These cinnamon rolls were a random brain child when I was trying to think of fun things I could do with maple syrup and Vietnamese cinnamon. When life gives you cinnamon, making a cinnamon roll is kind of a no-brainer. However, I did not want to just do a plain cinnamon roll. So that was…
Tag: baking
Red Velvet Cake with Cheesecake Brulee
This red velvet cake combines together a few fun desserts, being obviously red velvet cake, but also cheesecake, and creme brulee. I have been obsessed with doing these baked cheesecakes with bruleed sugar tops – these kinds of cheesecakes are similar to a basque cheesecake, but instead of the top being burnt, it is a…
Chocolate Mont Blanc Chiffon Sandwiches
My favorite after school snack my mom would get for me was the mont blanc from JJ Bakery in Torrance. Their mont blanc consisted of a fluffy chocolate sponge cake with chestnuts and chantilly cream in the middle, and a generous piping of the creamy chestnut puree on top. It was soft, light, nutty, and…
Sourdough Sata Andagi(Okinawan Brown Sugar Doughnuts)
The first time I had sata andagi was in 2023 when my family and I were visiting Japan. We went to a local bakery in Kyoto, and they were selling these cute, rectangular, crackle-surfaced brown sugar doughnuts. I was a bit taken aback from the texture at first – I was expecting something more like…
Mini Levain-style Cookies
On and off for the past year, I have been trying to perfect a mini version of those gigantic Levain cookies. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Levain(which is a French culinary term for sourdough starter) is a bakery originally from New York that specializes in these tall, chunky cookies that are crispy…
Injeolmi Shortbreads
Whenever I think of my friend, Ellie, I think about how wonderful of a person she is. We have known each other since elementary school, became friends in middle school, sort of grew into different cliques in high school, but when we both went to college in Boston(her Boston College, me Boston University), our friendship…
Toffee Chip Brown Butter Cookies
Brown butter cookies are a pain to make because typically with a cookie dough, you want the butter to be chilled so that the dough can be firm, easy to work with, and to keep the cookies from spreading excessively/the fat from leaking out of the cookies themselves. With browning butter, you are melting down…
Levain Chocolate-Toffee Cookies
I still remember the first time I had a Levain cookie. It was on one of my solo trips to New York City. Back in college, once a semester, I used to go to New York and basically eat at every single well-known bakery and dessert spot I could get my hands on. I still…
Streusel mit Pudding Brioche
This dessert was directly inspired by my visits to the German Christmas markets – if you have never been or don’t understand the hype, imagine the Disneyland Ride “It’s a Small World”, but that’s what an entire square in Germany becomes during late November/all of December. It is a wonderful sight to behold, and one…
White Chocolate Mille Feuille
This recipe came about because I was randomly in the mood to make puff pastry from scratch. There are just those random days where I want a challenge, and making puff pastry is definitely one of those. Puff pastry is a kind of laminated dough, meaning you are folding butter and dough together to create…
Sourdough Shio Pan
Shio pan(or salt bread) is one of those Japanese pastries that I had a more recent relationship with, but one that I adore greatly. Soft, fluffy, vaguely croissant-shaped bread with a salty flavor, this was a great concept for me to use Horacio, my sourdough starter, in. Unlike with my previous shio pan recipe, this…
Maple Pumpkin Pie
I have had this recipe on my to-bake list since the spring; I have a weird relationship with pumpkin pie where growing up, all of the pumpkin pies I ate tasted like cinnamon-caked cardboard in a pie crust. And it was a shame because on so many of the cartoons I grew watching, pumpkin pie…
Vegan Apple-Tanghulu Doughnuts
These doughnuts came about because I had a bunch of apples I needed to use from apple picking with my friends(fun fact, it’s been a running 5 year tradition that my friends and I drive 2 hours to a city called Oak Glen, and we pick apples there for fun in the fall). Whenever we…
Chocolate Olive Oil Cupcakes
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for cupcakes, since I learned how to bake through watching Cupcake Wars way back in the day on the Food Network. Not going to lie, I always dreamed about going on that show, but I guess being on two seasons of Masterchef and ironically still…
Sourdough Garlic Cream Buns
One of the many triumphs in my sourdough experiments were these sourdough garlic cream buns. This recipe was directly inspired by both the everything milk buns that were occasionally sold at EatDomi and the trending bloom bagel. In both cases, it is a round piece of bread that it cut to have wedges on top,…
Mexican Hot Chocolate Tiramisu
These tiramisu were made because I got a request to do a coffee-free tiramisu featuring chocolate and cinnamon in some form or capacity. With tiramisu, there are four core components. The sponge, usually ladyfingers or savioardi biscuits, a caffeinated soak that is usually spiked with rum or amoretto, a creamy mascarpone situation, and the cocoa…
Litwick Carrot Cakes
Making these little Litwick carrot cakes was an interesting process. Originally, I was going to bake carrot cake batter in cookie shot molds, and then stuff those with a lot of fun fillings, and decorate the exterior of the cakes to resemble little Litwicks. Litwicks, for those unfamiliar with them, are a Pokemon that is…
Marbled Sesame Cheesecake Brulee
So I was scouring the internet, and found this gorgeous rectangular cheesecake with a bruleed top, that was sold by the popular Japanese brand, Mr. Cheesecake. That store features these rectangular slabs of cheesecake with a caramelized top and a custard-like center – think like a more aesthetically pleasing basque cheesecake. What was cool was…
Cottonee Matcha Tea-ramisu
These tea-ramisu were the end result of me wanting to use these silicone cloud molds I purchased, and wanting to do something Pokemon-themed. So after thinking through what I could do, it just made sense to go the route of Cottonee. Cottonee, as the name may imply, is a cotton ball-themed Grass/Fairy type Pokemon. It…
Olive Oil-Peach Galette
This galette is an homage to one I made over a year ago when I was visiting my friend Amanda in Austin! It featured a buttery crust with a frangipane filling and tons of juicy, roasted Fredericksburg(obviously I HAD to make a dessert with those for just the namesake alone) peaches perched on top. It…
Freddy's Harajuku 