Category Archives: Dessert

Browned butter and cozy kitchen delights

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As I’ve gotten older, I can definitely feel my metabolism slowing down. I can’t eat as much food as I used to. I definitely cannot eat the same sweet things I once ate as a kid or even as a 20-something-year-old. Some sweets I choose to stay away from completely (hello, candy in general and sour belts, which I was obsessed with as a little kid), and other things I have in very small quantities. Once upon a time, I could probably just sit there and eat five medium sized freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in a single sitting. Now, I can eat… one. And then if I have made them myself, I need to really space them out. And as we all know, homemade desserts have a very short shelf life (no preservatives!), and they can get dry quickly given they are all natural. So, if you don’t finish them within a certain time, they are just nowhere as delicious and moist as day one or two. Given this, I bake desserts only when we have company or are bringing baked goods to someone else, with the exception of “healthy” baked treats for Kaia.

The problem with this is that baking is one of my biggest and first loves in life. I have so many fond, happy memories of baking in my aunt’s kitchen upstairs. Most of those bake sessions were from box mixes, but as a little kid, I didn’t understand, nor would I probably have cared. I was actually making something that my family and I could eat, and that seemed so special and amazing to me when I was four, five, and six years old. When you think about it, it’s still actually quite amazing: it’s amazing to be able to share food you have made with your own time, effort, and hands with the ones you love most. It’s special to nourish the ones who mean the most to you. Because what is more important than fueling our bodies with sustenance?

So last night, I browned butter for the first time in ages. In my early 20s, I used to do this a few times a year for special treats like browned butter chocolate chip cookies, financiers, among other rich delights. I browned an entire cup or 240 grams of butter, and the house smelled so sweet, caramelly, toasty, and utterly delightful. I used it for the browned butter pumpkin cookies I made my postpartum friend, which I will be bringing to her place tomorrow. She recently had a baby, and I wanted to bring her more food and cook for her. She texted me and said she was really enjoying the hawthorn tea blend I made for her, especially because it had cinnamon, and it felt very cozy for fall. So given this, I figured browned butter pumpkin cookies would go with her “autumn cozy” feelings.

I was packing up the cookies this evening and decided to try one fresh. And it was truly delicious: rich, pumpkin spicy flavor, with caramel notes from the browned butter. The sugar level was perfect and melded into the butter like a dream. It was soft and chewy, with this almost addictive texture that mirrors that of snickerdoodles. When I thought more about it, these really are the pumpkin and spice version of snickerdoodles! My snickerdoodle-obsessed friend would have loved these cookies. Chris even declared these cookies “Tim Tam level,” which coming from him is quite high praise. Scientifically Sweet recipes never fail to be a delicious success.

I drew the line at one cookie for today, though. Now that I am nearing 40, I think a lot more about how many sweets and rich foods I eat. That single cookie had about 11 grams of sugar. 😀 I loved it, but I do not need to eat too many of them in a single sitting.

Very “clean” baking mixes

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The neighbor I’ve been hanging out with while having play dates with our kids gave me a Simple Mills box mix for banana muffins or bread loaf. She said she has so many of this brand’s mixes that she’s gotten bored of the flavors, and she thought that maybe I could work my baking magic and jazz it up. The slogan is, “Only purposeful ingredients. Nothing artificial, ever.” The mix is gluten free and vegan (though it does call for three eggs and suggest using yogurt in place of water to increase moistness of the muffins). And when you look at the “simple ingredients” list, it just lists these: Almond Flour, Banana, Organic Coconut Sugar, Arrowroot, Organic Coconut Flour, Baking Soda, Organic Cinnamon, Sea Salt.

Based on the above ingredients list, there’s no weird artificial or “natural flavors.” No dyes or preservatives are listed. No weird names of things that the average person cannot pronounce are here. The average grocery store box mix has preservatives like propionate, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and other emulsifiers. Simple Mills really is what it states: straightforward, simple ingredients. I wanted to believe this had to be good, so I decided to whip it out today and see how it was.

