I love making pasta from scratch. There’s something so satisfying about getting this golden, stretchy dough super thin, and being able to take something so flat and paper-like and fold it into all sort of fun shapes. I guess that’s why I love origami so much. The transformation is exciting! For my pasta, I did…
Cattleya – rose apple and pear cheesecake
This is yet another carbon copy of Pierre Herme’s Venus cake, this time, featuring mountain rose apples! They are a naturally pink apple, and a little starchier than the normal Fuji or Red Delicious. I figured that they would be gorgeous, and since I did not want to rip off the naming, I opted to…
Fred Bread Buns with Roast Duck and Scallions
I love making “Fred Bread”, which is my take on Japanese milk bread. I also adore making steamed buns with duck. So I figured, why not combine the two? The end result? A really light, fluffy steamed bun with a buttery crumb. It’s pretty awesome. We made these for new years, and since the recipe…
Peanut milk panna cotta
The concept of this dessert came about when I was thinking about childhood favorites. Growing up in an immigrant family, we had this milk peanut soup dessert from a can that we would often enjoy during the summer. It was almost like a sweetened milk with these peeled and poached peanuts inside of it, which…
Fruitcake with citrus curd glaze
Continuing on my festive holiday baking spree, I wanted to create yet another classic, being fruitcake. Now, I’ve never made fruitcake before, nor have I ever even eaten one. I have seen them on TV and I recall these dense, molasses-y cakes embedded with a ton of fruit in them. So I went with that…
Snowball fight in the icebox: gingerbread icebox cake
Now I don’t really eat or make gingerbread men that often. Mostly because I was only raised with 50% of American traditions, being an immigrant, so gingerbread baking was not really something we did in our family. Highly ironic, given how much ginger we had at home, from fresh ginger root to powdered ginger to…
Stormy seas, clear skies tart
This was loosely inspired by a smoothie bowl aesthetic, but I wanted to that take and make a pie out of it. I don’t know. That’s just how I was feeling. There was something about round things being placed into swirly things that looks really cool. So I went ahead and made a purple ube…
Gluten-free mocha almond fudge cupcakes
Continuing from my semi-replication of Chloe Coscarelli’s cupcakes, I wanted to make a mocha almond fudge cupcake but rather than making it vegan, I wanted to make it gluten-free. The main reason why is because I wanted to make the cupcake using almond flour, to really hammer in the almond flavor into the cupcake. The…
Thai tea-black sesame mousse cake
I really just made this dessert because I wanted to. It was such a perfect dessert for Halloween too, just because of the color scheme, but it can also represent the fall as well, I guess? I went with black sesame jaconde sponge, Thai tea syrup, black sesame mousse, Thai tea Bavarian cream, and black…
koi no tsubomi: elderflower-citrus anmitsu
This was a dessert inspired by Koda Kumi’s song of the same name; the meaning of it in Japanese literally translates to blossoms of love. When I first heard the song, it was from the Driving Hits 7 soundtrack, so it was remixed and sounded really foreboding and intense. I didn’t quite like it. But…
