Recipe: Thanksgiving Leftovers Cake with Stuffing-Flavored Cornbread

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Would you have guessed from looking at these photos that the frosting on this cake is actually mashed potatoes?

My favorite part about Thanksgiving dinner is honestly the leftovers. I have been dreaming of this idea for a Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich cake for a while now, and I am so happy that it is finally the right time of year to share it with the world.

The concept of a savory sandwich cake in general comes from Scandinavia. A Swedish smörgåstårta utilizes sliced bread in place of cake layers, and has Scandanavian sandwich fillings like smoked salmon, creamy mayo-based “salads” like egg or shrimp, or sliced veggies; it’s then frosted with savory cream cheese or sour cream and decorated with the same ingredients that are inside. You can see another version of a sandwich cake I made here, which is a little more similar to the concept of a Swedish smörgåstårta, but with an English tea party twist.

For this sandwich cake, I took the idea of the Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich and brought it to another level.

Notes on the key ingredients for Making a Thanksgiving Leftovers Cake

The written recipe below goes into detail about exactly how the make the stuffing-flavored cornbread that will serve as the cake base for this savory layered sandwich cake. The measurements are for a 6-inch cake pan, which produces a very adorable mini cake!

I didn’t provide exact measurements for the other elements in the cake, since the whole point is to use up the leftovers that you have and even if those amounts may vary, the cake will still turn out as a delicious way to turn those leftovers into something completely new and beautiful. But here is what you can utilize to make this cake come together.

• Turkey Salad: If you’re reading this, you’re probably already a fan of the Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich, so you probably already have a way that you’ve been turning some of that leftover turkey meat into turkey salad. Or if you are like my household where we just like to celebrate as a couple, perhaps you are working with leftover roast chicken instead. I like to use all the extra skin and scraggly bits, chop or shred them all up, and combine that with some Japanese mayo, finely diced celery, and cracker pepper. Sometimes I even throw in some curry powder or chopped walnuts. However you like to make it, you’ll need at least enough to spread just a thin layer over one of the cornbread layers. If you don’t have a ton, chopping the poultry up finer will make the spread go further.

• Cranberry Something: I’ve long switched out making cranberry sauce for making or buying cranberry chutney or jam. Use what you have!

• Mashed Potatoes: Mashed potatoes are acting as the “frosting” for this cake. You want a consistency that is smooth and easy to spread without being too runny. To get them ready to use on your cake, heat them on low heat in a pot and add small amounts of milk, heavy cream, or even sour cream, stirring to combine each time, until you get a consistency that still holds its shape but feels soft and spreadable. Cool the mashed potatoes slightly before frosting the cake. What’s great is that if you don’t have a lot of mashed potatoes left over, you can just go for the “naked” look on the sides, as I have done for mine, where the sides are only frosted very thinly so the cornbread still shows through; if you have a lot of leftovers, on the other hand, you can opt for a fully frosted look.

Since Spouse and I are celebrating Thanksgiving with his family in another state this year, and because of the nature of having to create content before it actually becomes relevant, I did not have true turkey dinner leftovers to work with when I shot these photos. But I did have leftovers of a rotisserie chicken from Costco, some old cranberry-based “Christmas Jam” from a prior holiday trip to Knott’s “Merry” Farm, about a third of a bag of frozen mashed potatoes, and a few mini boiled potatoes. So this cake was very much made in the spirit of using up leftovers.

What I did not have, though, were stuffing leftovers, so instead I had the idea to use cornbread as the cake, but with seasonings reminiscent of that classic Stove Top stuffing of my childhood. I did not grow up having cornbread at Thanksgiving but I know it’s a staple part of the meal in other regions. This cornbread recipe is without buttermilk because whenever I buy buttermilk for a recipe, I am never able to use the whole carton. A combination of Greek yogurt and milk works in place of the buttermilk. I got the idea to make the cornbread “stuffing-flavored” from the Thanksgiving Stuffing Flavored Popcorn that I recently impulse-bought from Trader Joe’s.

How to Make a Thanksgiving Leftovers Cake with Stuffing-Flavored Cornbread

Ingredients for the cornbread

3 tbsp salted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp whole milk
1/2 cup medium-grind cornmeal
1/2 cup AP flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 heaping tsp chicken bullion powder
1/2 tsp unsalted poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp celery seeds, crushed
1 heaping tsp dried parsley
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg

Ingredients for the Cake

stuffing-flavored cornbread cake from above, fully cooled
chicken or turkey salad
cranberry sauce, chutney, or jam
mashed potatoes
edible flowers, as desired, for decoration
sage or other herbs, as desired, for decoration

Procedure

To make the cornbread: Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a 6-inch mini springform cake pan with parchment paper. Brush with a thin layer of melted butter and set the rest of the butter aside to cool.

Whisk together the yogurt and milk in a large bowl. Add cornmeal, stir to combine, and let sit for at least 10 minutes.

Whisk together flour, sugar, bullion powder, poultry seasoning, celery seeds, dried parsley, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir dry ingredients into the cornmeal mixture. Stir in egg and remaining melted butter.

Pour cornbread mixture into prepared cake pan and pick up and drop the cake pan against the worksurface a few times so the mixture rests evenly and the top is smooth. Bake for 25–30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Carefully remove cornbread from pan and cool completely (overnight suggested) before using as a layer cake.

To assemble the cake: Slice the cornbread into 3 even layers.

Place the bottom layer on the serving dish or cake board. Spread chicken/turkey salad over it. Place middle cornbread layer over the salad spread. Spread cranberry compound over this middle layer. Top with the top layer of cornbread.

Frost cake as desired with mashed potatoes. Decorate with edible flowers and herbs.

Recipe: Apple Cheddar Focaccia with Sage and Brown Butter

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This sweet-savory focaccia is perfect for when you want a fall baking project that isn’t a dessert. There’s no pumpkin spice here but there are a couple of tweaks from your typical focaccia that make this a unique treat, like the pieces of apples on top that will make your house smell amazing as they bake up in the oven.

I bought a variety of apples and cut them into fall leaves to make the apple decoration for this focaccia. Actually, these apple leaves were leftovers from an autumnal charcuterwreath that I made; you can find the recipe for that one here.

To make the apple leaves, I used cookie cutters to get the shape and a sharp paring knife to carve in the “veins”. Here are links to the cookie cutters that I used: oak leaf, maple leaf.

You definitely do not need to do this to bake up a delicious fall focaccia. It will definitely taste just as good if you cut the apple into slices and place those on top when indicated in the recipe below.

The other thing that makes this focaccia recipe special is the use of brown butter instead of olive oil. I did not taste such a crazy difference in the bread itself that makes this is an essential part of the recipe, but brushing the brown butter over the apples before baking did work some magic to make them smell extra delightful and a lot like apple pie, even though there were no pie spices.

Here is how you make brown butter:

Bring a stick of butter (I prefer salted) to room temp , then cut it into a few smaller pieces. Place them in a light colored pot or pan so you can easily see the color; a dark pan is not recommended. Cook the butter on medium-low heat, swirling or gently stirring occasionally until it starts to get foamy. Once it is foaming, stir constantly for 2–3 minutes, watching the color. Once the color starts to change, take it off the heat and keep stirring until all the foam subsides. The color should be like amber. If it is still too light, place it briefly on low heat again, remove, stir, until you get that amber-like color. Keep in mind that once heated to the right temperature, the color will change quickly and the fat solids in the butter could get overcooked very quickly if you are not vigilant about stirring and watching.

How to Make Apple Cheddar Focaccia with Sage and Brown Butter

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp brown sugar
2/3 cup warm water
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
2–3 oz white cheddar, cubed
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp brown butter
12–14 apple “leaves”
sage leaves

Procedure

Combine yeast, sugar, and water and let sit for 10 minutes or until foamy.

Whisk together flour, salt, and rosemary in a mixing bowl. Pour in liquid. Reserve a few cubes of cheddar for the top if desired and the rest to the mixing bowl. Fold bowl ingredients together slowly with a spatula until all the dry ingredients become moist; dough will be very sticky.

Add olive oil to a container with a lid (at least 4x larger than the dough ball). Grease interior then roll dough ball around until completely slicked in oil. Cover with lid to prevent dough from drying out and refrigerate overnight (or for 2 nights).

On baking day, line a 6–8 inch baking dish with parchment paper. Brush about 1 tbsp of brown butter onto the interior of the dish.

Fold edges of dough in towards the center to deflate dough and form a ball again. Place in prepared cake pan and let rise, uncovered at room temp, until dough looks jiggly and is filling most of the baking dish (2–4 hours).

Preheat oven to 425°F. Brush a layer of brown butter on top. Arrange sage, apple pieces, and reserved cheddar gently on top of the dough, then when ready, press each item in firmly. Drizzle half of the remaining brown butter over the top.

Bake for 30–35 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Drizzle or brush the rest of the brown butter over the top.

Cool slightly before removing from the baking dish and slicing up to enjoy.

Recipe: Fall Charcuterwreath with Homemade Cheddar Seed Crackers and Pumpkin-Shaped Sun-Dried Tomato Cheese Balls

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Lately, I have been really into making edible snacking wreaths because they combine my loves of food styling, arts and crafts, and eating cheese. So for this post, I partnered with Cabot Creamery to create a fall-themed charcuterie wreath (a charcuterwreath!) that incorporates their awesome cheeses in three different ways: homemade cheddar and seed crackers that are a dream for lovers of savory crunchy snacks, sun-dried tomato and gouda balls sculpted into adorable mini pumpkins, and cubes of their habanero cheddar to add a fiery kick of spiciness to the platter. 

A pretty wreath is not just for Christmas time and I think that a pretty autumnal charcuterwreath is an easy win for if you are trying to impress guests at a Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving gathering or if you are wanting to treat yourself to a cozy day of snacking at home when the weather is too crummy outside. Compared to a more typical charcuterie board arrangement, I like styling charcuterwreaths with all the different ingredients portioned out into individual bites and scattered around in the circle so everything can easily be grabbed off and enjoyed (and there’s no awkward fiddling with the communal cheese knives while trapped making small talk at the snack table). 

Personally, I’m always reaching for the cheesy bits of the nibble board and this post will go into detail about ways to use Cabot Creamery cheese to add a couple of homemade touches that will make the edible wreath extra special and tasty.

Cheddar Seed Crackers 

These homemade crackers, loaded with tons of crunchy texture from a medley of different seeds, yet beautifully delicate from their base of finely grated cheddar, are so very addictive if you’re someone like me who is always going to reach for a savory snack over a sweet dessert. I could not stop eating them while I was recipe testing. Fortunately, they are super easy to make! I never thought I’d be making my own crackers from scratch as I hate rolling out thin dough, but this cracker recipe keeps my rolling pin at the bottom of its kitchen drawer and keeps me happily munching.

Notes about the ingredients for the Cheddar Seed Crackers 

• Sharp Cheddar: Finely grated Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar serves as the base for the crackers. When spread out thinly and baked, the cheese crisps up into something delicate, lacy, and tasty on its own but even better loaded up with different crunchy seeds. I love that the tang of the sharp cheddar still permeates every bite no matter how many different kinds of seeds I crammed onto the surface.

• Cornstarch: I found that mixing the grated cheese with a tiny bit of cornstarch really helped with making the base of the crackers light and crispy instead of chewy. 

• Mixed Seeds: Using a medley of different seeds is what makes these crackers look so exciting. I used pepitas, sunflower seeds, sesame, golden flax, cumin, coriander, carraway, and celery seeds. Some of these, like the pepitas, sunflower, and flax add textural interest to the crackers, while the coriander, cumin, and caraway seeds bring wonderful flavor complexity to the mix. I have included the measurements that worked well for my household’s tastes in the written recipe below, but you can certainly adjust the proportions based on your preferences. I recommend using plain, raw versions of these seeds as they will get adequately roasted in the oven as the crackers bake.

Helpful tips and notes about making the Cheddar Seed Crackers 

• Be sure to use a cheese grater with smaller holes to finely grate the cheese bar.

