Love this cookbook. It contains a really good mix of recipes from desserts to bread. There are recipes from the SAB community and the author. I like that the author gives you lots tips and ideas on adding/replacing ingredients. The photos are drool worthy. Just an fyi, this book is not for beginners. There is no handholding but what’s great is that some of the recipes can be found via Instagram or YouTube which will give you some guidance.
I haven’t made any recipes yet but will soon, like the Pandan Chiffon Cake, A’ha Ma’s fresh cream cake and the Japanese curry buns. Foods of my youth. Yum!

Review to come June 14th to blog/goodreads.

I received this book from Netgalley/publisher in exchange of an honest review.

I just couldn't resist this book! I love cooking/baking + I love Asian food (well, at least the look of them as I haven't the chance to eat many of them). So I just had to request this book! 

In this book we get various sections and in each section we get some delicious recipes! From fluffy pancakes to curry bread to yummy drinks to desserts. There is something for everyone~ The recipes are well-written, clear to follow, good ingredients list on the side, pretty photography that you just want to lick because the food looks SO GOOD. I also loved the introductory texts before the recipe starts. Loved reading about family, about travelling, about friends, and feelings when eating things, but also how long it took the author to get it right. It just made it more personal and I love it when a cookbook/baking book does that. 

The book made me quite hungry! So many good things. *hears stomach rumble while writing the review* Haha, even thinking about the book makes me hungry. 

I am delighted that the author added grams + Celcius~ I am always a bit hesitant to read English cookbooks because often they put up cups and whatever else and Fahrenheit. We don't use those here and really, I am just not in any mood to Google and find out what the right things are. So a big thank you for adding these to the book so I can just cook.

I haven't tried out any of the recipes. I have no Asian supermarket/store near me, the nearest would be around 20 minutes with public transport and then another 10 minutes walking. Normally not that much of a problem, but with Corona... I am just not comfy with going in public transport, or visiting busy shopping streets. Maybe by the time this review goes up things will be fine, but for now, almost March, it is not. So yeah, without any stores near me that have rice flour, or miso, or mochi, just to name a few very important ingredients, I am not going to be able to make a lot of things. Plus, I also don't have all the items at home (no steamer for instance). 
Plus, like with any cookbook, I won't be able to make all of them anyway. I am allergic to sesame and tofu/soy and nuts/peanuts, so quite a few recipes are off already. XD

But, I still had tons of fun reading this book and I definitely want to try out the recipes that I can eat. I need those fluffy pancakes in my life! I would recommend this book to everyone.

Truthfully, I'm not sure who the intended audience is. While I appreciated the pages introducing key Asian(-associated) ingredients, I was a little put off by the way they were framed as almost exotic and mystical; some of the recipe descriptions had a similar Western-centered lens, which is disappointing from a book with its roots in a community [originally, though admittedly not exclusively] for Asians and hyphenated Asians.

For the recipes themselves, I haven't actually tested any yet so I can't really speak to the quality of the instructions or whether they're a good match for my Asian-American palate. I did notice the language of the tip boxes, because for some reason it feels a little weird to have a cookbook direct me to "Please use vegan butter" if I want to adjust a recipe to be vegan. Some of them are pretty classic favorites with showy names (Night Market Scallion Pancakes, Simply Perfect Purin) and others seem like pretty typical cookbook staples with an "Asian twist" like miso, matcha, or mochi added (No-Knead Miso Focaccia, Dreamy Matcha Basque Cheesecake, Mochi Boba Milk Tea Ice Pops).

Which is not to say that they don't look good: the pictures are gorgeous, and I love the color palette and overall visual design of the book. But for all I know at this point, it could possibly be style over substance — we'll have to see.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fun recipe book!

Lieu shares recipes that are sweet and savory along with stories about growing up. The recipes are in both cups and grams. There are some fun ube recipes and lots of good desserts! There's also drink recipes included which is nice. The book covers a good breadth of Asian baking.

Overall a great find!

Truly awesome this cookbook is full of amazing recipes with gorgeous pictures that nake everythinglook like a must try recipe! This cookbook would be the perfect gift for anyone who likes Asian desserts. The recipes I've tried were fantastic and I'm on the hunt fir Ube I really want to try a few recipes that use it! I highly recommend this book.

