Seven More Minutes

Chocolate Pie made at
September's baking class
(also made with tofu!)

According to the clock on my computer, I have seven more minutes to write today's post!

Today I am thankful for sweets! I love baking.  Today I baked some cinnamon rolls made with tofu.  They are quite good, I think.

My love of baking started early in life.  My mom used to bake often.  I don't know if she loved it or just did it because we all love sweets, but, anyway, I learned to bake from her.

Growing up in South Dakota, we often had snow days in the winter- days off of school because of snowstorms or blizzards (not the DQ kind!).  Often on those days my sister and I would bake with Mom.  Since Mom was a teacher, she also had the day off!

So, today I am thankful for baking and the memories of family that it stirs up.

Learning and fun in Minnesota

In April I went to Minnesota twice.  The first trip was cold and snowy but I had fun with friends learning about flour, chatting, and eating.
4月に二回ミネソタ州へ行ってきました。最初のときは寒くて、雪があった。でも、友達と時間を過ごして、小麦粉について学んだ。

First, we had delicious sandwiches for lunch.
初めに、昼ご飯の美味しいサンドウイッチを食べた。

Then we went to the Flour Mill Museum.
次は製粉所博物館に尋ねました。

We learned about different kinds of flour.
いろんな小麦粉の種類について学んだ。

We saw some old ways of baking.
昔の焼きかたも見た。

We learned about how important the river was to the flour mill.
製粉所に川の大切さをも学んだ。

We had fun putting together the huge puzzle of Minnesota.
大きなミネソタパズルをすることも楽しかった。

We walked around the Guthrie Theater next door, too.  I loved all of the cool windows there!

博物館のとなりにきれいなシアターをも尋ねました。窓は面白かった。

We finished the day with hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies.
It was a great day!
一日の最後はココアとクッキだった。
良い一日！

Give Thanks 8

I have been baking this evening and it has reminded me how grateful I am for baking!  I am grateful to my mom for teaching me how to bake and to my grandma for teaching my mom how to bake.  I enjoy getting lost in a new recipe or an old stand-by and creating something delicious.  (There have been times when it wasn't delicious, but that doesn't happen super often!)  I enjoy getting to share what I've made with people-who usually say that they like what I've made...
Here are a few pictures of baking over the past year-well, mostly last year during the Christmas season when my mom was here to bake with me.

I have more pictures than this, but I have to go to bed soon so I stopped hunting! :)

The Fun Continues

Flat Stanley and I have been having more fun together the past two days. He has done a lot of English teaching! But, he also got to be part of baking class and a trip to Starbucks where I met up with two friends and their babies. He even got in on a Bible study today! I wonder if I should take him to the dentist tomorrow?!

Here is FS helping scoop the muffin batter into the pans.


He enjoyed the sandwich but especially liked talking with Soichiro and his mom, Kyoko, and Emma and her mom, Saeko, who are not pictured.


After an afternoon of speaking Japanese, FS was ready for some English again. Fortunately for him, Mizuki speaks almost perfect English since she lived in New Jersey for 5 years of elementary school. Next week she will start junior high.


This morning Show P and I had a good Bible study. Jet lag was catching up with FS so he had a little rest and just listened.


The day ended with another English class. Yuri is studying physical therapy. FS got a little lost in the medical jargon (so does Shan, sometimes!) but really enjoyed playing Taboo!

Chocolate

Sunday, October 17th was the first annual Bentabulous Day.

My mom's side of the family is addicted to chocolate, pretty much every one of us. Last week my cousin was saying how much she wanted to make a chocolate cake. For some reason, she felt she needed a reason to make a cake. So, we came up with a reason, Bentabulous Day!

I made a cake called the 15-minute Chocolate Cake. The recipe has been requested, so here it is! It was delicious. I will definitely be making it again, soon.

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup canola or light olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water
powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 10 inch round cake pan. (I used cupcake tins)

2. In a large bowl, stir the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until combined. Add the egg, milk, oil, and vanilla to the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. With the mixer on low, beat in the water; the batter will be thin.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Unmold onto a wire rack and let cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into edges to serve.