• For this recipe, you’ll be baking sheets of crackers and then breaking them up into rustic smaller bites. I think this adds to the autumnal theme as each cracker is unique and crunchy, like fall leaves on the ground! I found that spreading the cheese into thin 9” x 6” rectangles on parchment paper allowed them to transform into evenly crispy crackers without a particularly long bake time. If you wish to bake everything as one big sheet across the whole baking pan for ease, note that the center may not turn out as crispy as the outer areas.

• You can make these a couple of days ahead and store them in an air-tight container. 

• As a bonus, these homemade crackers are gluten free! And all of Cabot Creamery’s cheeses contain 0g of lactose per serving, so you can feel good about sharing these even with those Friendsgiving guests who have sensitive tummies.

Pumpkin-Shaped Sundried-Tomato Cheese Balls

The mini pumpkins that you see on my charcuterwreath are actually made of cheese! The filling is so easy for these as well; just throw everything in the food processor. Using a skewer or toothpick to create indentations in the balls is enough to give them that pumpkin shape, and then how much effort you want to put into refining that look is up to you, but it’s well worth it because I think these are what really make the wreath give those fall vibes.

Notes about the key ingredients for the Pumpkin-Shaped Sundried-Tomato Cheese Balls

• Cream Cheese: This is what acts as the binder. Processing the other ingredients to break them down and combine them with the cream cheese will render a mixture that is easy to shape and sculpt into cute mini pumpkins.

• Gouda: Creamy, nutty Cabot Gouda adds a nice mild cheese flavor that pairs so well with the sun-dried tomatoes.

• Sun-Dried Tomatoes: These add a brightness and a hint of tartness that makes these cheese balls so snackable. Look for the dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, not the ones packed in jars of oil.

• Spices for Coating: I used a mild curry powder and paprika to give these mini cheese ball pumpkins their earthy orange colors. For the richer orange color, I used equal parts of curry powder and paprika and whisked them together. For the less saturated orange shade, I used just curry powder. I found that the flavors of these spice blends complemented the filling very well. Feel free to experiment with other spice blends to get the colors you desire. While the filling is already orange, I would not recommend serving the cheese balls uncoated as they will be more sticky to pick up without the thin layer of dried spice powder.

• Pecans: I used pecan halves split lengthwise (therefore pecan quarters) to be the “stems” for the pumpkins. Pieces of walnuts, pretzel sticks, or pepitas would work well here too.

• Parsley: I used parsley for the leaves of these mini pumpkins but you could use whatever small leafy herb you wish. Personally, I think that parsley and cilantro leaves are what best resemble real pumpkin leaves on the vine.

Helpful tips and notes about making the Pumpkin-Shaped Sundried-Tomato Cheese Balls

• Chill the mixture until it’s firm to make it easy to work with. For best results, I recommend making the filling a day ahead but doing the coating and shaping the day of. However, if you are trying to prep ahead as much as possible, you can do everything but adding the “stem” and the leaf in advance. The spice coating will simply have a more bled-in look if you go this route.

• I recommend scooping and rolling 2-tablespoon balls for a nice grabbable portion; the written recipe below will yield about 15 of these. However, for the photos of the wreath I made slightly varying sizes for a more organic look.

Assembling the Fall Charcuterwreath

Just a couple of visually charming and delicious homemade elements will be enough to make your edible wreath an extraordinary centerpiece, so you can certainly fill the rest of it with typical charcuterie board ingredients that require little or no prep. I really don’t think this part of the process should require much measuring, but I will provide estimates of the quantities I used for the wreath in my photos in the recipe below. I used a 10-inch plate for mine, but obviously to get that abundant look, the quantities you need will vary based on the size of the serving board you choose. My main advice here is to be sure to choose good-quality ingredients that will do justice to your wonderful cheesy homemade creations and lean in to the autumnal theme by selecting a variety of flavors that celebrate the season.

Here’s a list of what I used to complete my wreath:

• Habanero Cheddar: I cut up small cubes of Cabot Habanero Cheddar to bring something spicy to the board. I felt that of all of Cabot’s fantastic cheeses, this was the best to use as a stand-alone in my charcuterwreath because it packs such a punch of flavor and also happens to look so autumnal because of the flecks of habanero and jalapeno chili peppers. This is the boldest and spiciest cheese I’ve ever tried and if you like spicy foods like I do, you should definitely give this one a try too.

• Prosciutto: It can’t be a charcuterwreath without some sort of cured meat, right? I chose prosciutto because the thin, tender slices are very cooperative for styling.

• Apple Slices: I used cookie cutters to cut a variety of apples into the shapes of fall leaves, then used a good paring knife to carve in the “veins”. This is obviously a bit more effort than just slicing them up and I do silly time-consuming things like this because I am a food stylist. Feel free to skip this extra step and include normal apple slices! Either way, I found this Serious Eats article to be very helpful for learning how to keep my cut apples from turning brown.

• Grapes: Grapes are an easy and pretty way to introduce beautiful color to the edible wreath. I cut a small bunch of grapes into clusters of 3–4 grapes still attached together by the stems, and this made it easy to incorporate the grapes into the arrangement without having them rolling all over the plate.

• Pomegranate Arils: It’s always good in an arrangement like this to have something tiny that you can sprinkle into any gaps to make the wreath look nice and full. For this season, these tiny jewel-like bits were perfect.

• Sage, Rosemary, and Edible Flowers: Some fresh herbs will help add visual interest to the wreath. I thought sage and rosemary were the most on-theme for fall! I also included a couple of zinnias from my garden because I think they give the wreath a sophisticated flair. This is completely optional, of course.

I hope that this helps provide some fun inspiration for putting a twist on the typical charcuterie board when you entertain guests (or just yourself!) in this season of gathering and feasting. If you’ve made it reading this far, I am so thankful for you!

How to Make a Fall Charcuterwreath with Homemade Cheddar Seed Crackers and Pumpkin-Shaped Sun-Dried Tomato Cheese Balls

Ingredients for the Crackers

8 oz (1 dairy bar) Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar, finely grated
2 tsp cornstarch
6–7 tbsp raw pepitas or hulled pumpkin seeds
3 tbsp raw sesame seeds
4 tbsp hulled raw sunflower seeds
2 tbsp golden flax seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds, slightly crushed
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp celery seeds

Ingredients for the Cheese Balls

4 oz Cabot Cream Cheese, at room temp
5 oz Cabot Gouda, grated
1/4 cup dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, julienned
1/8 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp garlic powder
curry powder and paprika, for coating
~8 pecan halves
~15 parsley leaves

Ingredients for the Charcuterwreath

24–30 cheddar seed crackers
7–10 pumpkin-shaped sun-dried tomato cheese balls
2 oz Cabot Habanero Cheddar, cubed
1 apple, cored and sliced*
4 slices prosciutto
1 small bunch of grapes, divided into small clusters
1/4 cup pomegranate arils
sage
rosemary

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*If you are cutting the apples into fall leaves as shown in the photos, you will need at least 2 apples. Each apple yields 6–8 leaves.

Procedure

To make the crackers: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine grated cheddar and cornstarch and toss together gently until cornstarch is evenly distributed. On the prepared baking sheets, form four (4) 9” x 6” rectangles with the cheese mixture, ensuring that all rectangles are of even thickness. Combine all the seeds together and sprinkle the seed mixture over the cheese. 

Bake for 16–18 minutes, rotating the trays halfway. Cheese should be crisp and dry when tapped. Line a cooling rack with paper towels. Allow the cracker sheets to stop sizzling, then transfer over to paper towels to absorb away the excess grease. Cool completely, then break up into smaller cracker pieces. 

To make the cheese balls: Combine the cream cheese, gouda, sundried tomatoes, measured paprika, and garlic powder in a food processor and process until thoroughly combined. Chill mixture until firm (at least 1 hour) to make it easier to shape.

Sprinkle coating spices onto plates. For a richer, deeper shade of orange, combine equal parts curry powder and paprika. For an earthy orange, use just curry powder.

Roll cheese mixture into small balls and then flatten slightly. Roll in the coating spices and distribute the powder across the surface until each ball is coated evenly but very thinly. Using a skewer or toothpick, press in grooves to shape into pumpkin shapes. 

Break up the pecan halves lengthwise into rough pieces resembling a stem. Insert a piece of pecan in each cheese “pumpkin” to act as the “stem” and finish by adding a parsley leaf.

To assemble the charcuterwreath: Line the rim of the serving board generously with the cheddar seed crackers. Add the remaining ingredients on top as you desire, to make your own fabulous fall wreath!

Thank you so much to Cabot Creamery for sponsoring this recipe! Visit their website to find out where you can get their cheeses near you!

Recipe: Savory Cheesy Scallion Focaccia Cake (Overnight Recipe)

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This savory, cheesy focaccia features a more moist interior than a normal focaccia and a tender crumb on the inside that teeters the line between bread and a savory cake! Welcome to my latest installment in my journey to making delicious savory foods styled like desserts. You can see other recipes that fit this theme here.

In recent years, when my birthday is about the roll around, I’ve found myself feeling in the mood to bake myself a birthday cake. It’s a desire that comes around a week or so before my birthday, actually, as I am starting to get hyped up for whatever low key and very introverted celebration activities I have planned. I am all about treating myself for birthdays and usually buy myself a bouquet of flowers and a cute new dress, so making myself a little birthday cake is starting to become an extension of that. But there is just one issue with that: I don’t actually like cake!

At least, I don’t like birthday cake like the sweet sprinkle-covered cakes that are usually what people think of when they think of birthday cake flavored things.

It’s my birthday cake, so I can have whatever cake I want. And in past years, I’ve made corn mochi cake, Scandinavian sandwich cakes, or just a slab of focaccia decorated it to resemble a cake with creamy cheeses as the base for the “frosting”. That last one—the focaccia styled like a cake—is something I like to make fairly often, birthday or not. I’ll just make focaccia like normal, and since it already turns out as a snack cake thickness, I treat it like a savory snack cake. I’ll “frost” it with whipped feta or ricotta on top, and then make it look pretty with herbs and edible flowers.

This time around, I wanted something extra cheesy, and decided to try folding the shredded cheese directly into the no-knead overnight dough. Normally when I make cheesy focaccia, I’ll either stuff a layer of cheese in between two layers of dough before the final proof step (resulting in a melty cheese center), or I’ll add the cheese to the top right before baking (for a crisped cheese top). This year, I wanted to treat myself to a savory homemade “cake”, but I also wanted it to be super easy. So I set out to make my very low-effort mini overnight no-knead focaccia, where the ingredients literally just get folded together and left to bubble up overnight in the fridge. But I also decided I wanted it to be cheesy and flavorful, so I just dumped a bunch of shredded cheddar and chopped scallions into the dough too.

I discovered to my pleasant surprise that working the cheese into the dough from the very beginning means that the cheese is fully incorporated into the very structure of the bread, with its extra fat and moisture making for a softer interior. I normally think of focaccia as being golden and sturdy on the outside, with visible air bubbles and a craggy dry interior texture. But for the version in this recipe, the exterior is more pale, it’s springy rather than crisp, and the inside has a much tighter crumb structure. It is not at all dense, but instead it is light and tender and soft, much like a cake!

“Frosting” Your Focaccia Cake

Since I kept the bake time on the shorter side and the dough is holding more moisture from the cheese, this focaccia cake does not have the bubbly, golden-brown, sexy-looking surface for a regular focaccia. For me, this is totally fine because it is meant to be frosted like a cake! You can definitely still eat it as-is; it’s wonderful cut into wedges as soon as it is cool enough to handle and can be gobbled up as a snack or in place of dinner rolls or to sop up anything saucy like pasta. Just don’t expect that typically crisp focaccia look outside.

But if you are interested in making this as a form of savory cake, perhaps to serve as a birthday cake for someone like me who prefers things cheesy and salty over anything sweet, then you have a couple good options for how to really dress it up. After all, this delicious creation deserves to be beautified just as much as any fancy sugary confection—even though it’s actually super easy to make.

