Soymilk Red Bean Cake

Post from January 13, 2011 (original blog deleted)

Took the day off today from work. =D

I just baked 2 mini-ish loaves of Soymilk Red Bean Cake, with a recipe adapt'd from Quick & Easy Soymilk Desserts by Yasuyo Shida. I love this book!!! Came across it a few years ago on amazon.com. I assume that it was originally a Japanese publication, but translated & publish'd in English. Funny thing is that it has 2 exact recipes with the exact photos as in one of my Japanese-text cookbooks - I was so thrill'd cos I can better decipher the Japanese words/terms in the Japanese recipes with the guide of the English ones. I can somewhat understand the Kanji & Katagana in them, but my eyes get dizzy after staring @ the Japanese for minute after minute. =P

Here is the original recipe from the book:

Red Bean Cake (for 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

2 eggs, separated

2 oz (55 g) granulated sugar

5/6 oz (25 g) powdered sugar

3-1/6 oz (95 g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

30 ml soymilk, blended with

   30 ml vegetable oil

4-2/3 oz (140 g) canned red bean paste

1/4 oz (10 g) sugar-glazed red beans

Do-Ahead Tips

• let eggs stand @ room tempurature
• sift together flour & baking powder
• Preheat oven to 340 F
• Lightly butter the loaf pan & coat with flour - shake off excess flour

1. In a bowl, beat egg yolks with half amount of the granulated sugar until thickened. Stir in half amount of the powdered sugar. Beat well, and add the remaining powdered sugar.
2. When dropping consistency is achieved, fold in bean jam. Combine soymilk & oil, and stir into the batter.
3. Make meringue. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until almost stiff. Add remaining granulated sugar and whisk until very stiff.
4. Add half of the meringue to the egg mixture and mix lightly. Fold in half of the flour mixture. When flour is still visible, fold in half of the sugar-glazed beans. Fold in the remaining meringue, flour mixture, then remaining beans. Blend well at this final stage.
5. Pour into pan and bake at 340 F for 25-30 minutes.


ENJOY!!!


(my variations: I replaced the vegetable oil with more soy milk since I want'd to use soybean oil, but only had olive oil. While typing this, I realized that i left out the salt. Also, I used only canned red bean, about a half cup of it, didn't differentiate between paste & beans...p.s. the measurements are in cups or spoons, so a scale would be uber-useful).

Can't wait to taste it (still baking...5 more minutes?)

Tofu probably will love it too!!! He kept try'n to sniff & lick the batter on the table while I was prep'n. I'll probably serve him a tiny chunk with some vanilla haagen dazs...hehehe. i spoil this puppy, in a bad way...BAD MOMMY! BAD ME!!! it's just a little bit...=P He takes it from me - his never-end'n scurry'n for food. His name probably has something to do with his welcoming appetite too.

Cakes should be done. Lemme check! *EXCITED!*

Just gonna let the tops brown for a few more minutes cos a brown'd & crunchy caketop is the best part!!!

Cake is done - very light & fluffy, not too sweet, chewy & YUMMY! i think i coulda made one taller loaf. The 2 loaves didn't rise as much as I had expect'd, but then again, now I get 2 crunchy cake tops as opposed to one. NICE!!!

*UPDATE* i literally just consumed one entire loaf - wick'd addictive chewy sweetness!!! gotta try hard to share the other loaf. hehehe.