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…
Tag: shortbread
Choco-Bear Shortbreads
Ever since I purchased a plethora of cute-shaped cookie cutters, I wanted to capitalize on that and use them in fun ways. I have been seeing a lot of these sandwich cookies or shortbread cookies with fun shapes cut out of the center of them, and I wanted to try my hand at them today…
Blueberry-Yuzu Mont Blanc Tarts
One trick I learned a year ago was using upside down muffin pans to bake tart shells on. Prior to that, when I wanted to make mini tarts with muffin pans, I was lining the inside of muffin pans with butter/oil and flour, and then pressing the dough into them. However, doing this meant that…
Lucuma Alfajores Stack
So the initial idea for this recipe came about because I had purchased lucuma pulp for the first time, and I was trying to figure out the best way to utilize it. Lucuma is a fruit that allegedly tastes like caramel, and is the number 1 most popular ice cream flavor in Peru. Personally, after…
Black Sesame and Strawberry Lemonade Cookie Sandwiches
This recipe is a slight homage to a PB&J sandwich, but in cookie form. I have recently been obsessed with Sanritsu sandwich cookies(imagine two tuiles sandwiching a pleasantly sweet creamy filling), and wanted to try making a rendition of them. Instead of doing a buttercream or ganache, since I had leftover strawberry puree and a…
Open-Faced Pistachio-Strawberry Tart
I personally love the combination of strawberry and pistachio. Strawberries are tart, sweet, and are just such a beautiful red color. Pistachios can be crunchy, creamy, smoky, and salty. The two really balance each other nicely, especially when sugar enhances both ingredients separately. Strawberries with sugar is such a simple combination, but the sugar really…
Blue(berry) Goat Cheesecakes
This recipe hilariously came about because I had leftover blueberry gelee cores(from my Jigglypuff recipe), leftover white chocolate shavings(from my lemon-white chocolate snowballs), leftover goat cheese(from my pumpkin toast recipe), and leftover shortbread dough(from my Oshawott cheesecakes). Before anyone asks, since all of these recipes were clearly posted months apart, yes, I do make content…
Soft Matcha Cookies
Green tea shortbreads are something I usually make in the fall ever since I did a fundraiser with them in my sophomore year in college for the Taiwanese club. The combination of bitter, floral matcha against a sweet, buttery cookie is so pleasant and fun, and gives a similarly enjoyable experience to eating green tea…
Apple Crostata with Dutch Crust
I literally only came up with this recipe because I had a ton of apples I needed to use up. So. Many. Apples. And while I could have dumped all of my proverbial apple-eggs into one basket, and make one colossal apple dessert, that seems lame and kind of unoriginal. I would rather stretch out…
“Gansito” Petit Gateau
My friend Frances once described gansito to me as “a Mexican Twinkie”. So that is what a gansito is, in broader terms. But more specifically, gansito is a vanilla snack cake with a layer of strawberry jam, a cream filling, and it is covered in chocolate. So it is like a Twinkie, but with strawberry…
Miso Caramel Pear Tarts
A long, long, LONG time ago, I made these caramel tarts with poached apples that I just adored. The caramel was taken to this super dark color that almost resembled chocolate, while the apples, I poached with brown sugar and seared them to give them this gorgeous caramelized finish. Since I made the plate lick…
Passionfruit-Champagne Tartlets
I was fortunate enough to be gifted fresh passionfruit from a family friend, so I wanted to celebrate that! With passionfruit, you have this soft pulp with crunchy seeds, and a sweet and sour flavor that really just pops and works well in both sweet and savory applications. I know that people would hear me…
Rhubarb-Elderflower Petit Gateaus
About 5 years ago(which is such a weird preface to say out loud because man, time FLIES), I made a dessert that featured rhubarb and elderflower. Ironically, it featured strawberries as well, so I opted to not even include rhubarb or elderflower in the name of the dessert. The cake itself featured elderflower mousse, and…
Strawberry-White Chocolate Tart
Whenever I think of my earlier childhood, I recall going to the local Asian bakery section in the Japanese supermarket and getting fruit tarts. Buttery pastry, silky, custard pastry cream, fresh fruit on top, a simple combination, but really delicious and addictive. With strawberry tarts in particular, they take what I love about fruit tarts,…
Marge and in Charge: a petit gateau
When coming up with this recipe, I had a random epiphany that piping something like a mont blanc could cause it to resemble Marge Simpson’s hair. That and this idea came to me about two weeks prior to Mother’s Day, so I felt like that was a weird coincidence, and that I should just run…
Lemon-Blueberry Gateau Breton Tart
So this dessert was initially meant to be like a 2.0 version of a lapis lazuli tart I made YEARS ago. But I knew I had to do a few things differently this time around. The first is the tart shell. Instead of just doing a pastry in a tart tin, I went with a…
Lil Peep Egg Tarts
While I do not celebrate Easter in the religious sense, I can still appreciate the fact that the holiday is closely associated with rabbits and eggs. Those are cute things to make desserts from, and the latter if what inspired this dessert! Well, that and marshmallow peeps. Fun fact: I was originally going to do…
Chocolate chip-cookie butter cupcakes
This recipe primarily came about because I was craving cookie dough ice cream, and I happened to still have a jar of Speculoos cookie butter lying around. So I figured, why not make a cupcake that was chocolate chip cookie-flavored? I would make a cake with brown sugar, brown butter, and chocolate chips, just to…
Passion Pearl: a petit gateau
These little pearls only came about because I had an abundance of passionfruit(what a problem to have), and I wanted to find some interesting or fun ways to utilize them! For the dessert itself, we have a coconut mousse that is surrounding a passionfruit gelee, on top of a blue spirulina cookie. I wanted to…
Kinako-Pumpkin Ripple Cheesecake
This recipe kind of morphed from the original concept, which was going to be my take on Milkbar’s Cinnaswirl Milkbar(Crack) Pie. Back when I worked in Milkbar Lab, Milkbar had just launched a partnership with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal. Meaning that we got to play around with different recipes using it. While I did not…
Freddy's Harajuku 