A stunningly photographed ode to pan-Asian flavors, this mouthwatering collection of over 75 recipes and drinks from Oakland’s Bake Sum Bakery demystifies the techniques and flavors behind all your favorite desserts.
Organized by level of difficulty, the book guides readers through classic Asian puddings & jellies like Almond Jello, Mango Pudding, and Taho (sweet silken tofu), before moving on to the bakery’s famous sesame-studded and matcha scented cookies, beautiful layer cakes, tarts and pies of all kinds—from an Egg Custard Tart to Miso Apple Turnovers–and eventually lands in bread, then laminated pastry. Learn the secrets of the bakery’s NYT-lauded Croissubi, a spam musubi-croissant hybrid, how to make a perfect milk bread, and how to work with ingredients and flavors like yuzu, black sesame, ube, pandan, and hojicha.
Peppered amongst the desserts, snacks, and drinks are essays on the migration of culture and taste through food. Learn how the concha traveled from North America in the Gold Rush era to Hong Kong and became what’s now known as a Chinese pineapple bun, plus recipes to make hybrid versions full of ube pastry cream and red beans that burst off the page.
Whether you come to Bake Sum with a deep nostalgia for its flavors, are curious to try a mooncake for the first time, or want to learn how to laminate a croissant at home, this is the book for you.
About the Author :
Joyce Tang started her career in tech at Facebook, but left to enroll in culinary school in 2015. She began working in bakeries and restaurants all over the Bay Area and landed herself an externship at the three-Michelin-starred El Celler de Can Roca while three months pregnant. She counts herself as the first woman to have ever breastfed while working at the illustrious decades-old Catalonian establishment. Joyce founded Bake Sum as a pop-up bakery in the midst of the 2020 pandemic, and the bakery has since grown into a pink storefront in Oakland where she delights fans with her fluffy, colorful, and creative takes on pastry.
Soleil Ho is an award-winning food and culture writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2019, they became The San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant critic, going on to win the James Beard Foundation’s Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award in 2022. In 2025, they co-founded the COYOTE Media Collective, a worker-owned news outlet for the Bay Area. Their diverse writing portfolio includes restaurant reviews, opinion columns, and investigative journalism, while their published works include the graphic novel Meal, contributions to several anthologies, and the 2024 cookbook The Memory of Taste, co-authored with Oakland-raised chef Tu David Phu. Other contributions include behind-the-scenes work on books including Our South (2024) and the forthcoming The Ice Cream Queen (2026).
Review :
"If you are lucky enough to live near Bake Sum in Oakland, you've had the chance to savor Joyce Tang's cleverly delicious treats that capture Asian Americana at its best. Fortunately, we now have Joyce's debut cookbook--an inspirational work full of her deep research, pro secrets, and innovative twists on classics, all readied for the home cook." --Andrea Nguyen, James Beard Award winning author of The Pho Cookbook and Ever-Green Vietnamese
"Joyce Tang's debut cookbook, Bake Sum, is pure magic. The vibrant pages are portals into her flavorful, colorful world, transporting me straight back to her cozy Oakland bakery, where I once spent an afternoon baking beside her. Her recipes and storytelling don't just inspire; they give you the confidence to bake treats like croissubi, butter mochi, concha, and even okonomiyaki Danishes. You'll bake with heart and go on a little adventure, using ingredients like ube, spam, and pandan. This wonderful collection of recipes radiates the same infectious warmth and joy as Tang herself." --Kat Lieu, award-winning author of 108 Asian Cookies and Modern Asian Baking at Home
"Bake Sum has created something bigger than a bakery. They've created a vibrant expression of Asian American identity told through flavor, memory, and imagination. This book captures that same spirit. It honors tradition while reinterpreting it with creativity and heart, inviting all of us to experience culture in the most universal way possible, through food."--TOKiMONSTA,
"Bake Sum is a reminder that food has a deep connection to people. Regardless of the culture you are from, you can relate to Joyce's excitement even for a simple recipe. Her techniques and flavors are an inspiration for home bakers and professionals." --Belinda Leong Michel Suas, James Beard Award winning owner/operators of b. Patisserie,
"Experiencing the Bake Sum cookbook is like eating a technically precise pastry that has the excitement of a different bite each time you dig in. Each recipe is a fun and inventive perspective on a classic form that I can attest is delicious."--Brandon Jew, chef/owner of Mister Jiu's,
"How lucky are we to have a piece of one of the Bay Area's best and most imaginative bakeries on our shelves and in our kitchens. Bake Sum is full of heart, approachable techniques, and countless recipes that bring a little sweetness and whimsy into our lives. In the limited world of Asian baking resources, this is absolutely a welcomed addition!" --Kristina Cho, James Beard Award winning author or Mooncakes Milk Bread and Chinese Enough ,
"I want to eat this book! Joyce's Bake Sum is more than a collection of recipes--it's a reminder of why culture is best when it's blended. As a third culture kid who grew up between the South and Shanghai, I can't overstate how much each recipe took me back to my kidhood self. This is exactly the menu I would have wanted as a kid, teenager, and now." --Bing Chen, CEO co-founder of Gold House,
"I wish the Bake Sum cookbook existed when I was a kid. I could have joyfully stuffed my face with Joyce's okonomiyaki Danishes and black sesame snickerdoodles and realized that, in this collision of flavor and culture, maybe the most authentic way to honor tradition is by breaking it. This collection of recipes is bound only by her unbridled creativity and imagination, one that melds the nostalgia of Asian and American heritage into drool-worthy favorites like halo halo croissant buns and comforting congee pot pies. These are desserts, breads, cakes, and more that I have never seen before, yet upon first bite, taste deeply personal, incredibly joyful, and utterly delicious." --Frankie Gaw, creator of Little Fat Boy and author of First Generation ,
"Joyce is a genius. She folds Asian cultures and nostalgic flavours into innovative, tasty A.F. baked goods. I also appreciate how each of her recipes carries a story or a memory. For every third culture kid who grew up between worlds, this book is a love letter to the food that shaped us--remixed in a beautiful, new way." --Domee Shi, director of Elio, Turning Red, and Bao ,
"Who else other than Joyce Tang would think of translating a Spam musubi to a croissant? Her Bay Area bakery, Bake Sum, is a vital player in the Asian American baking landscape nationwide, and how lucky are we to now be able to recreate her nostalgic, playful treats at home. She and Soleil Ho have created something that will resonate with countless second-generation immigrants." --Janelle Bitker, former Food + Wine editor, San Francisco Chronicle,
