Now, really, the PV doesn’t do a great job of showing off the insides of the cake, so I’m kind of making this up. But, I’ve made a lot of cakes similar to this, and I know the type that’s popular in Japan, so this’ll be a lot like that.

You have a few options here. For the cake itself, white cake is your best bet. You can either make it from a mix (which is cheap and perfectly acceptable), or you can make it from scratch (which is my preferred method for all cooking). Here’s a recipe that it rather easy. If you want a cake just like the “MY BOY” cake, you’ll probably want to buy one or two heart-shaped pans. (These will be available in most grocery stores around Valentine’s day, and may be available in specialty shops and higher-end grocery stores the rest of the year as well.)

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (cake flour can be used, but isn’t necessary)
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs and the vanilla and mix again. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Mix again. Add the milk and stir (or beat) until the batter is smooth. Pour into a pan sprayed with cooking spray (or rubbed with butter) and cut out a circle of parchment paper to lay in the bottom if you have it. (Your cake will eventually be two layers, but you can either bake it in two pans, or bake it in one and cut it in half later.)Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until cake springs back to touch.

Let your cake cool, regardless of how you made it. Now it’s time for the fun part! Icing!

In Japan, you’ll be hard pressed to find a cake that doesn’t have whipped cream as an icing/frosting. That is what is used here, very obviously. Again, you have a few options. You can usually go to a grocery store bakery and ask to buy some of the whipped cream icing that they use. They usually have a way to sell it by the pound. However, I don’t really like the taste of it.

Another simple option is a product called “Dream Whip”. It’s a packaged mix that you add milk and vanilla to, but makes a pretty tasry end product with enough stability to spread on a cake. (Cool Whip is also an option, but I find it tends to soak into cake a bit too much.)

Your third option is to make the whipped cream yourself. Here’s a simple recipe.

1 cup heavy whipping cream (ultra pasteurized is best)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar

Incorporate the ingredients together in a mixing bowl and chill the bowl and the beaters in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Beat (starting at a low speed and moving up to a higher speed as the cream starts to have stability) until your cream has stiff peaks. This means that with the mixer off, you can touch the beaters into the cream and lift them back out and you’ll have a point that doesn’t flop back down. The cream should hold it’s shape. Be careful not to overwhip your cream though. It *will* turn into butter. This will make about 2 cups of whipped cream. If you want more for decoration or for other things, simply double the recipe (or 1 1/2 it?). (If your whipped cream goes kind of flat, chill in the refrigerator for 1 1/2 hours or freeze in its bowl for 45 minutes, along with the beaters. Simply rewhip.)

Once you have your cake and whipped cream, you’ll need strawberries. Half a pound should be enough for this cake. Cut the white and stem portion off and discard. Cut the rest in half. Try your strawberries before adding them to a cake, though. If they’re not sweet enough, toss them in a bowl with a tablespoon of sugar. Some of the juice will come out in this case, though.

To assemble… If you did your cake in two layers already, you’re good to go. Otherwise, using a long serrated knife (like a bread knife), make a cut through the middle of the cake to make two layers. Do this slowly and carefully. Lift your top layer off (again, carefully) and place off to the side. (I like to put it on a piece of parchment paper, but a plate would work well enough.) If your cake layers are not even, but have a lump in the middle, just shave off the lump with the same knife. (You can crumble these bits into a dish with some strawberries and a bit of the whipped cream.)

Place your first cake layer on the plate you plan to serve it on. Add about 1/4 of your whipped cream to the center (or about 1/2 cup). Smooth it out with an icing spatula, or the back of a spoon. Using about half of the strawberries, place them on top of the whipped cream. Place your second layer of cake on top of the first. (If you cut your layers a bit uneven, you can simply line them up the same way here and no one will notice.)

Add the rest of your whipped cream to the top of the cake. (Or about 1 1/2 cups. Reserve some for decoration if you’d like, though, unless you made extra.) Using your spoon or spatula, work the icing from the center of the cake to the edges. Work it until the icing is falling over the edges. Smooth this down to the bottom and use your icing spatula or a butter knife held perpendicular to the plate to gently smoothe out the icing on the sides. (You can smoothe out the top first, but it isn’t necessary.)

Place the rest of your strawberry slices on the top of the cake. If you’d like more decoration, place more of the cream in a Ziploc-style bag. Cut off a bit of one corner. Hold this corner perpendicular to the top of the cake and do dollops of cream along the top and bottom edge (hold the bag at a 45° angle for the bottom edge), between the strawberries, etc.

Refrigerate for at least half an hour before serving.

Since this isn’t a cake my husband and I enjoy, I haven’t bothered to make one for this, but I’ll try to do so soon to show some pictures. I’m sure I’ll have a cookout where it’ll be appropriate and people will devour it.

Congratulations to Kanna for being the most well-versed in steak. I wonder if she gets together with Reina from Morning Musume for meat every now and again?

As for steak recipes? Simple is usually best. Doctors don’t exactly recommend a lot of red meat in your diet, so when you do have it, have it right. The steak I made last night for my husband’s birthday was broiled to medium-rare in my convection oven with just kosher salt and a hint of black pepper. I served it with caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, and sides of roasted red potatoes, tarragon butter drizzled green beans and corn on the cob. (The initial plan was to cook the steak on the grill, but it rained.)

