Rice Cooker Chocolate Cake Recipe

I want to find more ways to utilize my rice cooker in addition to cooking rice and steaming food. Today I made a chocolate cake with it. The cake is more moist and spongy compared to its baked version. I don't need to watch the temperature and there is less mess to clean up. Here is the recipe.

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder (I prefer dark cocoa powder!)
1/2 tsp. coffee powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

• Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl
• Add egg, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer for 2 minutes
• Stir in boiling water
• Line bottom of rice cooker with parchment paper (cut to shape)
• Pour batter into rice cooker
• Press cook button (Select regular rice setting if you've a digital rice cooker)
• When rice cooker automatically switches off, open and check. Check cake with toothpick/fork, press cook button again if needed. Repeat until cake is done*
• Cool 10 minutes; removes from rice cooker to wire racks
• Cool completely. Decorate with your usual frosting

* How many times to "cook" depends on the size and power of your rice cooker. For my rice cooker, I had to "cook" twice.

Litter Train Your Dog

Not sure why people litter train their cats but not their dogs. I picked up a small breed dog (6 lbs.) from the shelter in the middle of a cold and snowy winter. Poor Apple shivered and shook so bad whenever I took her out. I felt like I was torturing her. I did some research and decided to litter train her. I found a book that really helped: The Ultimate House Training Guide I followed the instructions from the book and Apple picked it up quickly. It was a little tricky finding a litter that is right for her. Tracking was a big problem with regular cat litter. Somehow dogs track a lot more litter than cats. I tried the traditional non-clumping litter, the scoopable crystals and finally pine pellets. They are called Feline Pine or Feline Fresh and they are great. They are natural and environmentally friendly. I'm not worried if Apple accidentally ingests a little and they don't stick to her paws like the scoopable crystals. Anyway, now she's happy. She can go outside when weather is nice and she can go to her little box when it's too cold!

Chicken Karaage Recipe

I love the chicken karaage at a local Japanese restaurant and I started looking for a recipe to see if I can make it on my own. Below is a really great recipe. It's actually not so hard to make. Dark meat tastes better to me but sometimes I make it with white meat for health reason. Yes... to make a fried dish slightly healthier!



Recipe:
Cut chicken meat into small pieces.
Marinate chicken meat in the following marinade:
- 6 Tbsp. sake
- 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp. grated ginger juice
- A splash of sesame oil
Marinate for an hour.
Roll in cornstarch and brush off excess.
Deep-fry in oil twice.
First time at 320F. Until the meat starts to float.
Take them out of oil, let cool for about 2 minutes.
Quickly deep-fry again at 360F.

My deep-fryer only has one temperature and it tastes just fine.

Here is the link to the original recipe. I made a copy of the recipe to my blog in case the original link is no longer available in future.

Download YouTube Videos

Found this cool software today! Now I can download my favorite shows from YouTube and watch them over and over again!

Download YouTube Videos