My bookcase is crammed full of books covering essentially one subject: food. More than 60% are cookbooks, the rest a combination of reference books, memoirs by food writers like M.F.K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, and Nigel Slater. I should clarify that when I say my bookcase, I mean the big tall one that dominates my space. I do have a smaller shelving unit that holds a small selection of “other” tomes–The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, all the Harry Potter books, my friend Rina’s Blame This on the Boogie, and various screenwriting manuals and bound screenplays.

After numerous moves over the years, I’ve purged a couple hundred paperback novels (many dating back to my college years as an English lit major), tired of carting boxes and boxes from location to location. Don’t worry, I still have many, many works of literature and nonfiction stored in my Kindle. But since my life revolves around food and drink, it seemed appropriate that my physical “library” would be made up of everything related to those subjects. No surprise, broken down into specific areas of interest the majority of the collection focuses on baking and pastry.

Wedged in between The Cake Bible, Baking with Julia, and Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook (vintage red and white 1950’s edition), are ten thick color-coded binders bulging with plastic-sleeved sheets of typed recipes. If you were to ask me how many recipes, I would venture to guess maybe 3000? The contents of these binders document my life as pastry chef and food professional, which began in 1992 when I enrolled in the culinary program at the (original) California Culinary Academy. Outside of a couple binders containing recipes from school and my first pastry production job at The Lodge at Pebble Beach, most of the binders hold recipes I’ve developed and fine-tuned over the course of my career as a pastry chef in the food and hospitality industry–jobs in independent restaurants, hotel restaurants, corporate and event catering, even my own baking business. The recipes tell not only a story of my life, tracing career milestones, but also offer a glimpse at past foods and cultural trends–what were we eating, obsessing about back in the 2000s? Apparently, we ate A LOT of creme brûlée and flourless chocolate cakes.

I wasn’t the most confident pastry chef in the beginning, reworking other people’s recipes to come up with dessert menus as I struggled to find my voice and establish my own style. What I learned rather quickly, was that I had to figure out what would and wouldn’t work in terms of production and presentation. I’d comb through magazines and cookbooks in search of inspiration and recipes, then realized that what I thought was cool ultimately didn’t translate very well in my real kitchen world. They certainly weren’t practical, not when it came to plating during an extremely busy service–like building a dessert with more than 5 elements, some cold temperature sensitive, in a blazing hot cramped environment. Of course, I also had to factor in the issues of kitchen space and equipment, like not having enough flat sheet pans to bake creme brûlée in and trying to keep them from overcooking in a convection oven. Oh, just shoot me!

When I committed a recipe to a sheet of typed text (not scribblings in a notebook), it meant that I had “finally” worked out the kinks, figured out the idiosyncrasies of production inherent in that particular kitchen space and come up with the best, most workable version to pass on to my staff (a.k.a. anyone other than myself producing the recipe). The recipes I developed during my tenure at Scala’s Bistro, for example, reflected a keen awareness of just how fast we went through product and how much we had to produce per recipe. My dessert menus routinely featured 8-9 items, about half accompanied by an ice cream or sorbet, if not showcasing it front and center, like my roasted cherry cheesecake ice cream sundae. This meant churning out at minimum a 5 gallon batch of ice cream base per recipe. I’ve had friends asked me for recipes from Scala’s, at which point I warn them they’ll have to scale them down first. Yes, I know I can be nice and do it for them, but what’s the fun in that?

As I transitioned from one pastry chef job to the next, my repertoire and binders grew bigger. Recipes that worked well in one place, needed finagling in another. Our signature pavlovas, which had baked to perfection in the enormous deck (still) ovens at Scala’s, didn’t come out quite as nice in the convection only ovens at the catering kitchen, much to my frustration. The mini popover recipe I developed to be foolproof when baked in a convection oven turned out not to be when we moved into a new kitchen space with very old convection rotating rack ovens. After a few failed attempts, my assistant and I figured out the key was switching to a higher-protein flour. Every new discovery led to another variation, which then spun off into an entirely different recipe.

Nothing stays the same…not really. But that is what I love about the process of developing recipes. Each one is a marker of a place and time. Like me, they are a work in progress. They’re not meant to be static because every cook or baker is different–not all using the same equipment and working under the same conditions. When I’m at home in my tiny kitchen, I rarely use recipes from my “professional” binders because either I’m too lazy to scale them down or they just don’t suit my needs, or both. Often, I’ll look them over for general proportions, then end up substituting ingredients to create something completely different–like my Korean chili paste-spiced caramel corn. These days, I don’t even type out recipes for myself anymore because I’m the only one using them. I have stacks of steno pads now, each one filled with recipe notes and scribbles along the edges reminding me to add or subtract an ingredient for the next iteration. The only exception are recipes I post in this blog, which enforce a degree of discipline and order. I do have to type everything out, document the process and list specific amounts for ingredients…otherwise readers like my friend Stephanie will get very annoyed with me.