(Apparently, unmold is not a word, it keeps getting underlined by spell check!:)

Enjoy! Next time I will take pictures to post!

pie sheet cookies

Today two of my friends from choir came over with another friend and their daughters-4 little girls. We had a fun time making easy cookies from prepared pie sheets. Pie crust is not something I do.

We rolled the pie sheets out thin and then cut out Christmas shapes. Then place a piece of chocolate on one shape cover it with its mate and seal it together by pressing the edges together with a fork. We wiped them with beaten egg and put a slice of almond on the top.











The girls loved it! With the edges they chopped up some chocolate and made the dough chocolate chip, formed their own shapes and baked. It was a fun afternoon!





First batch is finished and ready to eat!


















Cookies and hot chocolate!

Finished Desk

Dad finished the last drawer of the desk while Mom and I made dinner the other night.


It will never be this cleared off again!!

Wednesday was baking class. Since Mom was here we made "Joy's Lemon Squares," Mom's recipe that I found in the Whispering Oaks cookbook submitted by Jean Ewing! Mom told the ladies that it was actually Grandma's recipe. And, we found them to be very sweet so enjoyed the English breakfast tea directly from London from Mrs. Kihara.

Mom made pot holders for each of the ladies and we showed them the prayer quilt she made with her group at West Center. It was a fun morning!

Baking and English

Monday was the next installment of Baking and English at Shan's apartment. Pizza was the food of the day. It was incredibly popular! There were 6 students in the morning and 7 in the afternoon class. My little kitchen/dining area was filled to the brim!

For the crust I used a recipe I have been using for several years from the Wycliffe Cookbook. Although it has yeast in it, there is no wait time for rising-always good when you only have a 2 hour class. I provided all "American" toppings for the pizza-no seafood, potatoes or mayo-except for the corn. I think corn is a good addition!

We also made dessert pizza. This took me back to my Pampered Chef days in Texas. I pulled out a bunch of PC products and demonstrated them. Lots of fun. Once again, the egg slicer was a surprise-so many more uses than just for slicing eggs!

In the afternoon class there was one person who had never come before, a friend of another student. It was fun to add another person to the circle and learn about her. (She came with us 3 days later when we went to see Prince Caspian, too.)

Overall, yet another fun time of baking and chatting!


Miki san had fun with the pizza sauce!


They decided to try all of the toppings, even the black olives.

(There are two more photos I wanted to add but they don't want to upload right now. I will try to add them later!)

Baking with kids

Today I had a special baking class with three moms and four daughters. Two of the moms are from Gospel choir and one of them is an English teacher at a cram school. We had a great time making sugar cookies and decorating them! The girls had practiced introducing themselves in English, the youngest girl did the best.
(I didn't quite get this picture centered:)




Cutting in the butter turned out to be a lot of fun!
























But decorating was the most fun! We used Foodoodle pens and colored icing. They were very creative in their decorating!

Banana Bread

Taken by one of my students after she got home.

Yesterday was our English and baking class. More English was spoken yesterday in the morning class than ever before! (That is one of the points of the English and Baking class!:) One of the new attenders is an English teacher so she took the opportunity to practice her English which influenced the others. Since banana bread has to bake for an hour we had a chance to chat after washing up the dishes-I cannot say how much I love that they help with the dishes! We had some really good conversations, in both English and Japanese.


The morning group.

By the way, does anyone know how to get silicone pans clean? I think they are clean and then take them out a month or so later to use and they are greasy like I never washed them. What's up with that?

Baking and Middle Schoolers

This morning 4 middle schoolers and their English teacher came to my apartment to make chocolate chip cookies. Their teacher is a member of the Gospel choir with me. They were a bit quiet at first having to use English. But as time went on the began talking a little. And, of course, once we started eating and speaking Japanese a little, then they warmed up! The last batch we put into the oven they figured out how close to put them together in order to make snowman shaped cookies, which was appropriate since it was snowing at the time!:)
Here they are scooping out the dough onto the cookie sheets and then one of us all together...