Happy New Year!

The Kikukat household has been graced with visits from friends and family.  Sandy & her hubby Gerald visited at the start of vacation.  Indianapolis cousin visited with her kids and hubby.  The Carlyle's of Lanikai are here. The Kikukat ride is enjoying a new pilot: favorite uncle, who is here with auntie & LA (wish his other riders, OT & Dus, could be here too).  We are fortunate that our family and friends have been blessed with good health and prosperity to make these trips possible.  We're crossing our fingers that 2012 will be another great year.

Please enjoy the slideshow of our favorite pictures from 2011.

Another free slideshow design by Smilebox

Fluffy Banana Bread

While most of my ohana prepares for New Years Day (the biggest holiday for local Japanese-ish families) I'm temporarily checking out and finding comfort in something everyday and timeless. . .banana bread.

Banana bread is usually the fortuitous result of some misfortune . . . bananas ripened too quickly to keep up eating them.  I don't think too many people go out and buy bananas with the outright intention of making banana bread.  Well, not me, anyway.

When I was married, my father-in-law had about a half-dozen prolific banana trees, so we had an endless supply of apple bananas.  Apple bananas were a kid favorite. . .just the right size for a kiddie snack.  Now that I'm not on the banana list, I buy my bananas at either the Hilo Farmers Market or Safeway.  I find the bananas from KTA to be kinda on the slimy side.  I'm sure they are, like the Safeway bananas, the Williams variety, but somehow, the Safeway bananas are not slimy.  Of course, if I buy bananas from the Hilo Farmers Market, I always buy apple bananas.

My all-time favorite way to enjoy a banana is in a pie.  Sunnyside Restaurant in Wahiawa makes a double-crust banana pie.  A few other place on Oahu make it too:  Violets on Dillingham, Likelike Drive Inn, and Flamingo Restaurant.  I'm not sure if those places are still in business, but thats where I'd go for my banana pie fix when I lived on Oahu.

Unfortunately, I haven't ever tried making a double-crust banana pie because I'm always outnumbered in the house with people who want plain banana bread.  No nuts, no chocolate chips, no mincemeat.  The Ds like their banana bread plain.  This is their favorite banana bread. 

I normally bake this in mini loaf pans because they are easy to munch on and convenient to take places.  Because my mini loaf pans are "gang" style, they are easy to load in and out of the oven.

click on recipe title for printable recipe
Fluffy Banana Bread

     1/2 c butter, softened

     1 c sugar

     1 tsp vanilla

     2 eggs

     1 2/3 c flour

     1 tsp baking soda

     1/2 tsp salt

     1 c mashed banana

     1/2 c sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease 4 mini loaf pans, an 8" x 8" pan, or a loaf pan.  Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.  Combine mashed banana and sour cream.  Set aside.  Cream butter with sugar and vanilla.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add banana mixture alternately with flour mixture, ending with flour mixture.  Pour a little over 1 cup (2 1/2 scoops from a #10 disher) in each pan if using mini loaf pans.  Bake for 40 minutes.  If using an 8" x 8" pan, bake 30 minutes..  If using a loaf pan, bake 65-70 minutes.  Double recipe can also be baked in a 9" x 13" pan for 1 hour.

Holiday Tradition: Fancy Cookies

Was Santa good to you this year?  Santa brought me two waaaay kewl McLaren-Mercedes-Vodaphone shirts.  I can't wait for 2012  Formula 1 season to begin! The Ds managed to stay off the "naughty" list this year and had their stockings filled with goodies:  instant udon, Targus stylus, kindle case, Bizu, and the ever-timeless Lindt chocolate Santa.  Can't wait for next year.  I'm gonna ask Santa for a Somali cat!

One reason why I think Santa has been so good to us is because the yummy homemade cookies make our home a worthwhile stop on his world tour.  This year, we were armed with a variety of cookies for Santa.  The first cookie we made was spritz wreaths (not pictured).  Then we moved on to the cut-outs.

Like Santa, I love fancy cut-out cookies too, but the many details that go into making a kick-ass cookie can be totally daunting.  The cookie itself is the main part of this monumental task.  I love it when cookies snap rather than bend.  But making rolled sugar cookies is tricky.  Many recipes which I've tried produce soggy cookies. Yuck.  And that's after spending all that time to mix the dough, chill the dough, roll it out, and bake it.

The cookies here were made with totally awesome sugar cookie dough.  These cookies are crisp.  An added bonus is that the dough, when properly chilled, is easy to work with.  This recipe will not make a lot of cookies.  Scraps can be re-rolled no more than twice.  After the 2nd time, gather dough and roll into 1" spheres.  Flatten to 1/4" and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  If you have festive sanding sugar on hand, feel free to sprinkle some on.  Pics of these cookies can be found near the bottom of this blog entry, just above the recipe for royal icing.  Sanding sugar will remain intact during baking.  Another option is to leave these buttons plain so they can be decorated with icing.  Bake as directed below.


