Crunchyroll #110: A Human Body (thanks Full Metal Alchemist!

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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As an anime food blogger, I LOVE recipes. I mean, seriously! If I see some awesome anime food, the best thing I can possibly find is a recipe to go along with it so that I don’t have to make anything totally by scratch. It’s a huge lifesaver, because it saves me a lot of time researching, and time planning on what to do and how to do it. Normally, I look for recipes for actual food items, but amazingly enough, there are some recipes out there that will produce something much greater and more interesting than any old food item.

That’s right people, I’m talking about chemical reactions: add a pinch of this and a pinch of that and then BANG! There you go, you’ve got something completely new! Did anyone else love chemistry for that reason? Science experiments always seemed like more technically inclined cooking experiments. More academic, if you will, but they’re essentially the same thing. You combine a bunch of ingredients to get a specific end product.

And hey, Ed and Al from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood do the same thing! All they want to do is make their good ol’ mom come back to life… Or rather, make her a new human body so that she doesn’t have to be dead anymore. Same difference? As we all know, things go horribly awry (sorry, boys), but on the upshot, we get a detailed list of the specific ingredients that make up a human body: water, carbon, ammonia, lime, phosphorus, salt, glucose, sulfur, silicone, among other things. And I couldn’t help but wonder… What would it be like if I just, you know, mixed these things together?

Well, what we get is basically a human soup. I asked my good friend, Kellen Miller, a chemistry teacher, to help me out with this science experiment. He assembled all the ingredients we would need, using household items, and let me come into his classroom to film. We decided not to use some of the more difficult to obtain/ hardcore ingredients because as it turns out, you can get some pretty dangerous reactions by adding a bunch of chemicals to water. Who knew? So in order to keep it safe, since we didn’t have a super secure filming location, we tried to keep it to the most pertinent ingredients that could be easily obtained around town. Miller is a genius, and worked out the exact proportions of ingredients we’d need, and we were able to mix up our human body in a about thirty minutes. Easy, right?

Now, some things to note: I am not posting a recipe, or the specific list of ingredients we used, because you really shouldn’t be trying this at home. Some of the chemicals we used are dangerous when unbonded (that means when left in their pure form), and if we had gotten the pure form of the chemical, we would have had some incredibly dangerous reactions. Flourine and water, for example, are a very explosive when combined. So is calcium, which is why we used chlorine bicorbonate, etc. This brings into question exactly how Ed and Al, two children, got these super dangerous ingredients in the first place, and also how they managed not to blow themselves up before they even did the transmutation. We have a theory that they ACTUALLY lost their limbs/ body due to the unsafe chemical reactions, rather than as the price for opening the gate. Also, because of the difficulty in getting all these ingredients, and the safety issues related to that, what we do in the video is not technically 100% accurate to what Ed and Al say they do when they try the transmutation. On the other hand, it clearly didn’t work for them, so, you know. The original recipe didn’t even work ANYWAY, and I’m not sure it was the lack of a soul that was the real problem… Hehehe!

So, how did it all turn out? You’ve got to watch the video below to see the results! Can I just say though that it was so much fun to do this science experiment? Miller and I had the best time putting it all together and getting all spooked by the thought of stirring up a human being in a plastic kiddie pool on the floor of a classroom. It was really fun! If you like the idea behind this, comment below with some other science experiments you’d like to see us try. In the meantime, have a great Halloween!

Check out how we made our very own human body by watching the full video down below!

I hope you enjoyed this post! Check in next week for another recipe, and to check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a Twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My Tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Find me on Youtube for more video tutorials! Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! 😀

In case you missed it, check out our last dish: Hot Tub Tamago from Kakuriyo-Bed and Breakfast for Spirits-. What other famous anime dishes would you like to see Emily make on COOKING WITH ANIME?

Crunchyroll #109: Spiral Cake inspired by Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki”

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Juni Ito is a master of horror, and you can see some of his best stories come to life in the Junji Ito Collection. One of his most famous creations focuses on an entire town’s obsession with one thing–the shape of a spiral–and shows how it tears them apart, literally and figuratively. As Halloween draws closer, we have to come up with some spooky things to eat, so what’s better than the regular Swiss roll cake that pops up in so many anime? A few small changes to the normal recipe are all that’s needed to create a truly horrific food masterpiece.