The instructions say to use three eggs, 1/2 cup water, and 1/3 cup oil. I used two eggs, replaced one egg with a “flax egg” (1 tablespoon ground flaxseed to 3 tablespoons water), replaced the water with yogurt as the suggestions stated to increase moistness, and used 1/3 cup coconut oil. The mixture seemed really thick, so I added some coconut and oat milk to thin it out a bit. I also wanted to add more spices because the only spice mentioned here was cinnamon, so I added some ground cardamom, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and mace. I mixed it all up, added the batter into my mini muffin pan, and baked it. The bake time was also longer than I thought by about 50 percent, which was weird, but I’d rather have done muffins than liquidy ones.

Once the muffins were done and cooled, I tried one. It did not poof up the way wheat flour muffins do and was quite flat on top, but the flavor was pretty decent. The texture was soft and on pair with other almond-flour-based breads/muffins I’d had before. The spice flavor was very good. The one downside, though, was that there was absolutely zero taste of any banana. The spices, coconut milk, and oat milk had completely drowned out any banana fruit flavor.

I had one first and didn’t tell Chris what I thought. I did not want to influence what he tasted or thought. After he had one, he immediately said, “Not bad. Did you put something Indian in it?”

Olive oil cake with buttermilk and Tunisian extra-virgin olive oil

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Last year, after over a decade of having the famous Maialino olive oil cake recipe bookmarked, I finally made their cake for an extended family gathering at Chris’s parents’ cousins’ house a few blocks away from us. It was a huge, tall cake: nine inches in diameter, over three inches in height. Even with over 15 people in attendance, we had a lot of leftover cake. So, I did take about a third of the cake home. It was a beautiful and delicious cake, but I remember it was quite dense and large, so definitely not an everyday cake that I could just whip up if a couple people came over for dinner. I needed an equivalent that was lighter, fluffier, smaller, and with an airier crumb.

After I made that cake in the spring of last year, I went searching for a different olive oil cake variation, and lo and behold, I found what seemed like the perfect one on Serious Eats (where else?!). The Serious Eats recipe for olive oil cake can be comfortably made in an eight-inch cake pan with a two-inch height (so a lot more doable if we had a party of four or five dining together). It uses just one egg (versus Maialino’s three eggs), and to create a more complex tasting crumb, instead of milk, it uses buttermilk. The whole mixing process from end to end could take just five minutes if you have everything pre-measured out; the entire cake bakes in 33 minutes! This recipe uses 3/4 cup of olive oil, while the Maialino recipe uses 1 1/3 cups (same flavor impact, a lot less olive oil, which when you are buying a premium variety, is very expensive!). Of course, with an olive oil cake, the olive oil flavor is the star of the show, so you want to use the purest, freshest, most delicious olive oil you can get your hands on. I finally pulled out my Terra Delyssa Tunisian extra virgin olive oil for baking this cake. I was excited about Terra Delyssa when I found it at Costco this past spring, and I knew it would be perfect for baking based on how fresh it was (just picked and processed this past February!).

After I baked and un-molded the cake, I loved how light it felt in my hand as I placed it on a serving plate. And when I cut into it this evening after dinner and had my first bite, it tasted like the most perfect olive oil cake: rich in olive oil flavor, not too sweet, a light, fluffy crumb, and extremely moist. I used lemon zest and some homemade rose water for extra flavor, and that extra citrus really complemented the olive oil flavor well. This Tunisian olive oil is rich and grassy — it was really perfect for baking an olive oil cake. Now, my search for the perfect olive oil cake is complete! I won’t be looking for another one again. In the future, I may vary this up by adding a mix of orange and lemon zest, or maybe a couple teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon or orange juice. There are so many possibilities with this gorgeous cake.

