Apple-bee pollen cheesecake

When I made this cake originally, I made the mistake of using yogurt. Why is yogurt a mistake? Because it will leech out a ton of water (almost an endless supply of it to be frank) and make whatever is unfortunately underneath it a soggy mess. So while the original recipe calls for using yogurt…

Blue dreams doughnut cream

When I was thinking about a summery dessert, I was inspired by both sea salt ice cream from Kingdom Hearts and salted coconut-butterfly tea lattes. There is just something about that blue-white contrast that really reminds me of sunny skies and blue seas. The name “blue dreams” came from a song of the same name….

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…

Corn cookie and strawberry cheesecake sandwiches

These little cookie sandwiches were something I whipped up because every Friday at work, we always have these meetings for associates under the age of 30, and I like to bring something just to make the meetings a little more fun. I… was actually surprised by how well received these were! I knew that the flavor…

Italian Lemon Meringue Doughnut Creams

I just wanted to create a new flavor combination using some of my favorite ingredients. That’s how this concept came about. I love lemon and olive oil together, and herbs just perfume that. Olive oil desserts are so underrated, but I adore the rich, rustic quality that they have. For this doughnut cream, I prepared…

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…

Coconut-sesame panda mousse cakes

This dessert goes out to my friend from high school, Karen, as a belated birthday gift.  She’s obsessed with pandas, and hilariously enough, I have created a ton of panda desserts with her aesthetic guidance. Panda cupcakes, panda cookies, panda bread, and a panda parfait. And no, no pandas were harmed in the making of…

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…

Citron Othello: black and white lemon mousse cake

The idea behind this cake came from a very unusual silicon mold I purchased from Amazon. I knew that just from the triangular prism shape of the final cake, that each slice would be a little tear drop-triangle-chestnut-looking thing. I thought it would be cute if I made some mousse cakes that were visual plays…

Tarte Tatin Mirror Glaze Cake

This really just came about when I was thinking about a dessert for a family friend. I saw a very specific mirror glaze cake, that used a disk of passionfruit gelee or jam, and I thought about what other fruits I can do the same technique with. Since it was during the holidays, I wanted…

Chocoholic naked layer cake

Now I have been watching a lot of Christina Tosi’s cooking videos on Youtube lately, and I have seen so many people do the funfetti birthday cake. However, I personally do not want to do that. When I think of birthday cakes, I typically almost always have a fluffy, moist chocolate cake. Now to challenge…

Red velvet-raspberry entremet

Now you cannot deny the beauty of a mirror glaze cake. You can try, but you are just kidding yourself. Since my last attempt at a mirror glaze cake, I have decided to have at it with another one, this time, a raspberry infused red velvet entremet. The design was actually inspired by my friend,…

Wind chime in dirt: a plated dessert

I was inspired to make this dessert when I saw a Japanese wind chime, also called 江戸風鈴 (edo fuurin), just laying on my desk, and thought “maybe that would be fun to create a dessert from.” After deciding that I could replicate the entire wind chime using sugar for the glass dome and either white…

Strawberry mirror glaze shortcake

This recipe came about because I wanted to do some sort of take on strawberry shortcake, but I didn’t exactly know what kind of dessert I wanted to do. Then I started to remember this dessert I had at Melisse in Santa Monica a few years back, and it was this pain per du (French…