Here are two options for a savory whipped cheese topping to go on your focaccia cake:

• Garlicky Whipped Feta: This slightly tangy, salty option is great for if you want to incorporate tomatoes or vegetables in your cake decoration. To make it, break up 6 ounces of firm “domestic" (American-style) feta, place in a food processor, and add 1–3 garlic cloves and 3/4 tsp extra virgin olive oil. Process until a homogenous paste forms. Add 1/4 cup full-fat Greek yogurt and process until smooth. If the texture is too thick, add 1 tsp yogurt at a time and process again, until the desired consistency is reached. Refrigerate until needed.

• Salted Whipped Ricotta: I think of this whipped cheese spread as a thicker version of the salted cheese foam topping that you can order at boba/bubble tea shops. This is a good option for if you plan to decorate your focaccia cake with fruit, for a fresh seasonal sweet/savory treat. To make it, start with 4 ounces of whole milk ricotta and thoroughly drain and blot away the excess moisture. Combine this in the food processor with 2 ounces of mascarpone (that has just come directly from the fridge) and 1/8 tsp kosher salt. Process until smooth and airy. Refrigerate until needed.

Either of these options should form a thick, spreadable consistency, with enough for a very generously swooshing on top. Alternatively, they could also be used in a piping bag.

Decorating Your Focaccia Cake

Herbs and edible flowers make for beautiful decorations for a focaccia cake. For the cake shown here in the photos, I also opted to incorporate seasonal fruits. I used peaches, figs, and blueberries. Also shown are herbs (mint and basil) and edible flowers (pansies, zinnias, fennel flowers, sweet alyssum).

How to Make a Savory Cheesy Scallion Focaccia Cake

(Makes one 6-inch mini cake)

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp sugar
2/3 cup warm water
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp kosher salt
3–4 scallions, chopped
1/2 (packed) cup grated white cheddar
2+ tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Special Supplies

6-inch cake pan (springform recommended)

Procedure

Combine yeast, sugar, and water and let sit for 10 minutes or until foamy.

Whisk together flour, salt, and scallions in a mixing bowl. Pour in liquid and add grated cheddar and fold together slowly with a spatula until all the dry ingredients become moist; dough will be very sticky.

Add 1 tbsp oil to a container with a lid (at least 4x larger than the dough ball). Grease interior then roll dough ball around until completely slicked in oil. Cover with lid to prevent dough from drying out and refrigerate overnight (or for 2 nights).

On baking day, line bottom and sides of a 6-inch cake pan with parchment paper. (I do this by cutting a strip of paper to form a ring that goes inside the sides of the pan, and a separate circle of paper that sits flat on the bottom. A small smear of olive oil will help the paper stay in place.)

Fold edges of dough in towards the center to deflate dough and form a ball again. Place in prepared cake pan and let rise, uncovered at room temp, until dough looks jiggly and is about 2–2 1/2 inches tall (2–4 hours).

Preheat oven to 425°F. Pour remaining oil over the top and use fingers to dimple the dough, especially in the center. Bake for 20–25 minutes, until edges are slightly golden.

Turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature.

If desired, to make it look like a cake, “frost” the top with whipped feta or ricotta (see blog post for details).

This savory focaccia cake is best enjoyed the same day but can be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge overnight.

Edible Seascape Food Art for O Organics

Here is some client work I did earlier this year for Albertsons, featuring their O Organics line. The original prompt for this photoshoot was to make cute—but approachable—food art that invoked imagery of an ocean escape or summertime by the sea. We decided to go with an underwater seascape made of organic veggies. For me, it was so fun to think about which vegetables in the O Organics line could possibly resemble the fascinating plant life found growing out of the ocean floor. Until this project, I never realized how much cauliflower looked like mini corals, for example!

I used a smear of hummus and some chopped almonds to represent the sand for the bottom of my oceanscape, green beans for kelp/longer seaweed, and a combination of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots to make other coral structures. I turned ribbons of carrots into fish and made a crab out of red peppers. I honestly love that little crabby fella so much.

Here are photos from the shoot.

Recipe: Cheesy Mini Frittata Muffins with Pickled Jalapeños

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The base for this easy mini frittata muffin recipe is super simple—just eggs and a boxed pancake mix and a little cheese is all you need to achieve these cute, bouncy, and conveniently portable breakfast bites.

There are so many great combinations of fillings that you can add to the base batter to customize them. For these, I decided to go for a jalapeño popper vibe. I don’t think I’m ever not craving jalapeño poppers which is why I also have recipes for Jalapeño Popper Crostini (here) and Jalapeño Popper Stuffed Soft Pretzels (here). For this recipe, I mixed in pepper jack cheese and pickled jalapeños into the batter but you can change this to whatever you normally like to add to a frittata, quiche, or omelette. And the approach would be the same as for a frittata, quiche, or omelette—pre-cook the ingredients that need extra cooking time or release a lot of water and drain any super wet ingredients before mixing them in.

I have been using this easy egg + boxed pancake mix hack to make these since I was in college and they might be the oldest recipe that I still make today with relatively few alterations to when I would make them 20 years ago. One improvement that I have learned for it more recently, though, is to use a good quality pancake mix. This is NOT sponsored but I really like Bob’s Red Mill’s homestyle buttermilk pancake (and waffle) mix. I noticed that when using this nicer pancake mix, my frittata muffins turned out airier and more pillowy than when using the same (cheaper) pancake mix brand that I used in college. They’ll still be good either way! But if you are put off by denser egg things, go for a pancake mix that you also find produces light fluffy pancakes.

I thought of this recipe concept again earlier this year when it was pretty challenging to find eggs in stock at the grocery store and even when they were available they were super pricey. This caused me to by more mindful about using my eggs sparingly and I am still carrying that mindset with me even though the issue is not as bad as it was a few months ago. This recipe uses fewer eggs than you would need to make a frittata but really satisfies the same cravings, and much like an elaborate frittata, these are perfect for a brunch party!

Now, for my usual disclaimers about decorating with edible flowers. The flowers you see in the photos are safe to eat and I grew the myself in my own backyard. I used pansies and sweet alyssum and the leaves are parsley and dill. The flowers have very minimal impact on taste but I think adding some herbs on top gives them a nice look and adds a smidge of an extra depth of flavor. In this case, I think the dill pairs very well with the pickled jalapeños so if I were making these for myself and not for the ‘gram, I would have just gone big with the dill on top. If you do wish to decorate with edible flowers, this is a great recipe to do so because you are placing the flowers on a very wet batter. The moisture from the batter helps the flowers keep their color and shape in the heat of the oven. For best results, use very thin flowers and make sure they are fully in contact with the surface of the batter, as anything that is not touching the batter will easily shrivel up while the muffins are baking.

I recently learned that Starbucks has these things called “egg bites” that I guess are pretty popular; I haven’t stepped into a Starbucks in over a decade so I wouldn’t really know but based on looking at photos I’d say those look more eggy-textured whereas these are much more fluffy and have a slight hint of a Southern biscuit vibe that comes from combining the egg and the pancake mix. That’s why I call them frittata muffins—they are definitely like the texture and flavor of a frittata but in adorable muffin form.

How to Make Cheesy Mini Frittata Muffins with Pickled Jalapeños

(Makes 6 muffins)

Ingredients for muffins

3 eggs
2/3 cup American style dry buttermilk pancake mix
~2 cups grated pepper jack cheese
1/4 cup pickled jalapeños, thoroughly drained and roughly chopped
2 scallions, chopped

Special Supplies

6 muffin liners

Ingredients for Decorating (optional)

parsley or cilantro leaves
dill
edible flowers, such as pansies, violas, and sweet alyssum
1 tbsp butter, melted

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with paper muffin liners.

Beat eggs thoroughly in a mixing bowl. Pat pickled jalapeños dry of any excess moisture and mix in with the eggs. Stir in pancake mix. Then fold in scallions and pepper jack cheese.

Divide batter evenly among lined muffin tins.

Decorate if desired. Try to use only the softest parts of the herbs and flowers and press them against the surface of the batter, ensuring as much contact as possible to preserve their color and shape. Brush decorations with melted butter, again to help preserve their color while baking.

Bake for 15–17 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow them to cool and set slightly before removing and enjoying.

Sunflower Crudités Board for O Organics

One of my recent client projects was styling and photographing this summery veggie crudité board for O Organics. Crudités means "raw things" and it is a term borrowed from French that really just is a fancy way of referring to a nibble board of raw veggie sticks and dips.

The prompt for this shoot was to make something garden themed and summery out of fresh veggies and other products from the client’s catalog. I thought this sunflower food art would be a pretty way to create sunshine vibes that are also related to the bounty of summer gardening. Though I do love to incorporate edible flowers in some of my other work, I also love showing flower-lovers how anyone can create their own aesthetic flower-themed food out of everyday ingredients.

Here are photos from the shoot!

Recipe: Spring Veggie Crostini with Green Chili Cheese Spread

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For this recipe, I partnered with Cabot Creamery to come up with something that is deliciously cheesy and also celebrates the beautiful produce that the spring season has to offer. One of the things I love about spring is that everything is so green! Here in Northern California, everything from the rolling hills with grazing farm animals to the heaps of fresh offerings at the farmers markets is lush shades of green right now. All of this inspired me to make this Cabot cheddar-based cheese spread with roasted green chilies and green garlic. It’s my take on pimento cheese with a spring green twist, and I hope you find it as addictive as I do!

I wasn’t sure if I could call it “green pimento cheese” because there aren’t actually any pimento peppers in this, but that’s the easiest way to describe what I was going for and I am so pleased with how it turned out in the end. Pimento cheese is a cheese spread associated with cuisine of the American South and it is named for the red pimento peppers (also known as pimiento peppers or cherry peppers) that are mixed throughout. My version combines roasted Anaheim green chilies, green garlic (more on this later), some dry spices, and Cabot Vermont Sharp Cheddar—the one in the green plaid wrapper! I chose this cheddar because it’s a great everyday sharp cheddar that my friends at Cabot recommend for sauces and dips; it brought a nice tang that held up to the flavors from the produce.

This cheesy spread can be used in so many ways. It is great as a dip for seasonal crudité, spread on crackers, slathered into burgers, and so much more. But I thought I’d show it off in the way that I personally best know how—on some pretty spring-themed mini toasts! These crostini are an extension of that spring farmers market theme; I went to the market planning to just grab a baguette and some green garlic if I could find it and then next thing I knew I was bumping elbows with the other aunties picking out the plumpest looking snap peas and the prettiest pea shoots. When I think of what’s in season in the spring, I definitely think of peas, so it felt fitting to feature them on top of my spring crostini, along with sunflower sprouts, little bits of radish, and edible flowers, all with my green chili cheese spread to hold them down onto the slices of toasted baguette.

Notes on the key ingredients, prep, and substitutions for the Green Chili Cheese Spread

• Anaheim Chili Peppers: I chose to feature these chili peppers in my green chili cheese spread because they are very mild, have a nice fresh vegetal flavor, and tend to have a flattened shape which makes them easier to roast evenly. For this recipe, you will be completely charring them until the skins are black and papery and easily sloughed off. My preferred way to do this is directly on my gas stove as this allows me to keep moving them around until they are blackened all over. If you do not have a gas cooktop, you could do this over an open grill or under a broiler; just be sure to keep moving and rotating the peppers as needed to get an even char.

• Green Garlic: Green garlic is a result of farmers thinning out their garlic crop; these get pulled out of the ground in the spring while other garlic plants stay in the ground until the bulbs develop into the mature form that gets dried and becomes what we think of when we think of garlic. It is milder in flavor than mature garlic and can be found only in the springtime, at farmers markets or some local grocery stores that tend to source more directly from farmers. To prepare the green garlic for this recipe, you will only be using the white immature bulb with the roots trimmed off and up to the tender light green stalk, below the tough dark green leaves. Similar to how you prepare an onion, you’ll want to peel away the tougher outer layer of the stalk (usually the pretty purple part). You’ll be briefly soaking the chopped green garlic to take away some of the raw sharpness. If you can’t find green garlic, substitute 1–2 small cloves of peeled garlic and use boiling hot water for the soaking step.