True passion in local desserts in Ditmars / Astoria

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I half joke with a food-obsessed friend that if it weren’t for Kaia’s existence, most of my time outside of work would be spent thinking about what to eat, where to eat, and what I want to cook to eat next. This is not necessarily a total exaggeration: if you take a look at my Google Maps bookmarks lists, you can see that as of today, I have 672 bookmarked places I have either eaten at and enjoyed or would like to eat at (and have not been to) just in New York City across all five boroughs; some of that list is sprinkled with random independent bookstores, boutique shops, and houseware stores, but the vast majority is food. It seems like almost every day, I am adding yet another place I want to try to my list, whether it’s being recommended from someone on Instagram, Eater, The Infatuation, The New York Times, or a friend. Chris and I have a shared Melbourne, Australia, list of 299+ places. I also have created Google Maps lists for places we have visited (like Rhode Island or Guatemala) and will visit (Lima and Cusco, Peru). Each of those lists has at least 40 places bookmarked. No, we’re not planning to eat at 40-plus places in the several days we’ll be in each place. But hey, it’s good to have options depending on where exactly you are and what you are in the mood to eat.

Pastries by Anne is a dessert spot in Ditmars that I’ve had on my list for a while. It is owned by a Thai female chef who was educated at the Institute of Culinary Education and externed at Daniel. The main draw for me to come here was the Asian-flavored caneles. Anne has standard caneles available every day of the week, but on weekends, she chooses one special Asian-inspired flavor and adds it to her line-up of sweets. On the weekend we came, she had Assam (tea), and of course, I got one of these plus a standard one. She was actually at the counter, so we made some small talk. I asked if she had any other recommendations, and she steered me toward the pandan tiramisu, so I added that to my goodies and went on my merry way.

The Assam and regular caneles were insanely delicious, even when we had them about two days later. The texture and flavor were incredible; they were likely the best caneles I’ve had in New York City. the insides were custardy, almost spongy, caramel-like. The Assam tea flavor really sang! The only other caneles I’ve had that truly blew my mind were the ones we had in Bordeaux, France, the birthplace of the delicious canele, back in 2015, so it’s been a while since I really, truly was obsessed with a canele.

Unfortunately, I think I left the pandan tiramisu for too long. By the time I ate it later in the week, the mascarpone had already soured. This masked the pandan flavor completely, which was lost in the sourness. I was already messaging with Anne about how much I loved the caneles. She remembered me and checked in to see how I liked the pandan tiramisu. I was honest with her and told her it tasted sour, so I think something went wrong; maybe we didn’t keep it at the right temperature or eat it in time? Anne clearly felt bad; she apologized and said that anytime I could come out to Ditmars again, she’d remember me and give me a new cake. It was such a kind, generous offer. But given Ditmars is not too close to me, I couldn’t commit to when that next time would be.

The next thing I know, this morning, she posts on her Instagram that her storefront is CLOSING DOWN. She will be working as a consultant for premium airline catering, and so her kitchen will be open only for special orders, random drops, and pop-ups from the end of June onward. On the one hand, I was really happy for her as a small business to have a stable income stream and have her delicious flavors reach a broader audience. But on the other hand, I felt sad that I couldn’t just drop in whenever I wanted (selfish, I know. But when a girl needs her canele…). I messaged her to wish her well, and she said that her offer still stands: whenever I come out to Ditmars next, I can have the pandan tiramisu or any cake she offers on the house, and she’d definitely remember me and welcome me back. She said she was blessed to meet me and hoped we could keep in touch.

I was really floored. First, I already felt it was beyond generous for Anne to offer me a replacement cake, even if the error was on my side in not storing it properly or waiting too long to eat it. But then, she said I could have any cake, that she’d definitely remember me, and welcome me back anytime. She’s clearly a very talented and extremely humble and sweet person. She’s the small business owner you wish you could always, always support in any and all ways possible to ensure her success. How can you find fault in someone who is creative, talented, humble, and at the end of the day, just really wants you as her customer to love and savor what she is creating from the heart?

