Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes and Dragon Fruit Raspberry Hot Chocolate

March 25, 2021

March Madness has commenced. Two rounds in and Michigan is still going strong. Kevin and I have been cheering on our team by enjoying maize and blue layered cookies featuring layers of maize and blue almond cakes adhered together with apricot jam, a treat I started making in anticipation of March Madness. In just a few days, Michigan will be facing yet another team in the Sweet 16. With game day just a few days away, I’ve been remaking two of my favorite game day foods – loaded twice baked potatoes and dragon fruit raspberry white hot chocolate. I first started making these two treats a couple months ago when the temp in Ohio dipped way low. Despite our best efforts to stay warm, the cold winter air just keeps creeping into our home. To help stay warm, I like to bake up tons of goodies in the oven. Twice baked loaded potatoes are just one of many treats I often make during colder days. These stuffed potatoes are super easy to make, packed with flavor, and helps keep me satisfied for most of the day. My current favorite version of loaded baked potatoes feature crispy bacon, gooey cheese, bright green peas, finely chopped fresh parsley and tons of freshly cracked black pepper. The combination of the smokey, salty bacon, melty, creamy cheese, and sweet, bright green peas pairs beautifully with a sprinkle of fresh parsley and black pepper. The potatoes are baked first for just under an hour to help them cook through and soften. Then, they are halved, scooped out leaving the potato skins intact, tossed with the goodies, repacked and re-baked. The second time the potatoes are baked is where the magic happens. The cheese begins to melt together with the rest of the packed ingredients and makes for the most delightful loaded baked potatoes. One half of the loaded baked potatoes is perfect for a snack or a side. Two halves are enough for a light meal. These flavor-packed loaded potatoes are the perfect fuel for game day. It provides the fuel we need to cheer on our team. To balance the savory treats, I also whipped up my fruity spin on hot chocolate – a version featuring pureed dragon fruit and raspberries blended with melted white chocolate, and warmed soy milk. I used white chocolate instead of the usual cocoa/semisweet/dark/milk variety to help enhance the beautiful red hues of the fruits. Pureed dragon fruit and raspberries add not only a fruity touch, but also a beautiful bright pink hue to the hot chocolate. The hot chocolate comes together rather quickly and makes for the perfect slightly sweet, warm, and toasty beverage to help keep us warm throughout the day. I first started making the dragon fruit raspberry white chocolate a couple months ago on a whim. I had some pureed frozen dragon fruit stored in the fridge and some leftover frozen raspberries, and thought why not blend the fruits together into a hot chocolate. The experimental drink turned out so good, I made it a few more times throughout the last few weeks. When I ran out of raspberries, I swapped in strawberries for another delightful spin. Pureed strawberries worked just as well as pureed raspberries. Once the drink passed both Kevin and my taste test, I tested it out on a couple of our friends. Kevin and I brought over the ingredients needed to whip it up during game night at our friends’ home. When the drink also passed their taste test, I was ready to share it. With the cold weather fluctuating week after week in Ohio, I just had to make the warm, toasty drink once more just in time for the madness about to ensue during the NCAA tournament this month. We still have our fingers crossed for Michigan going into the next round.

Baking Up Soda Bread and Other Favorite Treats for St. Patrick's Day

March 16, 2021

March is an exciting time in our household. It marks the transition from colder days to warmer days. Just this weekend, we sprung forward with our clocks. March also means March Madness. Kevin has already started picking his brackets for the NCAA tournament. We both have our fingers crossed for Michigan to win. I guess we will have to wait and see. I’ve already started cheering for our team by baking up maize and blue layered cookies featuring layers of maize and blue almond cakes adhered together with apricot jam. To help keep myself distracted until the start of the tourney, I’ve been back in the kitchen cooking and baking up tons of treats. For Pi Day, I retested a recipe I’ve been working on for a black raspberry Linzer pie loosely inspired by the Linzer torte. A few days after Pi Day is St. Patrick’s Day, which of course means making more celebratory foods to enjoy for the holiday including my version of soda bread. Whenever St. Patrick’s Day comes around, I always think back to the fond memories I had while living in Chicago. When I lived in Chicago, I always looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day because of all of the celebratory events occurring throughout the city. One popular tradition unique to Chicago is the green river. The city of Chicago would dye the river the most vibrant shade of green a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. People from all over the world would flock to the city to celebrate the holiday over delightful foods and drinks. During the three years I lived in Chicago, I would always take the el to downtown Chicago just to enjoy the beautiful views. Strolling down the Chicago Riverwalk and soaking in the magnificent views were two of my favorite activities to do in Chicago especially around St. Patrick’s Day. When I moved away from Chicago, I missed a lot of the familiar landmarks I used to love visiting when I lived there. Most of all, I missed all of the foods unique to the city including Chicago mix popcorn and deep dish pizza. Even though I often recreate many of my favorite foods from Chicago, I still miss enjoying those foods in person at the restaurants where the foods originated from. Fast forward to 2021 and I’ve been hard at work testing and developing recipes to help me feel more connected to the places I have once called home. In the weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I have been working on my own version of soda bread. Soda bread gets its name from the baking soda used to leaven the bread. When the baking soda reacts with the acidic buttermilk, the dough turns into the most delightfully moist soda bread in the oven. For my version, I worked in tons of golden raisins to help give the soda bread a sweet touch. During my testing phase, I even brought over some soda bread to give to our friends along with the Linzer inspired pie I’ve been testing out. While traditional soda bread typically features just a few basic ingredients, I did add a couple more ingredients (some golden raisins and a touch of sugar) to create a sweet version. The addition of sugar helps enhance the sweetness already present in the golden raisins. The bread itself came together rather quickly once I mixed all of the ingredients together and popped the plop of dough into the oven to bake. To round out the rest of our celebratory meal, I whipped together my green with vegetable envy soup (a simple spinach, broccoli, and potato soup) and some Irish cheddar crisps made by crisping up some grated Irish cheddar cheese in the oven. The cheddar crisps paired perfectly with the broccoli, spinach, and potato soup and reminded me vaguely of broccoli and cheddar soup. As if the bread and soup wasn’t enough, I also whipped up some minty chocolate shakes topped with a golden whipped cream (loosely inspired by the super popular shamrock shake). With our soda bread, soup, and shakes in hand, we were all set for St. Patrick’s Day.

