Carrot & Blood Orange Cupcake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

 

Carrot and Blood Orange Cupcake (9 cupcakes):
(Dry ingredients)
128 grams flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp ginger spice
2/3 of 1/4 tsp nutmeg

(Wet ingredients)
137 ml grapeseed oil
10 ml blood orange juice
160 grams sugar
 (170 grams for very sweet cupcakes, 150 grams for breakfast cupcakes)
2 eggs, medium-size

(Carrots and walnuts)
120 grams shredded carrot
2 grams orange zest
25 grams walnut, cut into small pieces

Cream cheese frosting:
75 ml cream cheese
35 gram powder sugar
1/8 squeezed lemon
45 ml heavy cream
Some vanilla extract

1. Sift the flour and all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix sugar in eggs well in a separate bowl.
3. Add in warm orange juice and melt sugar in eggs and then add in oil well quickly.
4. Add in all the dry ingredients.
5. Mix the shredded carrots, orange zest and walnut in the batter quickly and pour it into the mold.
6. Bake at 180 degrees (Celsius) for 18 minutes and another 4 minutes at 170 degrees.
7. Make cream cheese frosting by mixing cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and whipping heavy cream in a separate bowl (added with vanilla extract) and fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.

 

Carrot Soup

1/4 onion, minced
8 grams butter
85 - 90 grams carrot, chopped
1 tbs flour
150 ml chicken stock (water and 1 tsp ofu-dashi/consomme powder)
100 ml milk (add 2 tbs milk or heavy cream next time)
1/16 tsp salt

Kinpira Gobo (Sauteed Burdock Root)

1/4 takanotsume, sliced or 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
2/3 gobo
30 gram carrot
2 tsp white sesame
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Sauce:
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mirin
1/2 tsp sugar

1. Thinly slice burdock and put it in water in a bowl. Thinly slice carrot and boil in water in pot quickly.
2. In the same pot, heat up the red pepper in oil quickly.
   Cook burdock and carrot until they soften a little bit for about a minute.
3. Add in Sauce and simmer burdock and carrot until the Sauce almost completely evaporate.
4. Add in sesame oil and sesame.

Sesame Spinach

100 gram spinach, boiled for one minute, put in cold water and squeezed to get water out.
2.5 tbs white  sesame, grinded
2 - 3 tsp dashi soy sauce

Tofu and Soy Milk White Cream Gratine with Shimeji and Bacon

 

Soy milk white sauce gratine:

200 ml Soy milk

100 ml milk

50 ml heavy cream

1 tbs Kuzuko (a starch powder), dissolved in water

30 grams onion, sliced

50 grams bacon

80 grams shimrji

300 grams tofu, cut into thin big dices

8 grams bouillon cubes

1.5 of 1/4 tsp salt

a pinch of pepper

1. Cook onion, bacon and shimeji with batter.
2. Add in soy milk, milk and heavy cream and when it simmers, add bouillon, salt and  pepper.
3. Add in Kuzuko, dissolved in water, and wait until it thickens.
4. Add Tofu and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.
5. Pour the gratine in a plate and sprinkle cheese on top.
6. Put it in a toaster or oven (220 degrees) to brown the cheese on top.