Being trapped in the house and bored for most of the day tends to lead this girl to baking something.

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for a while and thought I’d give it a shot since I had everything to make it on hand. I’m kind of on a green tea kick right now too, so it sounded delicious.

You start like many other cake recipes by creaming together the butter and sugar.

Then adding the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.

From here on alternate adding the sour cream (I used plain yogurt instead) and the dry ingredients (pre-mixed together) until everything is included.

Then separate out half of the batter into another bowl. I added matcha to one and the last dregs of cocoa powder I had left to the other.

Butter and flour a loaf pan. Alternate adding layers of one batter, then the other, and smooth out on top.

I used a chopstick to swirl the top of the batter hoping for a marbled affect in the finished loaf.

Oooo…after 55 minutes at 350 degrees it came out golden and rounded and smelling sweetly of fresh green tea.

You can see the two colors peeking out of the crispy crack in the loaf.

I didn’t get much of the marbling I was hoping for, but the undulating layers of springy green and warming cocoa were still beautiful together.

It’s really tender and not overly sweet. Moist but not damp or oily. A perfect cake to have as a snack or tea accompaniment.

I officially have too many sweets in the house now, with this cake and a plastic container full of green tea dorayaki.

Somehow though, with threats of ice on the roads until Friday, I think there may be even more baking in my immediate future.

Pancake. Sandwich.

Just imagine that for a moment.

Here, lemme help you with that…

Mmmm…pancake sandwich. Actually, these little guys are delicious and fluffy dorayaki, a Japanese confection consisting of a layer of sweet azuki bean paste sandwiched between two sweet little pancakes.

I had my first dorayaki ever on the plane-ride back from our honeymoon in Japan. It was a sweet I bought specifically so that I could take a little of Japan home with me, and I savored every pillowy bite.

I thought it might be interesting to use this green tea I picked up at Tomato and make green tea flavored dorayaki.

Here’s what I used to make them:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp. green tea powder
• about 8oz. anko (sweetened red bean paste)

I started by whisking together the eggs and sugar…

Next I combined the baking soda with the water and then added that to my egg mixture…

I added half the flour and then whisked in the green tea and the rest of the flour, mixing well but not over-mixing…

The batter was super thick, I set it aside while I let my non-stick pan heat up…

I went ahead and sprayed the pan with non-stick spray, even though the pan is already non-stick, because there is a lot of sugar in the batter that could cause the dorayaki to burn.

In went three test dollops…

Just like regular pancakes, you know they’re ready to turn when bubbles start appearing on the surface of the batter. When flipped, they should be golden and crisp on the outside, like this…

I sat them aside on a tea towel to cool while I got my filling ready…

I used this brand of red bean filling, also from Tomato…

I love that stuff. I just spread a bit on one side of the pancake…

And topped it with another!

Pancake. Sandwich.

Good for breakfast or dessert.

Jeff and I both agreed that while absolutely delicious, the pancakes came out bigger than most dorayaki pancakes. Next time, I would definitely just use one pancake and cut it in half like an english muffin.

Soooooooo goooood though.

CHOMP!

Can you guess which one of these bad boys got roasted and baked into a yummy bread today?

If you guessed the kabocha squash, and not either of those other shady-looking hooligans up there, you win!

Mmmmm, sweet and fluffy bread…

I have been racking my brain for what to do with that kabocha for weeks now. Then I remembered the vegan pumpkin bread that I made a while back and thought, “Hmm…I wonder how that would taste with kabocha instead?”

First, I made kabocha puree with the exact same method I use to make pumpkin puree.

I followed the same recipe as the pumpkin bread, but here are the ingredients again anyway:

• 1 cup kabocha puree
• 1/4 cup softened Earth Balance
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup flax meal
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Lucas took great interest in the whirring sounds coming from the stand mixer.

He was very suspicious and glared at it with malice as I added my dry ingredients to the wet.

When the batter was mixed I tossed in a few handfuls of pecan pieces, somewhere between 1/2 cup and 3/4?  I’m not sure how much really. It usually won’t affect a recipe to add as much mix-ins as you like.

Those got stirred in by hand…

The mix was scooped into a buttered and floured loaf pan.  I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top before baking it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Out came this hot, fluffy pillow…

I let it cool to the touch before turning it out onto a cooling rack.  Then, the slicing!

Yum! This one was even better than the pumpkin bread. The texture was fluffier and lighter and the flavor was more earthy and intense.

Thinking very seriously about whipping up some of that cinnamon “cream cheese” frosting that I used on my apple bars to top this with!