Baking Up Maize and Blue Layered Cookies Just in Time for March Madness

March 08, 2021

March 8, 2021

I’ve been eagerly waiting for March Madness to start this year because of how well Michigan has been doing in basketball. In anticipation of the exciting games about to unfold this month, I’ve been testing out my version of a maize and blue layered cookie, a take on the rainbow cookie or seven-layer cookie. Rainbow cookies are a classic treat served in bakeries throughout New York City. Growing up in New York, I’ve always been enamored by the array of innovative, beautiful, and tasty treats offered at eateries throughout the city. It seems like almost every other day, there is a new food trend popping up at a shop in the city. A classic treat I’ve always been amazed by found in almost all of the Italian bakeries throughout New York is the rainbow cookie. It features layers of red, white, and green almond cake adhered together by a delicious raspberry or apricot jam and coated in a chocolate glaze. The stunning cookies draw you in with their eye-catching colors. One bite into the ultra-sweet almond cookie and it hooks you in. It’s incredibly hard to eat just one of these sugary gems. Before I know it, I’ve eaten one too many of these sweet treats. Every bakery throughout the city seems to have its own version of the Italian cookie. The common flavor profile across the board is an intense almond flavor. When I moved to the Midwest, I started to miss a lot of the beloved foods I used to easily access in the city – including those beloved cookies. If I wanted a rainbow cookie, I had to place a special order online to get them shipped to my home. After a few orders, I just could not justify the cost of the cookies plus shipping. A couple months ago, I set out to make my own version of the rainbow cookie with a twist. Instead of the traditional red, white, and green layers, I opted to make a maize and blue version featuring the colors of my alma mater. All rainbow cookies have to have a fruit jam to help adhere the different cake/cookie layers. I chose to use apricot jam as a delicious way to adhere the cookies together and further emphasize the maize color. During my testing phase for these cookies, I baked up a few batches to enjoy as Kevin and I watched Michigan soar through their basketball season (most of the time). I even tested out a red, white, and blue version featuring white and blue cookie/cake layers and raspberry jam used to adhere the cookie/cake layers together. I reserved the red, white, and blue version to bring to a small goodbye gathering for a friend who took a new job in another city. The maize and blue version was reserved for Kevin and I to enjoy throughout Michigan’s basketball season. With March Madness almost here, these cookies will be the perfect treat to cheer on our team.

More Lunar New Year Celebrations and Savory Tang Yuan

February 28, 2021

We are approaching the conclusion of Lunar New Year celebrations for 2021. Lunar New Year this year was a much smaller celebration with just Kevin and I. We jumpstarted the holiday celebration by joining a family zoom call with Kevin’s family. There were over 20 people popping in and out of the zoom call to share updates and send auspicious wishes to family members across the globe. Kevin and I also made personalized phone calls to members of our families just to wish them a lot of good luck and success in the upcoming year. In between catching up with family, I recreated many of my favorite foods over the last few weeks. We spent some days enjoying my mom’s sweet tang yuan recipe. I whipped up multiple variations of dumplings including our tried-and-true pork and cabbage dumplings. I even made a citrus roasted chicken over a bed of charred greens and served it alongside some steamed jasmine rice. Any leftovers were repurposed into stir-fried noodles (for longevity) and soups (including a pho inspired variation). We ate tons of oranges, mandarins, and tangerines for luck and homemade fortune cookies for added luck. With Lunar New Year celebrations coming to an end this weekend, I took the opportunity to make one more family favorite dish, my mom’s savory tang yuan. Most people know of my mom for her sweet tang yuan. She often makes her sweet tang yuan for special occasions and celebrations. Anyone who has had the opportunity to eat her homemade tang yuan always raves about it. What most people don’t know is my mom makes an equally delicious savory tang yuan. Her version often features thinly sliced pork, dried baby shrimps, thickly sliced radish, sliced scallions, chicken bouillon powder, water, and glutinous rice balls. The soup comes together quickly as she cooks everything in a wok – from the soup to the glutinous rice balls. It was the perfect lucky meal to make over Lunar New Year. Since I didn’t get the opportunity to see my family in person this year, I FaceTimed my mom to learn how to make her savory tang yuan. The hardest part about learning my mom’s recipes is she never measures anything. Every ingredient is approximate. Sometimes, she would say just a couple scoops of this or a heavy pinch of that. Getting exact measurements for anything my mom makes is nearly impossible. A lot of the times when I recreate my mom’s recipes, I rely on memory and taste to help me get the recipes just right. Over the last couple of weeks, I played around with her savory tang yuan recipe and made a few changes based on the ingredients I had on hand. My mom insists on adding dried baby shrimps because the dried baby shrimp adds a distinctly salty, savory flavor to the soup base. The dried baby shrimps work almost like fish sauce in a dish. Its salty, savory flavor adds a punch to a dish. You don’t often know it’s there, but you definitely know something is missing in a dish if it’s omitted. Instead of thinly sliced salted pork, I swapped in sweet, smoky, and savory lap cheung, a Chinese-style sausage. Lap cheung is one of those key ingredients my family always had in stock at home. Kevin and I had to drive to the nearest local Asian grocery store to get our hands on these ingredients. Many of these ingredients keep well in the fridge and pantry, so one trip to the Asian grocery store can usually last us a few months. True to my mom’s original recipe, I picked up a radish from the supermarket to use in the savory tang yuan. I also used this opportunity to restock on the glutinous rice flour as well – the main ingredient necessary for any type of tang yuan. With these ingredients in hand, I set out to make savory tang yuan inspired by my mom’s recipe. The savory tang yuan was super easy to make and was oh so delicious, nostalgic, and comforting. Starting Lunar New Year with sweet tang yuan and ending Lunar New Year with savory tang yuan was a great way to keep our family traditions alive even from afar. Here is to many more traditions and food celebrations!

