Mont Blanc is a French chestnut dessert, usually consisting of chestnut cream, piped in a string-like matter to resemble the peaks of a mountain, and finished with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar to effect snow tops. Mont Blanc is literally French for “white mountain” for that reason. While the dessert is French in origin, it…
Tag: cinnamon
Chocolate-Pumpkin Cheesecake Brulee
Way back when I first started as a baker, one dessert concept I had was a baked chocolate-pumpkin cheesecake cupcake, inspired by the Halloween colors of black and orange. While Halloween obviously is over(how we’re already in November, I really don’t know), I still wanted to make a pretty little pumpkin-chocolate cheesecake number, just in…
Kimchi’s Cajeta Pumpkin Pie
Before anyone asks, no this recipe does not have kimchi in it. Kimchi is the name of my friend Brenda’s maltese. He is an adorable little pupper and is generally well behaved. Except when I brought this cajeta pumpkin pie for our annual Friendsgiving, and Kimchi decided to help himself to 40% of the pie….
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…
Pumpkin Pie Taiyaki
Ever since I bought a taiyaki pan, I only ever used it once. And not even to make traditional taiyaki batter! Hilariously, back in college, I did make taiyaki a few times when I borrowed a classmate’s pan. However, I did not own a pan of my own until 2023, and even then, I totally…
“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…
Gluten Free Pear-Almond-Kinako Cake
This cake came about from me having a bunch of pears from when I went apple/pear picking with friends, and trying to figure out how to use them up. My original plan was to do a pear-almond pancake, but I was really jet-lagged, having just gotten back from Asia, so breakfast foods weren’t really something…
Japanese Apple Pies
These Japanese apple pies were inspired by me perusing through multiple Japanese bakery tour videos on Youtube, and seeing these adorable little scalloped half moon-shaped hand pies. In Japan, apple pies are popularly made with puff pastry, and can range from either a traditional pie shape to the more portable hand pies. So I figured,…
Creme Brulee Financiers “Toasts”
This recipe was the direct result of me seeing someone bake with these really cute bread-shaped muffin tins, and me wanting to do something similar. After scouring on the internet, and believe you me, it took a lot of creative word combinations on Google, I found them in a random website called AliExpress. So after…
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…
Egg-Free Hummingbird Cake
Hummingbird cake is my obsession. I love banana desserts(get your minds out of the gutter), and the concept of hummingbird cake, being this Southern hummingbird cake with Caribbean roots, is just so fascinating to me. Plus the name is just so pleasant and cute. My version of hummingbird cake usually is made with this brown…
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,…
Tres Leches Cake with Whipped Condensed Milk
This cake was actually a cake order for one of my repeat customers who have been ordering cakes from me sine the pandemic! For the sake of confidentiality, I won’t outright say who they are, but I have made so many cakes for them already, and am grateful as always whenever they reach out for…
Maple-Vietnamese Cinnamon Rolls
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…
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…
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 Chip-Ricotta Pancakes
Back during the summer, I had a decently-sized tub of ricotta, which I only used a small portion of for lasagna. And that left me with a large amount of ricotta cheese that I had to stretch across about 4 different recipes. This was one of them. But I chose to post this specific recipe…
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…
Devil’s Food Cauldron Cakes
This recipe was me creating my take on Cauldron Cakes from the Harry Potter series. I did get the Cauldron Cakes from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, and while it was not terrible by any means, my one gripe was that the cauldron part of the cake was just a silicone…
Freddy's Harajuku 