How to Make Candy Cap Mushroom Cookies

To kick start the rain season, I decided to dig into my candy cap reserve and bake some cookies for my mushroom cultivation class. Most of the students are beginners in mycology and never had candy caps or candy cap cookies. I figured this would be a good way to get them excited. I was super excited when I first learned of this amazing little dessert mushroom!

Candy caps (Lactarius rubidus) are found on grounds or rotten wood in forests, usually in groups. In California it is abundant under oak and pine, where chantrelle (oak) and porcini (pine) are. Some of its key features are:

1. Cap and stalk burnt orange to orange-brown or sometimes reddish-brown.
2. Cap small (usually <2 1/2" broad), the surface dull and dry.
3. Fresh gills exuding a watery white milk when cut.
4. Neither the milk nor the flesh change color when exposed.
5. Entire mushroom brittle, the stalk snapping open cleanly like a piece of chalk.
6. No veil, ring, or volva.
7. Odor sweet (like maple syrup), especially when cooked or dried.
8. Spores white.

Saute the chopped up mushrooms with some butter

You may also find candy caps in mushroom specialty stores like Far West Fungi. I picked an abundant amount of candy caps in January this year. I dried all of them since their maple syrupy aroma gets stronger after they are dried. They are excellent in cookies, breads, waffles, pancakes, cheesecakes, pancakes, and ice cream.

This Candy Cap Cookies recipe is in David Aurora's All That the Rain Promises and More... I have made it several times and have some tips to ensure your success in making these cookies.

I finely chopped the pecans in the coffee grinder

Ingredients:
1 cup dried candy caps
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (optional)

Everything is blended in and mixed well

Directions:
Rehydrate the mushrooms by soaking them in lukewarm water for 15 minutes. Chop up the mushrooms into tiny pieces and saute them in a little butter. Set aside.

Cream together 1 cup butter and 1 cup sugar. Beat in 1 egg and, if you like, add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Stir in 2 1/2 cups of flour in small batches. I add 1/2 cup at a time into the mixer and let it mix well before adding the next 1/2 cup. It's very important that you don't dump all 2 1/2 cups at once. If you do that, the dough will fall apart. After the flour is all mixed in, you can stir in some finely chopped nuts. I usually add some pecans. Stir in the mushroom bits and mix it well.

Form the dough into rolls about 1 to 1 1/2" in diameter. I personally prefer not to get the dough all over my hands because I don't want to waste any dough if possible. I use a bamboo sushi roller to roll up the dough in a sheet of wax paper - just like how you make a roll of sushi. Use the wax paper as if it was a sheet of seaweed, put it on top of the bamboo roller, scoop up a desirable amount of dough and spread it out across the paper with a spatula. The roller is a handy tool in rolling up the cookie dough without it melting in your warm hands. The bamboo roller is available in Asian markets for about $2. Fold down the ends of the wax paper and freeze. When ready to bake, remove rolls from freezer and slice them to no more than 1/4 inch a piece. Place them on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until very lightly browned around the edges. Makes about 6 dozens.

There is nothing else that smells like these cookies. I love surprising people with them and look at their puzzled faces as they try to figure out what makes the cookies so good. The surprised expressions on their faces after learning it's a mushroom is simply priceless.

Lisa Leonard's Award Winning Kombucha Tea

I just learned about Kombucha back in January this year. "Kombucha" was mentioned a lot in Master Ken's class. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it looked a bit scary to be honest. That thing they call "mother" or "Kombucha mother" in a glass jar is quite alien looking. Some people call it "mushroom." I can tell you that it is NOT a mushroom. It's actually a "Scoby" - Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. Does that sound any better? Not really.

When Lisa, who was in my class, heard that I never had Kombucha tea, she told me that she's been brewing and drinking Kombucha regularly. She said she'd be happy to bring some for me to try. She told me that I could also get them in grocery stores. A few days later, I saw an article about Lindsey Lohan's favorite Kombucha drink, Synergy. My curiosity level was getting higher by the day. Finally, I picked up a bottle of guava flavored Synergy Kombucha for $4 while in San Francisco. It tasted nothing like Guava. It was just pure almost unbearable sourness (and I can take a lot of sour!). I gave up on drinking it after 4 sips.

