Benito's blog

This is the first time I’ve eaten an Ichigo Daifuku so I can say it the best I’ve ever eaten ?. This is the second time making mochi and I don’t think I’ve shared the method I found on the net that makes this so easy to prepare.  Normally, the traditional Japanese method is to prepare glutinous rice and then pound it for hours and hours.  OK I do NOT have time for that so there is a shortcut.  Does the shortcut make exactly the same chewy texture we so love about mochi, not quite, but it is good enough for most of us except diehard mochi perfectionists (not me).

This recipe is an adaptation of Maurizio’s cardamon sweet roll recipe.  The dough is enriched and uses a Yudane to gelatinize some of the starches to make for a more shreddable soft crumb.  After the delicious cake I made last week using yuzu lemon I was trying to think of other ways of using lemon and yuzu and thought about sweet rolls.  So these are filled with lemon sugar and iced with a yuzu vanilla cream cheese icing.  Let’s hope this works and tastes good. 

8”x8” square pan, lined with parchment.

You may know my frustration with this grain and trying to learn to bake with it at 100%.  With much advice and good helpful suggestions from many here, you know who you are so thank you, I think my fifth bake is the best so far without having seen the crumb.

I wanted to try baking a 100% (or close to 100%) white flour only hearth loaf as I don’t think I’ve done this before.  It isn’t perfect, the scoring was off center in a way that altered the ultimate bloom and shape of the loaf.  Despite the great blisters, I wonder if I allowed sufficient fermentation.  I had to cut final bench proof short because of life getting in the way of baking LOL.

Still trying to improve my 100% whole grain baking.  In this iteration I changed two things I believe needed to be addressed.  I’ve lowered the hydration and reduced the final proof.  I believe those changes have helped but still not quite where I want this to be, particularly the oven spring.  Despite the dough coming out of the banneton and standing tall, there was still more spread during baking than I want to see.  So it is still overproofed.