This cookbook is full of awesome recipes and gorgeous pictures! It is perfect for people who like Asian desserts. It's so great that it is highlighting recipes from the Subtle Asian Baking Facebook group.

As a book blogger who’s always trying to sneak subtle Asian bakes into her Booksta posts, I can't think of a book more on-brand than Modern Asian Baking at Home.

I have a soft spot for cookbooks. Growing up, one of my favorite things to do with my mom was flipping through cookbooks and looking at recipes together. We didn’t make most the ones we’d marked (some things never change) because there were so many, but even the act of going through a cookbook and pointing out recipes was so fun. Both then and now, my favorite part of reading at cookbooks was looking at the pictures, and Modern Asian Baking has all the pictures. Each recipe comes with its own picture which would’ve automatically made it my favorite as a kid.

My request for an early digital copy of Modern Asian Baking was granted literally seconds before I was about to turn off my laptop and get ready for bed, and I couldn’t help but sneak a peek which, in hindsight, was probably a bad idea for my sleep schedule. (As every reader knows, “just one more page” is the biggest lie ever.) Page after page, recipe after recipe, I got more and more excited until it got the point where I not only wanted to keep reading, I wanted to pull out some flour start baking. (Don’t worry, I did the grown up thing and ignored urge to responsibilities until I baked my way through the ever-growing list of recipes I was amassing so no patients were harmed by my reading habits.)

Flipping through Modern Asian Baking took me right back to the early days of the pandemic. I loved reading Subtle Asian Baking‘s origin story and learning about Kat Lieu’s baking journey and was surprised by how relatable it was. I’ve always liked baking and like much of the world, picked it back up in 2020. COVID-19 hit, and I broke out my Kitchenaid mixer. One afternoon during the early days of toilet paper hoarding and panic buying, my mom came home with a 25 lb (11.3 kg for you international readers) Costco-sized bag of flour because it was the only thing available with the sudden sourdough-induced shortages and because a good Asian will never pass up a good deal. The thing was enormous, but I figured I’d use as much as I could and we’d toss whatever went bad (idk how long that takes, but it was a LOT of flour). So I joined my fellow humans, stayed home, stayed safe, rolled up my sleeves, and baked and baked and baked. But while my fellow home bakers were cultivating starters in their mason jars, I was experimenting with Subtle Asian Bakes without realizing it. As a hungry child stuck at home and fresh off a sick person’s diet, I made different versions of dan tats (蛋撻), scallion pancakes (蔥油餅), chiffon cakes, and tong yuan (湯圓). (And okay, also 5-6 variations on banana bread.)

Modern Asian Baking is a book for everyone. It’s a cookbook by amateur home bakers for home bakers. There are recipes for every skill level, and it’s not just for Asians! If you’re unfamiliar with Asian desserts, Modern Asian Baking is the perfect place to start. For those who didn’t grow up with these flavor profiles or may be unfamiliar with some of these desserts, Kat makes Asian baking approachable and breaks down the ingredients with simple, easy-to-understand terms. Each recipe is introduced with a short description of the bake. I’m the type of person who always scrolls down to the recipe and complains when a blog doesn’t have a “jump to recipe” button (sorry food bloggers; I just don’t care about your son’s two-year old birthday party,) but I actually enjoyed reading these brief intros.

While I’ll be sticking with my own recipes for some things like mantou (饅頭) and souffle pancakes, there are a ton in Modern Asian Baking I want to try. I already have a million and one Asian dessert recipes saved, but it’s one thing to have them all scattered around the internet or pinned on a Pinterest board, and it’s another thing to see them curated and bound together in a book. What’s great about Modern Asian Baking is that it saves me from scouring the internet for good recipes, comparing sites and trying to find the best. Kat’s provided a great jumping-off point so I can stop scrolling and start baking.

Pineapple and coconut cream buns.
Matcha basque cheesecake.
Tanghulu (冰糖葫蘆).
Mochi donuts.
Boba.

These were all things I’ve been wanting to try, and now I don’t have to try to figure out which version of a recipe to use!

And then there are all the new bakes that have been added to my list of things to bake:

Korean garlic cream cheese milk buns.
Tri-colored Japanese-style cheesecake.
Asian bakery fresh cream cake.
Matcha lava tangyuan.
Milk tea popsicles.
Mango lassi.

My biggest issue with Modern Asian Baking is I don’t know where to start!

