Black forest cake was my birthday cake growing up for the first 13 years of my life. Not because I particularly liked it, but because we would always go back to Taiwan for my birthday/winter break, and celebrate it at my grandma’s apartment in Taipei. And the only cake that the bakery underneath her apartment…
Tag: Dark Chocolate
Sesame Panda Shortbreads
Whenever I make panda-themed anything, I always think about one of my friends from high school, Karen. Fun fact, I had two friends from high school named Karen, who weirdly enough, I still keep in touch with, but also, they have never met each other before. That Karen-themed tidbit about myself aside, the panda-loving Karen…
Tayde’s Cake
This recipe is in dedication for Tayde, who was a former patient at St. Jude’s Children Hospital, a childhood cancer(acute lymphoblastic leukemia) survivor, and now a healthy mother of two. Her floral-themed art pieces were featured at the Creator’s Summit at St. Jude, which I was lucky enough to attend(thank you, Shari from my first…
Sesame-Kinako-Chocolate: a Petit Gateau
This recipe came about because I was craving something kinako-flavored. Kinako is a toasted soybean flour, which is 100% gluten-free! It kind of tastes like peanut butter, in that it is nutty and warming. I personally love using it with flavors like sesame, which is where the inspiration to pair the two came into play…
Thin Mint Lunchbox Cake
So in the rare instances where Bri and I get to hang out, cooking is always one of the things we do together. We wanted to bake a cake together, and it just made sense to do mini lunchbox cakes, since then we could have more cakes that way. One particular trend I have been…
Chocolate Silk Pie
Now a lot of people might have fond memories of Southern chocolate silk pie. For me, it’s another way to consume more chocolate. That’s really it. I might have had it growing up and going to Marie Calendar’s, but honestly all I can remember from Marie Calendar’s was getting the Banana Meringue Pie, which was…
Oatmeal-chocolate chip scones
These scones came about because I dun goof’d on an oatmeal cookie recipe – I did not sub out enough flour when adding in the oats, resulting in what were supposed to be cookies not spreading as much, and developing a more biscuit/scone-like texture. I know with scones, there is usually a stigma with them…
Togarashi-Walnut Mochi Brownies
I am a more recent eater of the mochi brownie, first having had one from my friend Ann, when she sold them at a pop-up in Venice Beach! And honestly, I am so annoyed that I never had one prior to 2020. Crispy at the edges, super gooey on the insides, it is the perfect…
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…
Vanilla Bean Boston Cream Pie
When I think about Boston Cream Pie, I just think about college. Going to school in a city full of history like Boston, I cannot help but think of that aforementioned classic American dessert. Layers of fluffy vanilla cake, a vanilla pastry cream, and chocolate ganache. Depending on the rendition, there are also almonds encrusting…
Chocolate-peanut butter pie
For Pi Day this year, I was truthfully struggling with what I wanted to make. I could not figure out if I wanted to go with a fruitier pie, a green pie(again), or just something completely different. Eventually, I settled on this recipe, inspired by a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. It features a chocolate short…
Grasshopper Pie Layer Cake
Grasshopper pie manages to be one of those American classics that very few people have actually had growing up. It is a pie made with chocolate cookie crumbs that surrounds a mint filling, usually made with marshmallows and whipped cream. In short, it’s a chocolate and mint pie. If you have read through my blog,…
Molten Nutella Bouchons with coffee whip and hazelnut bark
So these were my entry to the Feed Feed’s holiday Nutella recipe contest! Basically we just had to make a recipe that featured Nutella. Initially, I wanted to go in with this super complex chocolate-hazelnut-coffee petit gateau that resembled a zen garden. BUT after looking at what kinds of recipes the Feed Feed featured(i.e. more…
Forêt de cauchemars: a petit gateau
This dessert literally only happened because I purchased a ton of cherries to make another recipe with, and I had to figure out what to do with them before they went moldy. Which is always a great motivator when you purchase way too much of an ingredient! So I went ahead and pureed my remaining…
Coconut-chocolate-caramel cake
In a lot of ways, this cake is almost a German chocolate cake, and almond an Almond Joy cake. If I swapped the macadamia nuts with pecans, it’s basically German chocolate. If I omitted the caramel and swapped the macadamia for almonds, we have Almond Joy. This cake features chocolate, coconut, macadamia nuts, and salted…
Cannoli loaf cakes
Whenever I think of cannoli, I am immediately taken back to my time in Boston, where we had one of the most famous cannoli bakeries in Mike’s Pastry. Oh, Mike’s. It was controlled chaos. Crowds and crowds of people, lined up along the street, waiting to get into a cramped store with display cases filled…
Coconut Delight Entremet
I actually made this for my sister’s birthday back in August, since I knew that she loves Coconut Delights/Samoas, and this cake made perfect sense for that. My typical format for an entremet is chiffon cake, mousse, maybe a filling in the mousse, and the mirror glaze. For this one, I wanted to semi-change it…
Goodnight, Meteorite: a plated dessert
So I actually made a dessert years ago, though realistically most of you wouldn’t know that because this was pre-Masterchef, aka the period of time where legit nobody really knew about me, named Goodnight, Meteor. That dessert featured coffee, chocolate, and cookies. So I wanted to take that, and redo it in a cooler format….
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…
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,…
Freddy's Harajuku 