June 23, 2024

Summer has finally arrived in New England. The transition from spring to summer brought us windy temps on some days and heat waves on others. The last couple of months have been especially exciting for our family as we traveled extensively throughout the New England area. Just this month, we headed up north to visit friends in Maine. A couple of months ago, in April, we made a special trip up north to New Hampshire and Vermont to witness the April 8th solar eclipse. In May, we headed west to visit some of the hidden gems located throughout the Berkshires. In between these trips, we celebrated our birthdays during the month of May. Since all three of our birthdays land in the month of May, we pretty much celebrated a birthday every week throughout the month of May. For Z’s birthday, we celebrated with an I Love You to The Moon and Back book theme. In between work and travels, I’ve been working on developing new recipes to share on my site. One recipe I’ve been working on lately has been my take on a classic New England treat I’ve had on multiple occasions on my trips up north. These treats are of course the cookie-shaped, cream-filled cakes known as whoopie pies. Despite the name, whoopie pies aren’t pies but are actually cakes shaped like giant cookies with cream sandwiched in between. They look pretty much like ginormous Oreo cookies. The ones here in New England are typically chocolate cakes with a marshmallow cream in the center. I find myself gravitating to these dessert pies every time I make a trip up north to Maine. On nearly every trip, we’ve defaulted to having lobster rolls and/or lobster bisque for lunch and rounded out the meal with whoopies pies for dessert. The whoopie pies I’ve eaten on my trips to Maine are always amazing. They are such beloved desserts that there are bakeries dedicated specifically to them. The taste reminds me of some of the packaged chocolate cream-filled snack cakes I would buy from the local grocery stores in Brooklyn throughout my childhood. When I set out to recreate these lovely little snack cakes, I wanted to combine a classic chocolate whoopie pie with the de facto Maine fruit, wild blueberries. Fresh wild blueberries aren’t easy to find where we live, but frozen wild blueberries are easily found in the freezer section of the local Stop & Shop near us. Since chocolate pairs beautifully with blueberries, it was only natural for me to combine my love for chocolate and blueberries into wild blueberry whoopie pies. My version of whoopie pies is a nod to the classic treat and the classic fruit of Maine. The best part about these whoopie pies is the portability. They are easy to tote around as a dessert after a meal, and they make for the perfect little celebration cakes for Z. The slight tartness of the wild blueberries helps to balance out the sweetness of the whoopie pies. Depending on where you get whoopie pies, the cake to filling ratio can vary drastically. Some whoopie pies are filled to the brim with filling, while others are not so much. When I recreated these treats, I tried to keep the ratio of cake to filling somewhere in the middle. Since these cakes are celebration cakes for Z, we wanted to make sure she got a full-size whoopie pie to herself. Z became a fan of these chocolatey treats ever since she set her little teeth on her first whoopie pie on our travels to Maine. When Z turned two last month, I baked up a batch of wild blueberry whoopie pies just for her to enjoy as birthday treats. We wanted her birthday theme this year to be a logical transition from last year’s birthday theme based on the book, The Wonderful Things You Will Be. With our recent travels to see the solar eclipse, I felt inspired to create a moon-themed birthday celebration. The logical choice was another one of Z’s favorite children’s book, I Love You to the Moon and Back. We obviously replaced “to” with “2” to keep with the 2nd birthday theme. As you can see in the photos throughout this post, Z thoroughly enjoyed her share of the wild blueberry whoopie pies on her birthday. She even asked for more of these little chocolate cakes on the days after her birthday.

