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I’ve made a couple bachelors of pineapple cake recently using The Omnivore’s Cookbook recipe. It’s pretty straightforward and really good!

This is a “simplified” recipe. The only aspect I think is modified compared to normal recipes is that pineapple cakes are normally baked individually in special molds (could maybe try using muffin tins). This recipe shapes them more like bar cookies.

Pineapple “jam” filling

Bottom crust in a brownie pan

It’s done.

Finished piece! They’re sweet and strongly flavored so they’re good to eat in small amounts.

Recipe

Filling

• 700 g minced fresh pineapple
• 100 g (1/2 cup) sugar
• 80 g (1/3 cup) butter
• Lemon juice to taste. Maybe 1/2 tsp
• pinch salt

Crust

• 230 g (2 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons) flour
• 40 g (1/4 cup) sugar
• 25 g (3 tablespoons) powdered milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 100 g (1 stick minus 2 teaspoons) butter, cubed and chilled
• 1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk

1. Cook pineapple and other filling ingredients until all juice is evaporated, and mixture is thick, somewhat translucent, and a golden color. Chill.
2. Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter. Add eggs as only liquid and form into dough.
3. Divid dough about in half. Roll one into the bottom crust — needs to be large enough to extend about 1″ up the sides of the pan. Fill with filling. Roll out other half of dough. Put on top of filling and seal crust edges.
4. Bake ~25 min at 325°.

Notes

• You can bake individually in muffin tins or pineapple cake tins.
• This turns out not too sweet, but if you are really avoiding sugar/dislike things being to sweet, sugar in the crust can be omitted. Some tasters (sibling C) thought that reducing the sugar more would make it not dessert-y enough
• Sibling C also thought the crust wasn’t sandy enough. Other pineapple cake recipes included more powdered milk, so increasing the powdered milk and decreasing the flour (keeping the total amount of dry ingredients approximately the same) might make the crust texture more standard.

During a lunch outing in Brooklyn, we stopped in at Cibone, a Japanese “home goods” store. They sell pretty, expensive, but mostly impractical things like vases and uncomfortable-to-hold mugs.

I really liked this green, carved ceramic plate ($220), though. You can always use another plate…?

Matching flat dish on the bottom right.

We made a vegetarian version of da pan ji (chicken-potato dish) with homemade noodles! The noodle recipe is from an Asian noodle cookbook from the library, This is a book about noodles by Brendan Pang.

Big Plate Chicken (Chinese Da Pan Ji) with Noodles

Noodles

• 300 g flour
• Pinch of salt
• 155 mL (1/2 cup + 7 tsp) water

1. Combine flour and salt. Add water in and knead 10-15 min with a stand mixer + dough hook (Knead longer, maybe ~20 min, by hand.)
2. Lightly coat the counter with oil. Press the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in thick. Cut into 10 equal strips.
3. Hold each strip at both ends. Stretch and slap against the counter until ~8 in long.
4. Boil 2-3 min.

With the hotter summer weather, a lot of my pea plants died 🙁 The two that survived aren’t doing so well and are likely to die in the next week – we’re having a bit of a heat wave here.

I’ve been looking for veggies that like hot weather. Some old sweet potatoes sprouted a bunch, so we planted those. And my mom sent some seeds to try out! We’ve got basil, shiso, and melon (from sibling C’s garden). I’m excited to see how they do!

Overall I’d say it was solidly solid. I think I like the ramen and the customization options at Ramen Nagi a bit better, but HiroNori compares quite favorably (with no waiting in line). And the chicken karaage was really good, which Ramen Nagi doesn’t offer. I’ll be back.