Modern Asian Baking at Home by Kat Lieu came onto my radar after I'd been following her on TikTok (@subtleasian.baking) for a while. She had shown a few options for the book cover and as soon as I saw the options I knew I NEEDED this book. (She also has hilarious and ruthless takedowns of people who say Asian baking looks gross. I will never forget "modly" bread.)

First of all, this doesn't feel like a cookbook as much as it feels like a friend teaching you their recipes. Each recipe has a short introduction and also includes a little blurb, tip/trick, or modification to the recipe. The recipes are all fairly short (efficient for page space!), and they don't require a whole lot of hard-to-find ingredients. I love the variety of recipes. There are familiar Asian classics like steamed buns, tanghulu, and (very very easy) mochi. There are also some trendier recipes like fluffy Japanese cheesecake, the cover-starring snow skin mooncakes, and my dim sum favorite egg custard tarts. And of course, there are plenty of SAB originals, the most exciting of which is the gochujang flourless chocolate cake (in my humble opinion).

The main highlight of the cookbook, to me, is that it enabled me to finally make a successful tangzhong milk bread after literal years of trying and failing! For that, this book is going to be a staple in my kitchen.

Thank you so very much to NetGalley, Kat Lieu, and Quarto Knows/Quarry Books for the advance electronic copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This book will be available on June 28th, 2022.

First off, the photos in this cookbook are breathtaking! I keep worrying that I will never make anything as beautiful as the samples but most of them are surprisingly easy to make. Some of the ingredients will require a trip to your local Asian grocery store but that should always be on the to-do list anyways! I loved all the twists on the bakes and am so excited to perfect my little bear dango! One day I will work up the confidence to create the mooncakes too!

This was a really interesting and fun book to read. I really enjoyed applying what I learned from this book and would highly recommend it to anyone!

Thank you to Kat Lieu, the publisher, and Netgalley for this eARC of this absolutely wonderful cookbook!

Recently my mother and I have been trying to be more in touch with our Chinese roots. Our family came to the US in the 1800s, so our direct ties to the food and culture have waned throughout the generations. This cookbook provided a wonderful bonding experience for my whole family, and I am so grateful for that!

Not only is this cookbook aesthetically beautiful, but it also has a bit of character as well! I loved the little details scattered throughout little blurbs that gave the writing a little bit of personality. Funny little tidbits from the author like a certain dessert being "terrible for my waistline" of the author asking if she is "punny enough" add the perfect amount of humor to a relatively straightforward (and wonderfully put together) recipe. I have tried a few of these recipes already, and I am super excited to try out all of the other recipes in the near future.

Ultimately I believe that this cookbook is perfect for beginner bakers and expert bakers alike! I would love to purchase a physical copy of this book as well since I know that my mother already has her eyes on it. :)

I love asian food so when I found this book in NetGalley I knew I had to get it!
There are a lot of simple and characteristics recipes that I liked but sometimes I wished some steps were a little more specific.
Evrything was delicious though.

Wow, this baking book is so beautiful! I really want to buy a physical copy for my coffee table at home. The photographs look very scrumptious and my mouth started watering just by looking at them.
I typically find any sort of Asian baking a bit daunting but the recipes were easy to follow along. Some recipes that I am excited to try include all of the Ube recipes and the Miso Focaccia. My mom is also very much a Covid-baker and I want to share with her the recipe for the Matcha-infused Madeleines!

Thank you Netgalley, Quarry Books and Kat Lieu for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This cookbook is amazing! There are so many wonderfully delicious recipes in here accompanied with beautiful photos and easy to understand instructions for various skill levels and amounts of time you're able and willing to spend in the kitchen. I really appreciated the introductory chapters both about ingredients and techniques as I'm not the most knowledgeable in the kitchen but I'm always willing to learn (I also found it really cool how few recipes require an oven.) There are so many recipes I'm already planning on trying, even just reading through the book made me hungry and the mango sticky rice is on my list to make later this week. I didn't know Kat Lieu before this but I'm already a fan. Her her warm and friendly voice throughout this book alongside her yummy recipes has made me want to go check out Subtle Asian Baking for even more food inspiration and community surrounding baking.

This cook book is so beautiful! So many feel good recipes and love the family aspect. I love that all the measurements are in grams for an accurate bake every time. Truly a joy seeing these recipes and can’t wait to try them out.

This is an exciting book! Exciting because it is hard to find cookbooks showcasing Asian baking, and even more exciting that it has tons of great modern recipes. There are recipes in this book for foods I have wanted to try but can't find near me, like the Fluffy Japanese Soufflé Pancakes or the Cottony Japanese Cheesecake, and there are also a lot things I haven't heard of but sound delicious. The recipes I have tried so far have been amazing, especially the Dreamy Matcha Basque Cheesecake. The instructions were clear and the result was a not too sweet masterpiece. It is truly thrilling to have these recipes and be able to explore the latest in Asian baking!

