Fresh ginger cake

I don't know how well known it is, but Chinese or Asian people like to make a lot of ginger water (grated ginger simmered in water to release the juice and spiciness) and drink it for health reasons. As I was feeling unwell, I decided to make a small pot of it with our remaining ginger. The ginger was so spicy, I felt like I was drinking fire!

The side effect of making this ginger water is the ginger pulp that remains. I could have made another batch or two of the water to drink, but wasn't too keen on drinking it after the first batch. So I settled to make a cake with the pulp.

I found a recipe on Epicurious that I felt was adequate. I did make some changes to the recipe to fit the ingredienst I had on hands. A quick breakdown: reduced sugar, reduced oil, put more ginger, omitted cloves and pepper, and used Greek yogurt to replace one egg, and a chia seed and water mix to replace the other one. I also didn't have molasses, so I replaced it with dark brown sugar.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (150 g) grated ginger pulp
• 3/4 cup (150 g) dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (130 g) cane sugar
• 3/4 cup (165 g) oil
• 2 1/2 cups (300 g) flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup (71 g) Greek yogurt
• 1 chia egg
• 1 tbs ground chia seeds
• 3 tbs water

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. To make the chia egg, mix the ground chia seeds and 3 tbs water in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 mins until gelified.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix dark brown sugar, sugar, and oil.
4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water, and add into the sugar mix.
5. Stir in the grated ginger.
6. Fold in the flour and cinnamon.
7. Mix in the Greek yogurt and chia egg.
8. Pour into a prepared pan (I baked it in a 9 in. springform pan lined with baking paper).
9. Bake for 45-60 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool for 30 mins before unmolding.

Banana Bread Muffins [Gluten-Free]

For last week's hallway dinner, we had a theme of American food. I had originally planned to try making a sweet potato pie, but as my cousin L had opted for sweet potato fries, I left the few sweet potatoes we had for her to use.

I was a tad short on time, so I fell back onto a much-baked classic: banana bread. I found to my happiness that it fit the theme perfectly. So I made one of my usual loaves of banana-topped banana breads (baked many times before). Then I settled down to make a few samples of a gluten-free version for a neighbor that can't have gluten.

Since it was only for one person, I made 1/4 of the recipe, which yielded 4 muffins. I used a precision scale (that goes to 0.01 g) to make the measurements.

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RECIPE (yields 16 cupcakes)

  Ingredients

• 3-4 ripe bananas
• 158.96 g gluten-free flour of choice (I used buckwheat flour)
• 28.4 g glutinous/sticky rice flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2/3 cup (146 g) oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• cinnamon, to taste
• nuts or dried fruits (optional)
• I typically use walnuts and dried figs. In this case only dried figs as I ran out of nuts.

  Procedure

1. In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas.
2. Add sugar, oil, and vanilla. Mix well
3. Fold in the dry ingredients, sifted.
4. Fold in dried fruits and nuts if using.
5. Bake at 180˚C for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool and enjoy~