Green tea & Red Bean Mochi Cake

Ah! I've been so busy lately I haven't posted as regularly as I do. Definitely trying to juggle too many things and I need at least three clones of me. Boo. So I'll keep this one short with an interesting body fact.

FACT: A person can live without eating for weeks, but will only survive eleven days without sleep.

Well, I guess I should just go hungry and sleep. I'm so sleep deprived. I'm usually a morning person but seriously waking up every morning at the crack of dawn is driving me insane. Thankfully no cranky behavior (guess I can't be my own judge). But imagine people around those who haven't slept crazy moodswings...they'll probably only survive a day or two.

I made this super simple and tasty mochi cake. It isn't very sweet, which is perfect for me and a lot of my aunts and relatives who were eating them. They make lovely gifts when you wrap them up nicely. Koreans love this stuff. I mean, it's mocha and it's got red bean. What's not to love?

Matcha Green Tea & Red Bean Mochi Cake
Makes 2 loaves or 9x13" pan

Ingredients
3 cups glutinous rice flour (I used a mix of 1 cup brown and 1 cup white)
2 tbsp Matcha green tea powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups milk
2 tbsp oil
2 eggs
Filling
1/2 cup red bean boiled (or measure from a can of prepared sweetened red bean and cut sugar to taste)
1/4 cup dried dates chopped (or use diced kabocha squash)
1/4 cup walnuts quartered

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Grease pan or 2 loaf tins with oil or butter
3. Whisk all your dry ingredients in one bowl (rice flour, matcha powder, sugar, baking powder, salt)
4. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, milk and oil. Combine dry mix with the wet mix.
5. Gently fold in the filling ingredients. Feel free to use all red bean, or add raisins. Seriously, whatever you like.
6. Bake for 40-50 mins or until the sides pull away from the pan.

Glossy with honey and walnuts!

Green Tea Cake with Red Bean Filling

I have all this left over red bean from making the red bean mochi and also a lot of time. Well, I have to write a paper but I have absolutely no motivation in any bone. Gah... So here is a recipe to use that red bean filling. Green tea and red bean go so well together!

Onto a totally different tangent. Have you realized when you're dating that you seem to look more and more like your boyfriend/girlfriend?? Or am I just crazy?

Factoid: Men Tend to Seek Women who Look Like Themselves
After dating for a while, we all know that people tend to find mates that are similar to them in many ways, such as cultural background, socioeconomic status, and intellectual ability. (Well, true for me...) It's been found in many surveys too that spouses more similar to each other are more successful in terms of having babies and staying longer together than less similar pairs.

In this particular paper, they got 150 volunteers and showed them pictures of the opposite sex, whose faces were warped/photoshopped to resemble their own face. They were then asked to choose a potential partner from 3 images: self-resembling face, non-resembling face, attractive face.  Men apparently rated the self-resembling faces as most attractive (egotistical tsk tsk). In cavemen terms, men choose a physically similar mate to enhance his and his spouse's fitness and the genetic fitness of your offspring. Meaning if they looked alike, there's a higher chance his genes will be carried onward. Like father, like son geddit?

Women are less superficial far more complex when it comes to making mate choices. They didn't show any preference for similarity, just preference for the most attractive hotties ;)  It just goes to show that physical appearance is only one of the many influencing factors to making our decision. Another important factor is scent!

Oh women are so much more evolved than men~

Green Tea Layer Cake with Red bean Filling

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp matcha powder

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 small/medium eggs
1/2 cup yogurt
1.5 tsp vanilla

Red Bean filling

Preheat oven to 350F
In a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients (oil, eggs, yogurt, vanilla) and sugar.

In another bowl, sift the flour, mix the dry ingredients and add that to the wet. Mix until JUST incorporated. It's okay if there are a few lumps.

I used a huge 10" x 13" pan to get a large thin sheet of cake. But you can use 2 smaller pans for the same effect. Liberally grease the pans and add in the batter. Bake for 15-20mins or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let that cake cool for 20 mins. Invert it onto a plate. Cut the cake in 1/2 if you used a large pan. Trim the edges if you want to make it pretty. Spread red bean over the top side. (The cake is amazing on it's own too!)

Slap on the other layer. Dust with some powdered sugar and cut up and serve!