While I was at my friend Hannah’s wedding, I happened to befriend a couple sitting next to us, who also lived near the South Bay area(of Los Angeles, not San Francisco). It’s not every day that you meet people who live in that part of LA county, especially because it is a much more residential…
Category: Cakes
Anything that can be classified as a cake, from layer cakes to cupcakes to plated desserts.
Egg-Free Hummingbird Cake
Hummingbird cake is my obsession. I love banana desserts(get your minds out of the gutter), and the concept of hummingbird cake, being this Southern hummingbird cake with Caribbean roots, is just so fascinating to me. Plus the name is just so pleasant and cute. My version of hummingbird cake usually is made with this brown…
Constellation: A Petit Gateau
This recipe came about because my mother gifted me with a giant oro blanco citrus, and I had zero clue what to do with it at first. For those unfamiliar with it, oro blanco is a giant green, round citrus fruit that is a hybrid between a grapefruit and a pomelo. Meaning that it is…
Semolina-Tahini Cake with Biko and Coconut
While I was going through my sugar fast, I was craving basically everything with sugar. This dessert specifically was one of those sugar-deprived fantasies I conceptualized around two desserts that are notoriously sugar-laden. One of the inspirations was basbousa, an Egyptian semolina cake that is baked with tahini for a nutty texture, and is normally…
White Rabbit and Salted Egg Mimosa Cake
Easter is one of those holidays I literally never understood. I never grew up in a household that celebrated it beyond Easter Egg hunts and getting sick from eating chocolate rabbits and jellybeans, so whenever people talk about how it is this whole commitment that they had to spend with their families, I did not…
Baked Berry Ripple Cheesecake
Growing up, my mom only ever made two different kinds of Western desserts for us: white cake or baked cheesecake. I still remember as a really young kid, seeing her use our electric hand mixer to whip the cream cheese mixture(the literal only time she would ever use that thing), she would crush the graham…
Baked Chocolate Dulce de Leche Doughnuts
I wanted to make these doughnuts for a couple of different reasons. The first was that eggs are getting really expensive/hard to find about now, I wanted to do some R&D with egg-free desserts, this being one of them. The second was that I was fondly reminiscing about my time at Boston University, and recalling…
Olive Oil-Tangerine-Sesame Cake
It’s funny to see the rise in popularity with olive oil cakes, especially here in Los Angeles, over the past 4 years. It’s almost as if post-pandemic, that became the “it” cake in the city. You would be amazed to see how many bakeries and cafes sell a variation of it, and almost all are…
Chocolate-Milky Oolong Cake
Milk or milky oolong has been one of my obsessions ever since I got some from a cute tea shop in Munich. I’m partially ashamed to admit that I never heard of the tea prior to that trip, especially since it is a Taiwanese tea, and I am Taiwan-born after all, but better late than…
Forest Gateau
I was loosely inspired by an item in Pokemon called the “Old Gateau”. In the English, this item is a reference to the location is was found in, called the Old Chateau. In Japanese, the item and the location are named “Mori no Yokan”, which means either the “Forest Yokan(Japanese red bean jelly)” or “Forest…
Gjetost-Azuki Basque Cheesecakes
Sometimes when you have accidents, you just have to pivot. That, or dump your mistakes into a parchment-lined springform pan, throw them into a burning hot oven, and throw a hail, Mary. This recipe was that. Originally, these were going to be cheese tarts, stuffed with a gjetost(caramelized cheese) and azuki filling, but I overfolded…
Cereal Milk and Berries Cake
Ever since working at Milkbar, I feel like my love and appreciation for cereal milk(cornflake-steeped milk) has been at an all-time high. That being said, I always find myself with leftover soggy cornflake mush whenever I make it. At Milkbar lab, I was always trying to find ways to use it up. But the issue…
Mini Honey Cakes
Honey cakes are something I fell in love with when my sister brought one back from her student exchange in Europe. They are cakes made from these thin, honey cookie-like layers sandwiching a tangy cream-type of filling. For those who have never had a honey cake before, they are very similar to an icebox cake,…
Milky Oolong Strawberry Cream Cake
One of my favorite finds while I was exploring a tea shop in Munich was a curious little tea called milky oolong tea. Milky oolong, also called jin xuan tea, has the toasty, nuttiness of oolong tea, but it also has these buttery, caramel-y notes, similar to Chinese milk candies. This flavor is the end…
Ginger-Pear Shortcake
Shortcake can have a lot of meanings. In America, a shortcake is a sweetened biscuit with cream and fruit, typically strawberries. In Asia, namely Japan, a shortcake is a light spongecake, but with the same accompaniments of cream and fruit. I wanted to make a pear shortcake with this gorgeous snow-white aesthetic just to capture…
Dreamy Hummingbird Cake
Hummingbird cake is something that I really fell in love with making in 2024, when I made this really tall one featuring a ginger cream cheese namelaka and a miso caramel. Generally speaking, a hummingbird cake consists of a lightly cinnamon-spiced banana cake that may or may not have pineapple, pecans, and coconut in it,…
Persimmon Sticky Toffee Pudding
These sticky toffee puddings are the love child of two Chinese ingredients(Chinese almond powder and persimmons) and a classic British dessert. Whenever the fall/winter rolls around, persimmons are abundant. And trust me when I say this, but having Chinese/Taiwanese family friends, I find myself rolling in persimmons every fall because I always know someone that…
Financier Crumb Cakes
I came up with this recipe namely because I was craving financier, but I was also craving coffee cake. Coffee, or crumb, cake consists of this dense, rich cake that is usually made with sour cream, and lightly spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. It has streusel bits baked throughout it, which adds a pleasant crunch…
Tres Leches Cake with Whipped Condensed Milk
This cake was actually a cake order for one of my repeat customers who have been ordering cakes from me sine the pandemic! For the sake of confidentiality, I won’t outright say who they are, but I have made so many cakes for them already, and am grateful as always whenever they reach out for…
Azuki-Cream Cheese Galette de Rois
It has been a while since I last attempted a galette de rois, and unlike the last time, where I had to fast track making one to get something posted in time for Epiphany, this time, I was able to get a little more prep done. A galette de rois is a French cake, made…
Freddy's Harajuku 