Umami Mart

Sometimes store-bought trumps homemade. Mozzarella is definitely one. Peking duck is another. XLB, totally. You can make it all at home from scratch, which I’ve done, but it’s all readily available (especially in NYC), so why do I bother spending an entire day creating it? XLB at decent Chinese restaurants are not that expensive. The […]

PREQUELThe Good: Ode to JG’s Molten Chocolate Cake, Pt. I I should’ve known that the whole thing was a bad idea, but curiosity got the better of me yet again. I had been mesmerized by the omnipresent Domino’s commercial touting its Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes. Try as I might, I was losing the ability to […]

Part I: THE GOOD @Nougatine, NYC There are only a couple of desserts in the world that I could devote a series of posts to- molten chocolate cake (aka Lava, Warm, Flourless) is one of the chosen few. When it comes to dinner, I could easily spend a half an hour deliberating my entree choices; […]

Newest omiyage (gift) in the Akabori household from Japan: green tea Baumkuchen from a patisserie in Dojima, Osaka called Mon Chouchou. From the website, it looks like it is a relatively new shop (2003), that takes its inspiration from the old world of Osaka, calling Dojima the “New York of Japan.” Of course the most […]

I don’t like cheese cake. Especially NY-style cheese cake, which is like eating cream cheese as is. You are done after one bite, it’s enough. In Japan, we have baked cheesecake, which is very light and fluffy. This week’s recipe is how to make ever-so light baked cheese cake. The art of Japanese cheese cake […]

People in this country are obsessed with bacon. Bacon-wrapped pork, bacon-wrapped hotdogs, bacon-wrapped corn, bacon is everywhere. Last summer, I posted bacon chocolate, and there are a lot of sweet/savor combo recipes popping up and I was getting very curious about this combination. Sweet and salty is something we do enjoy. Chocolate-covered salty rice crackers […]

I rebattled a cake again this weekend. Though I didn’t tell you about the initial trial, I made an angel food cake two weekends ago. I had a little get together with friends, and made a fresh strawberry tart (sorry, no pic). For the filling, I made custard, and the recipe called for 10 egg […]

     Preface: Wedding Cake Perfection – Trial 1 Wedding Cake Perfection – Trials 2 & 3 Wedding Cake Perfection – Trial 4 Wedding Cake Perfection – Final Trial The day came, and went. The reception was wonderful, the couple looked very cute as you can see, food was good, and I got completely wasted. That’s […]

Preface: Wedding Cake Perfection – Trial 1 Wedding Cake Perfection – Trials 2 & 3 Wedding Cake Perfection – Trial 4 I was going to practice piping last weekend, but it’s kind of useless doing it on a flat surface. The difficulty of piping lies in the fact that you mostly pipe on sides. As […]

Preface: Wedding Cake Perfection – Trial 1 Wedding Cake Perfection – Trials 2 & 3 Seriously I am getting sick of this. I am usually a perfectionist when it comes to cooking/baking, but the smell of whipped cream is bothering me and worrying about overmixing the batter is giving me nightmares. Why? What was I […]