Baking Up Assorted Homemade Bagels for Valentine’s Day

February 21, 2021

Valentine’s Day this year landed right in the midst of Lunar New Year. In between enjoying all of my favorite fare during Lunar New Year, I also took a break to make some homemade heart shaped bagels in the spirit of Valentine’s Day. I just had to take the opportunity to make two of my favorite bagel flavors – everything seasoning and asiago cheese. My love for everything bagels go way back to my childhood growing up in Brooklyn. My mom would buy an everything bagel packed with a generous layer of cream cheese for me on my way to school. My older brother, Pete, on the other hand, was a bit more adventurous and would always ask for a cream cheese and grape jelly filled <insert a new flavor every other day> bagel warmed in the microwave for 30 seconds as his breakfast of choice. With our favorite bagels in hand, we went on our merry way to school without complaints. My love for bagels continued to grow as I grew older. In my teens, I continued to order a bagel for breakfast on my way to school. Sometimes, I even order a second bagel on my way home from school. My teenage years were also the years where I discovered my love for scallion cream cheese. Bagel Boy had opened up in Sheepshead Bay and I started seeing lines upon lines of people heading there. Out of curiosity, I stepped inside and saw a whole world of bagel and cream cheese selections. The scallion cream cheese and vegetable cream cheese both caught my eye and the rest is history. Bagel Boy and its endless combo of bagels and cream cheeses became my go-to spot for getting my fix of bagels whenever my cravings struck. My cravings for bagels continued way into my college years. During my college years, I discovered my love for asiago cheese bagels. They were one of the more popular bagel flavors served on café menus around Michigan campus. I would often swing by the undergraduate library on central campus to grab a bagel with a packet of cream cheese in between lectures. No matter how many bagels I ate, I never grew tired of them. I didn’t realize how much I missed the perfectly chewy New York style bagels or nostalgic crispy cheesy Ann Arbor asiago bagels until I moved to Ohio. Shortly after moving to Ohio, I started to miss the beloved foods I would get all the time back home and in college. Flash forward to ten years later and I am still finding ways to recreate all of the foods I loved. Bagels, being one of my absolute favorite foods in the world, was definitely on my list of priority foods I had to learn to recreate in my own kitchen. A couple months ago, I set out to recreate the beloved bagels I remember eating back in Brooklyn and Ann Arbor. When I thought back to those bagels, I remembered a few key characteristics. The bagels in Brooklyn mainly had a golden brown, crispy exterior, and an ultra-chewy dense interior. The asiago bagels in Ann Arbor were softer with a much fluffier interior than the ones in Brooklyn. In my journey to create the ideal bagel, I studied the components of a bagel. Bagels were typically made of a high gluten flour, yeast, salt, malt powder or syrup, and water. I wanted to recreate a bagel with a nice golden brown crispy exterior and a chewy yet fluffy interior. With my mind decided, I set out to test out different ratios of ingredients in my hopes of recreating my ideal bagel. For the flour component, I used bread flour as it had a fairly high protein content and was readily available at the local grocery store nearby. I already had plenty of active dry yeast and instant yeast stocked up (from my many months of pandemic baking). The only ingredient I needed to order to recreate my bagels was malt syrup. Malt syrup was necessary for two reasons. One, it added a distinct flavor to the bagel. Two, it helped the bagel achieve the golden brown crispy exterior when boiled in a malt-water mixture prior to baking. I spent a few weeks (spread out over the course of two months) testing out different variations of bagels until I got to the version I liked the most. When I landed on the ideal combination for the type of bagel I was looking for, I started playing around with topping the bagel with a homemade blend of everything seasoning featuring dried minced garlic, dried minced onion, poppy seeds, a blend of black and white sesame seeds, and some kosher salt. I also picked up a wedge of asiago cheese and grated it to use for topping my version of asiago cheese bagels. Adding asiago cheese alone onto the bagels was definitely not enough. Cheese pairs wonderfully with black pepper, so I added in some freshly cracked black pepper to the asiago cheese bagels for a little something extra. Kevin and I enjoyed bagels for a few solid weeks for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner during my testing phase. When Valentine’s Day weekend rolled around, I just had to make bagels one more time. This time, I also made a couple heart shaped versions to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We enjoyed the bagels alongside some (you guessed it) scallion cream cheese as we watched the return of Michigan basketball.