Decorating these cookies is the ultimate way to make these cookies outstanding.  I rely on 2 different icings to get the effect I want.  The bells, stockings & candy canes were decorated using a corn syrup icing.  This icing doesn't dry as firm as royal icing, but the colors are vibrant, and its a lot more convenient to make different colors.  The icing has a nice almond flavor to it.  The snowflakes and round shapes were decorated with royal icing.  Royal icing dries harder than the corn syrup icing, but its inconvenient to make more than one color at a time, and colors are muted rather than vibrant.  Royal icing has no particular flavor, other than sweet, so if I'm using royal icing, I make sure that the cookies are made with almond extract.

click on recipe titles below for printable recipes
Rolled Sugar Cookies

     1/2 c butter, softened

     1/2 c sugar

     1 egg

     1/2 tsp almond or vanilla extract

     2 c flour

     2 tsp baking powder

Cream butter and sugar.  Add egg and extract.  Stir together flour and baking powder.  Add to butter mixture.  Pat dough into a flattened square, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 2 hours.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Working with 1/3 of dough at a time, roll out (1/4" thick) onto lightly floured surface and cut with desired cookie cutters.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 19 minutes.  Remove to wire rack and cool completely.   

Shiny Cookie Glaze

     2 c powdered sugar

     2 tbsp milk

     4 tsp light corn syrup

     1/2 tsp almond extract

     assorted food coloring

In a bowl, stir together sugar and milk.  Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy.  Divide into bowls and tint each bowl a different color.  Icing may also be placed in small plastic bags for piping.

Royal Icing

     1 c powdered sugar

     3/4 tsp meringue powder

     1 1/2 tbsp warm water

     food coloring, if desired

Combine powdered sugar and meringue powder.   Add food coloring to water (color will become washed out when combined with powdered sugar, so make color strong).  Add to powdered sugar mixture.  Beat on high speed for 10-12 minutes until icing holds stiff peaks.  Place in a pastry bag and pipe designs on cookies.

Merry Christmas!

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Hope Santa brought you everything on your list!

Christmas Food: Mini Fruit Cakes

There's some perennial joke about fruit cake. . .that there is really only one and people keep re-gifting it to each other.  In a way, I kinda believe it.  I remember seeing the red tin at Christmas, no doubt sent by some friend or relative on the mainland.  I remember how the only one who would touch it was AE.  I thought it was disgusting to see all the fruits stuck together with the dark brown cake.  I much preferred the "local" version of fruit cake, which was less fruit and more cake, good cake.

Mom made fruit cake every year.  While her fruit cake was better than the fruit cake that came in the tin, I preferred some other people's fruit cake, where the cake part was more like pound cake.  Mom also used walnuts.  I h8 walnuts!  I love pecans.

click on recipe title for printable recipe
Mini Fruit Cakes

     8 oz cream cheese, softened

     1 c butter, softened

     1 1/2 c sugar

     4 eggs

     1 1/2 tbsp vanilla

     2 1/4 c cake flour

     1 1/2 t baking powder

     1 c glace fruit cake mix

     1/2 c chopped nuts

     1/4 c dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 24 regular muffin cups with paper liners.  Remove 1 tbsp flour and toss with fruit cake mix, nuts, and cranberries.  Set aside.  Stir together remaining flour and baking powder.  Set aside.  Cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well.  Add vanilla and mix well.  Add flour mixture.  Add fruit/nut mixture.  Using a #20 disher, divide batter evenly among prepared cups (about 2/3 full).  Bake for 25 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Almost Goma Tei: Tan Tan Noodles

Aaaaahhh.  Nice to finally be on vacation.  In spite of having the time to cook, I really don't feel like cooking.  I'm blaming it on the holiday hype.  Still being in the recovery phase of an illness which has festered since Halloween, the 1 hour I spent in Target pretty much zapped my energy.  Meals are gonna be the product of the shortest distance between two points, a.k.a. minimal effort.

As you know from my earlier post, I have a deep, deep affinity for Goma Tei's Tan Tan Noodles.  It seems like I'm not the only  one.  Someone named Robyn Goong wrote to the Honolulu Star Advertiser's food lady, Betty Shimabukuro, and asked her to come up with a copycat recipe for the ethereal Goma Tei version.  You can read the article and get the original copycat recipe here.

The difference with my recipe lies in the amounts of black bean chili sauce and sesame oil to add and in the process by which the sauce ingredients are added to the stock.  Since I hate to see seeds and chili pepper casings in my food, I had to strain the black bean chili sauce so I could get the heat with out the seeds and casings.  Yes, I know, the OCD is coming out.