What I’m Baking This Week…

Since the only time I actually type a recipe out these days is when I’m writing a blog post, I’ve decided to add this section as a way of exercising some discipline, so to speak. I don’t always have a recipe that pairs nicely with a particular blog post…plus I’m not in the mood to do the math necessary to scale down one of my professional recipes…so there you go.

My brother Sam has taken to texting me ideas for things he wants me to try out (translation: things he wants to eat). His latest suggestion was Paper-Wrapped Egg Cake, a staple of Chinese bakeries. It’s one of those items I don’t usually pick when I’m at a Chinese bakery. I don’t why, probably because there are always other more appealing items like pineapple buns, custard tarts, and baked bbq pork buns. The golden puffy sponge cake rises out of a hand-formed parchment cup like a cross between a soufflé and naked cupcake, with a texture that is cottony soft. It’s the quintessential “not too sweet” Asian dessert, something my mom loves.

If you are looking for a recipe, it’s not hard to find one online. I came across one from Omnivore’s Cookbook which contained no leavening agents, just the power of whipped egg whites and another one from Tea Break Cuisine on YouTube, which called for a tiny amount of baking powder to give the batter a little extra lift and stability. I tried both. Omnivore’s yielded a soft, tender sponge cake but Sam thought the crumb was too open, or as he described it, “had too many holes.” I had flavored the batter with 1/2 teaspoon of concentrated ube extract and vanilla, which turned the cake into a gorgeous purple hue and delicate flavor.

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Not satisfied, Sam suggested I try the Tea Break Cuisine recipe. This time I stuck to the traditional plain variety with just a slight hint of vanilla. In addition to baking powder, this recipe called for about 2g custard powder (Bird’s) which enhanced the eggy custard flavor of the sponge. I wasn’t mad about it. I liked the texture and flavor of this cake, which was the requisite cottony soft, moist, and mildly sweet. It actually could’ve used a tad more sugar and a teeny pinch of sea salt. Sam approved the test batch.

I did substitute a combination of all-purpose and cornstarch for the cake flour in the recipe because I thought it was unnecessary to use it when I had plenty of all-purpose and cornstarch on hand. I filled 6 parchment cups (fashioned out of 6″ parchment squares) on the first go around, which could’ve easily been 7 given the size of the muffin tin. The amount of cake batter in the cups made me a little nervous, afraid they’d spill out during baking. For the second batch, I increased the sugar by 5g, added a teeny pinch of sea salt, and paired the vanilla extract with a little concentrated passion fruit flavoring and coconut extract, and divided the batter into 7 parchment cups. The sponges baked up as wonderfully tall as the previous batch. I can see mom requesting these cakes for her next tea break with her buddy Mrs. Cheung.

Paper-Wrapped Sponge Cake (adapted from Tea Break Cuisine)

Yield: 7 cakes (baked in standard muffin tin)

• 7 parchment squares (6″)
• 4 large eggs, separated, room temperature
• 55g sugar
• tiny pinch sea salt
• 70 ml whole milk
• 30g neutral oil or melted cooled unsalted butter
• 1 t. vanilla extract (or any combination of flavoring)
• 65g all-purpose flour
• 5g cornstarch
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• 2g custard powder (e.g., Bird’s)

1. Preheat oven to 340F degrees. Adjust the oven rack to the middle section.
2. Nestle parchment squares into the muffin molds, spacing them out to avoid crowding. Make sure to pleat and press the sides so that parchment fits in evenly.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together yolks, 25g sugar, and salt until thick and smooth.
4. Whisk in the milk to combine.
5. Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and custard powder onto the mixture, and whisk to incorporate. Whisk in the oil and flavoring just until everything is smooth.
6. In a separate bowl or stand mixer, whip the whites until very foamy. Gradually whip in the remaining 30g sugar until whites form stiff peaks.
7. Gently fold the whites into the other mixture in 3 additions until all the whites are fully incorporated.
8. Divide the batter equally into the parchment cups. An ice cream scooper works well. Gently tap the muffin pan against a hard surface to knock out any large air pockets.
9. Place a shallow pan of hot water (about 1/2″ deep) on the bottom shelf, then placed the muffin pan on the middle shelf over it.
10. Bake the sponges for about 18-20 mins., rotating the pan once after 13 mins. and reducing the heat to 325F. Check for doneness with a toothpick or skewer.
11. Carefully transfer the sponges onto a cooling rack by picking them up by the parchment corners and lay them on their sides to prevent them from shrinking too much as they cool.