To be completely honest, even though I was born in the arctic (read: Minneapolis, Minnesota), I am not good with the cold, and for that very reason I have mixed feeling about the arrival of December. On the one hand, I like the Christmas season and all the lights and foods that transport me back to childhood, but on the other hand starting from December it just gets colder and colder in Tokyo and I am not about that life. However, as long as I have a batch of mulled wine (red wine heated with citrus, honey, and spices popular in the UK and Europe) to evoke the Christmas spirit and warm my body on cold nights, somehow I know that somehow I will make it through the winter, so today I’m posting a recipe for mulled wine that can be easily made with ingredients readily available in Japan. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Pumpkin Spice Rum Cupcakes
Tokyo has been sliding into Christmas mode since Halloween ended, but I personally can’t bring myself to get into the winter-y Christmas spirit until December. That said, come next week it will be December and I know I will start wanting to leave my beloved pumpkins and kabocha squashes aside for Christmas cookies and mulled wine, so as a fitting last autumn-themed baked goods recipe I figured I would post these pumpkin spice rum cupcakes I made back in October. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Curry Kabocha Croquettes
One of the things I start craving when it starts getting cold is of course kabocha, and it’s been getting plenty cold here lately, so it’s the perfect season to enjoy some toasty, spicy little curry kabocha croquettes. Naturally, sweeter curries like the mild variety of House’s Vermont Curry go really well with kabocha, but kabocha is already sweet so it also pairs well with spicier curries as well. Personally, I like both flavor combinations so today I’m uploading a recipe for both. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Maple Whiskey Bacon Pecan Pie
For Americans, November is all about Thanksgiving and even though I haven’t really celebrated the holiday properly since moving to Japan, I still start wanting to make traditional Thanksgiving desserts like pumpkin pie or pecan pie come November. Pumpkin pie is clearly the most popular of the Thanksgiving dessert fare, but personally I have always been more partial to pecan pie. Depending on the recipe, pecan pies can be borderline too sweet, but there are also plenty of variations out there, so to cut down on the cloying sweetness potential this time I went with adding some salty bacon to the top to balance the sweetness of the sugar and syrup and some whiskey to the filling to bring out all the flavors. [Continue Reading/続きを読む]
Pikachu Pumpkin Rum Cakes
The Pokemon craze may be a source of late 90s-early 2000s nostalgia in America, but here in Japan it is still alive and well, and you can find a massive variety of Pokemon products from plush toys to dishes and tablewear all over the place. In fact, a couple of months ago I saw a silicon pan for making cute little Pikachu-shaped cakes in store and immediately snapped it up knowing that I would undoubtedly find myself baking for Pokemon fan one of these days. And sure enough, my Pokemon-obsessed friend’s birthday came up a couple of weeks ago so it was the perfect excuse not only to try out my Pikachu pan, but also to try out a pumpkin rum came recipe that I had been wanting to make.[Continue Reading/続きを読む]