Longan is a very popular fruit in my family’s household growing up. I remember that during our weekly grocery hauls in Manhattan Chinatown, if my dad spotted longan for sale at the fruit markets, he would approach, sample the fruit, and if they were sweet enough, he would buy bags and bags (or boxes) of…
Tag: sweet
Black Sesame Milk Bread
Milk bread is one of the first breads I learned to bake— 9ish years ago! I remember looking for a recipes on Pinterest and was surprise to find a very simple one on Anita Chu’s blog. Since then, I have been using it as a base for a bunch of different flavor combos. For this…
Black Sesame & Banana Chiffon
Looking for ways to use up very ripe banana instead of making the usual banana bread? Give this chiffon cake a try! This light and airy chiffon cake is infused with the delicate nuttiness of black sesame seeds and sweetness of ripe bananas. It is a delightful fusion of banana bread and sponge cake with…
Chestnut Tart Bites
These Chestnut Tart Bites are simple, nutty, and buttery. They are inspired by the classic pineapple tart / pineapple cake, which is a beloved Taiwanese snack. Just like the pineapple tart, these chestnut tart bites features a buttery, crumbly crust filled with a sweet and flavorful filling. The tarts are bite sized and enclosed, making…
Lavender Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies
These shortbread cookies are inspired by London Fog Latte. They are milky, buttery and floral. The added drizzle glaze adds an extra sweetness and contrast texture. Start first by making the Lavender Earl Grey Butter by creaming the earl grey tea leaves with sugar, milk powder and lavender in butter. After the butter is nice…
Chai Tea Financiers
I know, I know, saying “chai tea” is essentially saying “tea tea” BUT here in the states, when we think chai we refer to a specific type of spiced tea. Chai is a descriptor. And therefore, these fragrant spiced tea financiers are named so. Financiers are such a simple but elegant cake. They are made…
Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies
Are you a PBJ lover? These Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies packs a flavor punch and is texturally wonderful with it’s chewy edges and a soft center. When I was selling my pastries, these cookies made up 16% of all my orders! They are bold, attention-drawing, unique and a fun twist on cookies. I hope…
Kinako Sugar Cookies – Quick and Easy Cookie Recipe
Kinako is roasted soybean flour. It is very nutty and I would say tastes close to peanut butter. Kinako is most commonly used to dust and flavor mochi so it doesn’t stick, but you can also find it used in other Asian desserts, specifically Japanese, and snacks (like ice cream!). You can find Kinako at…
Candied Pomelo Scones
I have been enjoying making different kinds of citrus peels. It a refreshing light and sweet snack AND it preserves the peels for several months. I posted the basic recipe for Candied Orange Peels, which I have been using for them. For this recipe, I am using candied pomelo peels I’ve made with the above…
Honeycomb Peanut Brittle
I love peanut brittles but they have always a bit to much candy and a bit too hard for my liking. This variation leverages the light, airy, and crunchy honeycomb candy base for peanut brittles making it a delight to bite into. The honeycomb melts in your mouth and is full of honey and toffee…
Mexican Hot Chocolate & Walnut Cantuccini
Cantuccini is an Italian twice-baked cookie aka biscotti that is traditionally made with no fat. They are harder than most biscotti and are made to be eaten dunked in hot coffee, tea or wine. Because of their hardness and dryness, they are shelf-stable and are perfect for gifting. Hot Chocolate is a beverage that originated…
Candied Orange Peels
These candied orange peels are super easy to make and requires only 3 ingredients: orange peels, sugar and water. Its a great way to reduce kitchen waste waste and as a bonus, you get some orange simple syrup to use for your teas and coffee. Enjoy these candied orange peels as as a post meal…
Black Sesame Rugelach
This Jewish-Asian cookie pays homage to the crispy, buttery and sweet Jewish pastry: the rugelach and the widely popular Asian dessert filling: black sesame paste. The pastry dough and black sesame paste are rolled together and tossed in turbinado sugar and baked, creating a cookie that is nutty, sweet, buttery and crispy Have you had…