• Japanese Mayo: I used Japanese-style mayonnaise because it’s the only kind I buy and I like creaminess and slight sweetness in the flavor. You can definitely sub in with whatever mayo you have.

• Dried Spices: Ground cumin and coriander add depth of flavor to the spread, and make it smell so good. While it is always best to toast whole dried seeds and grind them right before use, I opted to go with store bought ground cumin and ground coriander when I was testing this recipe and they still brought a lot of complexity to the spread. 

• Sharp Cheddar: This recipe uses a whole dairy bar of Cabot Vermont Sharp Cheddar so you’ll have more than enough cheese spread for the crostini portion of the recipe and you can use the rest as a dip, on sandwiches, and more. This cheese has a creamy texture and a nice buttery tang, and just the right amount of sharpness for making a versatile spread/dip. As a bonus, all Cabot Cheddars contain zero grams of lactose per serving so you can whip this up for a party even if you have lots of lactose-sensitive friends like I do.

Green Chili Cheese Spread Variations

Because I was making the spread mainly to use on crostini, I processed the ingredients well in the food processor to produce a more homogeneous consistency. But don’t expect something silky smooth when you are blending the ingredients together since you are working with a block cheddar here; instead, look for a texture similar to baba ganoush.

If you are planning on using this as a dip for crudité or for a burger spread, you could choose to keep the texture a bit more chunky if you prefer. Withhold one of the roasted peppers from the food processor and finely chop it with a knife. When adding the cheddar, process half of the amount first and then lightly pulse in the rest. Then fold in that chopped roasted pepper manually.

Notes on Making the Crostini

The written recipe below will show you what you need to make the crostini in the photos. But don’t feel like you need to precisely measure anything for that portion of the recipe! This green chili cheese spread will work perfectly with so many veggies and if you are able to visit a local farmers market before making your crostini, I encourage you to get what speaks to you. 

Here’s a full list of what I used:

• Snap Peas: To make these more Insta-worthy, I cut off one half of each pea pod (and snacked on the discarded pieces while I worked). You can definitely skip this step, but if you want to achieve this look, use a sharp paring knife and run the tip just to the side of the natural seam that holds the pod together, and it will come right off.

• Pea Shoots and Tendrils: These are the leaves and tendrils of a pea plant; other than at farmers markets, I see them at Asian supermarkets since we often cook them for a simple veggie dish. Usually pea shoots are sold with three segments attached together: the tendril, a thin stem with small-ish symmetrically shaped leaves, and then a thicker hollow stem part with bigger leaves. I used only the first two parts for my crostini. 

• Frozen Peas: I supplemented the pea pods with some frozen peas to fill in some of the gaps as I was decorating the crostini. This ingredient can definitely be skipped if you want to keep to all fresh toppings.

• Radish Slices: The tiny little flower shapes you see sprinkled over the crostini are made from French breakfast radishes and purple daikon! I sliced them thinly and then used a tiny flower-shaped fondant cutter to punch out the flower shape. If you do not have a tool like this, simply slicing French breakfast radishes into thin disks would still look so pretty.

• Sunflower Sprouts: Another young green that brings a springtime vibe to the crostini, the succulent leaves of sunflower sprouts hold up much better on an appetizer table than most microgreens. These come with long, crisp stems attached but I only used the leaves to decorate my crostini.

• Edible Flowers: I grew these pansies myself and love decorating my toasts with them but they do not contribute much to the taste of the crostini, so you can omit them if you don’t have them. Remember that not all flowers are safe to eat; be very certain about what you have before incorporating flowers into your food. Alternatively, I actually have a tutorial for how to make very edible pansies/violas cut out of purple daikon, which would be perfect for these crostini; you can check that out here.

Because I found myself snacking on whatever veggie scraps I had as I was testing this cheese spread recipe, the idea of crudités really stuck in my mind. So, in a way, my crostini are like mini self-contained edible crudité platters. Whether you opt for this approach or choose to layer something different over your green chili cheese spread, I hope your spring crostini bring you joy to admire and then promptly devour!

How to Make Spring Veggie Crostini with Green Chili Cheese Spread

Ingredients for the Cheese Spread

4 large Anaheim chili peppers
2 stalks (about 6–8 inches each) green garlic, trimmed and coarsely chopped
1 lemon
1/4 cup Japanese-style mayonnaise
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
8 oz (1 dairy bar) Cabot Vermont Sharp Cheddar, grated

Ingredients for the Crostini

1 baguette
4–6 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2–2 cups Green Chili Cheese Spread
pea shoots and tendrils
48 snap peas
1/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
4 french breakfast radishes, thinly sliced
2 oz purple daikon, thinly sliced
16+ edible flowers, such as pansies (optional)

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Procedure

To make the cheese spread: Char chili peppers directly on a gas stove (or a grill or under a broiler) rotating and moving often until the skins are completely black and papery. Transfer charred peppers immediately to a brown paper bag (set over a plate to catch the moisture) or a container with a lid (a bowl and plastic wrap works). Seal in the peppers to trap the steam and allow to rest until cool enough to handle.

In the meantime, zest and juice the lemon. Set aside the zest plus 2 teaspoons of the juice. In a bowl, combine the remaining lemon juice, the chopped green garlic, and 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Allow to soak for at least 3 minutes to remove some of the raw bite of the green garlic (or longer if you are sensitive to this flavor). Then drain away the liquid and set green garlic aside.

When the chili peppers are safe to handle, slough off and rinse away all the charred skin. Discard the tops, the seeds, and any pith. Pat dry thoroughly and roughly chop.

In a food processor, combine the chopped roasted peppers, drained green garlic, mayonnaise, seasonings, and the reserved lemon juice and zest. Process until a puree-like texture is formed. Add half the cheddar and process until homogenous. Add the remaining cheddar and pulse to the desired consistency, or process until homogenous. 

The cheese spread can be stored in a clean jar in the fridge for up to 1 week. For making the crostini on another day, allow the spread to come to room temperature for smoother handling.

To make the crostini: Prepare the pea pods and radishes as desired for food styling (see notes in above blog post for details on food styling).

Preheat oven to 475°F.

Trim away the end parts of the baguette and slice the rest on a bias into about 16 slices. Brush each slice on one side with olive oil and place on a baking tray. Bake/toast in the oven for 4–7 minutes, depending on how dark and crunchy you want your crostini.

For each slice, spread on about 2 tablespoons of the prepared cheese spread. Start decorating with the pea shoots, then about 3 snap pea pods, then the edible flowers to establish the general layout. Then fill gaps with the frozen peas, sunflower sprouts, and the radish/daikon slices. Add extra pea tendrils for extra flair. Repeat for the remaining baguette slices and have fun decorating pretty spring toasts!

Thank you so much to Cabot Creamery for sponsoring this recipe! Visit their website to find out where you can get their excellent cheeses, such as their naturally-aged cheddars, near you!

Kawaii Bento Bowl with Bunny and Baby Chick Rice Balls for O Organics

I got to make and shoot this fun bowl of veggies and rice balls for O Organics. The prompt was to make something cute and kawaii that was also achievable for anyone to make at home without any specialized tools. Bento bowls with cute animal rice balls were one of my first “food art” creations on my Instagram account (I first started making them for my niece) so I loved having an excuse to revisit this idea.

I used all O Organics products to make this. One cool product that they have is a “rainbow baby carrots” bag with different colors of baby carrots and that really made it easy to add color to the bowl. Scroll to the end of this post for notes on how I assembled the whole bowl.

Here are the photos from the shoot!

Here are instructions for how you can recreate this whimsical (and healthy) bowl for yourself at home:

How to make a veggie bento bowl with bunny and chick rice balls

How to make a bunny rice ball

Use a single serving microwavable rice bowl and microwave according to package instructions, or make your own white rice.

Wet hands to avoid sticking and form one large ball for the bunny head and 2 small balls for the paws.

Use a white baby carrot and cut in half lengthwise for the ears.

Cut eyes and mouth from a piece of red lettuce (which is actually a dark purple color).

How to Make Baby Chick Rice Balls

Mix some of the microwaved rice with curry powder to get the desired shade of yellow. Wet hands and form rice into two balls.

Cut beak and feet out of orange carrot slices.

Cut eyes out of a piece of red lettuce.

How to Make the tomato hearts

Cut grape tomatoes in half at a diagonal and rotate to form a heart shape. (This works best with longer shaped grape tomatoes, otherwise you will have to use 2/3 of two separate tomatoes)

How to Make the flower "sushi"

Use a vegetable peeler on persian cucumbers to form thin ribbons.

Layer 2 cucumber ribbons together to form a longer ribbon (overlap at least 1 inch) and then roll it into a circle.

Gently press some of the microwaved rice into the cucumber circle.

Cut slices of baby carrot in various colors from. Press these gently into the surface of the rice to form flowers.

Assembling the bento bowl

Fill the base of the bowl with salad greens.

Arrange the bunny and chicks to one side of the bowl. Arrange the flower sushi on the other side.

Fill bigger gaps with the tomato hearts. Fill any smaller gaps with extra lettuce or carrots cut into the shape of flowers.

Recipe: Cheesy Curry Burger Buns (Small Batch)

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This small batch burger bun recipe is for small households that don’t typically plan on eating burgers for more than half of the week. It makes four buns, so it is great for a small(?) family of four having a burger night together, but is really perfect for a household of just two, like mine, and I will explain why in a moment.

One of the things that I find very odd/annoying/puzzling is that it is impossible to buy a small package of hamburger buns from the grocery store. They almost always come in packages of 8, or at the very minimum, if I’m lucky, a fancy package of 6 brioche buns. Were hamburgers exclusively a party food at some point? I think it’s been quite a long time since families of 2 parents + 6 children were a common household size, so why so many? Is it possible that typical American families are eating burgers for dinner every day (something my Chinese-American brain can’t even imagine)? I’m not here to judge if you do, but I am saying that personally, there have been so many times I have been put off from planning a fun Friday burger night at home with just me and Spouse because I don’t want to buy an 8-pack of burgers and be stuck not knowing what to do with the remaining 6.

I am very adverse to food waste, so somehow it makes more sense to me to go through the time and effort of making my own small batch of burger buns from scratch than it does to get forced into buying too many from the store.

If you are like me, then this recipe is for you. And if you are like me, then you probably are also aware that that extra time and effort of making your own dough and baking your own buns comes with a much bigger payoff than just avoiding food waste—it in fact comes with the added pure joy of your home smelling amazing as the dough bakes and the satisfaction that eating delicious homemade bread can bring.

This recipe is perfect for households of two like mine because it means you have a pair of buns to eat when they are soft and fluffy and still warm from the oven, and then a pair to use for burgers. These buns have cheddar cheese and Japanese curry powder baked right in to them so they are plenty flavorful on their own and absolutely wonderful as snacking buns. Then you have the remaining pair of buns to use for burgers the next day, at which point they have had time to firm up slightly and develop the ability to function as perfect burger buns. Another thing that really annoys me is so many hamburger buns, from stores or at restaurants, just completely disintegrate when put to the task of actually being used to hold a burger patty and fillings. Other than just being delicious homemade buns, I am super proud of this recipe because of how successful these next-day buns were at actually keeping together the half-pound burgers I made with them.

Some Notes about ingredients for these cheesy curry flavored buns

• Active dry yeast: Active dry yeast needs to be activated in some sugar and warm water before use, as opposed to “instant” yeast which you can typically dump into your bowl with other dry ingredients. I always activated my instant yeast anyway as a good practice to make sure my yeast was still alive before using; I’ve accidentally used older yeast in the past without testing and my dough took 4x the estimated time to rise, even on a warm day. Since I am going through the process anyway, I started to use active dry yeast to be a little more old-school and I have been really happy with my bakes after making the switch. But you can definitely sub instant yeast if that’s what you have.

