I dub this cake my “adulting” cake because it consists of two things I often need or want in my life: coffee and booze. I also made the cake look really drab and compact, to symbolize how being an adult is not as wonderful and exciting as people would expect. It’s honestly boring. Is that…
Category: Cakes
Anything that can be classified as a cake, from layer cakes to cupcakes to plated desserts.
Passion fruit-coconut-caramel naked layer cake
I literally only made this cake because we had about 15 passion fruits lying around and I needed to start getting rid of them before they went bad. The cake itself has five different layers to it, being coconut-brown sugar cake, salted coconut caramel soaking liquid, coconut cream, passionfruit curd, and coconut crumble. I think…
Coconut-sesame panda mousse cakes
This dessert goes out to my friend from high school, Karen, as a belated birthday gift. She’s obsessed with pandas, and hilariously enough, I have created a ton of panda desserts with her aesthetic guidance. Panda cupcakes, panda cookies, panda bread, and a panda parfait. And no, no pandas were harmed in the making of…
Miso chocolate cake with soy milk-black tea ice cream, sesame, and azuki jam
The inspiration for this dessert was Chinese New Years. The idea of a festive dish that embodies a lot of traditionally Asian flavors, namely the red beans and sesame. Red bean soup with black sesame-mochi balls is a traditional Chinese dessert, so this is a definite homage to that. The miso-chocolate cake really plays off…
Strawberry-Angel Food Shortcake Doughnut Creams
The goal behind this dessert was to make a strawberry cake unlike any that I have made before. I love making doughnut creams, so I wanted to make another flavor. This time, it’s a strawberry angel food shortcake. I used angel food cake as the base, because it is super light and airy, being made…
Salted Caramel Devil’s Food Cake
The first time I ever had a cake presented to me in such a fashion was at Hinoki and the Bird. I wanted to recreate that same Devil’s Food Cake for years, and now I’ve finally done…. after they had already removed it from their menu. Oh well, at least it’s mine, and only mine….
Cutie Honey Raspberry Cake
I wanted to prepare a dessert that I could enjoy with a cup of tea while staring out into the city, quietly judging everyone. For some reason, I like to do that. I don’t know why. I guess being an 100% Judging type per Myers-Briggs does that for you. But being a judgmental bitch aside,…
Citron Othello: black and white lemon mousse cake
The idea behind this cake came from a very unusual silicon mold I purchased from Amazon. I knew that just from the triangular prism shape of the final cake, that each slice would be a little tear drop-triangle-chestnut-looking thing. I thought it would be cute if I made some mousse cakes that were visual plays…
Chocolate-Tangerine Creamsicle Cake
I love chocolate cake. I cannot stress or repeat it enough. But one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes is my fluffy fudge cake, which is made using bloomed cocoa powder, melted chocolate, and meringue, just to give the cake a dense, fudge-y start and a light, airy finish. Because yes, some cakes can have…
Swan song Boston cream pie
This dessert was inspired by two things: my friend and (sadly, now ex-)coworker Christine, and Boston, the city I have come to love in the past four years, but had to part ways with. Christine and I would often talk about Boston, because she’s wanted to go for quite some time. Additionally, her nickname at…
Strawberry cheesecake tiramisu
This dessert is an oldie but a goodie for me. Tiramisu is an Italian classic, typically made with whipped mascarpone cheese and coffee-amaretto soaked ladyfingers, topped with cocoa powder. The coffee and alcohol are there to give you a little “pick me up”, but I wanted to have that same effect with just strawberries. For…
Mikan-fennel-elderflower chiffon doughnuts
Unlike previous doughnut cream articles that I have written, this is a much more simplified dessert. Mostly for two reasons: 1., I didn’t have time to make proper doughnut creams of these flavor profiles since I was making these on a Thursday for a Friday meeting and 2. doughnut creams take one full day to…
Sweet potato mont blanc
Mont blanc is traditionally a French dessert, featuring a puree of chestnut piped over whipped cream and topped with powdered sugar to resemble a snow-capped mountain; fun fact, mont blanc is French for white mountain. This dessert is popular in both France and Japan, and other varieties use sweet potatoes, shiro an or azuki beans…
Christmas is dawning: a plated dessert
The concept for this dessert originally came from watching The Next Iron Chef: Superchefs, all the way back in 2011. Chef Elizabeth Falkner created this really cool chocolate devil’s food cake with peppermint snow, inspired by Christmas, and I wanted to do something that was a nod to that, since I finally have the tapioca…
Butter-bourbon-pecan cake
This is a cake inspired by my co-worker, who is from Texas. Like this cake, she can be intense-looking and rough around the edges, but she’s genuinely a kindhearted person who wants you to do your best and live a happy life The cake itself takes her favorite ice cream flavor, butter-bourbon-pecan, and translates it…
Black bottom cheesecake doughnut creams
I constantly crave black bottom cheesecake: a rich, chocolate cake that enrobes a creamy cheesecake. For this recipe, I wanted to do that, but in a doughnut shaped entremet, or mousse cake. When it comes to chocolate cakes, there are just too many different kinds to make, ranging from the Viennese sacher torte to the…
Blueberry dreams: a plated concept
This dessert came about when I was watching a shoujo anime, “Kobato” and I was inspired by a character named Ioryogi, being this outwardly cute blue dog creature, and his love of baumkuchen, a circular German layered cake that resembles the rings or layers of a tree. Normally, baumkuchen is made on a spit roast…
Tarte Tatin Mirror Glaze Cake
This really just came about when I was thinking about a dessert for a family friend. I saw a very specific mirror glaze cake, that used a disk of passionfruit gelee or jam, and I thought about what other fruits I can do the same technique with. Since it was during the holidays, I wanted…
Honey-craisin cotton cheesecake
The idea of doing a cotton cheesecake came from when I visited my friend, Lauren, and we were trying to make these for her menu at LimeRed, in Boston. I tried to make a cream cheese chiffon cake, hoping that it would work instead of a cotton cheesecake, something she struggled greatly with making, but…
Matcha-vanilla checkerboard cake
I love making checkerboard cakes. For TasteBUds, I actually prepared a chocolate-vanilla one inspired by Lady M. Since I love making them, I figured I would share a different recipe from that one, this one featuring matcha, and using chiffon cakes instead of genoise. While genoise are sturdier and can hold up to being cut…
Freddy's Harajuku 