Recipes

The cream-filled donuts in my cake shop are filled with this white cream filling. It's the filling used in smear face and cream horn pastries. I have looked forever for the Holland cream recipe for donuts but never had luck finding it, so I created my own.

This coconut and pecan frosting is great on many cakes, not the least of which is German chocolate cake.

This Bavarian cream is from my great-grandmother's recipe book.

A nice, basic meringue recipe. Egg whites beaten with cream of tartar, then sugar until those famous stiff peaks form — golly, that's good meringue! Use it to make meringue cookies, or top dessert pies.

This is an easy dairy-free frosting recipe I have tweaked to my liking after a few tries. It is very tasty and is pretty easy to make.

This buttercream icing is an easy-to-make egg-free frosting that's great for decorating cookies for holidays, birthdays, and parties. Use paste to color the icing. If you use liquid color, you may need to add more confectioner's sugar.

This cream cheese filling can be used in sweet breads, kolachkes, and braids or even dropped in the center of chocolate cupcakes. It tastes like cheesecake, and everyone loves it. It's yummy but loaded with calories.

For Chef JJ Johnson, this classic Puerto Rican dish is a centerpiece of celebrations.

This chocolate frosting with cocoa powder has great texture, color, and taste. Smooth and easy to spread, this frosting turns any cake, cookie, or cupcake into something deliciously special.

This ultraflavorful Puerto Rican classic roast pork shoulder marinates overnight in a blend of citrus, garlic, and herbs, then cooks slowly in the oven until it's deeply caramelized.

Anko is a sweet red bean paste that's used to hold together pastries, cakes, and other desserts that come from Japan. Store cooled anko in a covered container in the refrigerator.

This easy orange glaze recipe is made with orange zest and freshly squeezed orange juice, not the stuff out of a container. It's fresh and delicious and adds a nice citrus kick to angel food cake or any type of loaf cake.

These smoky braised-lamb tamales, favorite at event producer Paola Briseño González's holiday tamale parties, get a pop of freshness from bright cilantro-onion relish, while a wrapper of banana leaves perfumes the masa with a softly sweet aroma as they steam. The banana leaf wrappers also yield tamales with a dense, custard-like texture. The rich, slow-cooked flavor of lamb shanks is the perfect partner for the intense smokiness of morita chiles; substitute chipotles in a pinch.

I received this royal icing recipe with corn syrup from a professional baker. I prefer to use this instead of a regular royal icing recipe with egg whites. It hardens nicely and is glossy rather than matte, like regular royal icing.

At Chicago's Bayan Ko, chef Lawrence Letrero and his wife and partner Raquel Quadreny meld his Filipino and her Cuban heritages in each plate of food. Their intentions come together perfectly in this lechon, featuring pork belly meltingly tender underneath a crispy crust. The crunchy atchara, a pickled papaya salad, balances the richness of the pork with spicy, salty, acidic and fresh notes, while the sweet-sour dipping sauce pulls all the flavors together. The atchara will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of months; use any leftover to add a tart kick to tacos and sandwiches.

This creamy mascarpone frosting is incredibly versatile and can be used to decorate various desserts.