And speaking of my OCD. . .those of you who know me well are aware that I hate to touch anything cold and slimy or oily with my bare hands.  I tried to be very neat with the sesame paste, but in my effort to get to the paste by delicately plowing through the oil layer, I somehow ended up spilling most of the oil layer on the jar and onto the granite counter.  I got the counter cleaned up and decided I would wash the bottle with dishwashing soap so it wouldn't be all oily when I put it away.  I guess I didn't cover the bottle good enough because in the process of washing the bottle, the bottle opened up.  Not only did the sesame paste (not just the oily part) spill all over my WHITE jacket sleeve, but the soap from the sponge ended up inside the partially filled bottle.  FARCK!  

But after the first bite of the noodles, it was all worth it.  The broth had the same "dirty" look as the Goma Tei version.  The thinly sliced roast pork was a good approximation of the spiral slab of pork belly.  And really, its way after Labor Day. . .wearing white is a fashion faux pas.

click on recipe title for printable recipe
Tan Tan Noodles

     4 c chicken stock

     1/4 c shoyu

     1 tbsp sugar

     2 tbsp sesame paste

     2 tsp black bean chili sauce

     1 tbsp sesame oil

     11 oz fresh noodles, boiled and drained.

     greens, blanched (won bok, baby bok choy, etc.)

     roast pork, sliced thin

Heat chicken stock.  When stock begins to simmer, add shoyu and sugar.  Add 2 tbsp stock to sesame paste.  Mix well, then add back to stock.  Place black bean chili sauce in a small sieve.  Spoon hot stock over sauce.  Discard seeds and chili pepper casings which remain in the sieve.  Add sesame oil.  Keep stock at a simmer.  Divide drained noodles between 2 saimin bowls.  Top with greens and roast pork.  Ladle soup over all.

Thanksgiving Memories: Pumpkin Crunch Cake

I didn't do much this past Thanksgiving, but I had a great day.  The Help picked up a ready-to-heat turkey meal from Foodland, which was unbelievably delicious.  Now I'm thinking that given the sheer ease of throwing a meal like that together, its just unbelievably time-consuming (and not exponentially better tasting) to make your own food.  One thing we both enjoyed was the absence of the mound of oily dishes from roasting the bird and cooking all the trimmings.

The dessert which came with the meal was a small pumpkin pie.  While I'm not against pumpkin, I am definitely not a fan of pumpkin (and custard) pie.  I like the taste of the filling, but to me, pumpkin pie is so boring.  In the past, I've made a few kick-ass pumpkin desserts (fresh pumpkin cake, pumpkin roll, pumpkin and cream cheese layered dessert), but I just didn't feel excited about eating any of those things this year.  The Help told me he saw a dessert at Moonstruck Patisserie called "Pumpkin Crunch", but when asked to describe what it was, The Help was at a loss for words.  But he insisted it sounded good.

In search of the perfect Pumpkin Crunch recipe, no easy task for someone who never tasted it, I looked through about a dozen cookbooks before I found one.  In fact, the identical recipe appeared in several cookbooks.  The universal appeal is that it uses whole-package amounts of purchased ingredients (8 oz. Cool Whip, 8 oz. cream cheese, etc.).  A few recipes called for odd amounts of these ingredients.  I mean, really, what would I do with an 8 oz. container of Cool Whip after a cup of it has been removed?

To make a long story short, Pumpkin Crunch Cake (not really a cake in my book, and, I'm sure Melissa would agree. . .I KNOW cake), was a huge hit, in spite of it being unknown in my home before November.  Then my friend Harvey told me its one of his favorite desserts.  A few days later, I tried to get cousin Kent to take some home (when he came for a consultation to look at D1's bruised black big toe), but he politely declined and said he and his wife had been eating it for over five days past Thanksgiving.

click on recipe title for printable recipe
Pumpkin Crunch Cake

     1 can (29 oz) pumpkin

     1 can (13 oz) evaporated milk

     1 c sugar

     3 eggs

     1 tsp cinnamon

     1 box (abut 18 oz) Duncan Hines yellow cake mix*

     1 c pecans, chopped

     1 c butter, melted

     8 oz cream cheese, softened

     8 oz Cool Whip

     1 c sifted powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9 x 13" pan, and line the bottom with parchment or waxed paper.  Grease paper.  In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, sugar, eggs, and cinnamon.  Pour into prepared pan.  Sprinkle dry cake mix over pumpkin mixture.  Sprinkle nuts evenly over cake mix.  Carefully pour melted butter over nuts and cake mix.  Bake for 1 hour.  When completely cool, invert pan over serving tray.  Peel off paper.  Combine cream cheese, Cool Whip and powdered sugar.  Beat with mixer until well combined.  Frost top (pumpkin layer) of cake.  Store in refrigerator.

*If you are using a new cake mix with less than 18 oz (about 15 oz.), add 6 tbsp flour to cake mix before proceeding with recipe.