I really only made this because I had a fruit tart order, and when I was measuring out my ingredients, I thought that a doubled recipe for my standard shortbread dough would be enough for two 6-inch tarts, but then I wound up with a generous amount of pastry and filling, so I was able…
Tag: baking
Plum and cream naked cake
So I had about two hours to come up with a cake for a last-minute request, and this is what I came up with. I knew that I wanted to do something simple with cream and cake and some kind of fruit, and it just so happened that, being 1/4 Chinese, I had a ton…
Miso hojicha cookies with milk tea jam
I feel like one thing that I came come to love making during quarantine and social distancing is miso-hojicha sugar. It is honestly like a miracle ingredient, just because it is sweet, salty, creamy, toasty and smoky. Honestly, it’s a perfect ingredient to use in many desserts, and I used them in these cookies just…
Pistachio and chocolate milk bread babkas
So when I was making this recipe, I wanted to do something babka-esque, and as I was measuring out the dry ingredients to make a brioche, it dawned upon me that maybe doing a milk bread babka could be a lot of fun! With brioche, it is rich, dense, and buttery. With milk bread, you…
Yaki Imo Basque Cheesecakes
These cheesecakes were the brainchild of me having purchased far too many yams and trying to figure out how to get rid of them. I remember fondly eating yaki imo as a child, which are just yams that are roasted on coals, and then served to you, wrapped up in parchment and piping hot. They…
Peach “mille feuille”
I came up with this dessert because I wanted to try something new, and also in honor of two restaurants in L.A., Vespertine and Auburn(R.I.P. Auburn, you will be missed dearly). In Vespertine, we had this gorgeous parsnip and pear dessert where they garnished the edges of the bowl with circles of shaved pear. In…
Odessa: a plated dessert
So this dessert was my take on an almost-entirely black and white dish. I went with a sesame chocolate cake with tahini mousse, white chocolate mirror glaze, white chocolate-sesame bark, chocolate-sesame crumble, and white sesame ice cream. I was really happy with how this dessert came out visually, and I was also stunned when the…
Strawberry Jewel Box Cake
I came up with this recipe for a friend of mine’s birthday. She happened to be a designer, so I knew this cake needed to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. When it come to preferences, she specified liking lighter cakes with lots of cream and fresh fruit, so I knew I could do something…
Yo-Yo- Tsuri: a plated dessert
When I was conceptualizing this dessert, I was mostly just focusing on what things come to mind when I think of the summer. In this case, I remembered Omasturi(お祭) which is a festival in Japan where they celebrate the village gods(御神輿) with games and other celebrations. One such game was where you fish for water…
Ube, mango, and pandan layer cake
So I actually made this cake as an order for one of my closest friends’ boyfriend’s birthday! She requested it to have ube since he’s Filipino, and he loves the color purple. So I went with an ube cake with a mango-lime pudding layer, as well as a pandan-buko French buttercream, and ube crumble as…
Great white way vanilla cake
So this cake was actually ordered and the request was for a plain vanilla cake. The thing is, I don’t like plain vanilla cake. That’s boring. So I wanted to do something a little more refined, and I went with a vanilla chiffon cake with pastry cream, French buttercream, and tempered white chocolate curls. I…
Black cacao tiramisu: a petit gateau
The first time I ever worked with black cacao was actually at Milkbar, when I had some downtime to test whatever I wanted. I stumbled upon a small container of black cacao powder, and I was really curious. I opened it, sniffed it a little, and it had this earthy, but fragrant aroma. It was…
Coconut-taro layer cake
I grew up on taro cake. And truthfully, I hated it. There was something heavy, unpleasant, and stodgy about it that wasn’t appealing to me as a child. It wasn’t until I ate ube(the Filipino cousin to taro) desserts that my palate was more adjusted and accepting to the concept of putting a starchy, unpleasant…
Almond-cherry-chocolate layer cake
Whenever summer rolls around, some of my favorite ingredients to work with include lychees, peaches, rhubarb, and cherries. I wanted to make a dessert that showcases fresh cherries, but I did not want to make another cherry tart, since I spent an entire summer making way too many of those. So instead, I went the…
Ube Basque cheesecake
I’ve made Basque cheesecakes before, but I wanted to try making another flavor, using leftover use paste that I had in my refrigerator. You know, a two in one. Practice a baked good, and also use up an ingredient/flavor that I have not necessarily touched in a while. Ube is a Filipino purple yam, and…
Starting your day: a religieuse
I was trying to figure out some creative ways to use pate choux, and then I thought about making breakfast cream puffs. I wanted to use bacon, blueberry, and maple, to emulate pancakes, and from there, I just thought about how I could use them in fun or inventive ways in pate choux. So I…
Duo of eclairs: ruby chocolate-apple and chocolate “Inca gold”
I just wanted to make really artsy eclairs, so I opted for two flavors, being a ruby chocolate-apple and a chocolate “Inca gold”. For the ruby chocolate eclairs, they are glazed in ruby chocolate and garnished with shards, while the inside is an apple butter pastry cream. I wanted to keep this one aesthetically pleasing,…
Blood orange-rhubarb mimosa cake
I wanted to do a summery, Italian take on mimosa cake with this recipe. I have made mimosa cakes before, but I wanted to do a different take on it. For this cake, I went with a blood orange-olive oil cake, whipped skyr, which is this Icelandic yogurt, a blood orange-amoretti crunch, and macerated blood…
London Fog Boston Cream Pie
So I actually made this dessert was my entry item for the “Great EatWith Bake-Off” as a part of EatWith(a dining-serving company that Bri and I partner with to do our pop-up dinners)’s social media event just to keep users engaged. The premise, inspired obviously from the “Great British Baking Show” is that 5 of…
Future Nostalgia: a plated dessert
Truthfully, I never really made scones before. I have made biscuits, and my god, I love me a flaky biscuit, but with scones, they just felt too much like a biscuit that was trying to be a cookie(I know that if you’re British or Australian, reading that sentence would make no sense, but bear with…
Freddy's Harajuku 