December 17, 2023

Winter in New England is truly a wonderful experience. The temperature has steadily dropped as well, which means out comes the winter hats, gloves, scarves, thick sweaters, and cozy socks. The transition to winter is an exciting time in New England since there is just so much to do not just in Massachusetts but also in the neighboring states. Over the last couple of months, Z has grown into such an energetic toddler. To help expend some of her energy, we’ve been taking her to a ton of local events in the neighboring states. Aside from all these adventures with Z, I’ve been actively working to develop more recipes to share on my site. A few months ago, when I was developing my recipe for egg tarts with a twist, I was simultaneously working on a recipe for my take on bo lo bao (or pineapple bun). Pineapple bun is a beloved bakery item that I grew up eating in Brooklyn. Contrary to the name, there is no pineapple in the bun (although, I have seen some bakeries incorporate pineapple into the actual buns). The name comes from the golden yellow cookie topping that is perfectly positioned at the top of a fluffy milky bun. The cookie topping forms a crack while baking in the oven. Once baked, the cookie topping resembles the appearance of a pineapple or bo lo. I wanted to combine my family’s love for bo lo bao with another family favorite, char siu bao, and ended up creating a barbecue chicken bo lo bao. My barbecue chicken bo lo bao is essentially a twist on a twist of two classic Chinese bakery buns combined into one. I grew to love bo lo bao mainly because my dad loves it. He would buy bo lo baos at the local Chinese bakeries near my childhood home in Brooklyn for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner at times. His love for bo lo bao spilled over to my brothers and I, and we often find ourselves craving bo lo bao whenever we walked by a Chinese bakery. Kevin, on the other hand, grew up in Hong Kong and has had his fair share of bo lo baos throughout his time living there. He remembers fondly the features of truly delectable bo lo baos especially when they are freshly baked and eaten straight out of the oven. For both of us, the hallmark of an excellent bo lo bao is the balance of a fluffy milky bread base and a crunchy cookie topping baked to golden perfection. A bo lo bao isn’t a bo lo bao unless there is a golden yellow cookie topping resembling the appearance of a pineapple positioned perfectly on top of the fluffy bread. Bo lo baos are best enjoyed when they are still warm out of the oven with the crunchy cookie topping intact. When I set out to recreate the bo lo bao, I thought back to my memories of the perfect bo lo bao before diving into research to recreate a version as close as possible to the ones I ate throughout my childhood. One bread baking technique that is often used in Chinese bakeries is tangzhong (or water roux). Essentially, you precook a portion of the liquid and flour to create a roux and then fold the roux directly into the bread dough during mixing. The addition of the tangzhong is what contributes to the ultra-fluffy, super soft bread texture. Tangzhong is often used in milk breads to help them achieve the signature fluffy texture. The tangzhong combined with letting the dough sufficiently rest is what results in the ideal pillowy texture of the bread. Ever since I incorporated tangzhong into bread baking, it has become such a game changer. Time after time, batch after batch, the bread always turns out ultra pillowy and soft. I’ve started to incorporate tangzhong into baking as often as possible whenever I want a reliably fluffy bread. On colder days, all I want to do is to bake up batches of these delicious bo lo baos to serve alongside some milk tea. For me, there is nothing more relaxing on a cold weekend than enjoying a bo lo bao straight out of the oven with a cup of steaming hot milk tea.

September 3, 2023

Happy summer! It has been a while since I last posted. I’ve been spending all of my time outside of work planning fun family activities to keep Z occupied throughout the summer. She has reached the stage where she has tons of energy and needs to expend the energy daily. We’ve had a couple of beach days, seen some family-friendly shows, strolled through historic homes in New England, visited museums throughout Massachusetts, and even had our first semi-long family road trip to Bar Harbor. When we aren’t out and about as a family, I’ve been testing out new recipes and refining upcoming recipes to share on my site. One recipe I have been working on and am finally ready to share is my take on Portuguese-style egg tarts, inspired by the famous egg tarts sold throughout Macau and Hong Kong. These egg tarts are also a favorite dim sum dish of ours. Dim sum is a dining ritual we’ve had in our family since childhood. I still remember fondly all the moments during my childhood where I would go to dim sum with my family and order all my favorite dishes. I would always go for the shrimp dishes (usually har cheung or har gow) and finish with a sweet treat during dim sum. The sweet treat of choice ranged from ma lai go to sesame ball with red bean paste to egg tarts. Egg tarts are truly amazing when enjoyed straight out of the oven. As much as I love the traditional egg tarts, I also love the Portuguese-style egg tarts. Portuguese-style egg tarts differ from traditional egg tarts in some fundamental ways. Portuguese-style egg tarts tend to have a puff pastry crust and an egg custard made with egg yolks baked at a high temperature to yield toasty brown spots. I love eating these egg tarts whenever I’m in Hong Kong or Macau. They’re one of my favorite dim sum treats to enjoy toward the end of the meal when I want something sweet to balance out the savory dim sum dishes. During the first few years when Kev and I dated, we vacationed in Macau and had the opportunity to enjoy freshly baked Portuguese-style egg tarts. The experience of biting into a piping hot egg tart straight out of the oven is a truly decadent experience. For a moment, all the world seems to fade away as I bite into the buttery, flaky crust before my teeth sinks into the silky, smooth egg custard filling. I would describe the Portuguese-style egg tart as a fun cousin to the traditional egg tart. With my parents staying with us in Massachusetts for the time being, we’ve jump started our dim sum ritual once again. Every other weekend, we would head over to Ming’s Seafood Restaurant in Malden to get our fix of dim sum. My mom’s go-to dim sum dishes are always beef tripe and chicken feet. My dad opts for the lo mai gai (glutinous rice and filling wrapped in lotus leaves) and sesame ball filled with red bean paste. Although Kev usually goes for xiao long bao, he hasn’t found a worthy substitute near us. So, he just eats whatever we order for the table. I go with my usual har cheung and har gow and occasional egg tart. Since I started making egg tarts at home myself, we’ve been ordering egg tarts a lot less frequently during dim sum. Egg tarts are composed of two parts – the flaky shell or crust and the egg custard filling. For the shell or crust, I like to make a more decadent version of my shortcrust pastry dough, essentially the dough I use for all my pies. Egg tarts also require special tart tins, so I ordered a set just to make them. It’s worth it to order a set of these tins if you make tarts a lot like we do in our home. Whenever I crave egg tarts, I just whip up the shortcrust dough in my food processor and shape the dough right away in the mini tart baking tins. I then transfer the tins to the refrigerator to let the dough chill in the tins for about twenty minutes. As the dough is chilling in the refrigerator, I move onto making the egg custard filling, which is composed of just four ingredients – egg yolks, granulated sugar, whole milk, and heavy cream. A fifth, but totally optional ingredient is vanilla bean paste, which I sometimes add to the egg tarts to give them another fragrant flavor. I whisk these ingredients together thoroughly and then strain them through a sieve a couple times to remove air bubbles. Straining the egg custard filling helps ensure a smoother egg custard filling in the egg tarts. I pour the prepared filling into the shortcrust dough filled tins and bake the tarts in the oven for 20-23 minutes at 425°F. Once the egg tarts have baked for twenty minutes, I check on them and see if they need a smidge more baking time. I always check for brown spots on the egg tarts as a sign that the egg tarts are well on their way to being done. The egg tarts do need to cool for a bit straight out of the oven before enjoying. Otherwise, you will end up with a burned mouth. For a coconut twist on the egg tarts, I folded in a half cup of coconut flakes into half of the shortcrust dough before filling the tins with the dough. These egg tarts with a twist are perfect for a weekend brunch, afternoon tea, or dim sum at home. My parents, who are usually traditionalists when it comes to dim sum dishes, voiced how much they liked the coconut twist on egg tarts. We even packed leftover egg tarts to enjoy during our family trip to the beach.

