Now I really wanted to make this cake for a couple of reasons. The first being, a lot of people have been complaining that Swiss meringue buttercream is hard. Personally, I don’t think that it’s hard, it’s more about knowing how to make it. To give a little explanation about meringues, we have three kinds….
Category: Cakes
Vegan coconut-sticky rice soufflé with mango creamsicle sauce
So this is the recipe I actually made on Instagram Live with Shari from my season on Masterchef. We were doing soufflé demo’s, and we each did a different flavor, hers being chocolate, while mine being this one. I didn’t want to go traditional to begin with, since I wanted to conserve eggs, and because…
Ivory Spring: a petite gateau
I feel like it has been a while since I brought out the wooden sake cups, well that, and I knew that I wanted to make something green in the spirit of St. Patty’s day, so that’s where the idea to make a matcha-misu (matcha-flavored tiramisu) came from. I had some really cool flavors of…
PB&J Layer Cake
So I came up with this concept after a quick chat with my friend Sam (you might remember him as the lawyer from my season of Masterchef). His son Jude’s 2nd birthday was coming up (it will actually be when I post this, so go and wish his son a happy birthday if you’re reading this!)…
Rainbow of illusion: a mirror glaze cake
So the name of this dessert stemmed from the lyrics of a harmonicblend song, “Auf Wiedersehen”. When I was trying to conceptualize this dessert, I wanted to make something that can be made into a rainbow, and I wouldn’t necessarily say deconstruct it, but rather, emphasize aspects of the rainbow that I wanted to. When…
Matcha-chocolate checkerboard cake
With St. Patrick’s Day being just around the corner, I had to get in as many green desserts as possible. And by green, I mean naturally green. None of that artificial food coloring, Incredible Hulk-looking nonsense. Truthfully, St. Patrick’s Day baking has always been one of my least favorite holidays to bake for. It mostly…
Thin mint-Oreo Doughnut Creams
I really love making Doughnut Creams. I don’t make them as often as I used to, but I do still like their aesthetic. A seemingly perfectly glazed doughnut with cute toppings, but when you bite into it, it’s not fried dough. It’s a set mousse with fluffy cake on the bottom. Sometimes, two mousses. Sometimes,…
Love like you: a mirror glaze cake
When I was thinking of my quintessential Valentine’s Dessert, I had to go this route. A mousse cake would be perfect, since they are gorgeous, and almost resemble a box of chocolates in a way. I decided to go with a classic and simple combination of raspberry and vanilla, just because the contrast is sharp,…
After the fire: a petit gateau
So I really wanted to make a dessert using these new wooden sake cups I bought, since I don’t exactly drink, and I really have been enjoying seeing these wooden box tiramisus on my Instagram feed lately. I did want to do a take on a tiramisu, but I didn’t exactly want to do a…
STEP: a plated dessert
I have been listening to a ton of ClariS again recently. ClariS is a Japanese pop group consisting of two girls who sing extremely girly songs that make me question my own gender identity. That being said, I do appreciate how dessert-friendly their songs and aesthetic are, and it makes it a lot easier for…
Chestnut-chocolate mille crepe
When I was thinking of what kinds of desserts to make for the holidays, I was split between doing a chestnut dessert or a chocolate dessert. I was a bit apprehensive to make a chestnut dessert because of how many I had made recently, and how many I will be making now that I found…
“Day by Day”: a layer cake
So Carole and Tuesday season 2 just came out on Netflix, and with that, the soundtrack also dropped, so I was able to start listening to and get inspired by all of the new tracks on that album. One in particular that I liked was “Day by Day”, which was this quaint song that reminded…
Diamond dust: a petit gateau
When I was thinking of different, winter-themed desserts, I knew I had to do something with a reference to diamond dust. What diamond dust is, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is very light snowflakes that form and fall during clear skies. It’s very beautiful, and something I remember seeing on occasion…
Voices of the forest: a layer cake
I really wanted to make another Opera cake, but I didn’t want to be too repetitive or just fall back on the same flavors. So I changed it up…slightly. Instead of coffee, I went with barley tea instead. I love barley tea. It’s something I grew up drinking in Taiwan during the summers! It’s refreshing,…
Knafeh with kataifi pastry
Now I have done knafeh in the past. But I have never had a chance to work with kataifi(shredded phyllo) due to never being able to find it. That is, until my coworker, Desiree, told me about a middle eastern market that was actually really close to where I live! Super special thank you to…
Good as Hell: a carrot cake
When it comes to carrot cake, I really love making them with a TON of grated carrots in them. While the concept of putting a root vegetable into a cake sounds a bit weird, that’s what the sugar and spices are for. It hides any savory notes of the vegetable and results in a cake…
Small steps: a plated dessert
I wanted to create a dessert that represented my collective growth in dessert. Chocolate cake was obviously something that has huge sentimental value to me, so I had to feature that, and with it, two of my other favorite dessert go-to’s, being ice cream and macaron. For this particular dessert, I went with chocolate friands,…
“Princess cakes”: a petit gateau
Honestly, this dessert was inspired by me seeing a TON of these cute pink petit gateaus that were floating around on Instagram, made by pastry chefs at a Mandarin Oriental. This dessert in particular was on my to-do list for a hot second, but I had the pleasure of making it with my friend Ann…
Jump: grasshopper pie entremet
Ever since my senior year of college when I made several of them for a Thanksgiving party, I have fallen in love with grasshopper pie. And no, it’s not actual grasshoppers in a pie, if that’s what you’re thinking (because my god, the Internet can be stupid sometimes). Grasshopper pie is an old school dessert…
Angelico: a plated dessert
I have really wanted to try tackling baba and hazelnut toffee tears, so I figured, why not combine the two together? Rum baba is a French and Italian classic. It is a yeast-leavened cake, similar to a brioche, that it soaked in a rum based syrup and stuffed with piped cream. With baba, you might…
Freddy's Harajuku 