I really loved the variety of recipes in here and how versatile many of the ingredients actually are; like miso! The layout it amazing, the directions are written in a way that is easy to comprehend and follow, the pictures of the the finished products are mouth-watering, and I absolutely love that the recipes have measured weight in grams (what I normally use) as well as US measurements. I will definitely be buying this book and trying most, if not all, of the recipes!

I loved this book so much!

I am German and have grown up in a rather small town with not a lot of contact to other cultures and cuisines. Ever since becoming an adult, I have made an effort to learn about the world and what it has to offer. This cookbook has been absolutely fantastic. There are many tasty and (to me foreign) recipes. I enjoyed exploring a different kind of baking and I will whole heartedly recommend this cookbook to ANYONE. It’s incredibly interesting and helpful and beautiful and I have not enough praise. I will save up to buy the physical copy.

Modern Asian Baking at Home by Kat Lieu is so beautifully photographed and presented that it's striking. Absolutely beautiful. Every item is a work of art but a work of art with food that I want to attempt after reading this beautiful cookbook.

I smiled through the whole book. It was uplifting and had a lot of vitality. The Hanami Dango with Sweet Soy Sauce Glaze is so cute.

Each recipe thankfully has prep time, cook time, and yield. The amounts are in grams and not available in cups or teaspoon measurements. One thing the book lacked that I would have appreciated is a layout of photographed equipment and supplies that would be helpful before diving into Modern Asian Baking.

A wonderful, beautiful cookbook that is joyous.

As a #veryasian woman, I love the nostalgia the recipes in Modern Asian Baking at Home. Some of these recipes are straight from my not-so-long ago childhood but still seemed so unattainable until now. I loved the simplicity and straight-forwardness of the recipes along with the diversity of flavors and cultures represented. All of the recipes of foods I’ve always wanted to recreate and foods I now want to make are included in one awesome cookbook. I can’t wait to try more recipes!

​​Thank you Netgalley, Quarry Books and Kat Lieu for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This is SUCH a good cookbook. There’s so many helpful tips and tricks at the beginning on different methods for the recipes, and all the recipes I’ve tried so far have been amazing. I made the soufflé pancakes for my family and everyone loved them! Can’t wait to try more :)

I love this book and the recipes therein. I am actually an avid follower of the author's TikTok account and despite my mediocre skills as a baker, these recipes truly make me want to bake. The beautiful photographs are mouthwatering motivation and the instructions are clear. Unfortunately the eARC format was not the easiest to actually use in the kitchen to test the recipes, so I look forward to purchasing a hard copy to bake out of regularly.

I LOVE cookbooks that give so many beautiful pictures to accompany recipes!
I’ve already tried the Hanami Dango.

So easy to make, and you can create really sweet designs. Family win! I was too excited after trying it, I had to review right away.

I can’t wait to try everything. If you’re inspired/love Asian food, this ones for you!

Beautiful pictures and so many delicious looking recipes, I'm excited to try making the black sesame soup

I loved that this cookbook is easy to follow and has simple, and detailed instructions for each recipe. I really liked that there was a photo that went along with each recipe just so the reader, or in this case the baker, can know what each dish is supposed to look like. Kat Lieu did a good job of making each dish accessible to the reader by providing a breakdown of each ingredient and a story to go along with each dish. I am excited to try out some of these desserts!

This book is the holy grail for beginners and hobbyists alike. Kat Lieu explains techniques, instruments and ingredients with their possible substitutes and in this way she open the road for the readers to a world of flavors and textures to discover and fall in love with the Asian flavors
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This book seemed like the perfect answer for me. For years I have tried to find the perfect recipe for mooncakes and other Asian sweets, but it is difficult to find good recipes on internet, let alone interpret recipes from a book with ingredients that are difficult to obtain.
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With anecdotes and own advices the book feels like a warm cookbook passed between friends. The colors and aesthetics invite you to want to try the recipes and I already have marked which ones I want to make
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A perfect book for any kitchen or food library Everything looks delicious and the explanations invite you to try it.
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Thanks to Kat Lieu and for give me a copy of this amazing and delicious book in exchange for my honest opinion I really enjoyed reading it and can't wait to taste it

I love seeing another easy-to-read cookbook all about delicious Asian desserts on the market! The recipes range from essentials (mantou) to slightly harder projects (snowy skin mooncakes), and I love that there is a whole spectrum of Asia represented in the book instead of just Chinese, Korean, and Japanese recipes that most people assume make up all of Asia. I also appreciate that the author clearly states that many of these recipes are inspired by members of her Subtle Asian Baking community and lists the inspiration under the respective recipe instead of claiming them all as her own original work!

This book is clearly a passion project, but the downside is that it lacks the premium quality most other cookbooks have in terms of organization and photography. A lot of the photos felt a bit amateur and could have used a bit of clean-up on the pans or some more styling to make it look more appetizing. I also didn't love that there were images photoshopped in on top of pages so they were just randomly floating in to fill empty spaces.

Either way, there is a lot of variety in this one and I can't wait to bake them all!