I made this cake mostly because I wanted to create a chocolate-forward cake. That and I wanted it to be a little playful and sophisticated, using black(Dutch-processed) cacao to add a fruitier cocoa flavor, as well as cold brew to intensify the chocolate flavor, and Nutella, because why not? Nutella makes everything better, unless you…
Tag: naked cake
Cafe de Olla Naked Cake
This cake is an homage to my friend, Frances. When we used to work together, our morning ritual was going to our workplace cafeteria, getting coffee and toast, and dicking around instead of doing actual work enjoying a mini breakfast together at our desks. In honor of her graduating college, I had to make a…
Milkbar Buddy Cake
When I first got publicly eliminated during season 10 of Masterchef, and it came out that I would be working at Milkbar LA, one of the first people to reach out to me was none other than Samantha from season 9! Samantha, or Sam as we call her in real life, was working at Milkbar…
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-sesame-cardamom cake
How this cake came about was hilarious. It was 6:35AM, and I had just finished my workout. It was also my friend’s birthday, and I was debating if I wanted to make a cake for her or not. But I did not want to be a crap friend, and I decided, screw it, 50 minute…
Beetroot red velvet with yuzu cream cheese frosting
So this was actually a cake order for a friend’s boyfriend’s birthday. He wanted a red velvet cake, and I did not want to use red food dye, so I opted for using beetroot powder. My initial batch turned out brown, as beet root powder does not like being baked, and I had to do…
Double decker buttermilk Fraisier cake
I do love myself a good fraisier cake, or a fraisier dessert of any kind, honestly! For those unfamiliar with the term, a fraisier cake is just a strawberry cake, usually featuring two layers of vanilla sponge with strawberries surrounding it and a vanilla cream between the layers. I have made a couple in the…
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…
Dulcey-piña colada cake
So I made this cake for my friend, Carolyn, specifically on her birthday. She was hardcore craving a “toasty, tropically flavored” cake, and she literally gave me a list of what she wanted. She wanted a coconut cake with crunchy macadamia nuts, something with pineapple, but it had to be cooked, toasted coconut, and something…
Hummingbird naked cake
I love doing takes on hummingbird cake, just because the combination of banana, cream cheese, and pecan is a lot of fun to play around with. Sometimes pineapple and coconut can be added in too, but for this variation, I just wanted to keep it down to those core three flavors. I mentioned. I also…
Plum and cream naked cake
So I had about two hours to come up with a cake for a last-minute request, and this is what I came up with. I knew that I wanted to do something simple with cream and cake and some kind of fruit, and it just so happened that, being 1/4 Chinese, I had a ton…
Dark and ruby chocolate layer cake
So my sister recently purchased a stand mixer for herself so that she can pick up baking as a hobby. Well, that and she makes a ton of bread at her house, and she is tired of kneading it by hand(I do NOT blame her, kneading bread makes my arms four times as sore as…
Pineapple upside down layer cake
So with all of the recipe-testing I have been doing, not going to lie, there’s been a LOT of leftover components here and there accumulating. One of such leftover items were the tea-smoked cherries from my earl grey-spumoni dessert. So I wanted to get rid of them bring them back in another dessert! Rummaging through…
“Day by Day”: a layer cake
So Carole and Tuesday season 2 just came out on Netflix, and with that, the soundtrack also dropped, so I was able to start listening to and get inspired by all of the new tracks on that album. One in particular that I liked was “Day by Day”, which was this quaint song that reminded…
Good as Hell: a carrot cake
When it comes to carrot cake, I really love making them with a TON of grated carrots in them. While the concept of putting a root vegetable into a cake sounds a bit weird, that’s what the sugar and spices are for. It hides any savory notes of the vegetable and results in a cake…
Vegan Oreo cake with vegan Swiss meringue buttercream
This dessert was a simple one, but it’s a simple win as well! To hear the phrase “vegan Swiss meringue buttercream” already gets me excited, because meringue buttercreams were one of the reasons why I had to stop baking vegan, as I thought that they were impossible to do! But with the help of aquafaba(canned…
Blackberry-almond Arnold Palmer cake
This was a cake I made with my dad in mind, for his birthday. He loves to golf, so the Arnold Palmer is a caddy shack reference. He loves my lemon curd cakes, to the point where he has actually eaten a cake I made before I even finished decorating or photographing it before, so…
Driftwood cake: a chocolate and caramel layer cake
The inspiration for the cake came from an accident: I was attempting to make tarte tatin, but I kept screwing it up. So instead, I took my leftover shortbread dough, kneaded in some cacao powder, and formed it into branches to go onto a chocolate cake. When in doubt, make a chocolate cake. That’s my…
Pistachio-lemon-blueberry layer cake
This cake sort of was the result of utilizing leftover/surplus ingredients in our house. It was made for a family gathering, and because we had a TON of lemons in our house that we needed to get rid of, this cake kind of was a huge no-brainer. I love making olive oil and lemon cakes,…
Red velvet with white chocolate mousse
I actually made this cake to celebrate the birthday of my co-worker, Alex. She said she likes red velvet, so whomp, there it is. Traditionally, red velvet is served with a cream cheese frosting. However, I did not have cream cheese in my pantry, nor was I in the position to go out and buy…
Freddy's Harajuku 