Welcoming Lunar New Year with Family Favorites and Fortune Cookies

February 13, 2021

Lunar New Year is finally here. We’ve been preparing for the new year by doing a deep cleaning of our home and prepping as much as we could (whenever we have some time set aside) to get ready for the new year. I have even been making a few of my favorite foods including dumplings over the last few days as a way to help bring more luck to the new year. Eating dumplings during the lunar new year is considered good luck as dumplings are associated with wealth. Dumplings are also one of my favorite foods in the world, so it was only natural for me to make as much of them as I could ahead of time. In our family, pork and cabbage dumplings and soup dumplings are two of our favorites. I prefer the former. Kevin prefers the latter. If I want a more colorful take, I sometimes make a rainbow veggie version or a colorful wrapper version. Other lucky foods we like to enjoy during Lunar New Year include whole fish, whole chicken, noodles, and tons of Asian vegetables. For dessert, fruits and simple desserts are preferred over more elaborate ones. My family loves to enjoy my mom’s tang yuan early in the morning as a sweet start to a new year or in the evening right after a savory meal. I recreated my mom’s tang yuan for breakfast on New Year’s Day. Tang yuan is super simple to make and just requires a few simple ingredients to pull together. Right after enjoying tang yuan for breakfast, I got started on preparing fortune cookies for added luck. While fortune cookies may not be traditional Chinese dessert fare, I still like to enjoy it once in a while after a meal at a Chinese restaurant. In fact, the only time I’ve enjoyed fortune cookies is when I order takeout from a Chinese restaurant or after a sit-down meal at a Chinese restaurant. It has been quite a while since I’ve eaten in at a Chinese restaurant. Thus, a few weeks back, when I had a somewhat odd craving for fortune cookies, I decided to learn to make fortune cookies at home myself. I started by studying the composition of a fortune cookie. Most fortune cookies had just several ingredients – sugar, shortening or oil, and some sort of wheat flour. With this as a starting point, I began testing out different ratios of sugar, shortening/oil/butter, and all-purpose flour/cake flour/pastry flour in my hopes of getting a good fortune cookie. I also had to test out different baking temperatures and baking times in hopes of finding the right combination to yield a crispy yet still malleable cookie. A fortune cookie is only a fortune cookie if it is shaped into a folded crescent shape straight out of the oven. My first few trials resulted in some fails – either too crumbly, not malleable enough, or not crispy enough. After multiple trials and errors, I came pretty close to a good fortune cookie. The final test was to ensure the cookie snaps when cracked into. I know this testing probably sounds a bit excessive, but I had to make sure the cookie turned out just right. If nothing else, the process would be a good learning experience in determining what works and doesn’t work when it comes to understanding the composition of a good fortune cookie through trial and error. When I got the combination just right, I had to share my findings...

Preparing for Lunar New Year with Sweet and Savory Dumplings

February 08, 2021

February 8, 2021

Lunar New Year is just a few days away and I’ve already started prepping for it. In my family, my parents always create a list of must dos on the days leading up to New Year’s Day. The top priority is definitely cleaning the house, planning the menu, preparing the red envelopes, and filling each and every hallway with good fortune (in the form of auspicious sayings). My parents truly believed the more auspicious signs plastered all over the house, the luckier we will be. It’s one of the holidays during the year where we all gather together as a family over good food. Each member of my family always had a role. My mom would tackle the cleaning projects. My dad would focus on the décor and menu planning. My brothers would plot the different ways they would spend the lucky money. I would find a way to help out in the kitchen. The eve of Lunar New Year is when the food is the most plentiful. The family table is always stocked with dishes full of meats, vegetables, fruits, snacks, and desserts. Every dish we ate was always associated with an auspicious saying. Fish for prosperity. Whole chicken for unity. Sweet and savory dumplings for wealth. Oodles of noodles for longevity. Tons of citrus – specifically tangerines, mandarins, and oranges for fortune. I always remember my parents asking us every year if we knew why we ate the foods we ate on Lunar New Year. When they saw the blank looks on our faces, they would launch into their explanations for the meaning behind each dish. The biggest meal during Lunar New Year was always the evening before where members of our family (no matter where we were in the world) had to travel back home just to reunite with the rest of our family for a reunion dinner. I never truly appreciated all of these customs and traditions surrounding Lunar New Year until I grew much older. It wasn’t until I moved to the Midwest that I started to look back fondly on the memories of preparing for the holidays and celebrating with family and friends. Kevin and I still try to visit our families for Lunar New Year every year. During the past year, we had to move all of our celebrations from in person to virtual. This holiday was no exception. We would celebrate Lunar New Year with our families virtually. Planning a menu for two people is a lot easier than planning a menu for the whole family. Over the years, Kevin and I have been having multiple celebrations for Lunar New Year. Some years, we celebrate with his family. Other years, we celebrate with my family. This year, we will be celebrating with just ourselves. I’ve already started testing out recipes for Lunar New Year by mixing and matching a lot of the foods I was accustomed to eating during Lunar New Year growing up. Of all of the foods I love during the new year, dumplings are most definitely on the top of the list. Dumplings in any and all forms are welcome. On the days leading up to Lunar New Year, it is only fitting for me to make both sweet and savory dumplings to celebrate the momentous occasion.

Recreating Belgian-Style Waffles From My Favorite Brunch Spot in Ohio

February 02, 2021

February 2, 2021

When I moved to Ohio almost six years ago, one of the restaurants I fell in love with almost immediately was Taste of Belgium. It was one of the first restaurants Kevin brought me to as a way to help make Ohio feel more like home. I had read a lot of positive reviews about the Belgian-style waffles at the restaurant, but did not know what to expect. The only exposure I had to waffles growing up were the crispy exterior, fluffy interior American-style waffles. The waffles served at Taste of Belgium were in a league of their own. They were much thicker waffles and had crystallized chunks of pearl sugar weaved throughout a sweet, thick bread-like dough. I don’t usually fall in love with dishes at first bite, but the moment I bit into the Liège-style waffles at Taste of Belgium, I was blown away by how amazing the waffles were. I couldn’t get enough of the intense buttery waffles crusted with caramelized sugar. There was something truly addicting about the waffles. The restaurant served waffles on their own, but I just had to get the classic combination of chicken and waffles featured on the menu. The savory crispy chicken combined with the caramelized sweet waffle and crunchy salad made for the perfect balance of textures and flavors. I loved the food at Taste of Belgium so much, it became one of my go-to spots for taking family and friends to whenever they visited Ohio. The best part about Taste of Belgium is there are multiple locations throughout Ohio. I have even made special trips out to the North Market to get my fix of the waffles (and on occasion the hot chicken from Hot Chicken Takeover). My cravings for the dish would crop up here and there over the years. I try to reserve my visits to the restaurants for special occasions only because of how indulgent the food is. This month, I had a sudden craving for Belgian-style waffles and got back into the kitchen to try to replicate a slightly healthier version of the beloved meal I would always order. Instead of the crispy fried chicken, I coated some chicken wings with a light drizzle of olive oil, sprinkled on some kosher salt and pepper, and baked the wings until golden and crispy. For the waffles, I tried to stay as true to the Liège-style waffles as possible. The waffles I remember eating at Taste of Belgium had a rich sweet dough and insanely delicious pearl sugar weaved throughout. My experiments led me to a create a version featuring a blend of brown sugar and white sugar, a hint of cinnamon, and a generous helping of distinctly crunchy pearl sugar. The use of brown and white sugar upped the sweet factor in the waffles. The cinnamon paired beautifully with the blend of sugars and gave the waffles another element of sweetness. For the final element, I tossed together a complementary salad featuring crumbled blue cheese, julienned carrots, a blend of chopped romaine, some arugula, and thinly sliced cucumber served with a hot maple syrup. As I enjoyed the meal, I couldn’t help but reminisce over the wonderful memories of bonding with family and friends over good food at Taste of Belgium.

