These cupcakes are meant to represent decadence and indulgence. One of my personal favorite combinations is dark chocolate with salted caramel, and these cupcakes take that combination, and really drive it home. In place of using just a regular caramel, I went with Cajeta. Cajeta is a Oaxacan goat milk caramel, very similar to dulce…
Tag: chocolate cake
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…
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…
Chocolate-Coffee Layer cake
This cake is basically a chocolate and coffee lover’s dream. Layers of dark chocolate cake with an Ovaltine latte soak, whipped chocolate ganache, a chocolate cookie crumb, cocoa-coffee French buttercream, and coffee tuiles. With each layer, I wanted to make sure they all brought different forms or textures of chocolate or coffee. We have the…
Vegan Devil’s food cake with Biscoff and sesame
This cake was loosely inspired by the EatDomi chocolate, salted caramel, and sesame cake. I wanted to make it vegan, as it was a birthday cake order for a friend of a friend, and that person’s boyfriend was vegan. Yeah, I know, that was a really long string of words there. Anyways, while I could…
Vegan and Gluten-free Devil’s Food Cake
I came up with the idea to make this cake because I wanted to make my vegan chocolate-tofu mousse again, but also wanted to pair it with something that would compliment it perfectly, so I figured, why not chocolate mousse on chocolate cake? For the cake itself, I went with my gluten-free and vegan devil’s…
Babka sticky buns with chocolate cake ganache and miso butterscotch
I literally only came up with this recipe because I had a lot of leftover sweet potato paste from making the hiyoko manju. I also had a cake order for a chocolate cake, and whenever I make my layer cakes, I always end up with a decent amount of cake scraps. So with leftover sweet…
Chocolate covered banana roll cake
Whenever I think of quintessential beach treats, chocolate-covered bananas always come to mind. Mostly because of Arrested Development. I love the idea of taking nostalgic things like that, and recreating them in something more in my style. In this case, that would be a roll cake. Using a fluffy chocolate chiffon, blonde chocolate, and Korean…
Tangerine and chocolate “snack cakes”
These were kind of my ode to a Hostess cupcake. A dark chocolate cake with a cream inside and ganache on top. Fudgy, delicious, and definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. For this rendition, I went with a chocolate cake that uses black cacao, which has this almost fruity quality to it from being an…
Malted miso and chocolate layer cake: inspired from my Masterchef journey
So this layer cake was a rendition on the audition dish that got me my white apron on Masterchef. Even to this day, people keep asking for the recipe, so I figured I’d give it a little update and share it with everyone. While this layer cake uses almost the same recipe as the original,…
Sea buckthorn torte
This cake is my homage to sachertorte. For those of you unaware of what that is, sachertorte is a Viennese chocolate cake that has a thin layer of apricot jam inside of it, and it is covered in a beautiful chocolate glaze. It is a highly technical and iconic cake to Austria, to the point…
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…
Devil’s food-tangerine choco-pies
While I was in quarantine, I wanted to continue to bake things that either hybridized two things, or touched upon my childhood nostalgia. In this case, I made something that touched upon the latter. Growing up in a Taiwanese/Chinese-American household, I have distinct memories of going to the Asian grocery stores and getting these chocolate-covered…
Dark and ruby chocolate layer cake
So my sister recently purchased a stand mixer for herself so that she can pick up baking as a hobby. Well, that and she makes a ton of bread at her house, and she is tired of kneading it by hand(I do NOT blame her, kneading bread makes my arms four times as sore as…
Love yourself: a plated dessert
I feel like whenever I make a chocolate cake, I’ll always be remembered for the one I made on MasterChef. Which is fair, since it was a pretty iconic moment for the show(and my life), but it’s important for me to move on and make better things than that with every dish or dessert I…
Devil’s food chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-cheesecake frosting
Whenever I think of the first cake I ever baked, I remember the vegan chocolate cupcakes I made in high school. Cupcakes were really where it all began for me, specifically, from binge-watching Cupcake Wars and practicing from the recipes from the show that would get posted online. Since chocolate cupcakes was where it all started,…
Summers in the black forest: a layer cake
Black forest cake reminds me of a ton of things. Most specifically, season 9 of MasterChef when Emily, who in my eyes was the strongest cook there, got sent home over one. Truthfully, seeing her go out on one is a general reason why I stay away from them. Seeing somebody who I personally would…
“Shines Forever”: my signature malted chocolate cake
This chocolate cake recipe is the very same chocolate cake that actually won me my white apron in season 10 of the American version of MasterChef! During the casting process, we had to submit four signature dishes that we could make in 45 minutes, and this was the one I had practiced the most (before…
Driftwood cake: a chocolate and caramel layer cake
The inspiration for the cake came from an accident: I was attempting to make tarte tatin, but I kept screwing it up. So instead, I took my leftover shortbread dough, kneaded in some cacao powder, and formed it into branches to go onto a chocolate cake. When in doubt, make a chocolate cake. That’s my…
Chocolate Arc-En-Ciel Cake
Arc-En-Ciel is just French for rainbow. This cake, it literally is a chocolate rainbow, split by different shades of chocolate brown. I wanted to make this cake because I love ripping off of Lady M’s menu, since their cakes, while gorgeous and delicious, are too damn expensive. I am NOT going to pay $65-90 for…
Freddy's Harajuku 