Modern version of Chinese New Year (sticky rice) cake – 年糕

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For Chinese New Year since I started living on my own, I would make traditional brown sugar based nian gao or 年糕. It’s an extremely plain cake, with only three main ingredients: glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, and water. You mix it into a thick dough, shape it into a round cake pan, and steam it for an hour. The cake it topped with some white sesame seeds and red dates for presentation. Then, you cut the cake Chinese style into rectangular slices, dip in egg, and then pan fry it. The egg and pan frying make this dish tasty. Everything else always feel like eating carbs and sugar for the sake of it. In the beginning, I made it for nostalgia. But I gradually realized that I didn’t really care for this dish at all and needed to change it up so that it was appropriate to my tastes today.

I had leftover black sesame paste from my black sesame glutinous rice balls I made earlier this week (which are currently in the freezer waiting for my party tomorrow). I also knew I wanted to use ube since I had just less than a pound of frozen grated ube waiting to be used in my freezer. I kept thinking about black sesame swirled into ube for a new version of nian gao, and I figured this would be a good time to try and make it happen. A purple cake with a black swirl sounded very aesthetically pleasing in my head, and a bit unique even. So I thawed the ube out, mixed it into a batter of glutinous rice flour, eggs, white sugar, coconut milk, oil, and a little vanilla extract. This is probably the first time I was truly winging a recipe and hoped for the best. I swirled some black sesame paste on the top with the tip of a chopstick and then put it into a loaf pan in the oven for about 45 minutes. And out came this black oozy purple cake that ended up being quite addictive. The texture was soft and squishy. The black sesame was messy, but it really did complement the cake. Even though it wasn’t the prettiest thing once sliced, I think it’s still good to serve for tomorrow.

Next time, I am considering keeping the ube cake base the same, but perhaps mixing the black sesame with cream cheese so that it becomes a version of black sesame cheescake ube New Year’s cake! That will be real fusion right there!

Cantonese desserts, fresh steamed fish, and Huacheng Square

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Today is our last full day in Guangzhou. It’s crazy that our time here went by so quickly. We’re doing an early breakfast at the hotel tomorrow morning before heading to the railway station for our 10:30 train back to Hong Kong. It’s a bit bittersweet: I would love to have another few days to further explore Guangzhou, but I’m looking forward to going back to explore and eat Hong Kong for 1.5 days before heading back to New York. And frankly, neither Kaia nor I are going to miss these squat toilets in mainland China. I’m looking forward to being back in the land of super clean and pristine public toilets of the Fragrant Harbour City!

On our last full day here, we visited the historic Yong Qing Fang district, which is in the old town of Guangzhou. Once upon a time, Yong Qing Fang was a gathering place for the literati, martial arts actors, and Cantonese opera actors, including Bruce Lee’s father, Hoi-Chuen Lee, who was a famous Cantonese opera star. Hoi-Chuen Lee has a home that has been re-branded as “the ancestral home of Bruce Lee” and is a (free) tourist attraction in the area. We visited it today, and it’s a beautiful place that is like something out of historical Cantonese dramas I used to watch with my grandma as a child: lots of old wood and brick, along with delicately carved doors and walls, and carved glass screens. Though as Chris said, it was a bit of a stretch to call it the ancestral home of Bruce Lee; Bruce Lee seemed to have spent most of his life either in Hong Kong or San Francisco. The feel of the district is both old and new, traditional and modern. The original location of Tao Tao Ju is here; from the photos of the original Tao Tao Ju, they did a pretty good job keeping it looking like it did back in the day in 1880 when they first opened. Most of the old building here have been renovated, but they intentionally retained their original architectural style and historic value.