May 29, 2023

Z has officially reached a new milestone this month. She turned one year old and has been walking with some assistance. For such a momentous occasion for Kev and I, we had to celebrate in a special way. I thought back to all our adventures with Z throughout the year and still cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. The early days were much longer than we would like, but watching Z grow from day to day has brought us so much joy. I remember exactly a year ago in May when we brought Z home from the hospital. She was a tiny baby weighing just over six pounds. The early days were the most challenging days. We operated on very little sleep and had to return to work fairly quickly. Kev had two months to bond with Z. I had slightly less. Luckily for us, aside from some challenges with sleeping through the night, Z cooperated with us for the most part. She ate pretty much anything we offered and reached all her milestones at the predicted times. Watching Z grow from a tiny baby to a tiny human has been an absolute joy. When I look at her today, I still cannot believe the tiny human half my height was only born a year ago. As her birthday approached this year, I had to think of a special way to celebrate. I did some googling and brainstorming for inspiration. Though there were a lot of ideas out there on the internet, I wanted to do something unique for Z. I wanted to center her birthday celebration on a children’s book theme. When I came across The Wonderful Things You Will Be book sitting on her bookshelf, the idea for her birthday celebration was born. Wonderful became onederful or 1derful of course. With the theme decided, I shifted my focus to the desserts. Growing up in our household, desserts tend to be on the simpler side. We usually had a sponge cake with cream and fresh fruit that my parents bought from a local bakery and a plate of fruits. I wanted to apply the same tradition to Z’s birthday and merged a celebratory treat with a realistic baby-friendly sweet. Z would get a variety of fruits, while we would get to enjoy the baked treats. Z ended up with a fruit plate. We ended up with cupcakes and cake pops. Z’s cupcakes and cake pops had to be special and different from the ones I typically make, so I decided to merge my go-to strawberry cupcakes with red dragon fruit. I opted to add red dragon fruit to strawberry cupcakes mainly because of the Barbie-like pink color found naturally in the red dragon fruit. I first tested out the combination of dragon fruit and strawberries when developing a dragon fruit raspberry hot chocolate recipe for the colder months. I interchanged the raspberries and strawberries in the hot chocolate recipe as they both offer the same type of sweet and slight tart balance to the hot chocolate. I loved the combination of the slightly sweet dragon fruit paired with the sweet and tart strawberries so much that I extended the flavor profile to my cupcakes and cake pops. Dragon fruit itself has a mild sweetness to it and pairs perfectly with strawberries. When combined, the dragon fruit and strawberry puree gives the cupcakes and frosting an eye-catching pink dessert reminiscent of Barbiecore pink. The bright vibrant pink comes naturally from the red dragon fruit and is enhanced further from the redness of the strawberries. I only buy red dragon fruit occasionally because of how expensive it is. Red dragon fruit is texturally like a kiwi, but is much less sweet with a slight tartness to it. Folded into cupcakes, you get not only a delicious sweet treat, but a truly stunning pink treat. My cupcake recipe yielded exactly twelve cupcakes, which fit perfectly into a 12-cup muffin tin. Half of the cupcakes were served as cupcakes, while the rest were crumbled into a bowl, mixed with some frosting, and turned into cake balls for cake pops. The cake pops were dipped into colored candy melts and left to harden. I only used white, red, yellow, and blue candy melts for the cake pops, mixing some of the colors together as needed to form orange and purple for other color options. To allow the cake pops to harden without disturbance, I used the back of a collapsible silicone colander as a makeshift cake pop holder. The candy-coated cake pops were intended to look like balloons that floated on the cover of the children’s book. The best part about these treats is the stunning Barbie-like pink color comes naturally from the colors of the fruits without the added food coloring. Since Z’s palate is still developing at this age, a mild fruit such as dragon fruit was the perfect fruit for her to try. To round out the rest of our dessert spread, we had to have an equally stunning fruit plate, a must-have in our household. We served it up to Z just so she can get a head start on our family traditions. With the fruit plate, cupcakes, and cake pops all prepared, we just had to snap some photos before digging right into the lovely desserts.  