Homemade Pita Bread and Spicy Hummus

January 25, 2021

In my quest to eat healthier this new year, I’ve been experimenting with making pita bread and serving it with a spicy hummus I stumbled into making while trying to replicate my favorite store-bought hummus from Sabra, the supremely spicy hummus. The supremely spicy hummus had caught my eye a couple years back when I was browsing through the refrigerated snacking aisle at my local grocery store. I hesitated to buy the hummus at the time because I thought the hummus would be way too spicy for me. I forgot all about it until the hummus caught my eye again at a friend’s house a few months later. When I finally tried the supremely spicy hummus, I realized how wrong I was. Yes, the hummus was spicy, but no, it wasn’t overly spicy. The other ingredients within the hummus seemed to mellow out the heat from the hot chili peppers added to the hummus. What resulted was a perfectly creamy, smooth, spicy, and savory dip. I loved the supremely spicy hummus so much, I stocked up on it to use for quick snacks and lunch for months after. It worked wonderfully as a dip for pita and made for the perfect complement to raw veggies in a wrap. The hummus was so convenient to just buy, it never even crossed my mind to recreate it at home until a few months ago. I started to embark on a journey to recreate homemade versions of all of my favorite foods including my own version of spicy hummus. The components of hummus were pretty straightforward. I experimented with cooking chickpeas soaked in water for several hours over a stovetop and in the microwave in my quest to find the perfect texture for the hummus. Both methods worked, but using the microwave to cook the chickpeas was much quicker and resulted in less clean up afterwards. Thus, the microwave became my go-to method for quickly cooking chickpeas. For the spicy component, I experimented with garlic chili sauce. The garlic chili sauce pretty much covered three components within the spicy hummus – garlic, heat, and acid. The moment I added chili garlic sauce to the hummus, I knew I found the perfect addition. A tablespoon of the chili garlic sauce was all I needed to make my spicy hummus. My version of spicy hummus turned out just like how I imagined it would. The chili garlic sauce added a good amount of heat to the hummus without making the hummus too spicy. The tahini and olive oil when blended with the chickpeas helped mellow out the heat from the chili garlic sauce. I omitted the lemon juice since the chili garlic sauce already had a good amount of acid. I did go ahead and add more garlic to the hummus because one can never have too much garlic. I knew I had a keeper on hand when I noticed myself making spicy hummus on autopilot over the last few months. The only missing piece to serve alongside this hummus was pita bread. Thus, I reached back through my reference books (from my former professional baking class) to learn how to make pita bread. I then experimented with different blends of flours and ratios of ingredients until I ended up with the perfect fluffy, puffy, pillowy pita bread. The combination of the warm soft pita with the spicy (yet still mellow) hummus made for the perfect afternoon snack.

Making Bubbles From Scratch for Homemade Bubble Tea

January 17, 2021

The start of a new year means the beginning of exciting possibilities. Whenever a new year begins, I like to tell myself I will learn more, cook more, eat healthier, and spend less. I usually do a good job of staying on track with my goals until the first holiday of the year comes around. Usually, the holiday is Chinese New Year. Holidays always give me an excuse to indulge in my favorite foods. I like to plan holiday menus a few weeks in advance by brainstorming some of my favorite foods to eat around the holidays. During the past Thanksgiving, Kevin and I celebrated at home by recreating some of my favorite traditional thanksgiving dishes. When Christmas rolled around, I decided to put new twists on some of my favorite Chinese dishes. My drink of choice during the holidays is no doubt bubble tea. I always get my fix of bubble tea when I visit family in New York or in Hong Kong. Whenever Kevin and I travel to either New York City or Hong Kong, I like to load up on the endless varieties of bubble tea available to enjoy. Since we did not get to travel during the holidays this year, I opted to recreate the bubble tea experience by making my own at home complete with homemade bubbles. My version of homemade bubbles features the first three ingredients found in the instant bubbles I like to pick up at the Asian grocery store. Those three ingredients are tapioca flour, corn starch, and water. To get a natural color with a fruity touch, I experimented with folding in fruit jams into the dough. The experiments turned out even better than I expected. The bubbles flavored with jam not only added a beautiful hue to the bubbles, the jam also added a wonderful fruity flavor to the bubbles. By using fruit jams to add the color and fruitiness to the bubbles, I can enjoy homemade bubble tea and still stick to my goals of cooking more and eating healthier. I started testing out my homemade jam bubbles a few weeks back using a blend of tapioca flour, corn starch, warm water, and jam. The dough was tricky to get just right at first. If too much liquid is added, the dough becomes the consistency of quicksand. If too little water is added, the dough becomes too crumbly to work with. Finding the right balance of liquid to flour to make sure the dough was soft enough to mold yet firm enough to hold its shape once rolled out into tiny balls was key. Making sure the consistency for the bubbles is just right is super important for helping the bubbles achieve the perfect chewy consistency. After a few trials of too large bubbles, stiff bubbles, and too soft dough, I was finally able to produce bubbles with the right texture and consistency. For the milk tea itself, I like to prepare a batch of concentrated black tea, sweeten it up with maple syrup, and top it off with a couple dashes of evaporated milk. The sweet woodiness of the maple syrup pairs beautifully with the creaminess of the evaporated milk. The colorful, fruity bubbles add the perfect touch to the bubble tea. Sipping bubble tea brings back memories of my travels home to New York City and abroad to Hong Kong every single time. To round out our lunch, I prepared bowls of veggie packed rice bowls featuring Kevin’s absolute favorite preserved Chinese sausages and pork belly. We enjoyed the homemade bubble tea and rice bowls as we took trips down memory lane of our travel adventures in New York City and Hong Kong. I await the day when we can safely travel to see family and friends across the globe once again.