While here (and in Hong Kong), I wanted to maximize the Cantonese-style dessert eating as much as possible. Cantonese desserts are known for their “tang shui,” or their “sugar water,” or sweet soups, so we definitely maximized on these types of desserts while here. In a single day today, we visited two different Cantonese dessert shops in the area: Bai Hua and Nan Xin. We tried five different desserts: egg custard soup with white sesame tang yuan (filled glutinous rice balls), which was unique because I usually have only seen black sesame filling, not white; mango sago with coconut milk; ginger “double skin” milk custard, coffee milk custard, and mango, coconut, grapefruit sago with a mango puree. Chris found enjoyment in all the desserts other than the ginger double skin milk custard, which was far too spicy and gingery for him. For me, it was like a little bit of heaven: it was clear they freshly juiced this ginger — it was no joke! And to think that if you add 1 RMB to your order, you could even get EXTRA ginger! While he did like them, his immediate comment was, “This is good, but it’s no gulab (jamun)!”

For lunch, we ate at a seafood restaurant called Shenggangwan, which is located on a higher floor of a building in the Huangsha Aquatic Products Market. The market is exactly what it sounds like: a fresh wholesale seafood market with every possible sea creature you could imagine. We saw crabs bundled and knotted in ways I’d never witnessed; massive prawns, slimy looking sea cucumbers, and some very aggressive and antsy fish in all shapes and sizes. I wanted some fresh seafood, so I ordered the whole fish special of the day, which was a leopard coral grouper. It’s red and white on the outside with a white flesh. It was steamed and prepared the traditional Cantonese way, with ginger, scallion, and sweet soy. While it was tasty and perfectly moist and well cooked, to Chris’s point, the fish itself didn’t have much depth of flavor. And when we found out how much it was when we got our bill, we had a bit of a shock. “Market price” really should be checked before buying… We also ordered extremely garlicky gai lan and a plate of beef chow fun to appease Pookster, both of which were super cheap by any standard, especially compared to our fish! As a bit of comic relief, the servers were all completely besotted by Pookster. They loved watching her eat, and especially loved it when I was feeding her fish I deboned. They kept coming over to praise her and say how cute she was and what a good eater we had. I felt like they were likely watching us the whole time, giggling to themselves and commenting on not only Kaia, but our racially mixed family and how I get my brown husband to eat Cantonese food. Kaia also loved the little artificial ponds set up around the restaurant and kept watching the fish. When I told her it was time to leave, she insisted that she go and say bye to all of them. She kept saying “byebye!” and waving to all of them multiple times. It was really cute, and some of the servers on break watched and laughed.

Towards the end of the day, we walked around and explored Huacheng Square, where we admired all the very tall and colorfully lit and flashing buildings surrounding us. My favorite building is one you can see when in the square and looking towards Canton Tower: it looks as though there are strung crystals dangling from the top of the building, sparkling in hues of blue, purple, and silver. It was also clear that the powers that be wanted to instill some sort of mood into visitors of the square: classical music was playing at just the right volume during our entire walk through discreet speakers. I loved how grand and sprawling this square was. It’s really the kind of place you could just sit and relax in.

We ended the day with Hong Kong style hot pot near our hotel. Kaia had a field day with the order of clams Chris ordered that we let her toss into the pot. It also felt like that night, she knew we were leaving and didn’t want our time in mainland China to end: she kept stalling sleep that night in her bed in a separate room. Whenever she heard Chris cough, she said she had to go check on him to make sure he was okay. She did this at least three times before Chris insisted she had to go back and sleep in her own bed.

“Daddy coughing. I need to go check on Daddy,” she insisted, as she’d get out of bed and run over to our bed.

That’s my concerned and loving Pookie.

An autumn take on a beloved “pick me up”: pumpkin tiramisu!

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I have a very long list of all-time favorite desserts. But high on that list, if not on the top of that list, is tiramisu. In Italian, tiramisu translates to “pick me up,” which is exactly what this dessert delivers. It’s light and fluffy because of the soaked ladyfingers, usually in a mixture of strong coffee/espresso and a liqueur, traditionally marsala, but oftentimes substituted with dark rum, coffee liqueur like kahlua, or amaretto. And it’s creamy because of the whipped dreamy mixture of mascarpone, cream, sugar, flavorings like vanilla, and airy egg yolks.

