dish. You can double your heating pleasure by eating nabe on a kotatsu, a low heated table covered with a futon. You sit on the ground with your legs under the futon and table where it is nice and warm. Natsuko says kotatsu are very evil because once you get under one, you can never leave. 

 Japanese girl's apartments are not built for foreign guys' feet. 

 Cake assembly. For Natsuko's birthday, I made her a typical American birthday cake - chocolate with cream cheese frosting and rainbow sprinkles. She pretended to like it, but I think it was too sweet for her taste. So, she promised that for my birthday, she'd make me a "typical Japanese" cake. I learned on this night, that it meant a sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries. 

 Me with my eyes closed, waiting for the goods. 

おめでとうございます！

The cake was light, fruity and very delicious. Exactly what I needed after our nabe dinner. How cute is this cake?!

And I got to take home some homemade kitchen mitts! ちょ~かわいい！(Very cute!)

Kakigoori and the End of the Red Dye Ban

Summer in Japan. It's hot. You will hear people remark on this fact of life all summer long. Although they don't dress like it's hot (black leggings, cardigans, boots) Japanese people do feel the heat and they've come up with some ways to cool down. Most of these solutions involve eating something. Popular summer foods said to cool you down - unagi (grilled eel), goya (bitter melon) and kakigoori (shaved ice). Shaved ice is probably the only thing on this list that will physically make you feel cooler, though I'm not here to dispute a whole country that believes in the magical powers of eels and bitter melons.

If you ever visit Japan in the summer, you will see flags with the kanji for "water" hanging outside cafes and restaurants. (see above) This is their way of telling you to come on in and enjoy a refreshingly cool snack like ice cream and shaved ice. I'm a big fan of shaved ice mostly because it usually involves creamy condensed milk. I usually won't order shaved ice unless it has condensed milk drizzled on top - I find the plain snow cone style a little too sweet and syrupy.

Fresh strawberry shaved ice at the Super Yosakoi Festival. 

Another strawberry shaved ice w/out condensed milk at the top of Mt. Takao last summer. 

I might as well break the news here and now since these photos sell me out: I've dropped my ban on red candy. Yes, that's right. My personal moratorium on ingesting red dye has come to an end. It all started one Friday evening in Walnut Creek, CA. I was watching 20/20 with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs and they did a story on the dangers of Red 40 - a common dye used in drinks and candies. Apparently all dyes are somewhat carcinogenic but Red 40 is the worst. According to 20/20. Well, this stuck in my head and from that night on, every bag of Skittles, Starbursts, M&Ms had to be carefully inspected and removed of all reds. It actually wasn't so bad because I don't actually like the flavor of a lot of red candies. Artificial cherry flavor is gross. I've never had a red Swedish Fish in my life. I would risk dehydration and avoid the complimentary red Gatorade at gymnastics meets. The only candy that ever broke my rule was, on a occasion, Hot Tamales. I used to quickly discard all the red Sour Patch Kids from the bag before it got to dark to see what I was popping into my mouth. I even had a ziploc bag full of discarded red candies at my first job. I admit it, it was just plain weird. 

What ended it all? I don't know...probably laziness and the acceptance that everything in life can or does kill you. And on that note, have a nice day. 

Happy Birthday Cup Cake...Cake

Happy Birthday Squidward! One of the very first things I made in my Tokyo kitchen was a birthday cake for Squidward. Last year, it was a Martha Stewart chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, adorned with a candied smiley face. This year, I went with a super moist chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting from the always amazing and drool worthy Smitten Kitchen blog. In one of Deb's posts, she talks about how she wanted to make a cake version of a Devil Dog or Hostess Cup Cake. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out when she gave it a go, but I decided to give it a shot and tada! Here is the finished product. Look familiar? 

The layer inside the cake (and the swirls on top) is a recipe similar to the yummy marshmallow filling you'd find in a Ding Dong, Cup Cake or Devil Dog. Seven Minute Frosting is the name. Even though it took a lot of sweat and muscles to make (beating the egg whites by hand over simmering water....Big Blue Betty was of no help to me here) it really made this cake authentic and cut some of the over the top chocolatey-ness. If you're going to make a chocolate cake in the near future, USE THIS ONE. It is devine. As for the filling...be sure to eat the cake fast because the seven minute frosting will eventually absorb into the cake. 