I can't wait until Modern Asian Baking is available in stores. My dad makes fun of me for being “old school” because I love paper planners, CDs, polaroids, and paperbacks, but there’s just something about the physical heft of a cookbook that doesn’t compare with baking from a screen. (It also saves me from cleaning flour off my phone and keyboard.) I'm excited to continue experimenting in the kitchen and discovering new subtle Asian bakes and so happy there's a cookbook out there to help me with my baking adventures :)

This cookbook is beautifully written! I love that each recipe has a full-color picture included. Some of the recipes I was familiar with, but for the recipes that I wasn't it was really nice to have a picture. I lived in South Korea for a little and was happy to see a baking cookbook focused solely on Asia. Each recipe had clear instructions and didn't seem difficult to follow. Truthfully, I haven't tried any of the recipes, but once summer comes and I have access to fresh fruit I plan to use the microwave mochi to make fresh fruit daifuku, a snack I've always wanted to try but have never found! I also want to try the sugar fruit. I've also been trying to convince my mom to make me a Japanese cheesecake. If you're interested in trying some Asian baked goods, I wouldn't definitely check out this cookbook!

i’ve been so excited for this book, i’m always looking for asian dessert recipes. i even told my mom about this because she too loves asian desserts. to say i was ecstatic to read this is an understatement. every single recipe in this book looks incredible, trust me i swiped and read through every single page. you can really tell so much effort and love was put into this book. i honestly cannot wait to try out recipes from this book!! everything is so creative and is genuinely so intriguing, like gochujang flourless chocolate cake ?? 🤤 i have so much love for this book and i wish it all the best

This was love at first sight. As soon as I saw the title and the cover, I knew I had to request for an ARC. After doing so did I only realize that this was from one of my favorite instagrammers! I am an avid follower of Subtle Asian Cooking, and I was very surprised that this was her book or that she was even working on one. Congratulations!! 13 years in the making!

Anyway, back to the book. Oh the photos, the recipes, I must try all of them. I've been seeing this Ube Mochi on my instagram feed since 2020 and maybe it's now time to try this recipe. Another one I'm excited to try out is the Curry Bread. I mean, it's hard not to want to try every single one in this book because everything looks so delicious. Oh and my favorite part? The recipes all have metric conversions! Most US cookbooks use volume measures so I always give a shout out to cookbook authors for adding in metric weights.

I completely love this book and your instagram! Congratulations on publishing a cookbook! Thank you for giving me an ARC as well! Best of luck to you! <3

#reviewedbyaveryasianperson

Everything about this book makes me excited to give these recipes a try. From the crisp gorgeous photos to the delicious looking recipes themselves, this cookbook is very inviting. The writing and the humor is also very relatable. The background and instructions are also very helpful as some of these recipes would otherwise be intimidating, but the author breaks it down so it doesn't seem so daunting. The recipes in here are exactly the types of foods that I really like that are becoming a bit more popular, but still difficult to find at times. I love that it includes traditional and more modern trendy recipes for homecooks to make at home.

Beautifully shot photos of both modern and classic Asian desserts w/ some modern twists. I loved the explanation of typical ingredients found in the Asian pantry and brought me back to being a child wandering my grandmother's pantry. I'm so happy to finally have found a cookbook that blends both modern and traditional in such a beautiful way. I've never seen any cookbook like this and am so glad that there is finally one that not only speaks to our past but the present and future as well! Highly recommend, 10/10!!

This books it’s so beautiful really, i loved that it has so many different things not only from one part of Asia but from Asia as a whole, that was a super plus for me.

I want to try almost everything here if not everything in the book, it has recipes from pancakes to jam to egg bread and even drinks so for me it’s super complete.

If you didn't knew this ones already totally recommend you try this one.