I’ve oftentimes been inspired to make different versions of tiramisu given how easily the format of it lends to different flavors. I’ve seen delicious, tempting versions, ranging from blended mango, matcha, hojicha, and even ube. But the issue is usually, when you make a tiramisu, it makes a HUGE portion, usually in a 9×13″ pan. So when I knew that one of my best friends and her mom would be coming over for dinner on Thursday, I figured this was my last opportunity this year to make a dessert at home, so I make a pumpkin version I found that was recently published on Serious Eats. Kaia and I spent some time on Wednesday night making it by whipping the mascarpone mixture, dipping the ladyfingers (pre bought) into the coffee / dark rum mixture, and then layering the soaked lady fingers with the mascarpone. We let it soak and meld almost 24 hours before serving it. And I’ll be honest and say: this no-bake effort was very worth it. The ladyfingers were perfectly soaked and soft. And the mascarpone mixture with it was like little soft pillows of sweetness in the mouth, with hints of autumn spices throughout. This recipe was definitely a keeper.

Kaia unfortunately did not appreciate the tiramisu when she had a lick. Instead, she tried to pick off all the chocolate shavings I topped the tiramisu with. But hey, that just meant more dessert for the adults, and more frozen tiramisu from when we’re back from Australia and Asia in the new year!

Fall spiced cooking and baking – apple fritter cake

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While I love spring and summer and all the delicious produce that comes with it, I will be honest and say that my favorite time to bake is most definitely in the fall. Autumn spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger are some of my favorites to use in baking, and they always go well with autumn produce, like apples, endless squash, pumpkin, and pears. While I love summer fruit desserts, summer is not my favorite time to have my oven on, which would make my house even hotter than it already is. Having the oven on for baking in autumn and winter make the house smell and feel more cozy, plus they also help to heat up the place when the temperature drops. For me, from a cooking perspective, I ring in the fall by baking something with apple or pumpkin in it. Last weekend, I made a light pumpkin cake to bring over for Kaia’s play date. This week, since my friend is visiting from out of town, I decided to use it as an excuse to bake another autumn treat that has been on my list, which was Scientifically Sweet’s latest cinnamon apple fritter cake.

A few years ago, I made apple cider donuts from scratch at home in the fall. While they were absolutely delicious and fun to make, it was time consuming since they were yeast donuts. Plus, they took an ungodly amount of coconut oil to shallow fry, which was both messy and expensive since coconut oil is not cheap. I’ve previously made a German style apple cake a couple autumns, which I enjoyed; Chris had even said it was likely the best dessert I’d ever made at that point in time. This autumn, I wanted something that was more of a mashup, and so this apple fritter cake was the perfect marriage of these desires. Scientifically Sweet describes it as tasting like “a cinnamon apple donut without all the oiliness from deep frying.” Granted, I think the best donuts do not feel oily, nor do they taste heavy at all; in fact, the very, very best donuts are so deceptively light that they feel like you can eat half a dozen of them and not even realize you ate that many. But regardless, this description sounded perfect to me.

I also just purchased a new bag of all-purpose flour so that I can start baking some breads. Chris requested breads that he could enjoy with jam, so I’m likely going to make no-knead brioche soon. And then I also want to make some yeast-based rolls, so I also have sweet potato yeast rolls on my list to make. Baking yeast bread in summer never seems fun, but baking it in the fall and winter seem like the perfect indoor activity. Who knows – maybe Kaia will want to get involved, too. Or… maybe she’ll just eat it all.

Vegan lemon olive oil cake

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Vegan baking is not something I ever imagined really getting into while I was in high school or college. I did bake a few vegan brownie recipes while in college because someone I worked with one summer inspired me with her own veganism. But I always thought of vegan baking as annoying because of all the substitutions that have to be made, and how not intuitive it all is. Eggs are typically used as a binder for cakes, cookies, and pancakes, so what do you use in place of them? The two major options in the realm of vegan baking seem to be a) flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flaxseed to 3 Tbsp water), and 2) aquafaba, which is a term for the bean liquid left in a can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas). How do you get buttery or creamy richness without butter or cream? You can use a rich oil like coconut oil or olive oil, or you can make cashew cream with soaked cashews blended with some water.