March 31, 2023

I have been working on recreating the iconic black and white cookies over the last couple of months. Black and white cookies are classic New York City treats. When I lived in New York City, I would see them in bakeries throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Even so, I’ve only had them occasionally. I still remember my first time taking a bite out of the black and white cookie from Zaro’s Bakery. The soft yet springy cookie topped with a vanilla and chocolate glaze was absolute perfection. It was as if a cookie and a cake had a baby. Whenever I passed by the Amtrak station in Manhattan, I would purposely make a stop at Zaro’s Bakery for one of its black and white cookies. I even served up individually packed versions of black and white cookies from Stern’s Bakery back in 2018 when Kev and I got married in Queens. Needless to say, black and white cookies are as dear to me as some of the more iconic New York City treats. I am, of course, referring to my love of pizza, bagels, and pretzels. Because of how accessible the cookies are, it never even crossed my mind to recreate them. That changed a couple months ago, when I had intense cravings for black and white cookies. While the options around me were sufficient, I really missed the version of black and white cookies from Zaro’s Bakery. I remember distinctly the mega size, the strong vanilla flavor of the cookie base and the balance of chocolate and vanilla glaze coated over the top of the cookie. In reality, the glaze actually coated the bottom of the cookies since they’re flipped over after baking. Either way, the glaze is an essential element of the black and white cookie. I decided it was time to try and recreate a classic black and white cookie. I scoured the web for sources on what actually went into the black and white cookies at Zaro’s Bakery and ended up watching one too many YouTube videos as I gathered information. I then shifted to developing and testing out the cookie recipe. I tested different ratios of ingredients and kept close notes of each iteration. After multiple tries and feedback from Kev and my mom, I finally settled on my preferred version. I found that a combination of cake flour and all-purpose flour yielded the perfect black and white cookies. Cake flour provided the cookies with tenderness, while all-purpose flour provided the cookies with structure. Adding just vanilla extract was not enough to give the cookie the extra oomph it needed and so I took a page from Stern’s Bakery and folded lemon zest into the batter. Other ingredients for the cookies included butter, sugar, honey, kosher salt, egg, sour cream, baking powder, and milk. I learned that many of these ingredients were necessary for helping the cookies stay moist, and they were essential in the version from Zaro’s. A couple tablespoons of pureed strawberries folded into the batter made these cookies exceptional. The addition of pureed strawberries yielded a tangy, sweet cookie with a fresh strawberry flavor. To appease all the cookie lovers in our home, I created three options for the glaze to top the cookies with. The simple glaze consisted of pairing black and white, black and pink, and white and pink for three varieties of cookies. The white part of the cookie came from a simple glaze made with confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla extract. The black part of the cookie came from the addition of cocoa powder. The pink part of the cookie came from the pureed strawberries. I baked and decorated a batch of these cookies for Valentine’s Day last month as a treat for my family. I even reserved a pink and white version as a smash cookie for Z. Z couldn’t quite figure out how to taste the cookie, but she sure did have a good time smashing the cookie with her fingers. Only time will tell if these cookies will be a home run for her. Enjoy these cookies as my nod to New York City with a twist.