While I was in quarantine, I wanted to continue to bake things that either hybridized two things, or touched upon my childhood nostalgia. In this case, I made something that touched upon the latter. Growing up in a Taiwanese/Chinese-American household, I have distinct memories of going to the Asian grocery stores and getting these chocolate-covered…
Month: May 2020
Nectarine-orange blossom pie
So while I was in quarantine, I had been doing a lot of cookbook reading. And by that, I mean I was flipping through cookbooks and looking at the photos. I haven’t properly read a book since college and I don’t intend to start, even if coronavirus is going around. One of my favorite cookbooks is Everything…
Hallucinate: a plated dish
I was actually coming up with this dish when I was doing a quarantine Google Hangout cook-together with my friends, Ann and Sylvie. We agreed that we would each make a pasta dish, so I came up with this one. I took the inspiration from my childhood favorite, beef noodle soup aka Taiwan’s national dish, and transforming…
“Paopu” dole whip popsicles
In the lore of the Kingdom Hearts video game series, the fictional paopu fruit is a star-shaped fruit that is shared between people who want to be bonded together forever. To make that into a flavor, I knew starfruit was an obvious must, as it is the closest fruit in real life to a paopu…
Uni-giri: an amuse bouche
So this was really the culmination of three of my favorite things to eat when I go to a sushi restaurant. Uni(sea urchin), rice, and eggs. And arguably, all three ingredients have wonderful synergy with one another, and definitely together. Raw eggs on rice is a staple in Japan, with the fluffy rice almost cooking…
Citron mille crepe
I made this dessert as a result of having way too many lemons lying around. I have a family friend who always gives us free lemons and passionfruit straight from their trees (amazing quality and I love them for it every year!), so I knew right away that I could use a good amount of…
Signal: a petit gateau
I was feeling a bit inspired the other day to try a new flavor of petit gateau. I saw so many geode cakes before, and this is my very loose take on that. I used kohakutou to garnish petit gateaus, but used a little bit of gold leaf as well to give them a more…
Chocolate turtle thumbprint cookies
I was definitely thinking about how this blog came together when I conceptualizing this recipe. So right after I graduated college, I was approached by somebody to work in what sounded like a really exciting project: a YouTube channel featuring dessert videos. I won’t get into too many more details on it, because it was…
Dark and ruby chocolate layer cake
So my sister recently purchased a stand mixer for herself so that she can pick up baking as a hobby. Well, that and she makes a ton of bread at her house, and she is tired of kneading it by hand(I do NOT blame her, kneading bread makes my arms four times as sore as…
Can you feel the sunshine?: a plated dish
Even since MasterChef season 10, there were three things I sought to learn more about/perfect. The first was tarte tatin, the second was cooking in a cast iron, and the third, which I finally have gotten around to doing, is learning more about Latin flavors. After that disastrous showing with prickly pear, I knew I…
At dusk, I will think of you: a mirror glaze cake
I felt like it had been a while since I made a proper mirror glaze cake, so I just set out to make one for the sake of making one. I just happened to buy a mamey sapote fruit(it is a cousin of persimmon, and very similar to a papaya or sweet potato in texture),…
Marimo truffles
I love how the Japanese manage to make everything cute. From clione (basically sea slugs, but they’re called sea angels), to daruma (those giant red and white dolls with the crazy eyes and mustaches), to marimo (little aquatic moss balls that some children even keep as pets). Marimo are super adorable, just because they’re perfectly…
Duck banh mi with homemade baguette and purple yam chips
One of my absolute favorite sandwiches is the banh mi. A Vietnamese-French hybrid, it features a baguette that has pate, some sort of meat, pickled vegetables, chilies, and cilantro on it. It’s been one of my favorites for years ever since I had one from Lee’s Sandwiches(yes, I know it’s a chain, but still, the banh…
Raspberry craquelin choux
These puffs are super simple to make, and so satisfying to see coming out of the oven. Craquelin or sablage refers to the cookie that is baked on top of the pate choux. It is really gorgeous and I have used it several times throughout my recipes on this blog. Besides the craquelin itself, the…
Eton mess with creme patissiere
For my second lesson with Lemonade, Marcin and I wanted to tackle another common ingredient, this time being eggs. Truthfully, the lemon meringue cookies could have been used for both lessons, since I showcased how to use the yolk and the white in a dessert, but I figured I would tackle an entirely different dessert with…
Lemon meringue cookies
For my cooking mini-series with Lemonade(my friend Roshni’s social platform company), my co-host Marcin and I were actually tasked with making three different classes with three different themes. So we decided to go with ingredients, and to fit with the name of the company, we went with lemon dishes for the first class! For my…
Counting stars: a plated dessert
I actually came up with this concept when I was testing a dessert recipe for an upcoming pop-up in Dallas. Unfortunately, the test run didn’t necessarily go as planned, but I didn’t want to throw away the ingredients, so I shifted gears, and went with a rice pudding instead. What I love about rice pudding…
Freddy's Harajuku 