I want to thank my double-lid donabe rice cooker, KAMADO-SAN, for not only making delicious rice every day, but also for making my koji life extraordinary. With KAMADO-SAN, I make my own Makkoli (Korean-style rice wine) and Amazake. Then, I not only enjoy Makkoli & Amazake on their own, I can create other delicious dishes with them.
With Kamado-san, my makkoli always turns out exceptional quality. I use Champagne yeast and kefir culture to ferment my makkoli, so it's got the real sophisticated taste.
After straining liquid, the "leftover" is sake lees (we call it "sake-kasu"). It's another wonderful by-product. My sake-kasu has a real special fresh flavor. It also keeps rising after separating from liquid and become even more aromatic. So, I call my sake-kasu "Magic Sake-kasu".
With this magic sake-kasu, for dessert, I like to make Sake-kasu pound cake. It's very simple to make, and the flavor is always...wow...it's like tasting the super fresh draft nigori-sake in the cake!
And, guess what, to serve this magic sake-kasu pound cake, I even drizzle freshly-fermented and pureed donabe amazake base. You can't ask for any better combination.
Here's my recipe:
Magic Sake-kasu Pound Cake
Ingredients
(for accuracy, I normally scale ingredients by grams when making dessert)
150g wheat flour
50g almond powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
180g raw brown sugar
2 sticks + 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil
100g sake-kasu
3 eggs, room temperature
70g dry currant (I use it because I had so much at home, but you can use raisin or other dry fruit)
50g roasted walnuts
Procedure
1. Whisk butter until smooth. Add sugar and whisk more.
2. Add olive oil and sake-kasu and whisk further.
3. In a ball, whisk eggs. Add the whisked eggs to the butter mixture (while still whisking) in 10 times.
4. Sift together flour, almond powder, and BP. Set aside.
5. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 3 batches and fold in with a spatula gently.
6. Fold in currant and roasted walnuts.
7. Oil a large loaf tin and dust with flour. Pour the cake batter.
8. Bake in 350F oven for 1 hour or until it's done.
9. Cool down. Slice and serve with amazake base.
Happy donabe koji life.