We had boneless New York Strip steak (one of my favorites for it’s velvety texture), but if your cut of beef isn’t quite as good? You might want to consider marinating it. If you’re grilling out, one of the best marinades you can manage is Italian dressing. Toss your steak into a large Ziploc-style bag, pour in enough marinade to cover the meat (and a bit extra for “good measure”) and let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour. If you can manage overnight? You can cook your meat until it’s well-done and it will still remain juicy and flavorful.

Potatoz Koubou by Kirarin☆Snow ☃

Mashed potatoes with zest. Or an extra ‘z’ at least.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup mashed potato flakes
1/4 cup asparagus chunks
1/4 cup mushroom pieces
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup green tea
1/4 cup vanilla soymilk
1 tablespoon margarine
ϵ cinnamon (where ϵ > 0 is some small amount)
ϵ pepper
ϵ parsley

Instructions:

Boil water, margarine, and green tea in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Add soymilk, flakes, asparagus, mushrooms, and cinnamon. Stir to desired level of homogeneity. Garnish with parsley and pepper.

Serves 1-2.

3/4 cup each white and brown sugar *
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup (or one stick) butter or margarine, softened **
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla (try to avoid imitation vanilla)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup (or more to taste) chocolate chips

*: I use light brown sugar. If you don’t have brown sugar at all, you can substitute 1 and 1/2 cups white sugar and 1/2 tbsp. of molasses.
**: Butter gives a better flavor, but margarine is easier to work with for creaming the ingredients together.

Using a hand mixer, cream together the sugar, shortening, butter, eggs and vanilla. It may help to sift the sugar, first. (I tend to just use a sieve as it will catch all of the big chunks, at least.) Then, sift in your flour and baking soda. You can try to mix this with your hand mixer, but it’s reasonably thick, so if your mixer is underpowered, it may be best to mix it by hand until you no longer see clumps of flour and the dough seems uniform. Add your chocolate chips (you can add nuts if you like, too) and stir in with a wooden spoon. Place the bowl into the fridge for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. From there, you have a lot of options for your cookies. You can use two spoons to drop cookies 2″ apart on a cookie sheet (I use silicone mats underneath). You can form the dough into a log in parchment or wax paper and slice off 1/4 inch pieces (this works best to make uniform cookies, and anything you don’t use can be rolled back up and put in a plastic bag and kept in the freezer until you want more cookies). Additionally, you can use what it called a cookie scoop (it looks like a small ice cream scoop), although you’ll want to flatten these out a bit with you fingers or a spoon in order to let the cookies bake evenly.

This is a log of frozen cookie dough.

Yes. So big only 6 fit on a pan.

As for other necessary baking recipes, what about brownies? There really is no point in buying a box of mix when they’re just as easy to make at home. Here’s how:

2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla (try to avoid imitation vanilla)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Place the beaten eggs, vanilla and oil into a bowl.

Eggs, oil and vanilla start-o!

Sift everything else in.

It'll look like this at first.

But will quickly turn to this.

It'll be really shiny.

Not the prettiest thing in this pan, but still delicious.

Keep in mind that all baked goods will continue to cook some once they’re pulled from the oven if you do a toothpick test. Although, pretty much all brownies are a consistency where they will stick to a toothpick, so watch for the difference between uncooked batter and simply brownie smudges on your toothpick. This is not a lot of batter, so if you like thicker brownies, cook them in a smaller container (or in muffin cups) and you may need to add a few minutes to the cooking time. These brownies are so delicious on their own that they don’t need frosting, but if you prefer one anyway for extra chocolate added to the affair? Wait until your brownies are cooled, and add this:

3 tbsp. softened butter or margarine
1 tbsp. honey
3 tbsp. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla (try to stay away from imitation)
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp. milk

Cream all but the powdered sugar and milk together. Mix in the powdered sugar until the mixture is somewhat stiff. Add the milk (add one tbsp. to start with) until it reaches a spreadable consistency. Add more milk (no more than one tbsp.) as needed. If the mixture is not suitably spreadable (or if you’d rather just pour it on your brownies), place it in the microwave in 30 second increments until it reaches the desired consistency. A warm icing *will* sink into your baked goods, but that’s not always a bad thing. ^_^

Here’s a recipe that’s pretty similar to the one the girl’s followed if you’re interesting in making it yourself.

4 cups ahi (yellowfin tuna, sashimi grade) diced into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup onion, sliced
1/4 cup green onion, minced
1 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 cup shredded seaweed
Salt (and pepper?) to taste

Mix in a non-reactive bowl (such as glass or plastic). It can help to stir the “sauce” ingredients together first to combine them a bit more. Chill the dish for at least 30 minutes or until ready to serve. (Cover loosely with plastic wrap if you’re planning to refrigerate for longer than an hour.)

There are several ingredients you can add to this dish for a different flavor, and still experience a traditional Hawaiian raw salad. Macadamia nuts, diced garlic, chili flakes and even brown sugar are all relatively common ingredients.

SuperHappyGenki and KirarinSnow are proud to bring you a brand new blog about food, with Hello! Project thrown proudly into the mix by the handful. Inspired by Buono!, we’re taking this to the taste extreme. Follow along with us as we explore the things that other people are cooking and share with you the things that are happening in our own kitchens.

Get ready for one delicious ride!