I read A LOT of food blogs thanks to my Google Reader. (Why isn't everyone using it already?!)  I'd say that 90% of my kitchen experiments are inspired by the things I read online. However, when it comes to baking, I really need to be more diligent about converting the recipes to be Japan friendly. I made this recipe as it is shown on Smitten Kitchen and I'm lucky everything turned out ok. Ovens and cake pans are MUCH smaller here so I had a ton of leftover batter and a little bit of cake overspillage on the first batch. (This just means I have 4 extra cakes in the freezer...wah wah) And as I mentioned before, ingredients are measured in grams, milliters and CCs. Even the Japanese Cup is different from the American Cup. 200mL vs. 237 mL respectively. I just learned this last tidbit yesterday and it blew my mind. So, I've started keeping an Excel document that will help me convert these American recipes into Japan friendly portions as not to waste ingredients and bake more accurately. 

The Perfect Naka-Meguro Date :: Seirinkan Pizza and CremAmore Ice Cream

 

Pizza is one of those rare dishes in Japan that does not taste good after being adapted to Japanese tastes. I like hambaagus, love Japanese curry and they're the experts on ramen...but pizza? Please put down the mayonnaise and cod roe and step away from the kitchen. There are of course exceptions and Seirinkan in Naka-Meguro is one of them.  There are only two kinds of pizzas, so if you're looking for variety and toppings, this is not your place, but the two are authentic and more importantly, delicious. I prefer the Margherita to the Marinara, but they are simple and done to perfection. 

 

It would be wrong of me to not mention the decor. For whatever reason, the restaurant is made up like a Soviet bunker down to the giant camouflage net covering the entrance. Pizza? Communist propaganda? What could be missing?   

 

Dessert! I don't even know if Seirinkan has dessert but I would suggest skipping it if they do because there is a gem of a gelato shop right down the street that I always end my pizza meal with. CremAmore is a tiny shop/bar. You can buy a scoop from the window and take it to go, or join the locals inside for a drink and gelato. (Last time I was here, a woman went to sleep on the floor and the owner went upstairs and got her a blanket.) The shop owner is charming and sweet and will give samples of every flavor he has that day before he even asks for you order. The gelatos and sorbets and house made. My favorite is the strawberry gelato, which actually tastes like strawberries. 

Perfectly executed pizza and gelato -- it is one of the most perfect meals in Tokyo. 

Seirinkan

Kami-Meguro 2-6-4. Open 11:30am-2, 6-9:30pm (LO) daily. 

CremAmore

Not sure the exact address, but if you come out of Seirinkan, go right and the shop will be right in front of you. 

Nakameguro Station (Hibiya and Tokyo Toyoku) 

Monkies and Mochi

Shimura's Zoo is a popular Japanese TV show which stars the lovable and talented chimpanzee, Pan-kun. The shows usually involve Pan-kun going on adventures with his bulldog friend James and his also adorable owner.

Mochi is glutinous rice cakes. During the New Year, families get together to make mochi from scratch in a tradition called Mochitsuki. I came across a mochi party in December and it looked like a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work.

So what do the two have in common? Nothing really, but here is a cute video of Pan-kun making mochi with Ms. Universe (the transexual edition) Ai Haruna. If you are bored at work, I suggest googling Pan-kun's other adventures - notably, the one with the magician and the one where he uses the Tokyo Metro with James.

Toraya Cafe :: Classy Japanese Sweets and Tea

Keeping with the Japanese theme, I stopped by Toraya Cafe in Roppongi for some tea and sweets. Toraya serves Japanese sweets and yummy teas. I ordered the Kuzu Purin a la Mode. Kuzu is a white bean paste and a la mode in this case means a dollop of the best whipped cream I have ever tasted. Goes nicely with my Chrysanthemem (?) tea. Purin 「プリン」by the way is the Japanese word for Pudding. Purin is a childhood favorite in Japan and is more like a creamier flan than the JELL-O variety we eat in the US.

Toraya Cafe, Roppongi Hills
Roppongi Hills Residence-B 1F 6-12-2 Roppongi-keyakizakadori
Roppongi Station (Hibiya, Oedo)


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My Lunch :: Nov 20th

Maple Donut and Pineapple Bread with coffee at Froment D'Or in Minami Senjuu.

Neyn Donuts

There is a very cute donut shop called Neyn, down the hill from where we live and as I learn more and more about the shop, the more I love it. The donuts are very unique - they are all handmade and most are baked rather than fried and more cakey in texture. Don't let that fool you - they're still quite tasty. My favorite is the fromage donut which is covered with organic powdered sugar and filled with a sweet cream cheese. They also have matcha, chocolate, cassis and orange chocolate varieties. The design of the cafe is European and authentic. The coffee is strong and tastey - kind of rare of Japan.