Hello! My name is Jia Pan and I love to experiment with food. My site is a collection of recipes and stories chronicling my adventures in the kitchen and around the world.
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Fall Adventures in New England + Parm Herb Roasted Veggie Sandwiches

November 9, 2025

Everyone who knows me knows that I love fall. It’s my favorite season of the year. Not only is the weather the perfect amount of chilly without being overly chilly, I always eagerly look forward to the endless fun festivities associated with fall. October is the month that I especially look forward to because of spooky season. Now that Z is almost 3½ years old, she has begun voicing how much she loves the fall. To be fair, Z has been a fan of cooler weather for as long as I can remember. In the winter, you can for sure find her outside playing in the snow for far longer than we’d like. This past month of October has been an especially fun month for Z. The excitement only grew as the weeks went on leading up to Halloween. One perk about living in New England is just the sheer amount of Halloween events taking place in not only my town but also all the neighboring towns. We started October off with attending the Topsfield Fair, which always takes place the first weekend of October. We like to go yearly because there are always tons of activities for everyone in the family, especially the little ones. Z enjoys seeing the variety of live animals and the large pumpkins. Kev always wants to scout out the food vendors. I enjoy going for the atmosphere and to watch the joy on Z’s face as she interacts with the animals and exhibits. During the last two weeks of October, we’ve gone to a few Halloween events in our town and in the surrounding towns. Z’s favorite Halloween activity so far has been trick-or-treating. She loves collecting little pieces of candy and toys and filling up her tote bag with the varied treats and toys. To help keep us fortified throughout our October adventures, I’ve been preparing parm herb roasted veggie sandwiches for Z and I. The roasted vegetables are super easy to make in the oven, and I like to serve them on homemade parm herb bread that I prepare in advance. Speaking of, I have one loaf ready to go that is currently sitting in my freezer. I developed my version of parm herb bread a few years ago during the pandemic (when we spent most, if not all, of our time indoors). It’s great on its own but is made even better when topped with some roasted veggies and herbed cheese. I was inspired by this specific version of a roasted veggie sandwich ever since I had a fantastic veggie sandwich for a catered work lunch. The version I ate included a lot of warmed roasted veggies and goat cheese and was served on a cheese topped focaccia. The warmed roasted veggies were tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette, which altogether made the sandwich just delightful to eat. The textural contrast of the soft, fluffy bread, crunchy veggies, tangy sauce, and creamy cheese made the experience unforgettable. Ever since, I’ve been trying to recreate a similar version of the sandwich I ate on the work trip at home. A few times throughout the year, I like to plan a picnic for just Z and I, and so when I was planning such picnic during a crisp fall morning, it made perfect sense to incorporate these roasted veggie sandwiches into the menu. All of these picnics with Z also inspired me to create her latest Halloween “picnic” costume. I even made a matching outfit for myself to match Z. We then dressed up in our “picnic” outfits to enjoy our picnic outdoors. The best part about these sandwiches is that they are super easy to prepare once you’ve taken the extra step to prepare a couple of these homemade parm herb breads ahead of time. For the cheese component on the sandwich, I swapped out goat cheese (which Z doesn’t enjoy) and used Boursin garlic & fine herbs cheese instead (which Z loves). Dare I say that my version of roasted veggie sandwiches is even better than the one I had on my work trip!

November 9, 2025

June 29, 2025

Tea Party for Three + Heart-Shaped Jam Cookies

June 29, 2025

Some of you may know that May is an especially exciting month for our family. Not only because May is when we finally get to experience warmer weather, but it’s also the month where we celebrate all three of our birthdays. For Kev and I, we usually just go out to a local restaurant to eat dinner and then go back home and retreat into our favorite corners of our couch to relax. For Z, though, we had to make sure that we celebrated her birthday in a special way. Since I’ve been working on recreating some of my favorite foods to enjoy during afternoon tea, it made perfect sense to celebrate Z’s birthday with a tea party that features some of her favorite foods. A fruit platter is a no-brainer—it’s a healthy treat that we make for her every year for her birthday. While Z has become a bit pickier with new foods that we introduce to her, she almost never feels this way about fruits. No matter what fruits we serve her, she’s usually happy to eat them. Aside from the birthday fruit platter, I also try to create a sweet treat for her birthday each year. For her birthday tea party this year, I added additional foods that we typically love to serve with tea. Some of these foods include raisin and currant scones, curried chicken salad on cinnamon raisin bread, vegetable cream cheese on Asiago cheese bread, and heart-shaped jam pinky print cookies (similar in concept to thumb print cookies). The heart-shaped jam cookies are a new treat for this year, one that I created specifically to celebrate her third birthday. Over the years, I’ve created special treats to celebrate each of her birthdays. For her first birthday, I whipped up a batch of dragon fruit strawberry cupcakes and cake pops. For her second birthday, I made some wild blueberry whoopie pies. For her third birthday this year, Z helped me with making a batch of heart-shaped jam cookies. These cookies are loosely inspired by the ever-popular thumb print cookies. For my version, I used my pinky to form a heart shape instead of a thumb to form a circle. These cookies differ from other thumb print cookies in that they are more reminiscent of buttery shortbread cookies than typical thumb print cookies. For the jam filling, I used raspberry jam, a favorite of Z’s. With Z’s insistence on helping me with prepping the cookies, the kitchen has definitely become a lot messier in the process. The base of the cookies is very simple to make. I combine the ingredients in one bowl, roll and flatten the dough into circular cookies, and then use my pinky to press an imprint onto each piece of cookie dough twice, leaning right diagonally and then leaning left diagonally to form a heart shape. Z tried to help with this process and pressed her little fingers unevenly into the cookie dough. The heart shapes from Z’s pinky turned out too small, so I had to adjust some of the cookies to make sure they were consistent in shape and size. Once shaped, I popped the cookie dough into the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes. As the cookies were chilling in the fridge, I preheated the oven. Once the cookie dough was ready, we removed them from the refrigerator and filled them with raspberry jam. I tried to fill just enough jam in each cookie to prevent the jam from spilling during the baking process. I then popped the baking sheet with the jam-filled cookies into the oven to let the cookies bake for just about ten minutes. Given how quickly the cookies bake up in the oven, I had to keep an eye on them to make sure the edges do not become too brown. Once the cookies are done baking, I remove them from the oven and let them cool while I started on preparing the other food items for the tea party. The other food items did take a bit of time to put together and arrange, but the tea party was definitely worth it just to see the smile on Z’s face. We all enjoyed the light bites and fresh fruit while we sipped tea and read Z a new book that we gifted her for her birthday this year.