If you’ve never had a Swiss roll cake before, it is essentially a long, flat cake that’s bee rolled up into a spiral and filled with cream. The unique cake is made by baking a thin slab of cake, then turning it out and rolling it up while still hot. As it cools, the cake keeps the swirl shape it was rolled into, and you then go in and fill it with all manner of things. Mostly it’s cream and fruit, but in the case of this cake today, we just used cream.

In this town, everything slowly starts to turn into spirals… which eventually leads to death for many of the characters, and really awful situations for everyone else. I mean, imagine if a snail man crawled into your classroom? As an actual teacher, this would be a literal nightmare for me.

In order to evoke the feel of the spirals in the manga, I decided to dye the chocolate cake black. You can use black cocoa powder to acheive a really dark brown cake, or you can use black food dye like I did. It all depends on what you have available to you. The cool thing about this cake is that it’s a lot easier to make than it looks, so you can impress all your friends with the technique of it, while you sit back and watch them eat FEAR ITSELF.

If you haven’t read Uzumaki or seen the Junji Ito Collection, why wait? ‘Tis the season for spooky anime! In order to make the cake, watch the video below to see the full process.

Ingredients for the Spiral Cake of DEATH

Adapted from the Pioneer Woman’s recipe

Cake:

-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-1/3 cup flour

-1/4 tsp salt

-4 large eggs

-1/2 cup granulated sugar

-4 tbsp butter, melted

-About 1 tbsp black Wilton food dye

Cream filling:

-1 cup heavy cream

-2 heaping spoonfulls of powdered sugar (roughly 2 tbsp)

-1 tsp vanilla extract

To Make the Spiral Cake

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Line a 10×15 jelly roll pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

2. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl. Heat up an inch or two of water until it is steaming in a pot. Place bowl over steaming pot (bowl shouldn’t touch water), and beat with handheld mixer about 1 minute, or until egg mixture is hot to the touch. Remove from the heat and keep mixing another 3-5 minutes until mixture is thick and creamy, and falls in nice ribbons that take a few seconds to merge with the rest of the mixture. Beat in melted butter and set aside.

3. Sift the flour, salt, and cocoa powder in a bowl. Whisk together. Add to the egg mixture and fold together. When mostly combined, add food dye and continue to fold until evenly incorporated.

4. Spread evenly into the jellyroll pan and bake 7-8 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Turn cake out immediately onto a clean dishcloth or a new piece of parchment paper, peel off the old parchment, and roll it up. YES THAT’S RIGHT! Face your fears, and roll that sucker up. Have gumption. Set aside and let cool completely, about twenty minutes

5. In the meantime, whip up cream. Beat until air is incorporated, then add in sugar and vanilla. Keep beating until medium stiff peaks form. Set in fridge until ready.

6. When cake is cooled, unroll and peel parchment or dishcloth away. Spread cream evenly in the inside of the cake. Roll right back up and your SPIRAL CAKE OF DEATH is COMPLETE!!!!

7. Enjoy that day. Try not to die of fear.

Crunchyroll #108: The Occult Club’s Spooky Cookies from “Asobi Asobase”!

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Asobi Asobase – workshop of fun – is an amazing comedy show, and if you aren’t watching it, you should be! Why, you may ask? Besides all the hilarious middle school hijinks the girls get up to, there’s also COOKIE DECORATING involved, which I am 100% here for. Obviously. In episode 11, the Occult Club gets down to business to create some spooky cookies for the multicultural fair. They decide on broomsticks, witch’s hats…and mice that have run into a cement wall. A bit of an odd choice, but that just reflects back on the genius comedy of the show. It’s pretty normal…until all of a sudden you remember just how very odd middle school kids are.

Also, can I just add, whose school has an occult club? I mean, seriously, this club pops us all the time in tons of anime, but I just have to ask- why? Maybe it’s just America, but such a club would NEVER fly in any of the schools I’ve worked at.