• Cheddar cheese: I wanted these buns to be flavorful and not just plain vessels for my burgers. Cheddar cheese, grated with the smallest holes of your grater (or one you’d typically use for parmesan on pasta) adds real depth to the buns and I think it helps with the structure too. Parmesan, romano, or asiago would also be good options here.

• Curry powder: I decided to amp up the flavor even more by adding some Japanese curry powder to my buns. There are a lot of other hamburger bun recipes out there and I wanted mine to be really unique, and I just love baking curry flavored things. Plus I think the flavor of the curry powder goes really well with the cheddar. Japanese curry is very mild, so these buns aren’t spicy. If you do not have Japanese curry powder or are not as interested in your buns packing such a punch of flavor, please feel free to omit this ingredient (but don’t skip the cheese!)

• Half an egg?: This small batch dough recipe only requires half of an egg, and the other half gets used for the eggwash, to give the buns a nice golden brown shine as they bake. First you just need to beat the egg to a homogenous consistency. Then you can eyeball dividing that egg mixture in half! Contrary to what more traditional baking cookbooks and pastry chefs might tell you, baking does not always have to be crazy precise. Making a dough like this is definitely about feeling; if the dough feels too wet and sticky because you added a touch too much egg, you can always add a pinch or two of flour to balance it out and your buns will be just fine.

This is what the disks of dough looked like right after shaping, before the second proof

This is what they looked like right before I began decorating.

Decorating the buns

You definitely don’t have to decorate the buns like I did. I needed to do that to catch your attention so you would click into this recipe. I did not do that to make them taste better. (The flowers I used don’t taste bad either, but they don’t really add anything to the taste of the buns.) I provided details in the recipe both for if you do or don’t want to decorate the buns with edible flowers before baking.

If you do choose to decorate with edible flowers, make sure they are soft, thin flowers that can really adhere to the surface of the buns. This contact, and a brushing of melted butter on top, are what ensure that the flowers keep their form and color while the buns are baking.

The buns will continue to proof as you are decorating. Keep this in mind; if you are a slow decorator, you should start your decorating earlier in the second proof phase. You will want the buns to proof for about 30 minutes in between smashing them flat to shape them and putting them in the oven. If you are not decorating your buns, simply cover them and let them proof for 30 minutes before putting them in the oven.

An important note about using these buns: please read!

For enjoying these buns plain, they are best consumed on the same day they are baked, especially right after they’ve come out of the oven and cooled just slightly to a comfortable temperature to hold. Just because I wrote this recipe with the intent to make hamburger buns does not mean you can’t enjoy them as a snack or a large dinner roll—they are so tasty and soft and pillowy on their own when freshly baked!

If you plan to use these as burger buns, I strongly recommend that you make them a day ahead!

Allow them to cool completely and then store them in an airtight container (I used a large plastic zip-top bag) at room temp. This allows the buns to firm up and dry out a little, which in turn makes them more structurally sound for your burger. You can definitely have them same-day for your burgers but they may not do as well supporting the weight of your patty or the wetness of your condiments. If you are a household of two, I hope you will enjoy the best of both worlds by eating two of the buns when they are fresh and enjoying the other two the next day as amazing vessels for your burgers.

How to Make Cheesy Curry Burger Buns

(Makes 4 buns)

Ingredients

3/4 cup warm milk
1 tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 cup all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 1/4 tsp Japanese curry powder
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 egg, divided
1/3 cup finely grated sharp cheddar
edible flowers for decorating (optional)
1 tbsp butter, melted (optional)

Procedure

Make the dough: Place milk, yeast, and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir gently to dissolve the yeast. Let stand until the yeast starts to bloom (about 5 minutes).

Fit stand mixer with a dough hook. Turn the stand mixer on to the lowest setting (speed 1) and gradually add flour. Add salt, curry powder, and butter. Beat egg and add half to the mixer; set the rest aside for the eggwash. Then add cheddar.

Once everything looks slightly incorporated together, scrape everything to the bottom of the bowl and turn the stand mixer up to the medium setting (speed 5). Knead for about 5 minutes so a soft dough forms, pausing as needed to pull the dough off the hook and back into the bowl. The dough should feel very soft but not at all sticky; if the dough still feels sticky, add an additional 1/2 teaspoon of flour at a time, kneading in each time, until the dough feels soft and smooth.

Roll the dough into a taut ball and return to the bowl (you shouldn’t need to grease it). Cover dough with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot. Allow to rise until doubled in size, about 1–2 hours.

Lightly dust your worksurface and turn out dough. Deflate dough and form a flat disk, then cut into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion into a taut ball. Press each ball to flatten into a disk about 3/8–1/2 inch thick. Cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

If not decorating: Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes or until a low dome forms and transfer to a parchment-lined tray, making sure there is at least 2 inches of space in between each bun. Brush buns with remaining beaten egg.

If decorating: Prep your decorations by trimming away excess stems, etc. so that the flowers can lie flat against the surface of the dough. Allow the dough to rest for 15–20 minutes. (Note that dough will continue to proof while you are decorating, so if you are slow at decorating, start decorating sooner. This second proof should be a total of about 30 minutes including decorating time.) Whisk together remaining egg plus 1 teaspoon water to make an eggwash. Working on one bun at a time, place the dough on a parchment-lined baking tray, brush with eggwash, then gently press the flowers onto the surface of the dough; ensuring contact with the dough will help the flowers keep their shape and color while baking, so be generous with the eggwash and use it to really adhere the flowers. Repeat with each bun, making sure they are spaced by at least 2 inches on the tray. Brush melted butter over everything, making sure to really coat the flower decorations.

Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown. Buns will be very soft and fluffy if eaten on the same day. For best burger results, cool buns completely, store in an airtight container at room temperature, and use the following day.

Mini Bird Paintings

Every once in a while, I find the time and energy to paint and for the last few years all I’ve been interested in painting is birds and flowers. My paintings are always tiny because I get overwhelmed when there is too much blankness to cover. Much like with my food styling, I think my creativity thrives when I can focus on something small where I feel I can concentrate my effort into a lot of detail in a limited space. I use acrylics to paint because that is what we always used in my advanced art class in middle school and so I never really learned to work with anything else.

I recently painted this mini bird painting (above) for my friend Bob for his birthday. Bob is a very knowledgable birder who has encouraged me a lot in my own interest in birds. He also owns many birds as pets and I sometimes look after them when he is traveling. My favorite of his birds is a sweet gal named Apollo, so I did a painting of her. Apollo is a Bourke's parrot. She can be taken out of her cage when I am visiting and she just chills with me while I clean the cages, and always hops onto my finger when I ask her to. Here’s a photo of me with Apollo:

A couple of years ago I painted some eggs around Easter time and I was very proud of them. I shared them on Instagram but I think that most of my following is only interested in seeing the food I make and not my artwork. (I was kind of bummed that the post didn’t get more reach, which I know is stupid.) I realized that this blog should be a space for me to share whatever I want and if anything it’ll be a space for me to preserve all my creations that I am proud of. Here are some photos I took of those eggs with my mini bird paintings. I painted birds that I see often in my backyard—a dark-eyed junco and a house finch.

If for some reason you are a bird owner who manages to find this blog post and you would like to commission a painting of your bird, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Recipe: Salt and Pepper Fried Pickles

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These salt and pepper fried pickles feature light-as-air and shatteringly crispy battered tangy dill pickle chips, seasoned with a tingly and complex spice blend, and tossed with fried garlic and chilies.

Maybe you’ve heard of salt and pepper tofu or salt and pepper squid? These are Cantonese-American classics that you’d find at your typical Chinese takeout spot in the US and they involve coating the main ingredient, whether it is tofu or squid or something else, in cornstarch before frying and then tossing them in a dry seasoning blend that leans heavily on the subtle and underrated white pepper powder.

I’ve come to realize that you can make salt and pepper anything, really. But I think I’ve come up with the best iteration of this simple but brilliant Cantonese concept, and that is salt and pepper fried pickles!

I am a massive pickle lover and beyond simply loving them for their taste or their practicality, what I love about pickles is that nearly every food culture has their own version of them. It’s one of those connectors that proves there’s common ground for us all. For this recipe, I used crinkle-cut dill pickle chips but I imagine there are other versions of pickles from around the world that would also be amazing for this recipe.

I can never resist fried pickles when I see them on the menu but they are also pretty simple to make at home. I usually associate fried pickles with being a Southern American thing, so the batter typically has a cornmeal component to it. This fried pickle recipe is different from other fried pickle recipes because it doesn’t have that cornmeal texture in the batter, nor does it utilize a cakey batter like the ones that you would find for fried fair foods. It’s also different from the typical Cantonese salt and pepper recipe because the pickles really need more than just a cornstrach coating to make them crispy and give them something for the seasoning to cling to. So instead, I made an incredibly light and super crisp batter, similar to a tempura batter. It fries up so nicely that they were still crispy hours after I fried them, when we finally sat down for dinner after I was done taking photos and frying up some wings to go with them.

Some notes about the ingredients for Salt and Pepper Fried Pickles

• Seasoning Blend: A “salt and pepper” dish is seasoned with more than just salt and pepper. I seasoned my crispy fried pickles with a blend of table salt, white pepper, five spice powder, ground Sichuan pink pepper, and ground dried porcini mushrooms. This blend is slightly tingly and big on umami. Sichuan pepper is typically sold dried and looks like peppercorns; this is typically used to produce “mala” or numbing spicy dishes. I grind it into a fine powder myself with a spice grinder. If you do not have the ability to make this ingredient, you could substitute for more white pepper instead. If you do not have porcini powder, you could substitute with a pinch of MSG or just omit it. Note that this recipe produces more seasoning than you would actually need for the pickles.

• Pickle Chips: I used crinkle-cut dill pickle chips by Grillo’s and they worked super well for this recipe. (Not sponsored, but please sponsor me because I love you, Grillo’s!) You could cut your own slices from a whole Kosher dill pickle or go with a brand of your choosing, but I’d recommend using something with a thickness of 3/8” to 1/4”. For best results, let the pickles sit in a single layer between paper towels for a bit to rid them of the excess moisture; if you are in a hurry, at least pat them dry with paper towels before they hit the batter to avoid splatter when frying.

• Dry Ingredients: The base of the airy batter is all purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and a bit of the seasoning blend from above. Sift them together to ensure a smooth and light consistency.

• Carbonated Water: Using cold, very carbonated water is the key to making the super light, super crispy batter. I have a Sodastream to carbonate my own water and at the very last moment, after my frying oil is already hot and my dry ingredients are already whisked together, I take a bottle of water out of the fridge and carbonate it until the machine makes angry sounds at me. If you do not have this option at home, I find that Crystal Geyser water is pretty carbonated.

• Fried Garlic and Chilies: All classic salt and pepper dishes get a finishing touch of being tossed with fried garlic and sliced chilies. The fried pickles are flavorful enough without this step, but it does kick it up a notch as well as keeping it true to the Cantonese-American inspiration, so I encourage you to go for it! I used thinly sliced serrano chilies. If you want this part to have even more of a spicy kick, go for Thai bird’s eye chilies instead.

Serving Suggestions

The recipe for the seasoning mix makes more than you will need for just the pickles (it was necessary for providing measurements that people could reasonably follow). I suggest making salt and pepper party wings to go with the fried pickles and to use up the remaining seasoning! To make them, follow my recipe for brined party wings here, and then season the wings to taste with the remaining seasoning mix.

These salt and pepper fried pickles go great with a bit of Japanese mayo (Kewpie) at the dipping sauce!

This recipe was adapted from @jun.and.tonic’s recipe for enoki mushrooms. You could also use any leftover batter from this recipe to fry up enoki or maitake (hen-of-the-wood) mushrooms.