June 29, 2025

March 9, 2025

Winter Adventures and Maple Blueberry Muffins

March 9, 2025

Winter in New England this year has been brutal. We’ve had multiple weeks of frigid temperatures and snowy days. While I mostly enjoy the snowfall, the most difficult part has been the effect of the cold temp on my working hands. No matter how much lotion I lather on, it never seems to be enough to keep my hands from cracking. That aside, Z has been absolutely loving the snow days. She would often eagerly await the snowfall just to play outside. On snow days, I can see her eyes light up when she sees piles upon piles of snow outside the window. The moment she steps foot outdoors, she doesn’t want to come back inside. I’ve deeply appreciated all of the precious moments I’ve been able to experience watching her find joy in winter weather. In between shuttling her to and from school and going to work myself, I’ve been working on another recipe to share on my site that features two ingredients unique to New England. The first ingredient is wild blueberries. I’m using the frozen kind from Wyman’s since I can more easily get them at the local Market Basket and Stop & Shop. The second ingredient is maple syrup that I’ve had the pleasure of getting in person at Ben’s Sugar Shack up in New Hampshire. These ingredients are featured in my recipe for maple blueberry muffins. While experimenting with the ratio of ingredients for my maple blueberry muffins, I found that just adding maple syrup is not enough to give the muffins the distinctive maple flavor and aroma. I definitely needed to add a couple teaspoons of maple extract to help the maple flavor shine in these muffins. Once I made that breakthrough, I was able to produce muffins with a lovely maple flavor. Most muffin recipes ask for cupcake liners to be filled halfway or three-quarter way full, but for these muffins, I like to fill the cupcake liners to the very top. This way, once baked, the muffins spill over and end up with the look of true muffins. Another trick I learned during my experiments is the importance of using a mixture of mashed and whole blueberries. Mashing the blueberries helps to give the muffins a stronger and more prevalent blueberry flavor. For this recipe, I used a combination of mashed fresh blueberries and frozen wild blueberries. Just a note on Wyman’s wild blueberries: I started incorporating these blueberries into my baked goods when I discovered them at a local Stop & Shop shortly after moving to Massachusetts. These frozen wild blueberries tend to be smaller and have a much more intense blueberry flavor than standard blueberries. I’ve used them extensively when making my wild blueberry whoopie pies and like to incorporate them into baked goods that ask for blueberries. Not only do these muffins have an intense blueberry flavor that honor the flavor profile of blueberry muffins, but the maple flavor also shines through with the addition of both the syrup and extract. I’ll admit that even before moving to New England, I loved using maple syrup in pretty much everything I make. Maple syrup has a clean sweet flavor and works beautifully as a sweetener for sauces, dips, and milk tea. Since moving to Massachusetts, I find myself adding maple syrup to pretty much everything. Once a year, during Maple Weekends here in New England, I travel up north to stock up on maple syrup. When March rolled around this year, we drove up north again to stock up on maple products from Ben’s Sugar Shack. Ben’s Sugar Shack is a well-known local producer of maple syrup located in New Hampshire and has become our go-to shop for maple syrup. Earlier this month, we got a refresher on how maple syrup is produced, enjoyed some samples of maple products, and stocked up on a few bottles of maple syrup all from Ben’s. Aside from just maple syrup, Ben’s also carries maple-flavored snacks. Kev usually heads for the snack section to get his fix of maple leaf crème cookies while my snack of choice is Cabot’s maple cheddar popcorn, a nod to New England that reminds me so much of Garett’s popcorn in Chicago (I even recreated them here). Though, that’s a story for another time. Once we loaded up on maple syrup (and an assorted array of maple-flavored treats) for the year, I got right back to work to make a batch of my maple blueberry muffins, the perfect little treat for breakfast, brunch, and snack on weekdays. As you can see in the photos above, Z is absolutely fascinated by the production of maple syrup. It also doesn’t hurt that the maple syrup treats are so addictive. When I started making maple blueberry muffins, she kept coming back for more and more. She often asks for them in the morning every few days. Luckily for us, during recipe development and testing, we all benefit from having large batches of muffins baked up and ready to go on those mornings where no one can be bothered to make breakfast. These maple blueberry muffins do the trick of filling our grumbling bellies and holding us over until lunch time.