Once I started reading about all the alternatives, I realized it actually wasn’t that hard after all. But you can’t really just tweak a recipe and make 1:1 substitutes to make it vegan. You really have to start from scratch. And so I had this vegan lemon olive oil cake bookmarked for ages, but I never made it until today. I got inspired to make it after the non-vegan orange olive oil cake was such a hit at Chris’s mom’s cousin’s place a couple months ago, and I wanted to see how I could make a version of that cake but a) not use as much olive oil and b) not use as many eggs, or any eggs at all, as that recipe I originally used calls for a LOT!). All these ingredients can get really expensive. Plus, we’re living in high inflation times. And for baking, I rarely have heavy cream or cream cheese on hand, so it would be nice to get substitutes that are more pantry-based. This recipe had no egg substitute. I wondered if it would really bind together well or if it would totally fall apart. But I had been following this vegan baking blogger for ages, and she had over 68 5-star reviews, so I figured it had to be a pretty good recipe. I also thought it would turn out well when I saw metric measurements noted on her site. Ever since I got my cheap $10 digital kitchen scale, I don’t think I can go back to regular measuring cups for baking anymore. It’s so exact, and it’s just fun!

So I mixed the batter, added it to my greased, parchment-lined loaf pan, and baked it in the oven for 60 minutes. I let it cool and then unmolded it. Then I took it out and had a small slice, and wow – the edge piece was really crunchy, and the lemon and olive oil flavor really came out beautifully. The crumb was very moist and tight — not even a remote sign of falling apart. I used 10 grams less sugar because it just seemed like a lot of sugar, and the cake was just sweet enough to be called dessert.

I’m planning to share this cake with some neighbors, one of whom just had her second baby. I can’t wait to tell them that this cake is vegan!

Small-batch baking: lemon pistachio cake with lemon cream cheese frosting

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While I love cooking, baking was always my very first love. I still have fond, happy memories of being upstairs in my aunt’s kitchen, scooping out balls of cookie dough and placing them neatly on a baking sheet. I still remember the birthday cake she made me for my 5th birthday that was covered in a thick white frosting, dusted with rainbow sprinkles all over as I had requested. I sat there at the kitchen table and helped her mix and scoop the batter into the cake pan before baking… I also remember how my mom refused to let that cake be the centerpiece cake in the photos and pushed my rainbow sprinkled white cake off to the side in favor of this chocolate cake that I didn’t pick out or like. Yes, you have to remember the good with the bad.

Given that it’s just the three of us at home, and I don’t let Kaia indulge too much on sweets, there’s not too many mouths to bake for anymore. So when I get the opportunity to bake or feed more mouths, whether that’s because Chris’s parents are in town or we have friends coming over for a meal, I usually jump at the chance to bake something new. And I try to look for small batch bakes because I don’t necessarily need three or four dozen cookies, or to eat a cake for the next two weeks. For my father-in-law’s 71st birthday, I decided to make a cake that I thought of when thinking of Chris’s mom: a lemon pistachio cake with cream cheese frosting. It would be perfect because it’s a small batch cake, made in an 8×8 pan, as opposed to the 9-inch round monstrosity that was the orange olive oil cake from a few weeks ago that would require a small army to eat. This cake has toasted ground pistachios and lemon zest to give it a rich flavor, but it’s actually quite light and airy. It’s a moist sponge cake that pairs really nicely with a slightly sweet cream-cheese based frosting, with a little sugar, vanilla, and fresh lemon juice added to it. And what gives it its beautiful green hue is a secret ingredient: just a teaspoon of matcha!

This lemon pistachio cake was a beauty and a hit: both Chris’s parents had two generous slices each. There’s only three slices left for tomorrow. This cake was not only easy and quick to make, but also delicious and satisfying to look at and eat. I’m definitely making this again in the future!