One of my favorite hobbies back when I was first learning about pastry was visiting bakeries and patisseries and buying their most intriguing or unique items. At Patisserie Chantilly in Lomita, CA, that item for me was their Kir Royale. Being 15 at the time, I had no clue what that was. But the cake…
Category: Recipes
Pumpkin Toast
Back when I was a college student, one thing I would make to feed myself was pumpkin toast. A thick cut piece of bread that is toasted, and topped with sweetened miso paste, roasted kabocha squash/pumpkin, and goat cheese. You got toasty, crunchy, a little sweet, tangy, it was just a pleasant bite all around…
Apple-Cajeta Phyllo Tart
I have made quite a few apple tarts. Mostly because I love buttery pastry and caramelized apples. Unlike other apple tarts, this recipe is deceptively simple, but does require a lot of technique to make. Namely because of the cajeta, and the phyllo. Cajeta is the Oaxacan cousin to dulce de leche, using goat’s milk…
Ghost Mochi
For Halloween, I absolutely had to make something ghost-themed. I wanted to use tonic water in this recipe as well, just because it contains quinine, a fancy way of saying that it will glow under black light. It has admittedly been a minute since I last made a dessert using tonic water(mostly because tonic water…
Milk Tea Hot Chocolate
I have been making this miso-hojicha milk tea in a variety of desserts, on and off, for 2 years now. Needless to say, I have been trying to make miso-hojicha sugar happen with as much vigor as Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls has with the word “fetch”. Also, side note, but did anyone else not…
Chocolate-Hazelnut Hot Milk Hedgehogs
A while back, I posted a recipe on making these cute little Mont Blanc hedgehogs. So, I wanted to revisit that, now that I have discovered the beauty that is edible paint, and I wanted to make this chocolate and hazelnut version! Whenever I think of chocolate and hazelnut together, I remember when my sister…
Miso Caramel Pear Tarts
A long, long, LONG time ago, I made these caramel tarts with poached apples that I just adored. The caramel was taken to this super dark color that almost resembled chocolate, while the apples, I poached with brown sugar and seared them to give them this gorgeous caramelized finish. Since I made the plate lick…
Black Rose Entremet
It’s been a minute since I’ve last tackled an entremet, so I wanted to do another one, as I had a bunch of random components here and there that I knew I could use. I was making Turkish delight for Pinktober and realized that I had an entire piping bag of leftover ruby chocolate mousse…
Cafe de Olla Naked Cake
This cake is an homage to my friend, Frances. When we used to work together, our morning ritual was going to our workplace cafeteria, getting coffee and toast, and dicking around instead of doing actual work enjoying a mini breakfast together at our desks. In honor of her graduating college, I had to make a…
Pumpkin purin with pumpkin madeleines
A plated dessert I have been playing around with since early high school was purin with madeleines. I just have a very specific childhood memory of eating madeleines and purin(think flan, aka baked or set custard with a layer of caramel on it, also called pudding by the Japanese), which we got from Costco and…
Pear and Gjetost Tarte Tatin
Tarte tatin. Back in high school, I used to LOVE tarte tatin. The idea of caramelized fruit wrapped in a flaky dough, what’s there not to love? Well except in my case where I’ve been traumatized by it across 2 seasons of Masterchef. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s my one huge blindspot…
Funfetti Chiffon Cake with Milk Candy French Buttercream
I have already made a funfetti cake or two before, but I wanted to do an entirely different take on them with a more subtle and minimalistic approach. I wanted this almost completely buttercream-covered cake with just a slight sprinkle(all puns intended) of color on top, and then when you cut into it, there are…
Trio of Onigiri
This recipe in a lot of ways is my play on a charcuterie board, but featuring onigiri. I wanted to make three different kinds of rice balls, featuring pork belly, salmon, and mushrooms, two sauces, one that was creamy and garlicky and another that is sweet-sour-smoky, and some Japanese-style pickles to garnish with. When I…
Milk tea-white sesame cake
I was asked to make a super last-minute cake for an order, and that’s how this recipe came out. Literally just because I was told “any flavor but it needs to be done by tomorrow”. So with that in mind, I somehow came up with this recipe. I had a lot of black tea leaves…
Cocoa brioche maritozzo
This recipe came about out of a necessity to use up my sourdough starter. I made the mistake of feeding dark chocolate cookie crumbs to my starter, which while it enjoyed profusely, the addition of cocoa powder caused my starter to take on a leather-brown color and produce a cocoa aroma. So I had to…
Passionfruit-Champagne Tartlets
I was fortunate enough to be gifted fresh passionfruit from a family friend, so I wanted to celebrate that! With passionfruit, you have this soft pulp with crunchy seeds, and a sweet and sour flavor that really just pops and works well in both sweet and savory applications. I know that people would hear me…
Levain-Black Sesame Kouign Amann
Back in 2015, I watched a video on Youtube on how to make these pastries called Kouign Amann. They greatly resembled croissants, but baked with a lot of sugar, and in the shape of a muffin instead. The pastry was buttery, flaky, and looked like a giant pain to make – all puns intended. The…
Cinnamon Tequila Apple Mille Feuille
So I was fortunate enough to be gifted with a bottle of cinnamon tequila from the lovely Sheetal from Masterchef season 1, from her company, Spice Note Tequila, which features spice-infused tequilas! I actually love baking with alcohol, despite not being an alcoholic or even that much of a drinker(featherweight problems I guess), so I…
Olive oil-chocolate bundt cakes
This recipe is really my idea of what some hipstery cafe in Silverlake would serve. Not saying that in a mean or even malicious way, since I am guilty of going to said hipstery cafes in Silverlake with my friends from time to time. Olive oil cake has been trending up a lot in LA…
Shiso Mint Chip Ice Cream
I grew up on mint chip ice cream. For some reason, it was the only ice cream we would get whenever we went to Baskin Robbins, so it became a nostalgic flavor profile for me. That coupled with me eating a lot of thin mints as a kid. One random day when I was working…
Freddy's Harajuku 