Lisa (center) hosts a kombucha tasting at Summer Garden Fair at Golden Gate Park, 2010.

Lisa and several others brought their Kombucha tea to our Fermentation Club that meets once a month. I was skeptical. I tried Phil's Kombucha, and it was very sour. I tried Jenny's Kombucha, and it was not as sour. It was almost good. I tried Lisa's Kombucha, and I wanted more! It had the perfect balance of sour, sweet, and tangy. It turned out that Phil's Kombucha was brewed too long; hence, it basically turned into vinegar. Jenny's tea was brewed a bit longer than it needed to. Lisa, who's been experimenting longer than others, figured out the small window when the tea is just perfect. She would then pour the tea out from the "Mother" jar so it would not keep fermenting; furthermore, she mixes different herbs and spices, fruit juice, vegetable juice, etc., to create unique flavors.

So why drink Kombucha? Many people in my Fermentation Club strongly believe in the health benefits of Kombucha. Common claims are that Kombucha aids cancer recovery, increases energy, sharpens eyesight, aids joint recovery, improves skin elasticity, and aids digestion. After tasted Lisa's Kombucha, I have been drinking it just because it tastes good. I have never been too crazy for carbonated soda water. Why drink soda? It's bubbly and high in sugar. I don't think anyone can claim any health benefit of soda water. When I drink Lisa's Kombucha, I feel a bit more energetic. And how can you resist these flavors - Ginger Aid, Strawberry Bliss, Sangria Fiesta, Orange Julius, Key Lime Pie, Old Fashioned Root Beer, Grape Soda, Berry Blast, etc., etc.

Lisa's been very generous with free tasting of her tea. Her husband, Joe, is just as enthusiastic as she. He makes sure that you get to try every flavor. Master Ken and others have been giving her a lot of feedback on the taste and ideas on what herbs she might be able to try. When Joe announced to everyone that Lisa's Ginger Aid Kombucha won first place at Eat Real contest this year, I couldn't be happier for her! I knew then that I wasn't being biased about how good it is. Lisa of course is too modest to toot her own horn, so I will do that for her.

If you are in the Bay Area and curious about Lisa's Kombucha, send her an email at LisaLeonard1@ymail.com to get on her email list for updates. Give something new a try, you may be in for a surprisingly pleasant experience.

"Extreme Gardening"

Daikon seedlings

"Extreme Gardening!" was what my next door neighbor said to me when he saw me digging soil and pulling weeds in the dark. Well, at least I am not doing it in down pour rain. Now that would be a real challenge.

Before I left for New York last month, I started some daikon and green onion seeds in the campus greenhouse. I brought them back on Sunday but haven't had much daylight hours to plant them in the veggie beds. As it was getting dark tonight, I hurriedly pulled out partially dried up tomato plants and filled the bed with compost from El Cerrito Recycling Center.  I planted just a few daikon seedlings on one side of the bed before it became completely dark out, and I was finally overcame with hunger.

Green onion seedlings

I have also planted a  bunch of green onion seedlings in the potato and onion bed.  I dug up some potatoes and onions to make room for the green onions. Since they came right out of the veggie patch, they were covered with my primo soil. I wouldn't want to rinse the soil down the kitchen drain, so I washed all fresh produce outside in a bucket then poured the water right back into the veggie beds or potted herbs.

The rain is supposed to start again on Thursday afternoon through the weekend. It looks like tomorrow night is another "extreme gardening" night.

rising some freshly picked veggies - both potatoes and onions do grow underground

Hot and Sour Soup with Golden Chantrelle

We Bay Area people are all about fusions. Most of time, I try to make ethnic dishes as authentic as I possibly can, but there are times availability wins. I have always loved hot and sour soup. It's spicy and sour, two of my favorite flavors next to sweet. I have been making hot and sour soup since I was a teenager, so a recipe has become obsolete long ago.