What makes this shop pretty bitchin' is the story behind it. The owner, Yoshihisa Yamada is a 45-year-old bad ass. I really admire people who have "made it" in the business world. I guess maybe because I used to work in that kind of environment, I understand how hard it is to be successful and not just another paper-pusher/middle-management drone (like I was...wah wah). Yamada's resume is truly impressive: he graduated from the best University in Japan (Tokyo University), got an MBA from Harvard, worked at both the Bank of Japan and Goldman Sachs, then became the man in charge of Rakuten Travel, the largest online shopping operator in Japan, kind of like the Amazon.com of Japan. Did I mention he's only 45?

Thankfully for sweets lovers, he decided to take his smarts and invest it into a donut shop. It might seem kind of random, but he has such a good business-oriented reason as to why he chose a donut shop. From a Japan Times article:

Yamada decided on doughnuts because their popularity in Japan is a constant, and because there aren't all that many competitors. He said he could have tried the fashion business or a patisserie, but Tokyo already has a ton of those and he wasn't sure if he could set his company apart...

"Creating value-added products and bringing them overseas — that's what I'm interested in doing."

He also chose his location, Akasaka Sacas, because of the high density of Office Ladies (called OL's in Japan) in the area. Office ladies are kind of their own demographic here. In short, OL's are young women who work in big offices, taking care of the workers by fetching tea and snacks. They live at home with their parents and stop working once they get married. The whole point of being an OL is to find a husband...or at least this is what I'm told. Most cute cafes and lunch spots are catered to OLs, and Neyn is one of them.

Neyn seems to be doing pretty well for themselves. Aside from their main shop in Akasaka, they opened an experimental 1-year shop in the swanky Tokyo Midtown building. I hope this shop does well. Anyone who thinks that donuts are a value-added product is someone I can get behind.


Neyn Donuts

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Hokkaido Soft Cream

After my gross lunch today, (see below), I had to get something special to wash away the sadness. My solution? Hokkaido Soft Cream. Hokkaido is Japan's 2nd largest island behind Honshu. It is the big one just north of Honshu. Hokkaido is synonymous with milk and milk related products. I guess the climate up there is good for herding cows, and cows there produce a very creamy tasty milk. People in Tokyo go crazy for Hokkaido Soft Cream. I mean, I have never seen people line up for something like that before but I can totally understand why they do it. Most soft cream in Japan is made with lard or vegetable shortening or something else gross...but not Hokkaido Soft Cream. It is super creamy and clean and in my opinion, the plain milk flavor is the best. Today I got a swirl of Melon and Milk and it was pretty good. So good that that salaryman in the background is staring at my cone.

Hokkaido is also known for their beer. The biggest city in Hokkaido is Sapporo which of course, makes a very famous beer. A few years ago, milk consumption was dropping so a company in Sapporo decided to mix their two biggest exports and create Bilk - Milk Beer. I am hesitant to write about this only because I get a little tired of the "wacky Japan" articles picked up by mainstream international media. (I'm looking at you New York Times!) Yes, there are weird things in Japan (dudes having relationships with dolls and figurines, vegetable flavored chocolate, etc) but most of the weird things only represent only a super tiny portion of the population. Yes, there is a vending machine in Tokyo that sells used ladies underwear, but that is 1 vending machine out of god knows how many in Japan! Ok, I'm just venting now...my point is, those articles are always super entertaining but now that I've moved here, I realize that they probably do more harm than good. Although...this one is a classic.

My Snack :: Oct 3 :: Afternoon Tea

Toffee Banana Cake and Iced Coffee at Afternoon Tea. Just what I need right now. Shopping makes you hungry. Afternoon Tea is a really popular store and cafe in Japan. It is quite possibly, the girliest place I've ever seen and my body squeels every time I browse through their inventory. Aprons, kitchen gadgets, bath salts, house slippers - all in pastel colors or animal shapes. I once asked my roommate to pick something up for me since there is an Afternoon Tea in his work building and he didn't speak to me for about a week. The cafes usually have long lines on the weekends, but if you are lucky enough to snag a table, definitely try it out for a sweet snack.

Afternoon Tea, Marunouchi
Shin-Marunouchi Building, 5F

Tokyo Station (Marunouchi, JR)

My Lunch :: Sept 19 :: Neyn Donuts

Fromage donut and iced coffee from Neyn Doughnut Shop. We are so lucky
that this adorable shop is right down the road from our apartment. The
owner is pretty awesome - he went to HBS, worked at Goldman, Bank of
Japan and he left his post as President of Rakuten Travel (Japan's
biggest online retailer) to open this little shop with his own money.
Kind of my dream...

