Freddy's Harajuku

Strawberry-Pistachio-Lemon Mirror Glaze Cake

Strawberry and pistachio will always be on of my favorite dessert combinations – the tartness of red fruit against the salty, crunchy, smokiness of a pistachio is just so addictive. It also might be because my birthday is so close to Christmas that I just love the color contrast between red/pink and green. Pistachio and…

Pink Sprinkled Sourdough Doughnuts

These doughnuts were the byproduct of me feeding my sourdough starter, and it overflowing from being fed and me having roughly 16oz of starter that I had to use up. A decent portion of it went towards making these air-fried sourdough doughnuts. Yes, air-fried and sourdough-based. The idea here was that I did not want…

Red-Stripped Mini Croissants

I did not have it in my 2024 bingo card that I would be making croissants again. The last time I tackled croissants this frequently was 4 years ago during the pandemic, when there was literally nothing else to do. Croissant dough usually takes a long time to make, since the dough is laminated, but…

Hidden Rose Apple Krempita

So I was fortunate enough to procure some hidden rose apples, and I just had to use them in a couple recipes while I had the chance! Hidden rose apples are usually available in a relatively short span between November and December, so I always feel a need to make a couple of recipes with…

Vanilla-Apple-Almond Entremet

I had these red delicious apples laying around in my fridge that I wanted to use up, so I started making kohakutou with them. Kohakutou is a Japanese crystal-like candy, made by creating a sugary gelee, then allowing it to slowly dry out over time(anywhere from 3 days to even 3 weeks) so that the…

Sourdough Black Pepper Biscuits

Biscuits are always a guilty pleasure for me. Flaky or fluffy, light, and buttery, all words I would use to describe the perfect biscuit. Back in college, I was fortunate enough to go to school in Boston, where Sweet Cheeks Q is located. Sweet Cheeks is known for their iconic biscuit, which is the size…

Cappelletti with Walnut-Miso Dashi

This literally was a recipe that came about because I had about 8oz of ricotta cheese leftover and I was not 100% sure what to do with it. I made a poll on Instagram, giving a couple of the options I was leaning towards: the choices were: ravioli, cheesecake, doughnuts, or whatever Google told me…

White Chocolate-Macadamia Sourdough Scones

If there was one quintessential childhood cookie for me growing up, it was the white chocolate-macadamia nut cookie from Subway(eat Fresh). Whenever we had field trips, my mom would get me a footlong Italian sandwich with one of those cookies, so I always looked forward to field trips for that very reason. Even as an…

Tofu Cheesecake with Honeyed Plums

This cheesecake was the brain child of me wanting to use silken tofu in a dessert, but also wanting to play around with plums while they were still in season. I have been playing around with what I call “blank slate”-types of desserts, where the dessert components are left super open-ended in a way where…

Dark Chocolate-Dried Cherry Sourdough Scones

Now that I am officially a sourdough parent, I am always finding fun and new ways to use up my sourdough starter. One of those ways was by making scones. I was really just thinking about items that could be served in an afternoon tea, since a lot of those things are dough-based pastries or…

Wintermelon Mooncakes

These wintermelon mooncakes are my homage to wintermelon tea. Wintermelon is not a super popular ingredient outside of Asia, as it is a relatively bland gourd that is caramelized and used as an ingredient for boba milk tea frequently. I grew up drinking wintermelon tea all the time, so I wanted to use that as…

Tofu-Miso Panna Cotta with Textures of Soy

I will not lie, this recipe is similar to an old dessert I did a while ago featuring a tahini panna cotta. but I wanted to feature Meiji tofu instead. Meiji tofu is a type of tofu made with double the amount of soy beans, resulting in a silkier texture and a more intense soy…

Momotaro Tomato and Bacon Pasta

I love Momotaro tomatoes. They are this pinkish-red Japanese tomato that has a mild sweetness to them. While eating them fresh is usually the way to go, I wanted to try cooking them, and I definitely was not disappointed in the end product: I made a tomato sauce with some of the Momotaro tomatoes, and…

Hot Milk Funfetti Cupcakes

I feel like almost any American can recall a time in their lives when they go to a birthday party and are presented with plain vanilla cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles, either baked into the cake, or speckled on top of a vanilla or chocolate frosting. It is honestly such a basic thing, cake, frosting, sprinkles,…

Chocolate Decadence Layer Cake

I am a firm believer that there is a chocolate cake for every occasion. The best occasion for this kind of recipe is if you want a chocolate cake that tastes like baked fudge. Now I have been mentioning the Ms. Trunchbull Chocolate cake a bunch of times on this blog, but this is very,…

Pork Loin with Pommes Aligot and French Onion Jus

This dish was in my to-make list for almost 8 months – I wanted to try my hand at making a French technique-driven dish, featuring a French onion jus and pommes aligot, and this is what came about from that. For those who are unfamiliar with where I was going with, a French onion jus…

Chocolate-Miso-Apple Tart

This recipe was inspired by an old episode of the Japanese Iron Chef, where the challenge was to make desserts with apples and chocolate. I love the idea of combining chocolate, something sweet, bitter, and creamy, with apples, which can take on a lot of spice, bitterness, and are naturally sweet and tart. I just…

Momotaro Tomato Sourdough Tartine

So I have made an extremely similar iteration of this recipe not too long ago using black mission figs – this recipe uses the same bread dough and the sweet and savory miso-ricotta spread, which I am obsessed with. But this time around, I wanted to use Momotaro tomatoes. Momotaro tomatoes are these light pink…

Jalapeno Pork Ribs with Jalapeno-Cheese Cornbread Madelines

Ribs and cornbread is a classic childhood pairing of mine whenever we would go to Chicago For Ribs in Redondo Beach growing up. It’s unfortunate because Chicago For Ribs is closed now, but it featured a variety of barbecued ribs, barbecue or steakhouse dishes, and steakhouse sides like mac n’ cheese, baked potatoes, waffle fries,…

Strawberry-Soy Milk Phyllo Pie

This phyllo pie is a variation on the apricot one I made a bit ago, this one featuring flaky homemade phyllo, Strawberry Inspiration coating, soy milk custard, strawberry gelee, and glazed strawberries on top. I have really fallen in love with the flaky phyllo fruit pies, because the filling is so interchangeable, as is the…