March 9, 2025

October 27, 2024

Summer and Fall Adventures and Cinnamon Roll Scones

October 27, 2024

As summer comes to an end here in New England, we’ve been slowly adjusting back to the pace of a new school year. We’ve had a fairly packed summer with Z including weekend trips to Crane Beach, fruit picking at local farms, visits to museums and historic homes in nearby states, and a trip to a sunflower field packed with towering blooms. When September rolled around, Z started attending school full-time on weekdays, which meant cooking and baking a little bit more on weekends to ensure she has food the next day for lunch. Her school lunches typically feature a range of foods from each food group. Packing lunches for Z also gave me a reason to get back to recipe development mode more consistently. One recipe I’ve been working on over the last couple of months is a twist on cinnamon rolls and scones. Whenever fall arrives, I always look forward to the flavors of warming spices, most notably cinnamon and nutmeg. Cinnamon and nutmeg seem to make their way into most baked treats and drinks I crave during these cooler months. A baked treat I find myself craving often during the fall is cinnamon rolls. I’ve loved the flavors of cinnamon rolls ever since childhood and wanted to find a way to repurpose these classic morning treats into another treat. My experiments led me to the creation of cinnamon roll scones or cinnascones. Essentially, my cinnamon roll scones combine my love for both treats into one. This recipe has all the flavors of a cinnamon roll in the time it takes to make scones. Honestly though, it does take slightly longer to make cinnamon roll scones compared to typical scones because of the added component of the cinnamon-sugar-butter filling that is rolled into the cinnamon roll scones. I usually make the filling or paste ahead of time and leave it to cool as I start the next step of prepping the dough for the scones. One benefit of these cinnamon rolls is that they are less sweet than your traditional cinnamon rolls. When developing this recipe, I played around with the ratio of ingredients in my go-to scone recipe to get the proportions just right. Because of the added filling in the center of the scones, I had to reduce the amount of liquid I typically use to make scones. This prevents the scones from spreading too much when baking. The rest of the ingredients included in the scones are your usual ingredients—all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, butter, sugar, salt, and milk. These cinnamon roll scones do include the addition of both vanilla and almond extract and both ground cinnamon and nutmeg. The additional extracts and spices work well together to create a symphony of complementary flavors. The combination of these flavors is what makes the cinnamon roll scones truly stand out. While testing and retesting this recipe at home in preparation for sharing on my site, Kev, Z, and I have benefited from enjoying multiple iterations of these cinnamon roll scones. We had some for breakfast, some throughout the day as snacks, and even some for dessert on occasions. These cinnamon roll scones have even made their way into Z’s bento box lunches a couple times. They store well in the fridge and have added a little bit of a fall touch to our days. Whenever I find my cravings kicking in, I turn to these cinnamon roll scones and a cup of drip coffee for a relaxing morning breakfast treat.

October 27, 2024

June 23, 2024

Spring Celebrations and Wild Blueberry Whoopie Pies

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.

June 23, 2024

March 10, 2024

Winter Travels and Smoky Cheddar Heart Crackers

March 10, 2024

February has been an exciting month of holiday celebrations for us. This year, Lunar New Year landed in the month of February, and so we traveled back to Brooklyn, New York to celebrate with family and friends. Right after Lunar New Year, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with Z at home. Z had quite the haul from both holidays. She received a stack of red envelopes from our family for Lunar New Year and then another stack of Valentine’s Day cards and toys from her classmates. Shortly after the February holiday celebrations, we took another short trip up north to see the Ice Castles in the heart of New Hampshire. Z marveled at the icy tunnels and structures and made her way through the icy walkways. Aside from all the February fun, I’ve been making smoky cheddar heart crackers throughout the month, testing and retesting my recipe. These snack crackers are very loosely inspired by my love of Cheez-It growing up. My version of the addictive cheddar crackers is made with super simple ingredients and are the perfect snack to pack for long (or short) car rides. With Z now more mobile than ever, we often find ourselves packing a lot of books, toys, and snacks to keep her occupied on road trips. These smoky cheddar crackers do the trick of helping satisfy her hunger and keeping her occupied at the same time. When making these cheese crackers, I like to use a fun scalloped heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut these crackers out as the fun heart shape makes them appealing to Z. I’ve packed these smoky cheddar crackers on multiple car rides with Z from short trips to much longer road trips. Z snacked on a handful of these crackers throughout our trip to New Hampshire and during snack time in the mornings and afternoons at home with grandma. The best part is I could whip these up in no time and keep them in the refrigerator for a few days. Not only are these crackers toddler-friendly, they are also adult-friendly. Whenever my cravings for savory snacks kick in, I could easily grab a handful of these snack crackers to enjoy as either a mid-morning snack or a late afternoon snack. To make these smoky cheddar heart crackers, I pulse together all-purpose flour, salt, sugar, smoked paprika, freshly cracked black pepper, butter, grated sharp cheddar cheese, and a couple tablespoons of cold water. The cold water works to bind everything together. The process I use for making these smoky cheddar crackers is similar to the process I use for making pie dough. Essentially, I drop all the ingredients into the food processor and let the food processor do its job to bring everything together. I then roll out the dough as thin as possible and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour before cutting out the heart-shaped snack crackers. Right before I pop them into the oven for baking, I artfully arrange the heart-shaped crackers on a parchment-lined baking sheet. About 18 minutes later, I end up with the perfect snack crackers. I have even left the crackers in the oven for a smidge longer (about 3-5 minutes) on a couple of tries to yield a toastier version of the cheddar crackers. As an optional step, I top these snack crackers with a pinch of Maldon salt just before serving. I love making these crackers on weekends when the weather outside turns chilly. This month has brought us multiple cold and somewhat snowy weekends. These snack crackers kept my cravings (and my family’s cravings) at bay throughout the mostly chilly February month.

March 10, 2024

December 17, 2023

Barbecue Chicken Bo Lo Bao and Adventures with Z

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.

December 17, 2023

September 4, 2023

Egg Tarts with A Twist and Summer Adventures with Z

September 4, 2023

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.

September 4, 2023

May 29, 2023

Dragon Fruit Strawberry Cupcakes and Z’s First Birthday

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.

May 29, 2023

March 31, 2023

A Strawberry Twist on Iconic Black and White Cookies

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.

March 31, 2023