How to Make Salt and Pepper Fried Pickles

Ingredients for the Seasoning

3/8 tsp table salt
3/8 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp five spice powder
1/4 tsp ground Sichuan pepper
1/4 tsp dried porcini powder

Ingredients for the Fried Pickles

30–40 dill pickle chips (about a 1-pint container)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
5 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp seasoning mix
3/4 cup cold, very carbonated water
neutral oil, for deep frying
3–4 cloves garlic, chopped
1–2 serrano or jalapeno chilies, thinly sliced
1–2 red bird’s eye chilies, thinly sliced (optional)
1 scallion, thinly sliced (optional)
1 sprig dill, chopped (optional)
Japanese mayo, for dipping (optional)

Procedure

Mix the seasoning ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Place pickle chips in a single layer on top of paper towels to dry away the excess moisture.

In a small mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of the prepared seasoning mix.

In a dutch oven or other deep-frying vessel, add about 1 inch of neutral oil. Heat the oil on the stove to prepare for deep frying.

When the pickles are patted dry and the oil is ready, add the carbonated water to the dry ingredients and stir gently until incorporated. Working in batches that won’t crowd your cooking vessel, coat the pickles in batter and fry until the coating starts to turn color towards a pale golden brown. Repeat until all the pickles are fried. Keep the oil hot for the second fry.

Scoop about 1 tablespoon of the hot oil into a small pan on medium-low heat. Add the garlic and fry until it starts to turn golden, stirring continuously. Add the chilies and continue to stir fry until the garlic is crunchy and golden. Turn off heat.

Return the fried pickles all together into the deep frying oil and fry until the coating is golden. Remove and drain on a tray/plate lined with paper or paper towers. Combine the fried pickles plus the garlic and chili pepper mixture into a large bowl. Toss together to combine and then sprinkle the seasoning mix over everything to taste and toss again.

Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with scallions and/or dill, if desired. Serve with Japanese mayo for dipping.

10 Ways to Make an Edible Flower Bouquet (Without a Garden)

I love flowers just as much as the next girlie girl but what I love to receive more than anything is the gift of good food. And if your Valentine this year is like me, you might want to consider skipping that generic bouquet of roses for something homemade and edible instead!

One of the most frequent questions I get about making pretty food is asking where I buy the flowers I incorporate into my food styling. The answer is that most of them come right from my own backyard—growing your own edible flowers is the best way ensure the freshest and safest blooms that you can eat. I totally understand, though, that not everyone has their own outdoor space to grow in, which is why I also love creating flowers that are made directly out of actual food. The truth about edible flowers like pansies, violas, and zinnias is that while they make your food look beautiful, they don’t actually add that much, taste-wise. That’s why making your own flowers out of food is an even better option!

You won’t need a garden or access to a farmer’s market to make these pretty and impressive edible bouquets below! Whether you are looking to make a thoughtful dish to wow someone on Valentine’s Day or just wanting to treat yourself or your dinner guests with something special for the eyes as well as the palate, here are 10 ideas for how to make your own edible flower bouquet.

Sashimi Rose Rice Bowls

I love making these with salmon sashimi but you could use any kind of sashimi you wish. Use the thinnest piece and roll it into a tight spiral for the center, then continue to wrap pieces of sashimi around until you have formed your desired size for your “rose”. Serve these over a bowl of sushi rice, which will help to hold the rose formation in place. I usually like to style these with leaves cut from cucumbers. Here is where I learned how to do the cucumber leaves. You could also roll Japanese pickled ginger into roses and serve that as part of your edible sushi bouquet as well.

Charcuterie Board Pizza with Charcuterie Roses

My Valentine’s Day tradition with Spouse is to have a chill pizza night at home. You could make your at-home pizza date even more epic and romantic by turning your pizza into an edible bouquet! For this pizza, I was inspired by my love for charcuterie boards and I other than the melty cheese, I actually added most of the ingredients on top of the pizza after it was baked. Rolling slices of charcuterie like salami and pepperoni into roses is an easy way to make one of the most delicious edible bouquets.

I developed the recipe for this Charcuterie Board Pizza for 3 Little Pigs. You can find the full recipe here on their website.

Radish Violas on Toast

Dress up a simple toast with your favorite spread by adding these cute violas made out of purple daikon. Or make a whole bunch of crostini to snack on while having a romantic movie night at home.

Here are step-by-step photos that show how I made these. I used mini toasts for the base and pâté for the spread in the tutorial but you could use whatever spread as you want. You just need something that will hold the cut radish pieces in place.

For an alternative color option, soak the purple daikon slices in something acidic like lemon juice and they will turn hot pink! You could also use white daikon and soak them in some beet juice to make pink flowers if you can’t find purple daikon.

Sweet Potato Roses on Cheddar-Stuffed Focaccia

Unlike actual flowers, baking can often improve the appearance of flowers that are made out of veggies, curling their “petals’ and making them look more natural. I think that is very true when making roses out of sweet potato and baking them into the surface of an easy from-scratch focaccia. You can find the full recipe for this mushroom, sweet potato, and cheddar stuffed focaccia here on my blog.

Tomato Rose Caprese

I love making these tomato roses in the summertime when I can get all sorts of fun varieties of cherry tomatoes from the farmers market. But you can still make them with regular ol’ store-bought cherry or grape tomatoes; I actually find that it is easier to work with tomatoes when they are firmer, and adding a little sprinkle of salt at the end can really help improve the flavor.

Here are photos that show how I made these.

Use these beautiful raw tomato roses to make caprese, serving them with mozzarella (or burrata) and basil or a drizzle of pesto. Or, make an easy caprese-inspired tart by baking up a store-bought puff pastry for the crust, topping with something mild and creamy for a spread, and filling your canvas with these tomato roses before finishing off with some fresh herbs.

Labneh Painted Toast

I always say that toast makes a wonderful edible canvas. And I have found that thick, creamy labneh works great as an edible paint when it is combined with any number of natural powers to make different colors. You can make your own powders by blending dried herbs and freeze-dried fruits in a spice blender until very fine, and then mix that in with the labneh to get your desired shade. Here are some colors I have successfully made:

• red: chili powder, paprika

• orange: paprika + curry powder

• yellow: ground turmeric, curry powder

• green: matcha, moringa powder, spirulina powder

• blue: butterfly pea flower

• purple: elderberry powder, beet powder + butterfly pea

• pink: beet powder

• peach: hibiscus powder

I like to use a mini offset spatula to spread my edible “paints” onto my toast. And I sometimes use bee pollen or sesame seeds as finishing touches.

Savory Custard Tart with Veggie Flowers

This savory cheesy tart is more custardy than a quiche or frittata, but any of these eggy tart options are a great vessel for holding together a veggie bouquet. Simply make your egg mixture as you normally would, arrange your vegetable pieces, and then bake according to your recipe. I made these roses out of orange bell peppers; I used a sharp knife to cut off the exterior, keeping it intact as one long strip. Then I rolled the strip into a spiral to form a rose. I cut leaves out of zucchini using the same method that I used for the cucumber in the sashimi bowls above.

Root Vegetable Rose Bouquet Tart

Pretty much any veggie ingredient that can be thinly-sliced and made soft can be turned into edible roses. I love making them with beets and fall squash because of the beautiful rich color that the beets bring to the edible bouquet.

My general formula that I have used for the many bouquet tarts I’ve made like this is to make a flavorful short crust and bake it all the way in the tart pan. Then, fill it with a cheesy spreadable filling that does not require baking. Then fill it up with a whole bunch of edible roses! For this specific version that I made a couple of autumns ago, you can find the full recipe here on my blog.

Pickled Pattypan Squash Toast

The cross-section of pattypan squash already looks like the shape of a flower to me so that’s how this idea came to be. Slicing the squash thin with a mandolin and then quick-pickling them allows the slices to become softer and more pliable for shaping them into flowers!

Bell Pepper Poppy Focaccia

I think I have saved the easiest idea for last! Inspired by the beautiful California poppies that grow in my neighborhood, I made this focaccia bouquet design using orange bell peppers to resemble poppies. I just cut the bottoms off of the bell peppers and did a tiny bit of shaping to define the petal shapes a little better. Any tender green stems and herbs would work great for leaves, including even the carrot fronds that I used here.

I hope this list will inspired to make your own edible bouquets at home! If you try one of these ideas and share it on Instagram, please tag me so I can admire how it turned out!

My Savory Christmas Cookie Box!

I’ve been pondering this idea of an all-savory Christmas “cookie” box all year and I am so excited with how it turned out. The purpose of this blog post is to share a little more detail about each item I included in the box, since I can’t include this much detail or links in an Instagram caption.

Hey, I love Christmas cookies too. But I will always crave and choose savory snacks over something sweet. Christmas cookie boxes are so pretty and festive, and I did not think it was fair that us members of Team Savory do not typically get to celebrate our love for salty, cheesy, and umami-y treats with the same aesthetic charm. (Popcorn tins and mixed nut boxes simply don’t do it for me.) So I made a selection of savory miniature treats that would look just as lovely tucked together in a little box as cookies and candies would.

A couple of disclaimers: I realized afterwards that everything happens to be cheese-flavored because I really, really like cheese, but I do want to mention that I am fully aware that there are other great savory flavors out there that do not involve being made of cheese. Also, I made this as a creative challenge for myself, using leftover items from other baking projects and small-batch versions of recipes; as it contains cheese and meat, it is not meant to be a mailed gift, since everything needs to be refrigerated. However, I think this would be a lovely gift idea for a cheese-loving friend that you are visiting in person, and I hope it inspires you to think outside of the cookie box with your own baking projects for this holiday season.

Here’s a list of what’s in my savory Christmas cookie box

On the left:

• Savory cookies with sun-dried tomatoes, feta, and za’atar: It took me a while to figure out exactly what a savory cookie would be like. I know there are savory shortbread recipes out there, but I wanted to include at least one “cookie” in my box that really resembled the shape of a nice thick cookie, and with the same satisfying bite. When I took a step back and thought about the process of baking cookies, I realized that drop biscuits were basically a savory version of a cookie! My recipe for these is adapted from a buttermilk drop biscuit recipe, but with tasty mix-ins of feta, sun-dried tomatoes, and za’atar to replace the chocolate chunks, dried fruit, and baking spices that are found in many Christmas cookie recipes. Get the recipe for these savory cookies here.

• Mini cheese balls: These cheese and walnut balls were inspired by the old school cheese balls covered in nuts that I remember being on grazing boards at my parents’ friends’ holiday parties when I was little. I used to really look forward to these because at my house, the only cheese items we ever had were the green can of parm and Kraft Singles. I made these by combining grated sharp white cheddar, cream cheese, garlic powder, and walnuts in the food processor and then rolling the resulting mixture into 1-inch balls. The ones on the left were rolled in chopped walnuts and the ones on the right were rolled in cheddar cheese powder (like the kind meant for seasoning popcorn). I love how these turned out looking like a visual dupe of the Russian tea cakes that my mom used to make at Christmas time every year.

• Homemade white cheddar “Cheez-Its” with dill and white pepper: For something bite-sized and light, I made my own Cheez-It crackers, based on this recipe by Don’t Waste the Crumbs. I only made one quarter of the recipe and used sharp white cheddar instead of orange cheddar, and used a bit of white pepper instead of garlic and onion powders. After cutting the crackers out with a scalloped round cookie cutter, I pressed little fronds of dill on them for decoration and poked a bunch of little holes to keep them flat. I thought of these as a savory counterpart to gingersnaps, since both are crisp and have a warming spiced note to them.

On the right:

• Cheddar gougères: These cheesy choux pastry puffs are a savory version of the same pastry shells used for profiteroles, eclairs, or cream puffs and are just as light as air and fun to eat. These were left over from a commissioned recipe where I filled the gougères with foie gras mousse. You can find the recipe for them here. Baked choux pastry keeps well in the freezer and simply needs to be popped back into the oven for a bit to be defrosted and brought back to life.

• Country pâté and cheese hand pies: These miniature pies are filled with brie cheese and pâté de campagne, or country pâté. They were inspired by British picnic pies and the meat filling is similar to a terrine or to Spam, so it holds its shape and is perfect for a little hand-held pie. I decorated these with a combination of parsley, dill, and pink peppercorns to give them that festive look. These were also left over from a commissioned recipe, which you can find here.

