Bake Like Lara Jean: Recipes From ‘To All The Boys’

In To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and To All The Boys: P.S I Still Love You baking is a big part of Lara Jean’s personality.

To cope with her conflicting feelings, Lara Jean stress bakes. “What is going on in that head of yours?” Peter asks early in the movie, gesturing to her homemade snickerdoodles. “They’re your pensive bake,” he says.

For their first Valentine’s Day together Lara Jean makes Peter cherry turnovers. When Lara Jean was crushing on John Ambrose in the 6th grade she made him chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. When John Ambrose reappears in TATBILB2 he asks Lara Jean to make them again…and she does!!

All this talk of baking really made up want to try something.

We don’t know the exact recipes that Lara Jean followed, but we found some that are very similar.

Lara Jean Recipes: Cherry Turnovers

For Valentine’s Day Lara Jean bakes cherry turnovers for Peter. The scene in the movie was almost like watching a tutorial.

For The Crust

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cold and cut into pieces
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

For The Filling

3 cups pitted cherries
1/3 cup granulated sugar
large pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For The Glaze

2 eggs beaten

Step 1

Make the dough: In a food processor, pulse together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add in the shortening and half of the butter cubes, pulsing until the mixture looks like gravel. Next add the rest of the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles small peas. Pour in 1/4 cup of ice water, then pulse a few more times. Remove dough from the food processor, and roll into two disks. Wrap each in plastic wrap, and put in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Step 2

Make the filling: While your dough is chilling, give the cherries a rough chop and add them to a medium sauce pan along with the sugar and salt over medium heat. Cook for about five minutes, stirring constantly. Bring the cherries to a simmer and cook for another five minutes, stirring. Spoon out two tablespoons of the juice from the cherries into a small bowl and stir the cornstarch into it. Pour the cornstarch mixture back into the sauce pan and continue to simmer, stirring the whole time. After about 6 to 8 minutes, the mixture will become very thick. Remove from heat, stir in the lemon juice, and allow to cool.

Step 3

Once the dough is thoroughly chilled, remove from the plastic wrap, one disc at a time. Generously flour a flat, clean surface, and, with a rolling pin, roll out the disc until it’s about 1/8 of an inch thick. With a pizza cutter, cut out rectangles from the dough and place about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the cherries into the middle of the rectangle. With your left over rectangles, cut a few slits into the top of each pastry, in order to allow steam to escape while in the oven. Place on top of the cherries and use a fork to press down the edges. Repeat the whole process. Once finished beat two eggs together and use to glaze

Place the pastries on a greased baking sheet and bake until edges are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Recipe adapted from: You Must Love Food

Lara Jean Recipes: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

We had a bit of trouble tying to track down a similar recipe for Lara Jean’s chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.

In the movie Lara Jean’s cupcakes look like they have a fairly plain sponge, possibly with chocolate chips on the inside, but when you Google ‘chocolate peanut butter cupcakes’ recipes for a chocolate base cupcake come up. You see the problem!

Now, we’re never opposed to more chocolate, so we decided to go for a chocolate sponge cupcake with peanut butter frosting on top; we’re sure Lara Jean would approve.

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

3.75 oz all purpose flour, by weight (3/4 cup, measured)
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil**
1/2 cup whole buttermilk*
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup coffee
chocolate syrup for drizzling, optional
chopped peanuts for garnish, optional

For the peanut butter buttercream:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

5 oz confectioner’s sugar, by weight (1 cup, measured)
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Whisk to combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In another bowl, whisk to combine the buttermilk, grapeseed oil, egg, and vanilla. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry while stirring, and before the flour has disappeared into the batter, stir in the coffee. It will make the batter quite thin. Evenly divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups, but make sure they are no more than 3/4 full.
Bake for 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack completely.
To make the buttercream, beat all buttercream ingredients in a bowl until smooth and blended, about 3 minutes on high speed.
Pipe on the buttercream as desired. Optional: drizzle with chocolate syrup, and sprinkle on some chopped peanuts. Enjoy!

Recipe from: Fifteen Spatulas

Which Lara Jean recipe is your favourite?