What I've Made
This is a list of the different “special” dishes that I’ve made. Most of these recipes are just from interesting Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok videos I came across.
Table of Contents
- Par-Baked Pizza
- Blueberry Cheese Cake
- Samosa
- Puff Pastry Pie
- Sourbread
- Cornflake Cake
- Blueberry Pound Cake
- Mushroom Sandwich
- “From Scratch” Taco
- Puff Pastry Dough
- Lemon Blueberry Cookie
- Espresso Chocolate Cookie
- Gamja Jorim
Par-Baked Pizza
Summary: Tried to replicate a Blaze Pizza I had earlier this month. I wanted a crispy, thincrust pizza that could be made within 45 minutes to an hour. I was able to make two pizzas - one 12 inch with mozzarella and one 8 inch with mozzarella and pesto. An interesting baking method that I tried was “par-baking”, where you insert the pizza dough into the oven without any toppings. You partially bake this dough for 5-8 minutes, take it out, place the toppings, and bake till the toppings and crust and finished. The hope was that par-baking could strengthen dough integrity (especially in the middle), and brown it at the same rate as the toppings (mainly the cheese). This worked for the most part, but there were some issues with the quality of the tomato sauce and the dough was kind of chewy. Maybe I kneaded the dough too much? Overall, I would try this again! Maybe not with the par-baking approach.
Pictures:
Blueberry Cheese Cake
Summary: Made a cheese cake with a “basque” burnt top. The inside was stuff with blueberries, and I made a quick and dirty blueberry-based syrup. This is one of my favorite dishes from both a cooking and eating experience. Although, I wished I whisked harder and longer so the cream cheese portion was smoother.
Pictures:
Samosa
Summary: Made an awesome Indian snack. Deep-fried with potatoe and pea filling, and the dough itself was made from scratch. One of my favorite Indian dishes and something I love sharing with my friends.
Pictures:
Puff Pastry Pie
Summary: A mistake at first. I wanted to make a traditional puff pastry, but it did not properly rise. I just readapted to be a pie crust and added some strawberry filling. It was very flaky, dense, and sweet - even without the strawberry filling. Definitely one of the most unhealthy deserts I’ve ever made.
Pictures:
Sourbread
Summary: Not the best looking picture, but a very simple sourbread dough when everything was closing up in 2020. Tried making my own yeast, did not go according to plan. Very hard on the outside, soft on the inside, but very flat with little to no rise. It tasted very nice though.
Pictures:
Cornflake Cake
Summary: A promising recipe I found on Instagram, but when I finished it, I realized that the cornflake base was harder than a rock. Still very good and very chocolately.
Pictures:
Blueberry Pound Cake
Summary: My first attempt at a poundcake. Infused the batter with blueberry and raspberry. The cake turned out mediocre but was very edible.
Pictures:
Mushroom Sandwich
Summary: I watched an Instagram post where a person made fake “meat” with oven-roasted mushrooms. I attempted to replicate with some normal white mushrooms, and I assembled a simple sandwich with it. The sandwich was pretty good - maybe a little too salty.
Pictures:
“From Scratch” Taco
Summary: I wanted to make a corn-based tortilla from scratch, and it was surprisingly simple and easy enough. The hard part was making the rest of the taco. Overall, it was a great tasting and cooking experience, and I would love to make tortillas from scratch again!
Pictures:
Puff Pastry
Summary: This is just a simple, handmade puff pastry dough with a simple syrup with fruit on top of it. Very tasty, but it took a lot of effort to make puffy pastry dough from scratch.
Pictures:
Lemon Blueberry Cookie
Summary: A very simple vegan cookie recipe I found online. Thought it would be nice to have that lemon blueberry combo that is often found in cake recipes in cookie-form. It turned alright. The recipe called for a cookie cutter to stop the cookies from being gigantic, but I didn’t have that. This resulted in the cookies becoming mishapen.
Pictures:
Espresso Chocolate Cookie
Summary: Another vegan cookie recipe I found online. This one is a traditional chocolate chip cookie with some instant espresso powder mixed into it. It was very gooey and sweet, and I think it gave me heart palpitations. I also regret adding normal milk chocolate chunks instead of traditional baking chocolate chips or baking cholocate bars.
Pictures:
Gamja Jorim
Summary: Recently, I tried a Korean braised potato recipe from a vegan Korean cookbook that was gifted to me. The recipe was incredibly simple and used common ingredients. I’d give it a solid 10/10.
Pictures:
