‘You have to use your heart’: Halifax pastry chef bakes plenty of love into Japanese cheesecakes

A Hong Kong pastry chef brings his Japanese cheesecake recipe to the Maritimes.

A Hong Kong pastry chef came to Halifax in 2020 with the goal of sharing his delicious baked goods with the community, and he’s being doing just that ever since.

Eric Chiang has been baking for more than 20 years and says he came to Canada for a better quality of life.

Lately his speciality is fresh Japanese cheesecakes – and they are made with plenty of love.

“We find that the community and the people are very kind and very nice and we are falling in love with Halifax,” says Chiang.

He started his business, Bake Room Japanese Cheesecake, because he wanted to bring happiness to people.

“Having the cheesecake is the simple way to making people smile. Japanese cheesecake is light and fluffy and not too sweet,” Chiang explains.

While Japanese cheesecakes feature simple ingredients like butter, milk, cream cheese, egg, sugar and flour, they take a long time to bake.

“It’s a very long process, it takes about two hours, so it’s a time-consuming job. Every step of the making, you have to use your heart to make the cheesecake,” Chiang says.

Once the cakes come out of the oven, Chiang puts a stamp of his business’s logo on them as a finishing touch.

“On the logo there’s a name – Hélène Jaune – it’s my wife. She is the boss!”

“It’s really good. It’s really soft and like sweet. It tastes amazing,” said one Bake House customer.

“It’s my first time having it – soft and fluffy – delicious,” said another. “Right out of the oven, so it’s a bit warm. That’s the best time.”

Chiang says it means the world to him to have returning customers, or even a good review.

“(It) always makes me feel very satisfied,” he says. “This is my main goal of making cheesecake – making people happy.”

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page