Freddy's Harajuku

Biscoff-Hazelnut-Brown Butter Cake

Back when I went to Berlin last December, one tasty little morsel we bought as a souvenir were these German hazelnut praline candies called “Toffiffee”. They were fun to stay out loud, a nightmare to type out, and were these caramel-nougat candies that contain chocolate and hazelnut. So in other words, delicious. However, we bought…

Blueberry-Lemon Cheesecake Entremet

So I have already made a blueberry cheesecake or two in the past for this blog, but I wanted to do a cheesecake mousse cake-entremet kind of thing using a blueberry-lemon cheesecake as the body of the dessert, with a blueberry gelee and a lemon curd interior, as well as a blueberry chiffon cake base….

Crab Cake with Kale Salad

Whenever I purchase lump crab meat, I feel like there is always a doomsday timer floating over my head, making sure to remind me that if I don’t make something/eat this crab meat quickly enough, it will go rancid and my entire fridge will smell for it. These crab cakes were my solution to using…

Hummingbird Cake with Miso Caramel and Ginger Cream Cheese Ganache

I first remember hearing about hummingbird cake when I was watching an episode of Cupcake Wars, where it was mentioned as a Southern wedding cake that featured bananas, pecans, sometimes coconut or pineapple, and a cream cheese frosting. It sounded like a banana-nut muffin, but with frosting, if we are being honest here. Not that…

Lemon Marshmallow Rainbow Tart

I will admit, I procrastinated with my Pride dessert this year. Namely because I was almost not going to do one at all for 2024. I have made many a Pride dessert in the past, and while they were all tons of fun to conceptualize and admire after making them, the actual assembly of each…

Artichoke-Pecorino Risotto

Risotto is one of those dishes that takes me back to my sister and I learning how to cook when we were really young. We grew up eating a lot of Taiwanese and Chinese food, as well as overtly healthy dishes(boiled romaine lettuce seasoned with olive oil and nothing else, anyone?), but the one constant…

Lemon-Haupia Chiffon Cake

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, lemon curd, lemon cake, and a lot of other lemon things, especially when life(your parents) gift you with 20 larger than life lemons to work with. This recipe was my way to use up a decent portion of them(I want to say about 4 lemons were used…

Assam-Chocolate Layer Cake

This cake is kind of a callback to another chocolate-Assam recipe I made years ago. Unlike the other version, this one features a whipped Assam tea ganache buttercream coupled with a fudgier, denser chocolate cake. I was inspired by the salted caramel chocolate cake I had at Republique, which was rich and almost brownie-like in…

Almond Tofu-Apricot Phyllo Pie

There are those moments where I have a culinary brain child that just hits on every single level of deliciousness and nostalgia, and this pie is 1000% that kind of recipe. Almond tofu is a popular Chinese dessert, made from Chinese almond powder(made from apricot kernels – it tastes exactly like almond extract, which does…

Chili Crisp Chicken Lollipops with Japanese Pickles and Kale-slaw

For a hot minute, I have been trying to make wings using my air fryer. I love ordering wings whenever we get takeout from our local pizzeria – compared to almost every other cut of chicken besides the thigh, wings have a ton of flavor. They are annoying to eat, and you probably will have…

P.O.G. “Pearl”: a Petit Gateau

These little pearls were inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii(yes, I have been to Oahu 4 times in the past 3 years, I am addicted. Well, that and I have a bunch of friends who live there – shout out to Ann and Lauren – so Waikiki along with Austin have been two places…

Crab and Chili Crisp Bagels

These bagels were a complete and utter brain child. I heard about Montreal style bagels – bagels that are boiled with a little bit of honey and have a soft, chewy crust – and wanted to make my own! However, a bagel on its own, while tasty, can be a little one-note, and I wanted…

Mini Osmanthus and Peach Pies

This recipe came about because I saw peaches in the grocery store, remembered that peaches were in season, grabbed a bunch, and then realized that I actually needed to do something with said purchased peaches. The first thing that came to mind was doing this large peach pie with a pretty lattice on top, and…

S’mores Pie

This was on my to-make list for a long, long time. And what tipped the scales and caused me to finally bake a S’mores pie was that I had a surplus of Biscoff cookies and graham crackers. And I figured, if this is not a sign from the universe that I needed to make a…

Matcha Latte Cheesecake

I had an abundance of leftover matcha shortbread from a previous recipe, and while snacking on those is nice, I wanted to challenge myself to make another recipe entirely using the shortbread crumbs as a crust! I figured, why not blitz the shortbread into a fine crumb, then fold melted matcha white chocolate through that,…

Cajeta-Duvalin Layer Cake

This recipe was meant to be a celebration of my friend, Frances. Frances, or as I lovingly call her, Francois, is a longtime friend of mine, dating back to when we worked together at the Portofino Hotel and Marina in Redondo Beach in 2018. We were in the same department, and we were basically partners…

Kecap Manis Kouign Amann with Peanut Caramel

I have been trying to make more laminated dough recipes this year, since I discovered the wonderfulness that is Costco purchasing my butter – the sheer amount of butter I can stock up means that I can tackle the more classically French, butter-centric recipes that I usually stayed away from to conserve my butter for…

Burnt Honey Bee Sting Cake

Bee sting cake, or bienenstichkuchen as it is referred to in Germany, is a dessert consisting of a yeast leavened dough, similar to a brioche, topped with a caramelized almond topping, and filled with pastry cream. I wanted to do a take on it, as a nod to my winters spent in the German Christmas…

Peach-Osmanthus-Ginger Entremet

Hilariously enough, the three main ingredients in this entremet(French set mousse cake) form the acronym P.O.G., which is also used in Hawaiian cuisine to reference passionfruit-orange-guava juice. In this case, this P.O.G. refers to peach, osmanthus, and ginger, which happen to be three of my mom’s favorite ingredients. Growing up, we had a white peach…

Cajeta Banoffee Pie

Banoffee pie is a British dessert consisting of a buttery shortbread crust that is smeared with dulce de leche, slices of fresh banana, cream, and chocolate. It kind of reminds me of Million Dollar Shortbread, if you have ever had that before, but with bananas. Which is to say that it is delicious. For my…