Chocolate Silk Pie

Now a lot of people might have fond memories of Southern chocolate silk pie. For me, it’s another way to consume more chocolate. That’s really it. I might have had it growing up and going to Marie Calendar’s, but honestly all I can remember from Marie Calendar’s was getting the Banana Meringue Pie, which was…

Chocolate-Orange Cream Chiffon Sandwiches

Continuing on with our weekly chiffon cake sandwiches, our next once is the chocolate-orange. I personally adore the chocolate chiffon cake that we use for this recipe, since it is soft and spongy, but also full of cocoa flavor. I highly recommend using black cacao powder for this recipe, because it adds a fruitiness to…

Banana Cream Puffs

These cute little puffs were my homage to banana cream pie, being comprised of a ripened banana custard, a mascarpone cream, and pate choux(cream puffs) with craquelin(thin sugar cookie). If anyone were to say that they love banana, these puffs are a great option, because that banana custard is natural banana flavor on steroids! What…

Sticky Miso Toffee Pudding with Cardamom Ice Cream

Sticky toffee or sticky date pudding is one of those desserts I grew to appreciate during my time in Boston. I once ordered this gingerbread sticky toffee pudding with brown butter, apples, and sage, and it was absolutely delicious! The combination of super soft, fluffy, brown sugary cake drowned in a rich butterscotch sauce was…

Raspberry Tea-ramisu Chiffon Sandwiches

Tiramisu is classically made with either ladyfingers or Savoiardi biscuits, soaked with coffee, layered with mascarpone cheese, and dusted with cocoa powder. It is such a classic Italian dessert, but I wanted to turn it on its head, and do a raspberry tea-ramisu. The logic here was two-fold: raspberries and coffee do not really go…

Ruby Forest Petit Gateau

This is an homage to the black forest cake, which was my birthday cake for the first 14 years of my life. The reason why we would eat black forest cake was because we would celebrate my birthday in Taiwan, and the bakery in the Shida district where we would stay/live only made one kind…

Strawberry Madeleines

A while ago, my friend from Masterchef season 5, Ahran, and I decided to do a Facetime and Bake session, where we made madeleines. For my recipe, I went ahead with a strawberry madeleine, using strawberry puree in the batter, and then pressing the baked madeleines into tempered Strawberry Inspiration, in the madeleine pan, and…

Chinese Bakery Strawberry Cake

My friend Ann would tell me time and time again about her favorite cake being a Chinese Bakery Strawberry Cake. Personally, I grew up on Taiwanese Bakery Black Forest Cake, but that’s an entire recipe for another time! I wanted to try my hand at a super soft and light spongecake with whipped cream and…

Raspberry-Champagne Linzertorte “Hearts”

Linzertorte is a classic Austrian dessert that consists of a tart shell, an almond cake-like layer, and raspberry jam. I wanted to reinterpret that by embracing the almond and raspberry, while also introducing champagne to the mix! The end result were the little hearts that you see here. Special shout out to Shari or Spiced…

Persimmon Tea Cakes

I am fortunate in that a ton of my family friends own persimmon trees. While it is delightful to eat fresh persimmon in peak season at first, admittedly, when you are gifted with 5 pounds of it, you start getting… fatigued by the taste. These little tea cakes were my answer to needing a new…

Teddiursa Custard Buns

Teddiursa is a perfect demonstration for a cute Johto Pokemon….that turns into something less cute(I’m looking at you, Ursaring). These adorable little teddy bears with a crescent moon pattern have a simple enough shaped head for me to replicate it in pastry form! Truthfully,I had been putting off this recipe for a minute, just because…

Ube-Passionfruit-Coconut Cake

This recipe came about because I had ube paste, coconut milk, and fresh passionfruit, all of which I wanted to use, and preferably together. Ube(pronounced oo-beh) is a Filipino purple yam that is sweet and nutty in flavor. Almost like if you took a purple yam and toasted it with brown butter. Ube is a…

Swablu Hummingbird Sundae

Back in 2002 when I played Pokemon Sapphire, a much younger Fred adored a Pokemon called Swablu. Swablu is a blue bird-like Pokemon with white, cloud-like wings. It is classified as the Cotton Bird Pokemon, and evolves into Altaria, which honestly looks like a bigger blue bird with cloud-wings, but is somehow a Dragon-type Pokemon….

Vegan Tea Scones

The first important factor is the thickness of your dough. You need to roll out the dough, keeping in mind that the height(thickness of the dough) to width(size of your cookie cutters) ratio needs to be pretty close to 1:2 for the scones to rise appropriately and proportionately. My first batch, I went 2:3 for…

Blonde Chocolate Crumb Cake Doughnuts

I would be lying if I said this recipe was not just a crumb or coffee cake baked with a hole in it. That’s literally the recipe. However, there is something doubly nostalgic about a crumb cake that also looks like a doughnut, since those are the two coffee shop staple desserts you would usually…

Fidough Box Cake

I have made many cakes in sake cups before. I just love the minimalistic aesthetic of a small wooden cake and when you scoop into it, there’s cake! The concept of this recipe is definitely inspired by the tiramisu from Cafe Bora, but since there is no coffee/tea or alcohol being used, it felt wrong…

Vegan Scones with Strawberry-Basil Jam

This recipe came about because I had an opened can of coconut milk, a pint of strawberries, and a large amount of Thai basil that I needed to get rid of. So I figured, why not try my hand at making vegan scones? And serving them with a strawberry-basil jam? Worst comes to worst, I’ve…

Uber Fluffy Chocolate Layer Cake

This chocolate cake is the intersection of everything I could possibly want from a chocolate cake. The sponge is somehow both fudgy and rich, but light and springy with this almost honeycomb-like crumb structure that could only be achieved by whipping the living hell out of egg whites, and adding in just the right amount…

White Sesame Tropezienne

Tropezienne has always been one of my sister’s favorites. Fluffy brioche that is brushed with a simple syrup, finished with pastry cream/lemon curd and fresh berries. Basically a shortcake using brioche instead of a biscuit or cake is the simplest way of explaining it. Ever since she had it in France and told me about…

Diglett Rocky Road Doughnuts

When I think back to Generation 1 of Pokémon, one of the funniest designs for me is Diglett. It’s supposed to be like a living whack-a-mole situation, and it looks like a brown bump with eyes, a pink nose-mouth-thing, and it is just sticking out of the ground. It apparently has legs and an actual…