Amazing! Delicious! Stupendous! There’s really not much to say, except that I was so moved by this cookie design, I had to add it to me repertoire of Halloween-themed recipes this month. I find the comedy in this show to be EXTREMELY spot-on for middle schoolers (and I would know, because I teach them on a daily basis). I thought these would be fun to bring to class and share with my students and coworkers, and they were very impressed.

The challenge here is in getting the hang of the decorating process, but this is the perfect thing to do with friends, maybe at a Halloween party. Everyone can decorate their own cookies, and get the hang of using cookie icing (royal icing). I strongly encourage you to give it a shot, as it’s a fun Halloween project!

Watch the video below to see the full process for decorating these adorable cookies.

Ingredients and Supplies for the Occult Club’s Spooky Cookies

A note on the cookies and icing:

I follow a wonderful cookie decorator on Youtube. She goes by Sweet Ambs, and creates beautiful designs using Royal Icing. Because I’m such a fan, I bought her personal recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing. I think it was totally worth it- the recipe produced fantastic sugar cookies, and her icing recipe gave me more than enough icing for my cookies. I would recommend checking out her website here, and buying her recipes here (you can just buy the cookie and icing recipe sepertely from everything else).

If you’d prefer a free, but untested-by-me recipes:

The goal is to find a sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t spread, so that when you cut out your cookie shapes, they look sharp and clean coming out of the oven. Here are a few sugar cookie recipe options that look like they’ll do the trick, though I haven’t tested them out myself: Baking a Moment, Midget Momma, and Genius Kitchen all have pretty good recipes. Pay attention to the amounts of cookies each makes, and adjust the recipe accordingly.

Royal icing is notoriously tricky to work with- you need a stand mixer to pull it together, it dries out fast, and is messy to dye different colors. I think it’s worth making because it’s cheaper than buying it, and you can get personalized colors. All royal icing recipes are a combination of water, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and meringue powder. Baking a Moment has a similar recipe to the one I used. You want to pay attention to how much it makes compared to how many cookies you’re making. You can also optionally buy royal icing from a baker’s store, or a Michael’s. That is a great option if you don’t want to go to all the fuss and mess of making your own.

Supplies you need:

-Sugar cookies, cut in the shapes of hats, broomsticks, and squares

-Royal icing, dyed black (flood consistency), gray black (flood consistency), gray (flood consistency), brown (medium consistency), yellow (stiff consistency), and a light yellow for the little mouse feet (medium consistency).

-A rack or plate for drying out your cookies

-Piping bags (disposable)

-A #1 icing tip, 2 #2 tips, and 1 #3 tip.

-Couplers for piping bags/ icing tips.

To Decorate the Spooky Cookies

The best way I can show you to decorate is by watching the video. Below are some tips I have for you about royal icing, and decorating the cookies.

Royal Icing

When you make it up, will be in what we call “stiff consistency”. It will be very firm, and will require elbow grease to stir dye through. If you add just a splash- a tablespoon or so- of water, and stir, add a splash more, and stir, until it’s no longer so difficult to stir, you’ll have “medium consistency”. If you keep adding another splash, and then another, you should get to “flood consistency”. You will know it’s there when the icing, when dropped from a spoon, melds back together with the icing in the bowl seamlessly within 10 seconds.

Witch’s Hat Cookies

Should be decorated with the gray black flood icing, and the black flood icing. Use a piping tip #1 for the black icing, and a #2 tip for the gray black icing. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing to get it to the shape you want.

Mouse in Concrete Wall Cookies

Should be decorated with the gray flood icing, black flood icing, and light yellow medium consistency icing. Use a piping tip #1 for the black icing, a #2 for the gray icing, and just put the light yellow in a plastic baggie and snip a small tip off. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing to get it to the shape you want. Use the skewer to eek out the little mouse feet.

Broomstick Cookies

Should be decorated with the brown medium consistency icing, and yellow stiff consistency icing. Use a #3 tip for the brown, and a #2 tip for the yellow. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing along the handle. Otherwise, just have fun with the broomstick bristles. This one doesn’t require a whole lot of technique.

