Know your style

When I think about my baking style, I really have to step back and figure out what my go-to is. As a classically trained pastry chef, I've got the skills to whip up all sorts of goodies. I can make everything from custards, cookies, and cakes to breads, and I don't just stick to sweets—I do savory stuff too.

What's my favorite thing to bake? That's a tough one. I love making breads and cakes, but they can be pretty time-consuming and a bit of a hassle. They're fun and you can get super creative with them, but when it comes down to it, cookies are my go-to.

Cookies are super easy to whip up; any decent baker can churn out a bunch of different types and flavors without even trying. Plus, when you're a family of three and don't have a lot of people to share your baked goods with, cookies are perfect because you can just freeze them so you don't end up eating too many. We even have this one versatile base recipe that we can tweak to create any flavor combo we dream up.

Here's where the fun part comes in—discovering your own flavor style! My husband is Malaysian and spent a good chunk of his adult life working in Singapore before moving back to the U.S. Thanks to him, I've been introduced to a whole bunch of amazing flavors that I totally fell for. These flavors have really influenced my baking.

One thing to know about the Asian community is that they're not really into super sweet treats. Another thing is that they love using different fruits and plants to add flavor to everything.

How did that change my baking? Well, first off, I now use less sugar in my treats. I played around to see how much I could cut back without messing up my bakes, and also figured out what I can use instead of sugar to keep things sweet without piling on the white or brown stuff. I also learned how to pull out flavors and boost them using leaves that aren't tea.

So, I decided to learn how to make Kaya, which is this super rare and crazy expensive jam. It's a coconut jam, and turns out, it's not that tough to whip up if you know your way around making custard and caramel.

I decided to play it safe and make a peanut butter stuffed cookie using kaya. Basically, I took a peanut butter cookie and filled it with kaya. Whenever you're trying something new in the kitchen, it's crucial to understand how ingredients react to heat. Kaya isn't super sugary, but it does have a decent amount. Since you're mixing caramel into the coconut milk and egg mixture, you need to make sure it won't cause any issues when baked at high temperatures, like further caramelizing.

I discovered a really tasty cookie that's a bit on the sweet side thanks to the kaya. The peanut butter and kaya were kind of clashing, so I wouldn't make this all the time. But it did give me the confidence to experiment a bit more.