Elderflower PiƱka Colada Cake

This recipe was originally going to be a ginger-white peach cake, but I couldn’t find white peaches, so I had to make substitutions. The peaches weren’t available, but the grocery store did have pink pineapple, so I made an impulse buy, and grabbed the pink pineapple instead. I’m personally surprised that pink pineapples were more…

Sesame Checkerboard Bunnies

I felt major FOMO when I saw so many of my fellow Asian bakers posting bunny-themed desserts during Lunar New Years(I was unfortunately in Texas during the week leading up to it with limited access to a kitchen, so I could not join in on the bunny dessert festivities nor did I have the foresight…

“Present Box” Petit Gateau

Before you ask, these little egg nog-cranberry present boxes are my modern, gluten-free interpretation of a Christmas cake. Christmas Cake, at least in Japanese culture, are soft spongecakes with cream and usually strawberries, just to capture this red and white aesthetic. I wanted to take the red and white aesthetic, along with some more traditionally…

Strawberry tea time: an entremet

With this dessert, I really was aiming to utilize some leftover goat cheese and strawberry puree I had lying around. While I initially thought about doing a cheesecake with those two components, I figured that I could make it into something more fun, and go with an entremet, or a mousse cake! Since strawberries and…

Chocolate-Whiskey-Tangerine Mousse Cake

My family friend was kind enough to gift me with their homegrown tangerines, something that I look forward to every spring. For this year, I wanted to go back to a project I did years back, which is recreating Lady M desserts in my own way. This time, I went with their Whisky Dark Chocolate…

Ruby chocolate-berry cake

When I was conceptualizing this dessert, I actually had a ton of leftover components and ingredients in my fridge. I had a ruby chocolate-sakura mousse from a plated dessert, leftover pate brisee pie crust from a pie I made, leftover ruby chocolate snow the same aforementioned plated dessert, and a bag of berries that turned…

Aurora: a “glow-in-the-dark” entremet

So before I get into the rest of this post, I want to clarify the technical misnomer of this cake. I used tonic water, which allows the cake to glow under black light. Different than actually glowing in the dark, but still really cool. That being said, this is actually the second time I have…

Chocolate-chestnut-matcha entremet

I was mostly inspired to make this because I wanted to make a really woody and vibrant-green dessert. Mostly because with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I had to get together as many green, Irish, beer, or gold-themed dessert ideas together as possible. So this would be one of them. For my components, we have…

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…

Amber Sky: a mirror glaze cake

So this dessert came about because my friend Ann gave me a TON of really, really ripe persimmons. I haven’t made a proper mirror glaze cake for a while, so I really wanted to do another one and capture the essence of fall. Persimmons, for those of you who have never had one before, kind…

Prince of the Growing Land: A plated dessert

This would be the third of my three princes who would have led me to my MasterChef Crown, had I been in the finale(cue sad violin music I guess?). Continuing with the sea, sky, and earth motif, this would be my earth-inspired dish and dessert! It is a buckwheat financier with brown butter bavarian cream,…

tarte au chocolat: a raspberry-chocolate dessert

I did attempt a couple of chocolate-raspberry tarts two years ago, but I wanted to make the intended vision I had for the tart this time, as opposed to just what I was forced to make due to running out of enough chocolate to fill the tart with. For this version, we have chocolate pate…

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…

Cider doughnut creams

Whenever I think of the fall, I think of apple picking in New England and drinking hot cider and shit. It’s hilarious because I never actually would go apple picking because I could just go into my dining hall and steal a fuckload of apples anyways, so why travel miles and miles to do it…

Jump Up, Super Star!: a galaxy cake

I really just was inspired to make this dessert from when I was watching an episode of Sugar Rush on Netflix, which is this reality baking competition aka the things I used to learn how to cook from. Two somewhat snooty and bitchy, but funny contestants prepared this galaxy cake, where it was white on…

Angel and devil cake

This was a cake I made in dedication of my (now ex) co-worker Karen, who was celebrating her husband’s birthday. She is a very sweet person who works really hard, and tries her hardest to make things easier for everyone around her, so naturally, I just wanted to help her when she said that she…

Royal milk tea mousse cake

This dessert was directly inspired from Lady M Cake Boutique. I have only recently come to realize that the damn cakes there drill holes in your wallet more effectively than I could ever drill biology concepts into my own brain. Screw you AP Bio, I have baking. Which is a science. But much cooler than…

Skyward bound: a mirror glaze cake

This dessert was inspired by an ex-best friend from high school, who liked blackberries, hazelnuts, and lemons. While the friendship didn’t work out, I still have to admit that I love playing around with the combination of those three ingredients. For this variation, I wanted to include thyme, which I love to pair with lemon…

Rewind: a lemon-blackberry entremet

After watching the new season of Cardcaptor Sakura, I could not help but get addicted to the ending theme, Rewind. I wanted to incorporate the sun and moon and clock motifs into this dessert, so I opted for elderflower, lemon, and black currant as the main flavor profiles, as they best compliment one another, but…

Strawberry-Angel Food Shortcake Doughnut Creams

The goal behind this dessert was to make a strawberry cake unlike any that I have made before. I love making doughnut creams, so I wanted to make another flavor. This time, it’s a strawberry angel food shortcake. I used angel food cake as the base, because it is super light and airy, being made…