Crunchyroll #107: Daifuku Meets Pumpkin Spice!

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for crunchy leaves, and sweaters, and, of course, the dreaded PUMPKIN SPICE WAVE of mass hysteria that descends on the average American town at this time each year. I’ll admit, I like the pumpkin spice flavoring in small doses, and I wondered if I could find a way to bring this fall food trend into my anime recipes.

Now, the inspiration for this dish comes from my last trip to Japan. Last spring, I was hanging around Ikebukuro, as one does, when I came across the Hello Kitty store. Being a casual Hello Kitty fan, I decided to quietly peruse the shop’s offerings when I came across adorably packaged boxes of pudding (read: flan) flavored mochi. Intrigued, I purchased them and later that night enjoyed one of the best mochi experiences of my LIFE. As it turned out, mochi filled with pudding flavored GANACHE (Ganache! Who’s ever put that in mochi?) was amazing. I was intrigued!

If you’ve never had ganache before, it is a chocolate cream filling, often used in truffles and on cakes. It’s decadence at its finest- you add cream to chocolate chips and let it melt together. Delicious! Here, I use it as a vehicle for the pumpkin spice flavoring. Combine pumpkin puree with cream, white chocolate, pumpkin pie spice, and a dash of salt, and you’ve got all the makings of a tasty treat.

Now roll that ganache into scraps of tender, fresh mochi? Perfection. Daifuku is traditional filled mochi, often stuffed with bean paste, or strawberries, or both. This pumpkin spice mochi is definitely thinking outside the box, but not too far, I hope. I loved this recipe, and with all the crazy flavor comibinations Japanese snacks are known for, I don’t think this one is really too far out there.

I hope you can try this for yourself. It’s fun, easy, and shockingly in keeping with the season. In any case, stay tuned for more Halloween themed content this month, and watch the video below to see the full process for this pumpkin spice mochi.

Ingredients for Pumpkin Spice Mochi

(Original Pumpkin Spice Ganache here, and Daifuku recipe here)

Pumpkin Spice Ganache

(this is easily doubled, and should be if you plan to roll out the mochi scraps and make more)

-4 oz white chocolate chips (good quality!)

-2 tbsp heavy cream

-1 tbsp pumpkin puree

-1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

-pinch of salt

Mochi

-3/4 cup shiratamako (glutinous rice flour)

-1/4 cup sugar

-3/4 cup water

-Potato starch for dusting surfaces

To Make Pumpkin Spice Mochi

1. Microwave cream about 30 seconds, or until hot. Stir in pumpkin puree, pumpkin spice, and salt. Pour in white chocolate chips and let sit about ten minutes.

2. Stir chocolate chips through the cream. If not completely melted, put in microwave for ten seconds. Stir through until creamy, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside in fridge to harden, at least two hours.

3. Pour sugar, shiratamako, and water into a heat resistant bowl. Stir together. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave at 1000 watts for 1 minute. Wet a spatula and stir mixture until unevenly heated spots are heated evenly. Cover with plastic wrap, and microwave for another minute. Stir again and recover. Microwave another thirty seconds. Stir through. At this point it shouldn’t be a matte white anymore, but slightly transluscent, in the way that frosted glass is slightly transcluscent.

4. Turn mochi out onto a potato starch covered surface. Coat rolling pin with potato starch, and roll it out nice and thin. Cut out rounds in the mochi with a circle cutter or an overturned glass.

5. Spoon teaspoon-fuls of hardened ganache into the middle of each circle. Make sure your hands are well corn-starched, and wrap the edges up around the ganache, and pinch together so that the edges meld with each other. Set aside on a plate.

6. Apparently, you can roll out mochi scraps to cut more circles. Squish into a ball and roll back out. I myself did not try this, but I wish I had since we had a lot left over and these pumpkin spice mochi balls are SO GOOD. You will want to do this if you double the ganache recipe, because you’ll have ganache left over.

