Will It Puffle?

I was so excited when I received an electric bubble waffle maker from my brother and sister-in-law for my birthday last year.  I had visions of making the eggettes I used to get from NYC's Chinatown and SF's Genki and maybe even making a puffle cone a la Cauldron Ice Cream or Monkey King Tea (below).  But after trying the recipes I found on-line for eggettes and puffle cones (basically the same recipe) I'm still not satisfied with the results.  I even played around a little with the ingredients but nothing I made recreated the aroma, texture, or taste I was looking for.

Not to be deterred, I decided to experiment with some other batter-based foods I had made before.  First up was pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread).  Since some of the eggette recipes used a little tapioca flour, I figured it would be fun to try an entirely tapioca flour based batter in the bubble waffle maker.  The results were incredible!

The bubble waffle maker was able to encapsulate the chewy, airy bread in a crispy crust in a fraction of the time it takes to bake the pão in the oven.  And it's sooooo cute!

I also tried Korean pajeon (above) and Japanese okonomiyaki (below), and the results were decent, but not really worth writing about.

Probably my favorite use of the bubble waffle maker has to be the Taiwanese oyster omelette.  Since I remember the sweet potato starch batter to be super sticky, I added a half tablespoon of oil to the batter itself and made sure to oil the waffle iron well before adding the batter.  And even though I took those precautions, I was still surprised when the omelette came out rather easily from the iron.  

As with the pão de queijo, I loved how the outside of the batter got super crispy but still stayed moist inside.  And the shape of the bubble waffle maker gave it a lot more nooks and crannies for an even higher crispy to chewy ratio!

So does anyone else have a good eggette recipe or recommendation for what to try next in the bubble waffle maker?

Next:  Sesame Soba Noodles with Avocado Rose
Previously:   The 4-Hour Baguette
Last Year:  Gordan Ramsay's Sublime Scrambled Eggs - 2 Ways
Two Years Ago:  Nutella Mini Crepe Cakes
Six Years Ago:  The Best Scones in the World
Seven Years Ago:  Samoa Cupcakes and the Cupcake Exchange

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Pew poll: Japanese Thinks Americans are Lazy and Intolerant

According to a poll about U.S.-Japan relations conducted by Pew Research Center, Americans have a positive views of Japanese while the Japanese generally have negative views of Americans.

In the survey, people were asked five traits hardworking, inventive, honesty, intolerant, aggressive, and selfish. The results shows that Japanese people don't like Americans that well, while Americans do like Japanese.

What Americans think about Japanese people: hardworking 94%, inventive 75%, honest 71%, intolerant 36%, aggressive 31%, and selfish 19%.

How Japanese view the Americans: hardworking 25%, inventive 67%, honest 37%, intolerant 29%, aggressive 50%, and selfish 47%.

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