First time I had apple dumplings was living in Boston; my friend Tina made them for us when we were having a baking night together back in freshman year of college. I literally had no idea what an apple dumpling was, come to find out, they were these parcels of baked dough, stuffed with caramelized…
Tag: sugar
Peach-Olive Oil Upside Down Cake
I was honestly ready to stop with the peach recipes(and focus on maybe other stone fruit like cherries), but my parents decided to gift me with a large bag of overtly ripe peaches, and I had to find a way to use them up(my dad suggested I make peach wine). While I did make a…
Creme Brulee Financiers “Toasts”
This recipe was the direct result of me seeing someone bake with these really cute bread-shaped muffin tins, and me wanting to do something similar. After scouring on the internet, and believe you me, it took a lot of creative word combinations on Google, I found them in a random website called AliExpress. So after…
Miso Bete Noir (Flourless) Cake
This inspired by the Black Mirror episode of a similar name(in this case, Bete Noire, which translates to “thing that people particularly dislike”), but with pastry always on my mind, I immediately thought of the chocolate cake instead. Bete noir is a French flourless chocolate cake, literally translating to “black beast”. For my variation on…
Hojicha-Miso Alfajores
These cookies came about because I decided to test out making dulce de leche in my pressure cooker, and I ended needing to use said dulce de leche in a couple different recipes. So you can expect to see a few dulce de leche-based recipes in the horizon, with this being one of them! Alfajores(basically…
Streusel mit Pudding Brioche
This dessert was directly inspired by my visits to the German Christmas markets – if you have never been or don’t understand the hype, imagine the Disneyland Ride “It’s a Small World”, but that’s what an entire square in Germany becomes during late November/all of December. It is a wonderful sight to behold, and one…
Maple Pumpkin Pie
I have had this recipe on my to-bake list since the spring; I have a weird relationship with pumpkin pie where growing up, all of the pumpkin pies I ate tasted like cinnamon-caked cardboard in a pie crust. And it was a shame because on so many of the cartoons I grew watching, pumpkin pie…
Vegan Apple-Tanghulu Doughnuts
These doughnuts came about because I had a bunch of apples I needed to use from apple picking with my friends(fun fact, it’s been a running 5 year tradition that my friends and I drive 2 hours to a city called Oak Glen, and we pick apples there for fun in the fall). Whenever we…
Marbled Sesame Cheesecake Brulee
So I was scouring the internet, and found this gorgeous rectangular cheesecake with a bruleed top, that was sold by the popular Japanese brand, Mr. Cheesecake. That store features these rectangular slabs of cheesecake with a caramelized top and a custard-like center – think like a more aesthetically pleasing basque cheesecake. What was cool was…
Chocolate Decadence Layer Cake
I am a firm believer that there is a chocolate cake for every occasion. The best occasion for this kind of recipe is if you want a chocolate cake that tastes like baked fudge. Now I have been mentioning the Ms. Trunchbull Chocolate cake a bunch of times on this blog, but this is very,…
Chocolate Olive Oil Cakes
Olive oil cake is one of those kinds of cakes that you are starting to see more and more of recently. Almost every cafe in Los Angeles sells an olive oil cake, or some variation on one. However, I don’t really see chocolate-olive oil cakes often – funnily enough, olive oil gelato with chocolate and…
Almond Tofu-Apricot Phyllo Pie
There are those moments where I have a culinary brain child that just hits on every single level of deliciousness and nostalgia, and this pie is 1000% that kind of recipe. Almond tofu is a popular Chinese dessert, made from Chinese almond powder(made from apricot kernels – it tastes exactly like almond extract, which does…
Mini Osmanthus and Peach Pies
This recipe came about because I saw peaches in the grocery store, remembered that peaches were in season, grabbed a bunch, and then realized that I actually needed to do something with said purchased peaches. The first thing that came to mind was doing this large peach pie with a pretty lattice on top, and…
Matcha Swirled Conchas
So I was not actually trying to make concha originally. These were going to be swirled matcha melon pan, but what ended up happening was that between how I was attempting to swirl my matcha and regular bread dough together and how my topping dough baked, I ended up with breads that looks like conch…
Black Sesame-Blueberry Swirled Baked Cheesecake
So I made the (can be seen as some as a) mistake of purchasing a Costco container of blueberries, and the consequence of doing that is now I have more blueberries than I know what to do with. I personally have always loved blueberry compote or jam on top of a baked cheesecake, so my…
Blue Yuzu-Elderflower Haupia Pie
A long time ago, I made a haupia pie that was a gorgeous blue color. It was a bit whimsical, with a purple ube crust, a blue haupia(thickened Hawaiian coconut pudding) filling, and these pretty spheres of haupia that were scattered across the top. I wanted to create that, but pairing the coconut with a…
Citrus Tart with Baked Rose Meringues
This citrus tart is my take on a lemon meringue pie, but with a few twists. Obviously the term “citrus” would imply that I am using more than just lemon, which is true: my friend Karen was gracious enough to gift me with lemons and limes that she grew herself, so I wanted to use…
Apple-Gjetost Molten Cheese Tarts
So a while ago, I went to Japan, and experienced the amazingness that was the Pablo Cheese Tart. A buttery shortbread dough with a creamy, oozy, molten cheesecake-like filling, and a caramelized topping, it was like eating a basque cheesecake and an egg tart, but in one! I made a rendition on them using White…
French Vanilla Entremet
I came up with this recipe because I was drinking coffee on day, and added French vanilla creamer to it. And then it dawned on me, what exactly made this creamer French vanilla-flavored as opposed to just vanilla? After looking at several articles online, the general idea was that French vanilla refers to the French…
Gjetost-Miso Apple Pie
Whenever we go apple picking in the fall, I always end up with a surplus of apples that I need to use up. So many apples to the point where half of them usually go bad by the time I finally have an idea or two that could utilize them. Because of that conundrum, I…
Freddy's Harajuku 