Baking

I enjoy baking in my spare time. Though I have a slight bias for baking cookies and cakes, I also enjoy baking breads, savory pastries, and candies. My wife Paroma is a frequent contributor/taste tester in these ventures!

Summer Pistachio Cake

A pistachio and almond flavored cake with chocolate and vanilla buttercream, with summer-themed piping.

S’mores cupcake

A chocolate cupcake with a graham cracker base and burnt marshmallow meringue frosting. A great excuse to use the kitchen blow torch!

Kouign Amann

Kouign Amann is a pastry made with a laminated dough, with sugar folded into the layers. Think of it as a caramelized croissant. It is one of my favorite French confections.

Sugar Cake

A cake with three kinds of sugar: a moist sponge with burnt sugar syrup, a caramel sauce, and a spun sugar decoration on top. Surprisingly not as sweet as it sounds!

French Macarons

French macarons with a coconut buttercream filling. This was my first time making a cookie based on a meringue.

Coconut Cake

A coconut cake with buttercream roses. The cake itself is made with coconut milk and shredded coconut, and the cream cheese frosting also has a splash of coconut flavor. Based on this recipe.

Strawberry Cake

A strawberry cake through-and-through: this is a white cake with strawberry purée, iced with a strawberry cream cheese frosting, and topped with fresh (you guessed it) strawberries.

Floral Buttercream Mocha Cake

An espresso-infused chocolate cake with a floral vanilla buttercream frosting. One of my favorites so far!

Vanilla Crème Brûlée

A vanilla crème brûlée based on this recipe. Making this was an excuse to use a blowtorch to caramelize the sugar!

Chocolate Croissant

A chocolate croissant based on the croissant recipe here. I had more success shaping the chocolate croissants than I did a traditional croissant, though I hope to try traditional croissants again soon.

Nutella Babka

A babka swirled with nutella. Probably one of my favorite homemade bakes in terms of taste! Also the offering I gave to my PhD advisor as a substitute for not being able to bring chocolate to my (remote) thesis defense. Based on this recipe.

Hazelnut Cake

A three-layer cake infused with hazelnut liquor and fresh hazelnut. The frosting is chocolate-hazelnut (from scratch; nutella would have been too sweet). Definitely the cake whose icing job I am most proud of.

Mirror Glaze Cake

A “form over function” type of cake. My cousin stated she wanted a “purple cake” for her birthday, and this was the best I could come up with. The cake itself was a standard white cake with purple food coloring; the glaze is made from a mixture of gelatin, corn syrup, and white chocolate, with some gold food dust for extra effect.

Cake Pops

Red velvet cake pops for my younger cousin’s birthday. The cake is a baked red velvet decimated into crumbs and squeezed into a ball. The outer layer is white chocolate.

Bread Loaf

The first bread loaf I ever made. I thought it looked pretty good, but if I remember correctly, it was very slightly underbaked and had a somewhat strange taste. I either didn’t put enough salt or proved it for too long.

Classic Samosa

A classic potatoes-and-onions samosa. Though not exactly a “bake,” I’m adding it here since this was inspired by a challenge on The Great British Baking Show.

Blogs and Recipes

There are many good blogs with fantastic baking recipes. I’ve listed some of my favorite ones below.