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Dear Caitlin,
This weekend I woke up early on Saturday morning and did some baking. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing better than losing yourself in the act of measuring, mixing, and following a recipe...my favorite way to relax. As I mentioned to you the other day, I had some bananas that needed to be mashed, so I went ahead and made a batch of banana bread using a new recipe from my Magnolia cookbook. This recipe uses sour cream to moisten the bread rather than a bunch of oil like my other recipe and I think I like it better. The bread is lighter and crumbly but with good texture and flavor...and of course it was topped with crystallized ginger!

For my second recipe I made a batch of butter mochi to take to Matt and Malena's for dessert. Malena made a Japanese curry for dinner so I thought it would be fun to have a Japanese (sort of) dessert too. Although traditional mochi is made by pounding rice, this mochi is made using mochiko flour and therefore it's much easier! It is the ugliest baked good ever! But it is always a crowd-pleaser, in fact it's really popular with little kids in Hawaii. It has a chewy texture that kind of melts in your mouth and the flavor is like custard. Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it:



Butter Mochi

1 pound mochiko flour
2 1/2 Cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 Cups milk
5 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 Cup butter, melted and cooled
1 Cup coconut (I never put the coconut in)

Preheat oven to 350

Combine mochiko, sugar, and baking powder. Add milk, eggs, vanilla, butter and coconut to dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake 1 hour. Cool before slicing.

I usually slice it into small pieces since it's pretty rich. Yum!

*If you're not familiar with mochiko, it's a rice flour that you can find at Japanese markets. One box is usually a pound.