• Goat cheese mole “truffles”: To make these, I folded together soft goat cheese and chopped pepitas for a twist on the cheese and nut balls I mentioned above. After chilling the mixture in the fridge to firm up a bit, I rolled it into little balls, and then rolled that in a mixture of unsweetened cocoa powder and this Mexican mole-inspired spice blend to create a savory version of a chocolate truffle. After all, mole is a wonderful example of how chocolate can be savory too!

• Pie pastry leaves: I had some leftover pie pastry scraps that I shaped into leaves, eggwashed, and baked. These got tucked into the final little space left in the bottom corner of the box.

For extra decorations, I used winter savory (the herb, whose name I thought was very appropriate for this) and bay leaves that I cut into the shape of holly leaves using kitchen shears.

For 2024, I set a challenge for myself to reimagine desserts and other confectionary sweet treats and create savory counterparts that are just as beautifully styled. You can see other examples of my “make it savory” series here. I had such fun with this challenge and I still have more ideas that I didn’t get around to yet, so I will definitely be continuing this series in the new year!

Recipe: Savory Sun-Dried Tomato, Feta, Za'atar Cookies

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Here is another installment in my quest to reimagine dessert items with savory foods. I have been pondering the idea of a savory cookie for some time now. There are lots of savory shortbread recipes out there but that isn’t what I mean about a cookie. I wanted to come up with something for savory snack lovers that would have the same heft and give them the same satisfaction as it would for a sweet tooth biting into a nice, thick, chewy cookie fresh and warm from the oven.

The tricky part about coming up with a savory cookie recipe was conceptualizing what a savory cookie would even be like. Unlike muffins or pies, which begin with fairly neutral doughs and then get flavored or filled in ways that skew them sweet or savory, it felt to me like the very spirit of a cookie was its dessert-y nature. But it finally dawned on me! When I took a further step away from what I imagined a baked cookie to be, and thought instead about what the process of making them was like, I realized that sweet cookies are quite similar to savory drop biscuits!

I really should have thought of this sooner considering that what we Americans call “cookies” are called “biscuits” in England (though I think in England the term only applies to thin, crisp cookies and not the hefty ones I was trying to emulate). On the flip side, in the U.S., a biscuit is considered a type of quick bread with a dry exterior and a soft buttery interior. I love to make flakey biscuits with an almost laminated quality to them, with dough that gets rolled out and cut, so they puff up in the oven into distinct layers. But drop biscuits are made by a moist dough that gets all mixed up in a bowl before being dolloped right onto a baking tray; that sounds a lot like making cookies, doesn’t it?

So, the truth is that these savory cookies are actually drop biscuits with some yummy savory mix-ins, which I flattened slightly so they’d look like cookies after baking. They are soft, yet satisfyingly substantial and perhaps a little more dense than a sweet cookie. My recipe is adapted from a drop biscuit recipe from Simply Recipes.

A note about special equipment for making savory cookies: As these are really drop biscuits disguised as cookies, I wanted to stick to what I knew about keeping biscuits airy and soft, which is keeping the butter very cold and in small chunks that don’t melt until they reach the hot oven. I used a food processor to very quickly break the butter into tiny but chilled pieces amidst the flour mixture. If you don’t have a food processor, you could use a pastry blender or even just a butter knife to cut the butter into the flour, but you will need to work quickly to keep the butter cold.

Flavor variations for savory cookies: I think there are endless favor combinations to be explored with these savory cookies! This is just the first one I tried but I definitely want to play around with more. To get a look that resembled a white chocolate chunk cookie, I added chunks of feta and I also chose sun-dried tomato as a mix-in because it’s the holiday season and many holiday cookies involve dried fruit for whatever reason. (Plus I just love the flavor of sun-dried tomatoes). In place of the usual holiday baking spices, I used za’atar, which brought a wonderful complex savory flavor to the cookies. If you wish to explore other flavors, keep the amount of shredded cheese the same, and replace the 1/4 cup feta and 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes with 1/2 cup of whatever chunky add-ons you wish.

How to Make Savory Sun-Dried Tomato, Feta, Za'atar Cookies

(Makes 6 cookies)

Ingredients

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, cut in strips or small chunks
1/2 cup half and half
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
4 tbsp butter, cold, cut into chunks
1/4 cup grated cheddar or monterey jack
1 tsp za’atar
1/4 cup feta, broken into small chunks

Special Equipment

food processor

Procedure

Combine sun-dried tomatoes with a bit of hot water in a small bowl, to rehydrate them. Once the sun-dried tomatoes feel tender, gently squeeze away the excess water and set tomato pieces aside.

Combine half and half and lemon juice in a small bowl. Allow to sit while preparing the dry ingredients.

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Add about half of the flour and all of the baking powder, sugar, salt, and butter into a food processor and pulse a few times. Add cheddar and remaining flour and pulse mixture into a coarse crumb texture. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

Mix in za’atar. Add rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes. Stir in half and half mixture. As dough starts to come together, add feta. Keep stirring until a sticky, cohesive dough is formed, but be careful to not overwork the dough.

Divide dough into 6 and scoop them into small mounds on the prepared tray, leaving at least 2 inches in between each. Using wet fingers, gently flatten the mounds to make them more cookie-shaped.

Bake for 18–20 minutes.

Recipe: Mushroom, Sweet Potato, and Cheddar Stuffed Focaccia

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For gatherings like Friendsgiving/Thanksgiving, instead of thinking about just the traditional or typical dishes, I like to brainstorm what will have the biggest wow factor for a group of people without any tedious steps. For this recipe, I partnered with Cabot Creamery to create a stuffed focaccia recipe that is simultaneously impressive and unfussy. Loaded with a combination of sweet potato, pan-roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, and—of course—lots of Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar, this recipe bakes up a big slab of cheesy carby goodness that is easy to slice up and feed a group while serving up earthy, autumnal flavors.

This is a same-day focaccia recipe. For a more minimalist focaccia where you will want the dough itself to develop a more complex flavor, it is typically recommended to allow for a longer fermenting process of at least overnight or even a few days in the fridge. But since this one is a vessel for the mixture of delicious mushrooms, melty creamy sharp cheddar, and other goodies, I opted for a quicker dough recipe. Plus, something I struggle with when I am getting ready to have people over is fridge space, since I’m stocking up on more groceries than normal, so I wanted this recipe to avoid having a big bowl in my fridge overnight. 

The dough comes together very easily with the help of a stand mixer, and there are three rest periods for the dough where you just leave it to do its thing and can focus on other tasks, resulting in a nice bouncy, pillowy bread. The only step that involves some attention to detail is decorating, but that’s completely optional! This bread will taste great whether or not you opt to adorn it with extra ingredients as I have here.

I’m proud to have had Cabot as a partner for several recipes now, so when I visited Vermont in the early fall of this year, it was cool to spot Cabot’s distinctive plaid-accented packaging among goods labeled as locally made there. Cabot is a farmer-owned cooperative, which means the ownership of the company is comprised of a group of farmers working together; those New England farmers are also the same people who are raising the cows that provide the milk to produce their wonderful cheeses, butters, and other dairy products. Now that I am back home all the way on the west coast, I can find Cabot cheeses in my local grocery stores too—that’s the proof that those farmers grew stronger by being together.  The plaid motif on Cabot’s packaging is a nod to the fact that they are proudly farmer-owned, and to the fabric that connects them.

Even though I’ve gained plenty of confidence in my cooking skills over the years, I never want to take any chances when I am cooking for guests. If I want to make a cheesy focaccia—as I have done for many a dinner party now—I know that using one of Cabot’s cheddars is an easy way to set myself up for success. But let’s get into a little more detail about that, and everything else that goes into making this bread.

Notes on the key ingredients for this Mushroom, Sweet Potato, and Cheddar Stuffed Focaccia:

• Mushrooms: Working as a recipe developer has taught me to pay even closer attention to seasonal produce than I did before, and now one thing I look forward to in the colder months is mushrooms! While the standard round button mushrooms are in stores all year, some of the more exciting varieties—like golden chanterelles—are only prevalent at this time of year and to me, their earthy flavor conjures memories of fall and winter hikes crunching on fallen leaves on the damp forest floor. I really got carried away with all the options when I was shopping for mushrooms for this recipe and you definitely don’t have to use this much variety! I do recommend choosing at least a couple different kinds to bring some complexity. Specifically, I find that shitake mushrooms bring a ton of rich umami flavor to the filling and shimeji (or beech) mushrooms look very cute for decorating the top.

• Sweet Potato: Incorporating thinly-sliced sweet potato into this recipe brings the autumnal vibes, in terms of both flavor and color. I used a mandoline to get even, thin slices that easily cooked through while the bread was baking. Look for the kind of sweet potato that has vibrant orange or red-orange flesh inside, like a red garnet.

• Red Onion: A little caramelized onion brings a lovely subtle sweetness to the filling. The onion, as well as the mushrooms, get pre-cooked on the stove during one of the rest periods for the dough.

• Cheddar: This bread incorporates Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar in two different formats. I like to grate about one-third of the dairy bar to sprinkle into the bottom of the pan underneath the dough; this crisps up while the bread is baking and becomes the first thing that hits your tongue as you bite into the freshly-baked bread, bringing  a nice tang of that sharp cheddar flavor. I break the rest of the dairy bar into rough crumbles and layer some in with the filling, while reserving some to dimple into the bread’s surface. I like the idea of every bite being a little different, with some being a chunky piece of mushroom and others being extra cheesy.

Notes on decorating the stuffed focaccia: 

I wanted to add an extra wow-factor for my focaccia since we eat with our eyes first! The decoration that I created uses sweet potato slices to form fall-colored roses and some extra mushrooms to give a hint to what’s stuffed inside. I love that this floral motif can be achieved by anyone, even if they do not have access to edible flowers or the ability to grow their own (like I do for some of my other bakes on this blog). You can definitely get as creative as you like when you are making your own version of this recipe, but here are some tips I can pass on about decorating focaccia as I have here:

• Soak some—but not all—of the sweet potato slices in cold water. This will make them stiffer and more hydrated, which will make it easier to poke them into the dough’s surface and prevent them from burning as quickly. It also causes the slices to curl a little, making them look more like rose petals. You’ll also want some unsoaked slices to remain flexible so you can roll them into a spiral to form the center of each rose.

• Mushrooms work really well as decorations; since they are so naturally full of moisture they don’t shrivel too much as the bread bakes. I think the shimeji (or beech) mushrooms worked especially well on mine. I also used some golden chanterelles.

• Choose herb/vegetable leaves that are flat and tender. Leaves can easily shrivel and crisp up in the oven but for best results, you’ll want to select ones that can be pressed onto the surface of the dough. This direct contact is what will help them preserve their shape in the oven, so the flatter and more flexible the leaf, the better. I used red-veined sorrel here because I love how they have a bit of a purple tint when they come out of the oven and add to the autumnal vibe; baby red chard could be a good substitute. I also used some lemon thyme, which has more tender leaves and flexible stems than other varieties of thyme I find at the grocery store.

• Generously brush everything with olive oil before baking. This provides a protective coating on all your edible decorations and reduces how much they will shrivel in the heat of the oven.

Decorating is, of course, the most labor-intensive aspect of this recipe but the good news is that you can do something much simpler, or skip the decorating entirely! Here is how you can adapt the recipe below if you wish to make the yummy bread, but don’t want to spend as much time making the floral motif on top.

Easier version—Fall leaves: Use a cookie cutter to cut the sweet potato slices into fall leaves. You can place these directly on the surface of the dough along with a few mushrooms and baby chard leaves to create a cute autumn forest motif. Brush everything with a coat of olive oil before baking.

Easiest version—Mushrooms only: Reserve a few mushrooms and place them on top of the focaccia as the decoration. Again, you’ll want to coat everything with a generous brush of olive oil to preserve their form and texture. If you choose this option, I recommend using about half a sweet potato’s worth of slices as part of the filling, since you’re not getting any sweet potato flavor on the top of the loaf.