7. When done, dust with cinnamon. Enjoy day of for best taste! Otherwise store in a cool, airtight space.

Crunchyroll #106: Hideo’s Meat Buns from “Planet With”

November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Souya, the young, impressionable student, wants one thing in life: meat. He is the lead character in Planet With, and also has the ability to transform into an awesome mecha to fight his foes and claim vengeance for his planet. He wields a giant hammer with a mighty fist, powers up with a “drink” (read: magical alcoholic power-up), and has stood on the backs of his enemies. Mostly, though, he just wants a meat bun.

And that is maybe the number one reason I love this show as much as I do. His unwavering dedication for meat, in the face of all his power and responsibilty, is truly humbling.

And honestly, don’t we all agree? Relatable, that’s the kind of guy Souya is. His friend and caretaker, Ginko, is vegetarian, and therefore all the food she makes for him is vegetarian. This is all well and good except for our growing boy, Souya, who dreams of the stuff. Katsudon, meatballs, meat buns…he wants it all.

Thus far in the anime, I have yet to see him finally get the food of his dreams. I’m not sure we ever will. There’s a particularly great moment when he comes so close…only to be fooled by bean paste! So, in memory of this amazing character, we’re making a meat bun that will satisfy all his cravings.

Now, nikuman, or bao, in Chinese is a pretty simple concept. Well seasoned pork wrapped in fluffy bread- what’s not to love? You can get them in any conbini in Japan, and, as it turns out, they’re pretty easy to make. In fact, the most difficult part of these meat buns are the time it takes to put them together. The second most difficult part is wrapping the meat in the dough and pinching the edges together. If you can carve out two hours of time to cook, that’s the first difficulty down. If you can more or less pinch the edges of dough together, and conveniently disregard the overall aesthetic appeal of your buns, you’re in the clear. The recipe I used is based off the recipe from Just One Cookbook, a fantastic resource for Japanese food. I encourage you to click over and check out the original recipe. I’ve re-written it here explaining the steps I took, which vary slightly from her own. No matter which recipe you follow, though, you’ll get great results.

No matter what, you won’t be disappointed with the flavor- these buns will make anyone happy! Souya- this one’s for you.

Watch the video below to see the full process.

Ingredients for Hideo’s Meat Bun

(Original recipe from here)

Dough

-300 grams (about 2 cups for me, without sifting flour)

-2 tbsp Sugar

-1/2 tsp Salt

-1 tsp Baking Powder

-1 tsp Instant Dry Yeast

-1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

-170 milliters water

Filling

-8-10 dried shiitake mushroom slivers

-½ cup water

-4 leaves napa cabbage, finely chopped

-Salt

-¾ lb ground pork

-1 green onion/scallion, finely chopped

-2 inches ginger, grated

-1 tsp sugar

-1 Tbsp sake

-1 Tbsp soy sauce

-1 Tbsp sesame oil

-1 Tbsp potato starch

-Freshly ground black pepper

To Make Hideo’s Meat Bun

1. Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and yeast together. Add in the water and vegetable oil and stir until dough starts to come together.

2. Turn dough out and press scraps together until a dough ball forms. Knead dough 15-20 minutes or until smooth, springy, and when a pinch of dough is spread between your fingers, you can see light through without the dough breaking. Form into a ball, and place in an oiled bowl. Coat the dough with oil, and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside somewhere warm for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

3. Rehydrate dried mushrooms in the water. Finely chop cabbage, taking out the hard white core, and sprinkle well with salt. Set aside.

4. Put pork, green onion, ginger, sugar, sake, soy sauce, sesame oil, potato starch, pepper, and a generous sprinkle of salt in a bowl. Squeeze the water out of the shitaake mushrooms. Finely chop and add to the bowl. Squeeze all the water out of the cabbage, and add to the bowl.

5. Mix filling together well until sticky and lighter in color. Set aside until dough is ready. Cut parchment squares to place under buns when they are done.

6. When dough is ready, turn out onto work table. Punch down, and divide in two. Roll both halves of dough into logs, and split each into 5 pieces. Roll into balls, and let rest 15 minutes under a damp cloth.