Chip! Chop!

One of the worst and best things about being in a foreign country is not knowing what products are good and which are crap. You basically have to learn by trial and error. For example, I keep buying absolutely disgusting toothpaste. What exactly does "Extreme Cool" taste like and is it better than "Icy Fire"? Only one way to find out. (PS - both are gross.)

To make things easier on myself, I've decided to become a complete slave to marketing and advertising. Back home, I drowned out all the lame messages on the subway and on TV, but here I'm all ears. It's worked out pretty well thus far. I got an iPhone because of that schnazzy SMAP Softbank commercial, I drink BOSS Coffee because Tommy Lee Jones is on the can and generally stick to Suntory drink products because well, "For relaxing time, make it a Suntory time." One of my favorite finds thus far is a chocolate snack called Chip Chop. They're slightly salty like potato chips, but chocolate flavored. If you watch the current commercial below, you'll understand why I had to have them.

Ikebukuro's Namco Namjatown

What the hell just happened to me?! How did I get there and back? Do I love this place or hate it? These are a few questions I asked myself after visiting Namco Namjatown in Ikebukuro this weekend. Let me start off by saying that Ikebukuro is a cool place. It is a district in Northern Tokyo and is a major hub to the Eastern Prefectures. It's crazy, crowded and packed with cheap shopping, Hello Kitty, multi-level Arcades and food. One of the main attractions is a mall called Sunshine City. I don't think it would be possible to visit every single store in this place but I didn't come for the shopping. I came to eat.

This is where Namco Namjatown comes into play. This is a...theme park maybe? Fun house? I'm still not exactly sure what the purpose of this crazy place is but I do know that it is home to Ice Cream City and Gyoza Stadium.

Roomie and I first stopped by Gyoza Stadium for dinner/glorified snack. If you didn't know already, gyoza are Japanese dumplings. They're usually boiled then pan fried on one side. The fillings usually involve pork and chives - gyoza are another Chinese food Japanese people have basically stolen and called their own (Ehem..Ramen...) We ordered Gyoza from 4 different booths and were scared to find out that one of the kinds we ordered contained cheese. What we didn't realize is that the these were gyoza masters. Each booth featured a large picture of a serious looking Japanese dude crossing his arms. Picture Iron Chef and their Iron Chef Masters. The cheese gyoza were not bad at all...in fact, I kind of wish they were more common.

Next stop...ICE CREAM CITY!!! It's been a dream of mine to live in a place were every store is an ice cream store and I had my homecoming this weekend. In Ice Cream City, everyone smiles and is very nice. In Ice Cream City, you can have any flavor of ice cream, soft cream, shaved ice and gelato you fancy! In Ice Cream City, you are happy. I got a Strawberry Magic Ice with red beans, mochi and condensed milk. In Ice Cream City, you don't shave ice and then pour gross syrup on top...NO! In Ice Cream City, they puree Strawberries and freeze it THEN shave it. Genius. Roomie got a Banana Soft Cream in a crepe. I think he liked it.

Baking in Japan

The roomie's birthday was a few weekends ago and to celebrate, I dusted off my beautiful Blue Betty mixer and baked him a cake. I'm quite the baker, if I may say so myself. I enjoy it more than I enjoy cooking. I'm not very free form and I like to stick to recipes as they were written. What can I say, I'm not a rule breaker.

Settling into Japan, the last thing I thought would cause me great stress was baking cake. There were a many obstacles along the way. Let me explain:

1. I don't read a lot of Kanji. The Japanese language uses 3 alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are like the letters of the alphabet and they're pretty easy to pick up once you become familiar enough. Kanji on the other hand is a beast. Kanji are Chinese characters adapted to the Japanese language. Each character can have several meanings depending on the situation. Learning Kanji is straight memorization and recognition. You need to know around 2,000 Kanji and all their meanings in order to read the newspaper. It's such a complicated system that even the not-for-long Prime Minister, Taro Aso, jumbled meanings in public speeches a la George Bush. Anyhow, because I know about 7 Kanji total, it made grocery shopping incredibly difficult. Is this flour or cornstarch? Sugar or laundry detergent? Where do I find Baking Soda? What is Vanilla Oil and is it the same as Vanilla Extract? Headache!