Adzuki Red Bean Mochi Bar
I love adzuki beans as an ingredient in sweets and pastries and grew up eating a lot of it. Nutty, sweet and complex– it reminds me fondly of chocolate. I’ve also had a lot of mochi, in its many forms, growing up. Most often I’ve had the shelf-stable boxed version at the asian grocers, which…
Black Sesame Banana Bread
I bought some organic bananas two weeks ago and completely forgot about them in the pantry! Next thing you know, they were ultra ripe and brown. A gift in disguise since that makes it purrrfect for banana bread. This Black Sesame Banana Bread is a nutty twist on the classic banana bread. It is inspired…
Sourdough Ube Crumble Sweet Rolls
These Sourdough Ube Sweet Rolls are soft, nutty and sweet. The ube halaya filling keeps the dough soft and tender and the cookie crumble on top adds a textural contrast. It is super easy to make and best part? You mix the dough the night before and you’ll have soft rolls ready in the morning!…
Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach
This Jewish-Asian cookie pays homage to the crispy, buttery and sweet Jewish pastry: the rugelach and the widely popular Asian dessert filling: adzuki red bean paste. The pastry dough and red bean paste are rolled together and tossed in turbinado sugar and baked, creating a cookie that is nutty, sweet, buttery and crispy. The Idea…
Sourdough Discard Raisin Biscuit Crackers
The excess of raisins in the apartment led me thinking about about raisin biscuits, also known as sultanas, a buttery fruit cracker snack from my childhood. It closely resembles pie crust with raisins sandwiched between and rolled in sugar. Crawford’s is the well known brand, and I can’t recall if that was the brand I…
Quick & Easy Microwave Honey Sesame Mochi
This sweet, nutty and chewy Honey Sesame Mochi is inspired by the sesame brittles I’ve eaten so much in my childhood. It requires just 4 simple ingredients and comes together under 5 minutes! All you need is a microwave safe bowl, glutinous rice flour, water, honey, sesame seeds and a microwave. If you have tried…
2 Layer Jasmine Milk Tea Boba Mochi Bars
A spinoff of the OG Brown Sugar Boba Milk Tea Bars. These 2 layer tea infused jasmine milk tea boba mochi bars are floral, milky, sweet, chewy and fun. The bottom layer you have brown sugar boba dispersed in a jasmine green milk tea flavored mochi. The top layer is a classic sweet milk mochi….
Overnight Sourdough Orange Sweet Rolls
Below, you’ll find the Sourdough Version and the Yeasted Version of the recipe Bright, citrusy, sweet with just a bit of tang that complements the orange ?. It is topped with orange zest and turbino sugar for some textural crunch. Uses 1 orange and makes 6 rolls. This brioche style bread is perfect for a…
Espresso Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingest caffeine via cookies. It’s for that 2pm slumber cloud, where just a cuppa just doesn’t do it. I love myself some chewy cookies! I recently learned from @sarah_kieffer that the secret to making chewy cookies is adding cream of tartar. Since then, I have been experimenting with making cookies with it, like this Chewy Black…
Soft Raisin Yogurt Buns
A couple months ago, I ran an experiment involving making bread with Tanzhong, Yudane and Yogurt. I am still wrapping my head on how to present all that information in a blog post but the high level conclusion is this: incorporating any of the three creates a more tender bake than without. These yogurt buns…
Orange Marmalade & Almond Bostock
Making bostock is one of my favorite ways to transform stale enriched bread into a sweet treat. It is like a cross between toast and almond croissant and is super easy to make. I posted the Black Sesame Bostock recipe a few weeks ago, which is a yummy milky, sweet and nutty treat. It hits…
Chewy Black Sesame Sugar Cookies
If you like black sesame, you would love this! These black sesame sugar cookies are perfectly thin and chewy with slightly crisp edges and intense black sesame flavor. The secret to the chew is in the ingredients. Bread flour Bread flour has a higher protein content than all purpose flour which gives you chewier cookies….