7. Squash dough balls flat. Roll out dough balls, one at a time. The roller should focus on rolling out the edges, so should only be placed about 1/3 of the way onto each dough round. The middle should be thicker than the edges, and the edges should be pretty thin. When dough is rolled out, place two tablespoons of filling in the middle. Pinch the edges by holding the bumpling in the palm of one hand. Take the edge of the wrapper between the thumb and index finger of your free hand, and press the index finger of the hand holding the dumpling against the dough, so that the dough begins to crimp together. See the video attached for a clearer visual of what this should look like. Continue to press and crimp, so the dumpling closes up on itself. Twist the top together to totally seal.

8. Place finished dumpling on a piece of parchment paper and let rest.

9. Heat water in the bottom of a wok. Place bamboo steamer on top (water shouldn’t touch the bottom), so that steam can rise up and through. When steaming, add buns. Place the lid on top, and steam for 11-12 minutes.

10. Allow to cool slightly, and enjoy warm!

Crunchyroll #105: Futoshi’s Bread from “Darling in the FranXX”

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Darling in the FranXX, most people I think can agree, was A SHOW that HAPPENED to a lot of people in a lot of different ways. For me, the most interesting thing Darling had to offer was Futoshi’s bread in like the very last episode, far in the future when they’re all living happily on a replenished Earth.

Overall, the plot thread focusing on Earth’s renewal and attempts to rebuild got a little lost amidst all the space stuff, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this bread pop up at the very end. Up until this, we were sort of left to wonder if the farming stuff really worked (which, by the way, HOW did it work??? It’s not that easy to just plant stuff and watch it grow. They’d have had to do a LOT of work on the soil to get it hospitable for growing plants again.) In the end, though, I wasn’t happy just because I like food, but because bread is a huge indicator of a successful civilization.

Though it’s clear that at the end they are able to have kids and replenish Earth’s supply of non-immortal humans, we don’t know quite the extent of this growth, but the bread provides a vital clue. I mean, think about it: in order to make bread, you have to first grow wheat. After you grow wheat, you need to collect and mill the grain. Then you have to grind the wheat down into flour, and have the wherewithal to practice combining it with water and yeast–yeast, a resource that would not have been as simple to come by as wheat, and even that wasn’t easy–to make a dough, and THEN also have the resources to practice turning the dough into cute little shapes to serve to adorable children.

In our society, it doesn’t seem like much of anything to do, but in a society that is struggling to relearn how to do these things without the aid of the technology they’d grown accustomed to, it would be quite a feat to produce specialty bread products. So then the next question is…. is this bread worth the time and effort?

I mean, yes. Do you like bread? I like bread. You know what makes bread more fun? Eating it in adorable shapes! This recipe is fairly easy to combine together, but it needs a lot of kneading. Like, 15-20 minute’s worth, though the original recipe only called for 10. The most difficult part about it is shaping the bread into your desired shapes, but that’s more fun than hard, and it all tastes good in the end no matter what shape you come up with.

By the way, what are these things? Seriously, are they baby Klaxosaurs? Weird birds? Is it symbolic of 002 and Hiro? I’d be curious to know what you think.

Watch the video below to see the full process.

Ingredients for Futoshi’s Bread

(Adapted slightly from this recipe)

-2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour

-1 package Active Dry Yeast

-1 tbsp Sugar

-1 tsp Salt

-3/4 cup Water

-1/3 cup Milk

-1 tbsp Butter

-2 Eggs

-Red candies or berries for eyes

To Make Futoshi’s Bread

1. Whisk the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar together.

2. In a microwave or on the stove, heat milk, water, and butter so that it is warm–not burning–to the touch. (Within 120-130 F).

3. Stir milk mixture into flour until the dough starts to come together. Add in one egg.

4. Turn dough out onto a table and knead, about 15-20 minutes, until dough is soft, smooth, and pliable.

5. Cover with a damp cloth and rest until doubled, about 60 minutes, in a warm place.

6. Punch air out of dough. Split into 6 pieces and form each piece into a ball, and then into a teardrop shape. Cut the tail feathers of the creature into thirds, and shape appropriately. Set on a baking sheet, and add in berries or candies for eyes. Cover with a damp cloth and let rest 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 F.

