For a while now I’ve been on and off experimenting with doing purins and flans using pumpkin/kabocha flavoring of some kind now. Fun fact, but purin(Japanese pudding, which is basically flan, or a sweet egg custard with a caramel layer) was the first thing I ever learned how to bake. We did not grow up…
Tag: caramel
Miso Caramel Apple Dumplings
First time I had apple dumplings was living in Boston; my friend Tina made them for us when we were having a baking night together back in freshman year of college. I literally had no idea what an apple dumpling was, come to find out, they were these parcels of baked dough, stuffed with caramelized…
“Scarecrow Cake”
This is my autumnal version of my dreamy hummingbird cake. For this variation, I replaced bananas and coconut with pumpkin, pineapple with raisin, and pecans with pepitas. Initially when I was testing this recipe, I tried to just use my carrot cake recipe, but subbing out the grated carrot with canned pumpkin puree. But that…
Apple-Brown Butter-Sesame Cake
This cake was the result of me making caramelized apples, and wanting to do some fun things with them. I was attempting to make a tarte tatin(whomp whomp) and if that wasn’t foreshadowing enough, I basically ran out of butter to actually make one. So with the butter that I still had, I decided, instead…
Peach-Olive Oil Upside Down Cake
I was honestly ready to stop with the peach recipes(and focus on maybe other stone fruit like cherries), but my parents decided to gift me with a large bag of overtly ripe peaches, and I had to find a way to use them up(my dad suggested I make peach wine). While I did make a…
Black Sesame-Milk Oolong Roll Cake
This cake was a fun reunion between me and a friend from middle school, Inna. Inna and I had been friends during middle school and high school, and while we did hang out a lot with the same people, and had similar interests(video games, anime, baking), we weren’t necessarily the closest of friends back then….
Miso Caramel Banana Upside Down Cake
Whenever I purchase bananas, it’s always a struggle to use them up(without resorting to my beloved hummingbird cake). But then I remembered the idea of upside down cakes. They can be versatile, since you can use up a lot of fruit in both the caramelized layer, and in the batter itself, so it’s a good…
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…
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…
Gjetost Caramel Apple Pie
While I have made gjetost apple pies in the past, the filling for this particular pie was the result of me trying to macerate the apples in caramel. With baking with fruit, there is the moisture factor that can cause a recipe to either work, or taste soggy, dense, and raw. Apple pie can be…
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…
Vegan German Chocolate Cake
German chocolate cake reminds me of two things. The first is back in 2018, when I worked at a hotel in Inglewood, and I had a boss who threw a giant stink because I was not bringing desserts into the office frequently(because every time I would, nobody would eat them so it was a giant…
Gjetost Corn Cookies
Corn cookies have been an ongoing love affair for me circa 2016, when I first made them after watching Christina Tosi make them on Mind of a Chef. They have really evolved over the years, and this is basically corn cookie version 8 or so. What makes these corn cookies unique is my usage of…
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…
Salted Caramel “Black Thunder” Bars
I don’t know how I went as long as I have without ever eating a Black Thunder cookie bar. These popular Japanese candy bars consist of a black cacao cookie with crunchy rice and a chocolate coating. They are texturally addictive, and I can only assume that the name “Black Thunder” refers to both the…
Tofu-Miso Panna Cotta with Textures of Soy
I will not lie, this recipe is similar to an old dessert I did a while ago featuring a tahini panna cotta. but I wanted to feature Meiji tofu instead. Meiji tofu is a type of tofu made with double the amount of soy beans, resulting in a silkier texture and a more intense soy…
Chocolate-Miso-Apple Tart
This recipe was inspired by an old episode of the Japanese Iron Chef, where the challenge was to make desserts with apples and chocolate. I love the idea of combining chocolate, something sweet, bitter, and creamy, with apples, which can take on a lot of spice, bitterness, and are naturally sweet and tart. I just…
Hummingbird Cake with Miso Caramel and Ginger Cream Cheese Ganache
I first remember hearing about hummingbird cake when I was watching an episode of Cupcake Wars, where it was mentioned as a Southern wedding cake that featured bananas, pecans, sometimes coconut or pineapple, and a cream cheese frosting. It sounded like a banana-nut muffin, but with frosting, if we are being honest here. Not that…
Stuffed German Chocolate Cookies
So these cookies are like the German chocolate cake-flavored cousin to the cranberry bliss bar snowballs I made a while ago. I just fell in love with the idea of making a super soft cream cheese cookie dough, stuffing it with a gooey filling, and rolling the whole thing in coconut to the point where…
Freddy's Harajuku 