4 Ingredient Ube Coconut Mochi
These ube coconut mochi are sweet & nutty and easy to make– requiring just 4 ingredients. They are also vegan and gluten free. So, more fun for everyone! Ube halya is one of those things that I can eat out of the jar with a spoon. I have been making my own at home by…
Sourdough Discard Butter Milk Buns
Circular aluminum trays fill with golden, buttery, ultra soft milk buns are a common sight in my parents home growing up. The simple buttery milk bun is the most common (not to be confused with Butter Milk Bun), but occasionally we have ones with raisin or filled with coconut paste. I didn’t realized there was…
Black Sesame Bostock
Have you ever had bostock? It is a pastry made with enriched bread and frangipane– think toast topped with almond croissant filling. I had it for the first time about a year and a half ago when I saw it on a menu at a trendy bakery. I didn’t recognize the name and was intrigued….
Earl Grey Tea Biscuits
Earl grey is one of my favorite teas and it is one of the only tea, other than masala chai, that I would add milk and sugar to. I adore how fragrant it is and how mild and comforting. These tea biscuits are inspired by the flavors of Earl Grey Milk Tea. Start first by…
Toasted Milk Mantou (Steamed Buns)
I saw Ruth Tam toast milk powder in her instagram story and right then and there I could already smell and taste its genius. I have been making some simple sourdough milk mantou the past two days and I thought I would continue the mantou making streak by making a toasted ultra milky version. This…
Sourdough Discard Almond Cacao Crisps
I’ve been really enjoying (making & eating) sweeter sourdough discard crackers. I made Sourdough Discard Cranberry Almond Crackers last week and they instantly topped all the savory crackers I have made, inspiring me to make more like it. This sourdough discard almond cacao crisp is a cookie-cracker hybrid. I’ve been debating on wether or not…
3 Layer Macchiato Mochi
My favorite espresso beverage is an Italian style espresso macchiato. It is just a shot of espresso with steamed milk. When you pour them together, the espresso foam interacts with the milk foam and creates this beautiful 3 layer coffee gradient, which is the inspiration for this mochi. In Italy, it is pretty common to…
Sourdough Discard Cranberry Almond Crackers
My new favorite sourdough discard crackers! Unlike most crackers, these are sweet and tangy with a biscotti like nuttiness a harder crisp. Perfect addition to a charcuterie board. This recipe is extra small– makes about 12 crackers– just enough not to have leftovers. For your frame of reference, thats half a baker’s half sheet. Highly…
Road to Hana Banana Bread
By now everyone has probably made banana bread, right? I mean, what else have you been doing during covid? I’ve been making banana bread from scratch for years and dabbled with many different variations (vegan, gluten free, oil free… you name it– the absolute worse ones I made are those I made with coconut flour…
Black Sesame Mochi Bar
Nutty, chewy, milky & sweet. These mochi bars are speckled with black sesame paste for bursts of intense nutty sweetness in every bite. Made with just 4 ingredients! Glutinous rice flour, condensed milk, milk and black sesame. Bake your steam, your choice. Looking for more mochi recipes? Check these out! 4 Ingredient Ube Coconut Mochi…
Matcha White Chocolate Espresso Bean Sorghum Cookies
I guess I am starting an espresso bean cookie series ?. If you have missed it, I recently posted a recipe for Chocolate Espresso Bean Sourdough Discard Cookies. In that post I talked about how I really like multifunctional/multipurpose things and how espresso cookies embodies that. These Matcha White Chocolate Espresso Bean Sorghum Cookies are…
Chocolate Espresso Bean Sourdough Discard Cookies
I’m a fan of simple, shortbread style cookies that has just a bit of sweetness and pairs well with tea or coffee. There are so many cookie recipes out there that are the opposite– chewy, sweet, with chunks of toppings and a par-baked center. They are either big and spread out and chewy or fully…
Cream Cheese Cookies
There is a huge tub of cream cheese sitting in my fridge. I can’t stand waste (and there is just so many bagels & cream cheese I can eat!) so I decided to make cookies! I used Tastes of Lizzy T’s recipe with some minor modifications and it came out great! Sharing it here!
