Freddy's Harajuku

Asparagus-Sesame Gazpacho

I purchased some asparagus with no real idea on what I was going to do with them – usually when I think of asparagus, I think of it as a side to a steak or a piece of fish. I did make an asparagus and ricotta pita years ago with my friend Ann, but I…

Ricotta Pancakes with White Nectarines

When I was trying to figure out what to do with my leftover ricotta cheese, one thing that Google listed was ricotta pancakes. I hilariously did a poll on Instagram on what to use that leftover ricotta for, with the top voted pick being ravioli. I already made the ravioli, but I somehow still had…

Sourdough Savarian with Strawberries and White Nectarines

Since I have been shackled to my sourdough starter, I wanted to find creative ways to use the discard. Since starter can be used in lieu of yeast, I wanted to use the starter in a yeast-leavened dessert, in this case, a savarin. Savarin is similar to a baba in that they are both yeast-leavened…

Mamey and Thai Tea Popsicles

I am personally quite surprised that I have not made popsicles since 2022, nor have I worked with mamey sapote since 2020! It has been a minute since I last utilized my popsicle molds, and since I wanted to make a mamey dessert, it just all fell into place to make these mamey popsicles! In…

Baymax Sourdough Loaves

I have been seeing videos of people enjoying these adorable Baymax sourdough loaves at Disneyland’s San Fransokyo, and I just had to take a swing at making these myself. I will be honest, I felt a bit read when I saw the first Big Hero 6 trailer, mostly because Hiro Hamada totally ripped off my…

Sylveon Strawberry-Vanilla Mousse Cakes

This was one of two desserts I got to create for The Pokemon Company when they contacted me for an opportunity to make dessert content for them to promote the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet World Championship series for 2024! This was a total dream come true for me, between having done Pokemon content in the…

Oreo Mille Crepe Cake

I have been wanting to make this specific recipe since May of 2023. But back then, I was still on a two-month sugar fast, and I learned very quickly that May is an exhausting month to try to do anything – between Mother’s Day and my dad’s birthday, there’s already a lot of cakes that…

Sourdough Crostini with Figs and Ricotta

This recipe was the byproduct of me needing to use up a tub of ricotta cheese, having sourdough bread already made, and me purchasing figs from the farmers market on an impulse buy. Hilariously enough, it all worked out in the sense that I have three things, being bread, figs, and cheese, that go gorgeously…

Palm Sugar Iced Mugicha(Barley Tea)

Growing up, one of my favorite beverages was iced barley tea. It would be lightly sweetened, and it was a very refreshing beverage, especially during the winter. I happened to purchase a large amount of mugicha(barley tea) bags from my local Japanese grocery store a while ago, and while I love having mugicha around to…

Midnight Snack: a petit gateau

I was craving a Hostess cake, and that literally was what inspired me making these. I specifically wanted a chocolate cake stuffed with a marshmallow, with a chocolate ganache glaze. So I figured, especially since I had a lot of spare egg whites lying around, that I could use one of the egg whites to…

Pinwheel Lasagna Rosettes

When I was looking up potential Italian restaurants for when I was visiting NYC(we settled on Lilia, which was solid), I did come across a restaurant called Don Angie, which featured this really cool looking lasagna. When I think of lasagna, I think of layers of pasta, bechamel, and red sauce, stacked up in a…

Potato Gnocchi with Kimchi-Bacon Bolognese

When I initially wrote this recipe, I wanted to make a kimchi-bacon bolognese for a tagliatelle or pappardelle pasta. Basically, I envisioned long noodles with this hearty meat sauce. I was inspired by these Asian-fusion pasta dishes that you could find in a cafe in Japan or Korea, and that was what I intended when…

Air Fried Blooming Onion with Onion Jus

Let me preface this recipe by saying that I actual blooming onion before. I have wanted to try one, but when I heard that they were the single most unhealthy thing to eat, I just got turned off by the idea. That is until I started using my air fryer more, and figured, why not…

Date and Assam Milk Tea

I was randomly craving wintermelon tea late at night, but the nearest boba store was already closed, as were the Asian grocery stores, and as much as I would love to make wintermelon tea from scratch, I neither had a fresh wintermelon to do that nor the patience – for context, wintermelon tea is made…

Chocolate Olive Oil Cakes

Olive oil cake is one of those kinds of cakes that you are starting to see more and more of recently. Almost every cafe in Los Angeles sells an olive oil cake, or some variation on one. However, I don’t really see chocolate-olive oil cakes often – funnily enough, olive oil gelato with chocolate and…

Seaweed Ice Cream Sundae

Before anyone thinks that adding seaweed to desserts is weird, I actually grew up eating this Chinese coconut tapioca dessert that had pieces of rehydrated kombu in it. The kombu, which is a type of dried Japanese seaweed that is used in broths, absorbed the sweet coconut flavor and added a nice textural contrast to…

Boston Cream Pie Lamingtons

Lamingtons are a popular Australian dessert/snack. Traditional lamingtons do not have a filling, and are usually just cubes of cake, glazed with chocolate, and rolled in coconut. In my case, I wanted to combine them with another favorite dessert of mine, being the Boston cream pie. Boston cream pie features a vanilla cake, a custard…

Mt. Pav-lava with Dinosaur Shortbreads

My friend Samantha(from season 9 and Back to Win) gifted me with these dinosaur cookie cutters back in January, but truthfully, I had zero ideas on what to do with these. I am not a major dinosaur enthusiast(I never even watched Jurassic Park, though I DID grow up on The Land Before Time rip Little…

Dubai Chocolate Eggs

About a year ago, I had on my to-make list to do a knafeh-themed dessert, but where there was going to be an egg motif going on, with the kataifi(also called shredded phyllo) being used as like a nest around this knafeh-egg-thing. I never got around to doing it because life happened(i.e. my now ex-workplace…

Mint Chip Gelato Sundae

Mint chip ice cream is hilariously enough, my earliest memory. My mom, when we first immigrated to America, would take me and my sister to the Baskin Robbins nearby where we lived in Torrance(hilariously, that Baskin Robbins is STILL in business to this day, I now as an adult live walking distance from there, and…