Beautiful photos, and lots of recipes that look very yummy! I don't know if I would make them at home but I would love to try these somewhere. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

I was not familiar with the SAB, subtle Asian Baking, community. I was drawn to this book by the beautiful desserts and colors on the cover. I have since been educated and am thrilled to have found this cookbook. Kat Lieu shares her heart for her roots, her community, and her love for baking within these pages. I learned a lot about three key ingredients used repeatedly in this book: matcha, black sesame, and ube. As I first thumbed through the book, I was captivated by the COLORS of so many of these treats. I love how Kat has combined some old and new to create tantalizing Asian treats that remains true to her roots. Treats such as Ube Butter Mochi, , Black Sesame Mochi Beignets, Miso Garlic Milk Bread Buns, Snowy Skin Mooncakes (on the cover), and Mango Lassi with Sago. There are plenty of traditional recipes as well, such as almond cookies and milk bread. You can learn how to make your own boba as well as techniques for various doughs and steaming. Chapters are divided by basics and confections, favorite cookies and pastries, airy and not-too-sweet cakes, bread and yeasted bakes, treats under one moon and holiday bakes, custards and frozen, and drinks. Every single recipe has a beautiful photo included as well as step by step instructions. Recipes are provided with metric and standard measurements. I absolutely recommend this cookbook for those who looking to try something new with authentic Asian ingredients, style, and flavors.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley and all opinions expressed are solely my own, freely given.

I love pandan, mochi, black sesame ice cream, mango pudding, and coconut sticky rice so I really wanted to see what would be on those pages. There are a lot of sweets from all over the Asian continent in this book and a good dose of fun fusion. While I would have loved to see more traditional dishes too, this was still a lot of fun and interesting suggestions, and a whole bunch of inspiration. I really want to bust open a matcha box and start preparing delicious treats with it.
One of the recipes that intrigues me the most is the soy sauce caramel which sounds fantastic. Prepare for a lot of steaming though, which means you need the right equipment.
The pictures in this book are really appetizing and I look forward to trying a few things out. For all those who love sweets with an Asian twist, you will find a lot of happiness in this cookbook!

I will admit I'm biased about this book since I'm a follower of theirs and have been watching the whole journey of making the cookbook. I love all the recipes in here and I enjoy that more books about asian cooking are coming out.

Book: Modern Asian Baking at Home: Essential Sweet and Savory Recipes for Milk Bread, Mooncakes, Mochi, and More; Inspired by the Subtle Asian Baking Community

Author: Kat Lieu

Pub Info: 28 June 2022, Quarto Knows, Quarry Books

Genres: Cooking / Food, Asian Culture, Baking/Cooking, Home & Leisure

I received an electronic copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback. Thank you to the author, photographers, publisher, and NG.


I am approaching this book as someone who reads a lot of cooking/baking guides, but I have no prior experience with Asian baking. I am always looking to learn more about 1) cooking/baking and 2) different cultures, so these are my two motivations for requesting this review copy. I also really like this publisher’s releases, so I know it will be high quality in terms of its photography & layout.

The content includes chapter sections on: 1) Basics and Confections, 2) Cookies & Pastries, 3) Airy & Not-Too-Sweet Cakes, 4) Bread and Yeasted Bakes, 5) Treats Under One Moon & Holiday Bakes, 6) Custards & Frozen, 7) Drinks.

What really stood out to me right off the bat is the straight forward guides that include visual depictions of the instructions. As someone who learns best from doing what I read, it’s helpful to have visuals to know I’m following along correctly. Not only does this one provide the “end product” visual, but the step-by-step really helps. Not all have this feature, but I liked the ones that did.

The others are pretty straight forward enough to follow that you don’t really need pics of every step or anything. I think my favorite recipe included is Brazos de Mercedes Meringue Swirls. Most of the photos make the food look really good!

Lush photography paired with heartwarming stories, and must-have, mouth-watering recipes indeed for chiffon cakes, mochi, and milk bread. I will be sure to try out these recipes, and it's a book I'll be preordering for sure! The author has a sense of humor and cleverly uses hashtags like #representationmatters or #mentalhealthawareness in the book. Thoughtfully written, a beautifully put-together cookbook that I can not wait to hold in my hands and flip through the pages.

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

I don’t generally associate home baking with Asian culture but Kat Lieu has brought us a cookbook that proves good bakes come from Asia and she has simplified them for the average home baker. This cookbook is so well planned out containing recipes we all want demystified like Easy Microwave Mochi, Ube Halaya Jam, and preparing our own Boba to Asian Fusion recipes such as Miso Focaccia, Matcha Infused Madeleines, Ube White Chocolate Scones and Gochujang Flourless Chocolate Cake. I could go on and on revealing all the delicious recipes in this book, but there are just too many to list here. This cookbook is filled with big, beautiful, inspiring food photos and so many tempting recipes! I am preordering this one, I can’t wait to try these recipes in my kitchen! Available for purchase on June 28, 2022.

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