Warabimochi with Tapioca Flour
When I was walking through downtown Arashiyama around this time two years ago, I remember seeing many food carts and storefronts selling cubed up mochi dusted in matcha and kinako. I was surprise at how soft, light and jelly-like they were. The mochi I have known growing up has always been a bit denser and…
Baked Ube Bun [Sourdough or Yeasted]
Soft and fluffy asian sweet bread stuffed with sweet and nutty ube paste. Naturally leavened or yeasted, you’re choice! Just follow the or recipe instructions. The main difference is the leavening agent being used and rest time. Tips & Recommendations for a successful bake: Do not skip the egg wash. It makes the buns nice…
Quick & Easy Microwave Mochi
Satisfy your sweet tooth in minutes with this Quick & Easy Microwave Mochi recipe! The mochi is ready in about 5 minutes– from raw ingredients to a soft chewy treat that you can pop in your mouth. My favorite way to eat mochi is rather simple: mochi dough cut into bite size cubes and dusted…
Almond Cookies
This is my version of the traditional Chinese almond cookies. It is crumblier, subtly sweet, milkier and coarser in texture due to the higher percentage of almond flour. Almond cookies, I’m almost positive, are my mom’s favorite cookies. When I was younger, my parents would buy a large plastic container of almond cookies that are…
Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Rice Cake)
Growing up, nian gao is a common sight in my household around Chinese New Years. We eat it steamed or pan fried– my favorite is freshly steamed because its warm, superrr soft and chewy. Frying creates a more complex texture, flavor and almost makes it sweeter with the caramelization of the sugars on the outside…
Sourdough Discard Cornbread Crisps
Several times a year I am hit with a sudden craving for cornbread. That simple, sweet, crumbly and moist cornbread. And I would dish out the loaf pan and, reluctantly, make a whole loaf… for one (or occasionally for two). I’ll do a decent amount of damage– getting about half way through the loaf before…
Kinako Black Sesame Shortbread Cookies
When you imagine the perfect biscuits/cookies to serve with tea, what kind of biscuits do you think of? I think of Walkers Shortbread. They are really quite magical. They are buttery, crumbly and have the perfect blend of sweetness and saltiness. All that makes them so so addictive that you can’t just have one. And…
Air Fryer Sourdough Cinnamon Brown Sugar Bagels
Instructions/Notes available for: Air fryer cooking method& oven cooking method, vegan version, sourdough discard version, active sourdough version, or no sourdough version — Happy National Bagel Day! Apparently, January 15 2021 is National Bagel Day. Who knew? I sure didn’t– I found out this morning and I just HAD to make bagels in honor of…
Sourdough Espresso Mantou (Steamed Bun)
A sourdough twist on the traditional Chinese steamed milk buns (mantou). I really like sourdough in flavored steamed buns– especially for flavors like coffee, which has an acidic profile. It compliments the light tang of the sourdough really well. To a point this may even work well as a long ferment/overnight dough (using maybe only…
Black Sesame Bao & Mantou (Steamed Bun)
Mantou: Steamed bunBao: Stuffed steamed buns Growing up, we always had at least 3 different types of steamed buns stocked in the freezer at any given time. They’re such a quick and filling snack– although it is best steamed, there have been many occasions where I have blitz one up in the microwave (it’s never…
Black Sesame Paste
Black sesame paste is a very common ingredient in Asian sweets and pastries. It is often used as a filling and to the sweets it adds sweetness and an awesome nuttiness. It is very easy to make and takes less than 15 minutes. Here are some examples of recipes that uses black sesame paste for…
Brown Sugar Boba Milk Tea Mochi Bars
Check out the remake: 2 Layer Brown Sugar Boba Milk Tea Mochi Bars! These tea infused brown sugar boba mochi bars are milky, sweet, chewy and fun– they’re easy to make and are sure to delight. They are gluten free and by swapping out the milk for milk alternative, you can make them vegan! The…