How to Make the Mushroom, Sweet Potato, and Cheddar Stuffed Focaccia

Ingredients

1 cup lukewarm water
1 tbsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus about 1/4 cup extra for drizzling
1 tsp kosher salt, divided
4 cups mushrooms, cleaned and broken down into small pieces
2 tbsp Cabot Salted Butter
1/2 red onion, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
8 oz (1 dairy bar) Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar
1 small sweet potato, peeled and thinly sliced
red veined sorrel or baby chard leaves, for decorating (optional)
lemon thyme, for decorating (optional)

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Procedure

Prepare the dough: Combine water, sugar, and yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer and stir together gently. Allow to bloom for 5 minutes. Fit the stand mixer with a dough hook and turn on low; gradually incorporate flour, then 2 tablespoons olive oil, then 1/2 tsp kosher salt.

Turn stand mixer up to medium-high and knead for 5 minutes. Dough should pull completely away from the sides of the bowl while the dough hook is spinning, but feel a bit sticky when touched or when not in motion. If the dough seems too dry, add 1 tsp water, or if the dough seems excessively sticky and is not coming together, add 1–2 tsp flour. Knead for an additional 2–3 minutes.

Shape the dough into a ball with your hands. Drizzle a small amount of the extra olive oil into the bowl, add the dough ball, and rub some of the oil on top. Place in a warm spot and cover with plastic wrap or a wet tea towel and allow to rest for 1 hour, or until the ball has doubled in size.

In the meantime, prep the cheddar. Grate roughly one-third of the dairy bar with a box grater. Set grated cheese aside. Break down the remaining cheese into small chunks, about 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch in size; you could cut them into cubes or just use the tip of a small knife to break pieces off. Place cheese chunks in the fridge until needed.

Second rest: Line a 7x11-inch (2 quart) baking dish with parchment paper and coat with a bit of the extra olive oil. Sprinkle the grated cheddar into the bottom of the dish.

Scoop the dough out of the bowl and press out the excess air. Divide the dough in half. Stretch each half into the shape of a rectangle that is slightly smaller than the baking dish; note that the dough will expand so it does not need to fill the size of the whole dish yet. Place one half over the grated cheddar in the dish. Keep the other half on a separate piece of parchment paper that has been lightly oiled with the olive oil. 

Cover both halves with plastic wrap or a wet tea towel and allow to rest for 1 hour.

Prepare the filling: While the dough is resting, pan roast the mushrooms and caramelize the onions. Heat a large non-stick skillet on medium. Reserve a few mushrooms for decoration and add the rest to the dry pan. Sauté until the volume is reduced to about two-thirds of the original and the mushrooms are squeaky as you move them around with a spatula. Remove the mushrooms from the pan.

Add the butter to the pan, then add the onion slices. Reduce the heat to low once you notice the color becoming more vibrant. Cook the onions until they are tender and start to brown on the edges, about 10 minutes.

Add the mushrooms back to the pan, as well as 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt. Turn the heat back up to medium. Stir often to encourage evaporation, and cook until the mushrooms seem to have released their excess moisture, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool until the dough is done resting.

Once the dough has completed its second rest, the bottom half should be able to be stretched to fill the bottom of the pan. Shape as needed. Then add about one-third of the sweet potato slices to the pan, followed by most of the cheddar chunks, followed by the mushroom and onion mixture. 

Third rest: Place the other half of the dough on top of the mushrooms. Press the two halves of dough along the edges to seal shut and tuck them under, though this does not need to be perfect. Allow to rest, covered, for an additional 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400°F.

Decorate the top of the bread and bake: Press the remaining cheddar chunks into the surface of the bread. Press your fingers into the dough to form additional dimples. 

To make a sweet potato rose, cut a slice of sweet potato in half and roll into a tight spiral. Roll the other half around the first. Place this firmly into the surface of the dough where you want the center of the rose to be. Starting with the smallest slices of sweet potato available, firmly insert slices around the rose’s center to form petals. Select gradually larger sweet potato slices and keep adding them as petals until the desired size is achieved.

Repeat to form other roses as desired. (You may not end up using all the sweet potato).

Add vegetable leaves and mushrooms to complete your decoration. Brush everything with a generous layer of olive oil. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt over the top.

Bake for 35–40 minutes or until the top is a light brown. Note that after 30 minutes, you may wish to check on your decoration and add small pieces of foil over the parts of the sweet potato that have darkened, to prevent burning. 

Carefully lift the bread out of the pan via the parchment paper and allow to set for a couple minutes before slicing and enjoying!

Thank you so much to Cabot Creamery for sponsoring this recipe! Visit their website to find out where you can get their delicious cheeses, such as their naturally-aged cheddars, near you!

Charcuterie Board Pizza

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Charcuterie board pizza—all the essentials of a good charcuterie board, except you can also eat the board because it’s pillowy carby pizza crust. This one is topped with fig jam, fontina and manchego cheeses, prosciutto, soppressata, pepperoni, fresh herbs, and mini pickles.

After shaping my pizza dough “board”, I swapped in a sweet fig jam in place of pizza sauce and baked on a nice gooey layer of creamy fontina cheese. I added all the other toppings—the charcuterie, shavings of nutty manchego, and the pickled cornichons/gherkins—after the pizza came out of the oven, so it still has that snack board vibe.⁣

Click here to get the recipe on the Three Little Pigs site!

Thank you so much to Three Little Pigs for sponsoring this recipe!

Halloween Fun for O Organics

I was commissioned to style and shoot some Halloween content for Albertsons (the grocery store company that also owns Safeway) featuring their O Organics line. This was my second time being hired by Albertsons to make and capture food art for them, and I love working with them because they ask me to include more human elements the photos (for example, hands-in-frame shots) than I usually include in the content on my own account and this challenges me to set up scenes differently and try different camera angles than my standard flatlay style that I’ve become known for.

For this shoot, they also asked me if it would be possible to add a spooky foggy effect to some of the photos. Actually, they originally asked if it was possible for me to use dry ice in the photoshoot. However, I was nervous about the idea of shooting this dynamic element whose movement I wouldn’t fully be able to control—this is why I am a food photographer and not an event photographer! So instead, I asked them if they would be okay with me editing the spooky fog/mist effect into the photos and fortunately, they trusted me to do what I thought was best to achieve that mysterious Halloween vibe!

I had recently learned about the AI editing tools on Canva from my friend Anisa, The Wonky Stove. I learned how to use the Magic Edit feature from this post of hers. (I’ve since learned that I got very lucky with timing and this was a feature I was able to try for free at the time but is now behind their Pro subscription paywall.) I was able to upload my un-magical photos I’d shot, select the areas where I wanted to add spooky fog, and type a prompt to describe what I wanted to add to the photo. The AI is still in its early stages here (which I am definitely ok with!) so it didn’t immediately produce a result I wanted and instead changed up way too much of the photo. But I was able to use what I got out of the tool to then edit together the AI-altered photo and the original photo to produce exactly what I wanted. I imagine this is what movie editors do, but just at a way smaller scale. Conclusion: it was still very necessary for a skilled human (me!) to produce these photos so robots haven’t taken over my job just yet.

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Here are the before-and-afters of the photos where I used this process.

Without AI

with AI

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Without AI

With AI

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Here are some other photos from the shoot. Fun fact: I used black electrical tape over my nails in these hands-in-frame shots to look like I had black nail polish on!

Duck Confit Croquettes in Green Goddess Soup

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These crispy crunch little duck croquettes are so good and so addictive that even my weird spouse who does not like fried foods was like “wow these are yummy!” They make wonderful snacks for sophisticated soirée, or could be crowd-wowing appetizers with a nice aioli or figgy jam on the side. Here, I used these crispy duck bites in place of croutons on top of a healthy veggie-loaded green goddess soup, to bring some texture and make it a more satisfying meal (and I guess to make it a little less healthy…oops.)

They sound really fancy but they are actually quite simple to make! I developed this recipe for Three Little Pigs, using their rillettes de canard, which is like a pulled duck confit that is ready to eat. That’s all there is to the filling of these croquettes, and I just rolled it into little balls, breaded them, and fried them to make this super savory soup topping.

Click here to get the recipe on the Three Little Pigs site!

Thank you so much to Three Little Pigs for sponsoring this recipe!

Recipe: Hatch Green Chile and Summer Corn Cheesy Tart

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This savory cheesy custard tart is loaded with summer corn and one of my favorite savory ingredients—roasted Hatch green chiles from New Mexico.

Don’t go calling this tart a quiche, though. When I think of the texture of a quiche filling, I think of something distinctly eggy and a bit spongy. The texture of this filling is much more like a savory custard. If you are familiar with the classic Chinese steamed egg or Japanese chawanmushi, this is more like that. Compared to quiche, the filling of this savory tart is so silky and creamy and delicate. This is because the filling has a much higher cheese to egg ratio than a quiche would. I actually use the base recipe for this filling—which combines ricotta, goat cheese, and some sort of shredded block cheese like cheddar, with egg—all the time to make various savory tarts, but this combination of fresh corn and roasted Hatch chiles was so good that it finally motivated me to type up the recipe so that others could enjoy it too.

There is just something about these two ingredients together that tastes like summer to me and is so satisfying; maybe it’s how the sweetness of the corn balances with the smoky spicy flavor of the chiles? I don’t know how to explain it but I love it. Last year, I was lucky enough to visit Hatch, New Mexico right during the season for their famous green chiles. The big green chiles gleamed in the sun while sitting in big baskets and the smell of the fresh chiles tumbling in huge roasting machines was everywhere, and I had the best cheeseburger of my life—the Hatch Green Chile Cheeseburger from Sparky’s. And of course I picked up a big jar of the roasted chile peppers to bring home. I’ve been hoarding that jar until last week when I finally decided that this tart would be worth opening it up for. (Real Hatch chiles are very limited in season and availability but you can definitely sub with those canned roasted green chiles that are common to any US grocery store. Note that the ones from the Hatch Chile Company are not necessarily made from the variety grown in Hatch, NM but they are a good substitute.)

I decorated my green chile and corn tart with calendula and borage flowers, as well as some chives and cilantro. You can see what the unbaked version looked like below. Feel free to skip this elaborate decorating step and simply reserve a little bit of extra corn to sprinkle on top, along with a few cilantro leaves.

How to Make a Hatch Green Chile and Summer Corn Cheesy Tart

Ingredients

1 sheet ready-made pie dough, room temp
1 egg yolk, beaten, for crust eggwash (optional)
1 ear corn, husked
1/2 cup ricotta, drained of excess water
1/4 cup goat cheese, room temp
3 eggs
1–3 dashes habanero hot sauce (optional)
1/4 cup canned roasted green chilies, drained
3/4 packed cup sharp cheddar, grated
cilantro leaves, for decorating
edible flowers, for decorating (optional)
olive oil (optional)

Procedure

Preheat oven according to the instructions on the box of your ready-made pie dough. Press pie dough into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Chill in the freezer for 3–5 minutes. Dock the dough with a fork. Brush with eggwash if desired for a more shiny, darker crust. Then bake according to the package instructions for a blind-baked crust, using pie weights if required in the instructions.

In the meantime, prepare the filling of the tart:

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil the corn for 5 minutes, or until tender. (If desired, use a culinary blowtorch or gas stove to char the surface of the corn to give it a more roasted flavor.) Cut kernels from the corn cob and set them aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together ricotta, goat cheese, eggs, and hot sauce (if using). Fold in the majority of the corn kernels, keeping just a small amount aside for the end. Fold in green chiles and half of the shredded cheese.

Remove crust from oven when it is blind-baked. Set the oven to 350°F.

Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese into the prepared crust. Pour the prepared filling on top and make sure the surface is even and smooth.

Working quickly the prevent the crust getting soggy, place cilantro leaves* onto the surface of the filling and sprinkle on the remaining corn. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until the filling is soft but set. Allow to rest of 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

*If decorating with edible flowers, maximize contact with the filling as you press them into the tart. Brush them with olive oil to help preserve their shape and color.