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It is a sunny morning on my cheat day from workout, and I have RAISIN WHITE BREAD instead of WHOLE WHEAT bread in stock!! Perfect timing to finally try the air-fry French Toast recipe that I have long saved in my YouTube “watch later” playlist. Honestly, who does not like the deep fried French Toast, especially the Hong Kong style with rich amount of peanut butter, condensed milk, honey running across, and a giant chunk of salted butter that is so heavy to crush and leave a dent on the fluffy toast?
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Sesame layered pancake is one of the three most popular snacks/street food from Beijing. Its cooking process, especially the rolling out dough, spreading paste and rolling back tightly steps, are very similar as the Jewish babka I made last time. After all, this is the necessary step to include any paste throughout the dough! Baking/cooking techniques on different lands shares similarity is very interesting, human nature and human intelligence are from the same species 🙂
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After trying out rainbow croissants and chocolate strip croissants, I want to innovate a bit and try baking sesame croissants, with sesame powder in dough and also sesame fillings with mochi wrapped inside. Sesame croissants turned out very crispy, the flowy sesame and soft mochi contrasted the crispy dough, giving very unique texture!
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The first time I knew and had a Babka was from Jane the Bakery in Japantown, San Francisco. Its rich, not too sweet chocolate fillings (I LOOOVE dark chocolates), crispy outer layer and soft inner layers captured me right away. I have had Babka from other bakeries, super markets later as well, but none of those triumphs Jane’s so far. Loving it, baking it. Let’s try making, improving and enjoying this Jewish delicacy!
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This is my second time baking a Basque cheesecake. Last time I over-baked my taro Basque cake and did not share the recipe. This time I tried a recipe used by a few homebakers who sell their pastries — Basque Cheesecake with Pumpkin and Salted Egg Yolk! The sweetness of pumpkin and the saltiness kick from salted egg yolk might be a good combination!
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So! After 6 trials for original croissant and 1 tryout on chocolate croissant, I am still here! Trying the colorful, rainbow croissants this time! I baked this new batch of rainbow croissants with more precision such as desired dough temperature (24-26C), croissant shape measurements(4.5mm x 10cm x 25cm), proofing temperature (26-28C), listening to croissants etc. with tricks from the LONGER and more detailed croissant baking videos I watched.
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After 6 trials on baking original croissants, I want to get my hands on the “prettier” and slightly “fancier” croissants — colored and flavored ones. This time I am making the chocolate croissants. The chocolate sheet was drier than planned, resulting in some croissant not fully covered in chocolate sheet, and the chocolate layer was a bit too crispy. As usual, as my lab notebook, I have recorded mistakes and takeaway in details here.
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Found this recent trend — Youtiao with Sesame Mochi, getting its fame from Jiangxi Province 江西小吃 to the rest of China. It is easy to make, IF you have Youtiao (I got mine from Asian grocery) or are patient to make ones or are innovative enough to substitute with donuts. The combination of sweet, crunchy sesame, peanut mix, on top of hot, soft mochi, wrapped by fresh, crispy Youtiao, is quite amazing and unexpected!!
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Happy New Year 2021!! Finally got ube halaya from Asian market and was determined to bake something with it, thus chose ube sesame cake over ube chocolate cake. As a matter of fact, ube chocolate could have been a better combination as both ube and sesame are strong flavors and could play central role in cake. Separating them is not a bad idea.
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From the 3 months from May to August 2020, I have 6 croissant trials in total, trying 2 different recipes’ ingredients, 4 different butter brands, and finally had some success. Sharing these 6 trials’ key takeaways, including comparison of 6 trials in ingredients, resting, lamination, shaping & proofing and baking temp & time. KEY TO […]