I cut up a piece of soft tofu, opened up a can of bamboo shoots, and chopped up some fresh green onion from the farm. I thought it would be really nice to have some mushrooms. Normally, wood ear mushrooms are what you put in hot and sour soup. Shiitake mushrooms are good substitutes since they are Asian mushrooms. Well, I don't have any wood ear or Shiitake. I looked into my pantry - I have a jar of dried candy cap mushrooms and a jar of dried golden chantrelle. I dried all of them earlier this year so I could have some during off season. Considering rain season has started, I didn't have to hang on to the dried mushrooms for special occasions. I opened up the jar of chantrelle and took a deep breath. Ahhhhhhhh....so good. I grabbed a handful and dumped them into the hot soup.

Golden Chantrelle I picked earlier this year

I can really taste the chantrelle in the soup. At the same time, it is still very much hot and sour soup. I can eat that entire pot tonight. Below is the "rough" recipe for your reference, but you should always tweak it to your liking and according to availability of ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 piece of tofu (Soft or firm, it doesn't matter. Whatever you like works) cut in strips
1 small can of bamboo shoots (add more if you like them)
1 egg
1 green onion (chop to small pieces)
Some mushrooms
optional: Meat
optional: A piece of chicken bouillon
Some soy sauce or salt (omit if you are using chicken bouillon)
Some white vinegar
Some chili flakes
Some fresh ground black pepper
Some sesame oil
2 table spoons of corn starch or tapioca starch

Boil 4-5 cups of water (or chicken stock) and put the tofu in it. Put in the chicken bouillon if you are using one. Put in the bamboo shoots, mushrooms, chili flakes, vinegar (2 table spoons to start and add more if you like it more sour). Add soy sauce or salt if you are not using chicken bouillon. Bring it to boil. In the meantime, beat the egg in a bowl and add a couple drops of sesame oil while beating it. Dissolve the corn starch in some water. As soon as the soup is boiling, pour the corn starch solution in it, stir, and lower the heat. The soup should thicken. If you like it thicker, make more corn starch solution to add. Once it reaches the consistency you like, turn off the heat and pour in the egg. The beaten egg should float to the top as it cooks in the hot soup. Sprinkle the green onion on top and add a few drops of sesame oil.

Simple, isn't it?

Fresh mushroom section in Eataly Market www.eataly.com

A Day of Wildlife Sightings

Do you see the deer in the picture?

Today marked the first day of full rain for the mushroom season. We stayed inside for most of the class time since it will take 7-10 days for "good edibles" to grow and pop out of the ground. Around 2 P.M. we got the news that a couple young deer have wandered into the herb garden through an unclosed gate. Master Ken immediately asked the class whether anyone wanted venison as a joke. Gotta love his Texan humor. We got the task of chasing out the deer. Don't worry, there are plenty of other vegetation they can eat around the campus. We just can't have them eat up what the students have grown for their classes. After the class, a group of us put on our rain gear and went to searching for the deer. I spotted them along with a couple other guys. I even managed to snap a photo in the misty weather. They ran out of the horticulture garden soon after. This wasn't the first time we have seen deer inside of the herb garden. They always run away as fast as they can from people. I don't understand why that Oakland Police thought that young deer was a threat and had to shoot it numerous times.

Wild turkey walking around a block from El Cerrito Plaza BART Station

As I got back to my neighborhood driving down Central Avenue, I was surprised of what I saw on the street. Well, I was pretty sure that I saw turkeys. I pulled over, parked the car, and went looking for the turkeys with my camera. They were huge! Several cars slowed down when they saw the huge turkeys taking a walk just a block from El Cerrito Plaza. I wonder where they were going and what were going to happen to them.

3 wild turkeys travel down the street near El Cerrito Plaza.

A newt?

After the turkey encounter, I went home and started rearranging the mushroom blocks I got from Far West Fungi. Some of the shiitake blocks got moldy because I didn't have the time during the week to properly store them. The oyster mushroom blocks look pretty good so far with good potential. I spotted this newt(?) as I lifted up a piece of cardboard that was covering the spot where the juniper used to be.

Black swallowtail caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes asterius Stoll)

These caterpillars are regulars on fennel.

The squirrel came back for more figs. I was able to get a few pictures of him.

The squirrel enjoys his fig