I was in one of those bread-making moods the other day that and I didn’t really want to be boring and predictable and make another cake just quite yet, and I wanted to make one of my favorite desserts, tropezienne. Tarte tropezienne, the formal French way of saying it, is basically a brioche that is…
Tag: gelee
Pistachio-lemon tart
In honor of Pi Day, I knew I had to do a pie or a tart of some kind. So I went with the tart route, and made some mini pistachio-lemon tarts. The flavor combination was inspired by the lemon-pistachio brioche we sell at Milk Bar, but also my need to get rid of an…
Rainbow of illusion: a mirror glaze cake
So the name of this dessert stemmed from the lyrics of a harmonicblend song, “Auf Wiedersehen”. When I was trying to conceptualize this dessert, I wanted to make something that can be made into a rainbow, and I wouldn’t necessarily say deconstruct it, but rather, emphasize aspects of the rainbow that I wanted to. When…
A conversation, an experience: a petit gateau
For this dessert, I decided to go with a very specific drink as my flavor-inspiration, being Kir Royale. This drink comprises of cassis(currant) liquor, champagne, and fresh berries. Honestly, I was inspired by a pocket cake we were running at milkbar lab, which was a Kir Royale flavored cake, as well as the similarly flavored…
Let’s go in the garden: a plated dish
For this dish, I really wanted to prepare something that conjured up nostalgic childhood memories. With lamb, it was something I grew up eating a lot of, because my parents loved it. With the garnish, I knew I wanted to do something that resembled vegetables sprouting out from the earth, and so I went with…
All Right: a plated olive oil cake
This dessert was inspired by three things. The fennel pollen-olive oil cake that Kristen Kish never got to serve in her finale for Top Chef, Northern Californian olive oil my friend David gifted to me that has pleasant and fragrant grassy notes, and finally the song All Right by Koda Kumi, which ties in with…
Making my way: a plated dessert
As I do have a habit of naming my desserts after songs and lyrics, it is very easy to assume I named this one after “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. And I don’t blame you if you think that, because that is a touching song and it reminds me of White Chicks, a movie that…
Thai tea-coconut cheesecake
The combination of Thai tea and coconut milk is an absolute no-brainer. I had made a similar dessert to this about a year ago, actually. But for this rendition, I really wanted to make something a bit more presentable (and with the cross section not resembling a hot dog), so I kind of figured that…
Moonlight dust: a mirror glaze cheesecake
The name of this dessert came about from a song by harmonicblend of the same name. I adore harmonicblend and their aesthetic and fantasy-driven soundtracks, and Moonlight dust was no exception. For the dessert itself, obviously, I needed to incorporate the moon into it somehow. So I went ahead and went with the most iconic…
Waking up from the dream: a plated dessert
Now I am a really big fan of the music group, harmonicblend. Their music tends to be on the fantastical side of things, and it really helps inspire me to do all sorts of desserts that I would otherwise not even think about making. Waking up from the dream is a reference to the ending…
Blossom cake: elderflower, lemon, and bee pollen
The flavors for this dessert are inspired by two things: my current boss, as it was her birthday when I made this, and the British royal wedding cake for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. My boss, who I shall leave anonymous, just out of respect for her privacy, is a very kind, loving person, who…
Starry Wish: black sesame-coconut-tangerine petit gateaus
I was thinking of a way to utilize the many tangerines we had at home (fun fact, when you are family friends with citrus farmers in Southern California, you have a fuck-ton of citrus that you get to cook with). From that, I thought, why not go with an Asian inspired dessert? And not because…
Strawberry-ambrosia cake
I love pairing corn with strawberries. I also love pairing strawberries with lemon. And strawberry and ginger. And ginger and lemon. And ginger and corn. Basically, you get where this is going. I put all four of these flavors together into a single package. The idea behind the dessert was to make something cute and…
Cattleya – rose apple and pear cheesecake
This is yet another carbon copy of Pierre Herme’s Venus cake, this time, featuring mountain rose apples! They are a naturally pink apple, and a little starchier than the normal Fuji or Red Delicious. I figured that they would be gorgeous, and since I did not want to rip off the naming, I opted to…
koi no tsubomi: elderflower-citrus anmitsu
This was a dessert inspired by Koda Kumi’s song of the same name; the meaning of it in Japanese literally translates to blossoms of love. When I first heard the song, it was from the Driving Hits 7 soundtrack, so it was remixed and sounded really foreboding and intense. I didn’t quite like it. But…
Honey-peach pie
I literally only made this dessert because my mother decided to buy about 12 white peaches, and I had to use them all up somehow. A word of advise, if you’re making this dessert, serve it immediately, because white peaches oxidize and within a day, it’ll turn gross and brown. Or just use the yellow…
Cherry tart 2.0
I love making cherry tarts, especially since I watched “The Many Faces of Ito” on Netflix, and seeing one made there, I just had to make my own to satisfy that craving and to utilize the fruit while it was still cherry season. For my rendition, I am making the crust infused with gewurztraminer (a white…
L’eclipse: the blue cheesecake
While I was sick with bronchitis, all I could think about was what I would bake the moment I stopped coughing my throat out. I thought back to my old cupcake-making days from high school, where I remembered one of the very first desserts that I have ever thought of: a blue velvet cupcake with…
Russian Honey-Bunny Cake
The Russian honey cake, called Medovik in Russian, is very similar to the American icebox cake. It is layers of wafers or cookies sandwiching layers of cream. In the case of Medovik, you use honey-infused cookie dough, made by caramelizing honey, whipping that into eggs and butter, and slowly adding in the flour, little by…
Multilayered Chocolate-Raspberry Tart
This dessert was everything that the chocolate-raspberry meringue tart was supposed to be. Chocolate on raspberry on chocolate with no other interference. While the recipe would have conceptually remained the same, I changed it up, using nama chocolate as the base, raspberry gelee as a disk instead, fresh raspberries, a chocolate cremeaux, a tempered chocolate…
Freddy's Harajuku 