7. Mix up final egg with a splash of water. Brush the tops of the buns with the mixture, and bake in the oven at 400 F for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through.

8. Enjoy with butter and jam!

Crunchyroll #104: Luke’s Tiramisu from “Phantom in the Twilight”

November 3, 2018November 3, 2018 ~ Penguin Snacks ~ Leave a comment

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Phantom in the Twilight is the kind of show I think a lot of people have been sleeping on. It’s seems to be catering towards the kind of audience who would love something spooky and mildly trivial, like Ouran High Host Club. Is it the most in depth comprehensive show I’ve ever watched? Definitely not, but the characters are fun and the plot is moving along quite nicely. What’s not to love about a classic magical girl scenario, escpecially when the magical girl in question that happens to be surrounded by attractive men? For me, though, the draw of this show is definitely the food! Luke, a werewolf, happens to be really into Italian cooking. As someone who’s always looking to cook lots of diverse food, this is something like a godsend for me. What can I say, I’ve made curry A LOT in my career as a food blogger! So far, he’s made a tasty pasta dish, an affogato, and one of the other characters, Vlad (he’s a vampire), makes specialy tea. All of this was well and good, and then Luke made some tiramisu.

Oh boy, people, what can I say? Tiramisu was one of my holy grail recipes. I never thought I could make it because while I like the dessert, I don’t like coffee and it seemed overly complicated. I was better off buying it, I was sure. It seemed out of reach for me. But when I came across this dessert, I knew I had to make it. This was my chance!

As with most recipes that I think will be complicated, once I broke this one down and looked at each step, I realized that it was actually a pretty easy recipe to accomplish. The most difficult part is making the custard filling, which has to be cooked over a double boiler. As long as you whisk quickly, and keep the water steaming, even this step isn’t too difficult to do. The best part is, if you mess it up, you can always sieve it to get any cooked egg lumps out. It’s a really forgiving recipe, which is awesome if you’re prone to making mistakes.

If you’ve never had tiramisu, it is a coffee flavored dessert, combined with the sweet-bitter taste of cocoa and the creamy richness of egg custard. The main component, ladyfingers, are Italian cookies so named because of their long and slender appearance- like a lady’s fingers (supposedly). Once doused in a strong espresso mixture, they soak up the liquid and soften up amidst pillows of cream in the fridge. I am not a huge coffee fan myself, but I find the combination of bitter coffee with sweet cream to be exceptionally tasty.

If you want to eat like a werewolf, albeit a fancy werewolf, you simply must make this recipe! Watch the video below to see the full process.

Ingredients for Luke’s Tiramisu

(Adapted slightly from this recipe)

-4 medium egg yolks

-1/2 cup granulated sugar

-1/3 cup Marsala wine

-16 oz mascarpone cheese

-1 cup heavy cream

-2 cups espresso, cooled

-3 tbsp brandy

-3 tbsp powdered sugar

-44 Savoiardi ladyfingers

-Unsweetened coco powder (garnish)

To Make Luke’s Tiramisu

1. Heat up a pot of water until boiling. In a bowl, add in the egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine. Place over steam, and whisk about five minutes, or until thickened and creamy.

2. Take off the steam, and whisk in mascarpone cheese. Run through a sieve to remove any cooked egg bits.

3. Whip cream into stiff peaks. Fold through the custard mixture so it’s light and airy. Set aside in a fridge.

4. Set out a 9 x 13 inch pan. Add the brandy and powdered sugar to the espresso and mix together. One by one, dip ladyfingers into the coffee mixture and lay into pan in rows of 11. Move quickly, or the ladyfingers will soak up too much liquid and will begin to disintegrate.

5. After the first layer, spoon over half the custard mixture. Spread in an even layer. Then, lay down another layer of espresso soaked ladyfingers. Top with remaining custard, and smooth flat.

6. Place cocoa powder in a tea strainer. Sprinkle over the top of the tiramisu. Cover with plastic wrap or foil, and set in fridge at least 6 hours or overnight.

7. Serve chilled!