Freddy's Harajuku

Sakura blooming: vegan macaron ice cream sandwiches

So the idea to make a vegan macaron sandwich came up a long while back, I think in December 2019. But I never really got a chance to make them, mostly because I was too lazy to buy a can of chickpeas to make aquafaba. But recently, a bunch of stars sort of aligned, and…

Miso apple pie sticky buns with Calpico cream

So the flavors of this dessert came about from a lot of random things coming together. While in quarantine, I have limited amounts of butter and flour, so I was conceptualizing something where I could combine concepts to not only be original, but to conserve my supplies while hitting on all of the cravings that…

Gomakashi: a plated dessert

When I was coming up with this dessert, I had already made a black sesame flan in advanced, but didn’t necessarily know what else to pair it with. Luckily, my friend Ellen had just reached out to me, suggesting I make a dessert using dalgona coffee. Dalgona coffee, which has been recently been popularized on…

Citrus-bee pollen tropezienne

I was in one of those bread-making moods the other day that and I didn’t really want to be boring and predictable and make another cake just quite yet, and I wanted to make one of my favorite desserts, tropezienne. Tarte tropezienne, the formal French way of saying it, is basically a brioche that is…

High tea on high teas: a plated dish

I really wanted to just dabble more with savory cooking, just because I do so much with dessert, and not nearly enough with actual cooking. When I was conceptualizing this dish, I was actually running. Some of the best (or most original) ideas come to me when I’m experiencing an adrenaline high, and everything is…

Stay gold: a plated dessert

I recently purchased some dulcey (blonde chocolate) and was thinking of different things I could do with it. Blonde chocolate is basically a slow-roasted white chocolate that tastes like dulce de leche. It’s very much caramelized and nutty, and I wanted to play around with that flavor profile. So looking at some of my older…

Hikari: a petit gateau

I’m basically starting a new pet project where I’m making desserts inspired by the many songs from the Kingdom Hearts franchise, specifically, Utada Hikaru’s songs. She has so many theme songs from the series that I thought it would be a fun way for me to tackle some new aesthetics, flavors, and combinations in desserts…

Pot of Gold: a plated dessert

For St. Patrick’s Day, I had to go one of two ways. Either a green dessert, or an Irish-y dessert. I went with the latter, to a degree. I wanted to do something with stout, since that’s huge in Ireland, and I also wanted to do something with a pot of gold as the inspiration….

PB&J Layer Cake

So I came up with this concept after a quick chat with my friend Sam (you might remember him as the lawyer from my season of Masterchef). His son Jude’s 2nd birthday was coming up (it will actually be when I post this, so go and wish his son a happy birthday if you’re reading this!)…

Rainbow of illusion: a mirror glaze cake

So the name of this dessert stemmed from the lyrics of a harmonicblend song, “Auf Wiedersehen”. When I was trying to conceptualize this dessert, I wanted to make something that can be made into a rainbow, and I wouldn’t necessarily say deconstruct it, but rather, emphasize aspects of the rainbow that I wanted to. When…

Mackles’mores petit gateau

Mackles’mores(spelling might be inconsistent because truthfully, I have no clue what the correct spelling for them is), are chocolate chip cookies baked on top of graham crackers, with melted chocolate and marshmallow on top. They sell them at a bakery in Seattle, and happen to be one of my sister’s absolute favorite desserts. And I…

Meyer Lemon-Elderflower-Meringue Beignets

I love a good beignet. Fluffy doughnuts are honestly my favorite thing ever for munching on, especially when they’re stuffed with something. In this case, I had a ton of Meyer lemons sitting in my fridge, and I wanted to use them up. Immediately, my mind went to lemon curd. And with lemon curd, you…

Thin mint-Oreo Doughnut Creams

I really love making Doughnut Creams. I don’t make them as often as I used to, but I do still like their aesthetic. A seemingly perfectly glazed doughnut with cute toppings, but when you bite into it, it’s not fried dough. It’s a set mousse with fluffy cake on the bottom. Sometimes, two mousses. Sometimes,…

Gnocchi with lamb and pork brodo

I love making pasta. There are so many different kinds of shapes you can make, and they are all perfect for different functions. Stuffed pasta is great for keeping a filling and a sauce distinct, noodles are great for soaking up a sauce or broth, and for the case of gnocchi, they are great for…

Basque cheesecake with chocolate chip sable crust

Now I have been dying to make Basque cheesecake for quite a while now. For those of you who do not know what these are, they’re basically a Spanish-styled cheesecake which is airy and light at the edges, with a almost blackened, if not burnt top, and a gooey, creamy, and oozy center. They’re basically…

Find my heaven: a plated dessert

I really wanted to try branching out and doing new things this year, be it with techniques or plating. The dessert itself is inspired by me just trying to find my happy place in the kitchen, and obviously, that’s through baking and cooking with Asian-fusion influences. So I went with a hojicha panna cotta with…

Pineapple upside down layer cake

So with all of the recipe-testing I have been doing, not going to lie, there’s been a LOT of leftover components here and there accumulating. One of such leftover items were the tea-smoked cherries from my earl grey-spumoni dessert. So I wanted to get rid of them bring them back in another dessert! Rummaging through…

Love like you: a mirror glaze cake

When I was thinking of my quintessential Valentine’s Dessert, I had to go this route. A mousse cake would be perfect, since they are gorgeous, and almost resemble a box of chocolates in a way. I decided to go with a classic and simple combination of raspberry and vanilla, just because the contrast is sharp,…

A conversation, an experience: a petit gateau

For this dessert, I decided to go with a very specific drink as my flavor-inspiration, being Kir Royale. This drink comprises of cassis(currant) liquor, champagne, and fresh berries. Honestly, I was inspired by a pocket cake we were running at milkbar lab, which was a Kir Royale flavored cake, as well as the similarly flavored…

うつろい(utsuroi): a plated dessert

I really wanted this dessert to be the sister counterpart to “kakawari”, as it is based on yet another song by TrySail, and almost a given here, another theme song from Magia Record. The name roughly translates from Japanese to English as “waning” or “fading”, or an unfortunate kind of change. Since my other dessert…