2. While my kitchen is super fancy and high tech, sometimes you just don't need technology to intervene. In America, the oven usually resides under the stove. In Japan, this is a shoebox sized fish fryer. Not big or hot enough to bake a cake. Instead, we have a dual microwave/convection oven the size of a standard microwave. It's basically an Easy Bake Oven for grown ups. This thing is cool in theory, but when you don't know how it works, it is the scariest thing in the world. There are so many buttons and none of them have any meaning to me. (See point 1) At one point, I think I microwaved my batter for about 7 minutes. Double headache!

3. Conversions and measurements. Math - ack! Thank goodness for the Internet. Because the ovens here are tiny, the cake pans are also very tiny, so I had to decrease the amount of batter I was making. Not that big of a deal. There are tons of great recipe conversion sites out there that do all the work for you. What is not so fun is taking standard cookbook measurements and converting them into weight. I could not find measuring cups to save my life here. Instead, I bought a kitchen scale and had to weigh all the ingredients. As you know with baking, perfect measurements are vital to a successful treat so this was kind of stressful. Butter is not pre-measured in convenient quarter cup sticks here, so things got a little messy at this point. Fret not, I'm feeling better about the scale debacle after reading this post on Gizmodo.

After all was said and done, the cake came out pretty amazing. I made a Martha Stewart Devil's Food Cake with Sprinkles' Cream Cheese Frosting. The sour cream in the cake batter keeps the cake super moist. The one good thing about baking in Japan is that the easiest thing to find are super cute cake decorations. They're pretty cheap and readily available at the grocery store or drugstores. Presentation and packaging are SO IMPORTANT in Japan, almost to a ridiculous degree. After all the Kanji, measuring and oven hullabaloo - I ended up with a happy birthday boy and a very cute cake.

Tully's Honey Walnut Donut

Two reasons I'm writing this post: 1. I just got an iPhone and wanted to try posting from my phone and 2. to talk about chains in Japan. There are a lot of familiar chains here in Japan and most are worth checking out because of the drastic cultural differences between the East and West expectations and tastes. 7-Eleven is a popular example. 7-Elevens in the States are usually grimy, often times dangerous and always bad for your health. 7-Elevens here are ubiquitous and offer really good food. It's also a bank believe it or not. I'll probably do a post on Japanese Convenient Stores ("Kombinis" in Japanese) in the near future since they play a big role in Japanese life.

I'm digressing. My main point about chains are that they're worth a peak. I am currently obsessed with Tully's. I lived in Seattle for 4 years and probably hit up Tully's once. (Although, it is worth mentioning that Tully's has really good soft serve.) I go to my local Tully's in Tokyo everyday and get a honey walnut donut warm (ワル なっと ドナッと）and an iced coffee (アイス コ ヒ) and read or study Japanese for a few hours. Cafes are very popular hang out spots here, so it's also a great place to people watch. If you're a smoker, you can also sit in the smoking section which...to be honest, is where all the cool people sit. I'm contemplating smoking just so I can join the cool kids. I hardly ever drink hot coffee but am always annoyed that American chains don't carry simple syrup for iced drinks. (Sugar dissolves much slower in cold beverages...) Not a problem in Japan! Gum syrup is everywhere and is just another example of their commitment to customer satisfaction. Also, I finally caved and tried a Swirkle. It's basically Tullys' version of a Frappacino and I think they're trying to play off the word "swirl" but I don't know why there is a K in it. Oh Japan.

Shaved Ice

It is hot as a fothermucker in Tokyo right now but I've gotten a little used to it. Here's a great link on how Japanese people keep cool in the summertime. (Shout out to Just Hungry, a great blog about Japanese cooking) I've really embraced keeping cool by eating Shaved Ice. I first discovered shaved ice in Oakland, CA on a fun filled high school trip with my girlfriends. It's cold, slightly creamy and there are all kinds of treasures along the way. Boba, mochi, beans, fruit - the list goes on.













I've had 2 in the last 2 days. The first was from a shaved ice truck on Omotesando (a long street filled with designer stores and trendy folk near Harajuku). I opted for the Adzuki Ice but they also offered Ichigo (strawberry) and Mango. This was a perfect treat and I kind of wanted to order another, but showed some restraint. The next day I went hiking up Mt. Takao and treated myself to a Strawberry shaved ice at the summit. I deserved it, right? This was slightly less satisfying taste wise because it lacked the treasures I mentioned above and also did not have condensed milk. I could (and have) drink condensed milk out of the can. Yum.