This dessert was loosely inspired by my most recent trip to the Big Island, where my friends and I hiked through a dormant volcanic crater in Kilauea. At the bottom of the large crater, there was a surprising amount of plant life that was sprouting out of the black volcanic rock, and the visual contrast…
Category: Recipes
Pink Peach Mille Crepe
My obsession with pink peaches continues as we get towards the end of peach season. It’s crazy to think that summer is almost over – 2025 really has flown by. That being said, I wanted to make another dessert that would really embrace the prettiness of these pink peaches. For those who have not seen…
Artichoke-Roasted Garlic Dip with Artichoke-Rye Crackers
This recipe was my take on artichoke dip, but made with feta cheese, confit garlic, and meyer lemons to give it a more Mediterranean feel! Artichokes are an ingredient that I just love, because they play off of cheese well. That’s because they have this sweet aftertaste that works with the salinity in cheeses like…
Elderflower Panna Cotta with Rhubarb and Strawberries
Rhubarb, strawberry, and elderflower will always be an iconic dessert trio for me. Rhubarb is sour and crunchy, strawberries are tart and tender, and elderflower brings a sweetness and floral notes. The three together have a lot of synergy, and create a great contrast in any dessert that they are used in. With rhubarb being…
Blackberry-Yuzu Drifloon Pies
Drifloon is one of the cutest Pokemon out there, being a ghostly purple balloon with a yellow cross shape(I’m assuming that the balloon was popped and patched up), and a little wispy cloud on top of its head. I still have memories of playing Pokemon Pearl and finding them in the Valley Windworks on a…
Blueberry-Sweet Corn Basque Cheesecake
I wanted to make a corn dessert of some kind, just to embrace the seasonality of corn. Corn is just naturally so much sweeter and juicier during the summer, and it makes for some really great desserts because of that. I wanted to make a basque cheesecake, pureeing sweet corn into it, and just to…
Honey Butter Buns with Creme Fraiche
These honey butter buns are inspired by Japanese honey butter toast, but in sticky bun form. Honey butter toast is made by spreading a paste of honey, brown sugar, and butter around a piece of bread, and toasting that until the sugars caramelize, and you get this almost creme brulee-like exterior to the toast itself….
Pistachio-Blackberry Namelaka Cake
This recipe came about because I was craving a cake that had a light sponge and a rich frosting. There is just something so satisfying about a light as air cake and a silky, creamy sweet frosting that just melts in the mouth and makes you want to go back for another bite. I already…
Purple Sweet Potato Namelaka with Ruby Kiwi Curd
I will be honest in that this dessert was my attempt to pair some ingredients together that felt like they would go together, but the plating was clunky to put it lightly. I had purple sweet potato namelaka, which is a white chocolate-based whipped mousse, kinako-almond crunch, which is smoky, nutty, and buttery, purple sweet…
PB&J Shortbread Sandos
After making the buttered and toast financiers using my bread slice muffin tins, I definitely wanted to do another recipe with them, but this time, shortbread sandos! I have been seeing shortbread sandwich cookies all over the internet, and I figured it would be a cute nod to do something like that, but with bread…
Koji Sirloin with Miso Risotto
This recipe is my East Meets West take on steak and risotto. I wanted to make a risotto with steak and kale, which is something we might eat for dinner for a special occasion, but using some Japanese ingredients to give it a new identity and keep things new and different. So with the steak,…
Black Sesame-Milk Oolong Roll Cake
This cake was a fun reunion between me and a friend from middle school, Inna. Inna and I had been friends during middle school and high school, and while we did hang out a lot with the same people, and had similar interests(video games, anime, baking), we weren’t necessarily the closest of friends back then….
White Nectarine-Blackberry Pie Top
This pie top was directly inspired from when I saw Christina Tosi post this shortbread disk that was topped with jam and crumble on Instagram, and it looked delicious. So to do something similar to that, because once a Milkbar member, always a Milkbar member I made a variation on that, but with a shortbread…
Creme Brulee Financiers “Toasts”
This recipe was the direct result of me seeing someone bake with these really cute bread-shaped muffin tins, and me wanting to do something similar. After scouring on the internet, and believe you me, it took a lot of creative word combinations on Google, I found them in a random website called AliExpress. So after…
Banana-Passionfruit Milky Way Cake
This cake came about because I wanted to do a passionfruit-banana cake of some kind, just because of the flavor contrast. Passionfruit being tart and tangy while banana is mild and sweet, both tropical fruits play off of one another beautifully here! The big debate for me, internally, was whether or not I introduce chocolate…
White Peach Blanc Manger
White peaches are my reminder that it’s finally summer. It’s crazy to think we’re over halfway through 2025(time literally flew by this year it feels like). 2020 still feels like yesterday, and the craziest part is that people born that year are already old enough to be in kindergarten now! That being said, white peaches…
S’mores Panna Cotta 2.0
One of the first plated desserts I ever made was this S’mores Panna Cotta, literally 10 years ago. Summer of 2015, I was taking summer courses at Boston University, and during my free time, I was practicing a lot with desserts and baking. That was the summer when Reynold Poernomo’s Masterchef Australia season aired, and…
Liver and Onion Piccata
I am one of those weirdos that likes liver and onions, okay? Back in college, when I was learning Montenegrin food, I noticed liver was a commonly used protein in that cuisine. I still remember when I was auditioning for Masterchef season 10, since I mentioned being a heavy baker more than a savory cook,…
Miso Caramel Banana Upside Down Cake
Whenever I purchase bananas, it’s always a struggle to use them up(without resorting to my beloved hummingbird cake). But then I remembered the idea of upside down cakes. They can be versatile, since you can use up a lot of fruit in both the caramelized layer, and in the batter itself, so it’s a good…
Chorizo Chicken Thighs with Cavatelli
A while ago, I was trying to make a dish with chorizo, but accidentally grabbed Mexican chorizo instead of Spanish chorizo. To confirm the differences here, Mexican chorizo is more like a mince or sausage meat, meant to be cooked to be crumbly. Spanish chorizo is dried and is more like a cured meat product…
Freddy's Harajuku 