Bibinka

Yup. So totally run out of the things to say. And it's a good thing this entry is the last for Holidailies. I can go back to neglecting this site, posting only when I feel I have something worth mentioning. Given my exacting standards of literature, it's not often.

As a follow-up to my Best of Holidailies-winning entry, The creaming method, I offer the recipe for the dessert mentioned therein. It's a Filipino dessert, and anyone who has never eaten anything with mochi flour will probably find the chewy texture strange and different.

It's also loaded with sugar, milk and eggs.

Bibinka

4 cups, mochi flour (find this at an Asian market or at a megamart such as Whole Foods)
2 1/2 cups, sugar
1 cup, butter at room temperature (that is, an entire stick)
1 teaspoon, vanilla extract
4 cups, milk
6 egg yolks (3 whole eggs and 3 yolks may be substituted)

So what I did the last time I made this dessert was to cut up the butter into a little cubes and mix it with the sugar till I got a light yellow froth. It took a few minutes. Then I added the mochi flour, slowly mixing it in with the beaten butter and sugar. After I added the flour, I put the eggs, milk and vanilla extract in another bowl and mixed those together. Once the eggs were integrated with the milk, I poured the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mixed them together. The resulting dough should be soft -- this dough is not the kind to be kneaded.

Oh, I should have mentioned that the oven should be preheating to 350 degrees. When your dough is ready to be baked, stash it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Turn down the heat to 300 and bake for another 20 minutes.

When you take it out of the oven, use a knife to separate the dessert from the sides of the pan. Before it has a chance to stiffen, take a pizza cutter and portion out the dessert into rectangles.

The air from the creaming method should give a lightness to the chewy texture of the mochi flour. It's actually a nice combination. I hope the next time I make it, I can get that same texture.

I do have some leftover ingredients.

(And that concludes my participation in Holidailies 2008. I seem to do this every other year, so you may see me again in 2010.)