Freddy's Harajuku

Sweet tofu panna cotta with chrysanthemum poached pear

I was mostly inspired by douhua, or sweet tofu soup, when I was conceptualizing this dessert. The idea of this silky sweet tofu that is swimming in a ginger-palm sugar-type of syrup just takes me back to Sundays at my local dim sum restaurant in Lomita(which sadly has since closed and been replaced by a…

Mapo tofu gnocchi

So this is a dish I made a while back for the Plant Your Vote challenge in the 2020 election. The concept was to post a plant-based dish, and this mapo tofu gnocchi dish is 100% vegan. I wanted to post it now, since Chinese New Years is coming up, and I wanted to switch…

Malted miso and chocolate layer cake: inspired from my Masterchef journey

So this layer cake was a rendition on the audition dish that got me my white apron on Masterchef. Even to this day, people keep asking for the recipe, so I figured I’d give it a little update and share it with everyone. While this layer cake uses almost the same recipe as the original,…

Nama chocolate mille feuille

I feel like it’s been forever since I did anything with nama chocolate. As a refresher for what that even is, nama chocolate, or “fresh chocolate” as directly translated from Japanese, is a set ganache that is dusted with cocoa powder or matcha, and served as truffles, typically on Valentine’s Day. It was made very…

Raspberry red velvet doughnut creams

I feel like the hallmark to a great baker is how they approach the simpler things. For me, whenever I order multiple cupcakes from a bakery, one flavor is always red velvet. The simple reason is because with red velvet, there are a few criteria that need to be met: the cake must be red,…

Yakudo: a plated dessert

With this dessert, I wanted to just focus in on two flavors: chocolate and passionfruit. I really love the contrast between dark and bitter and bright and tart, so putting the two together just made perfect sense. For my components, we have a dark pate choux with passionfruit inspiration namelaka, dark chocolate mousse, dark chocolate…

Chocolate and kinako blanc manger

This was honestly one of the simplest desserts I have made in a while. Mostly because I made it to get rid of some spare ingredients I had lying around. I love blanc manger, which is a set milk-based mousse, similar to panna cotta. The key difference is that blanc manger uses starch to set…

Coconut-chocolate-caramel cake

In a lot of ways, this cake is almost a German chocolate cake, and almond an Almond Joy cake. If I swapped the macadamia nuts with pecans, it’s basically German chocolate. If I omitted the caramel and swapped the macadamia for almonds, we have Almond Joy. This cake features chocolate, coconut, macadamia nuts, and salted…

Blueberry pie doughnut creams

I feel like I haven’t been baking a ton of doughnut creams lately, and I LOVE making doughnut creams…for the most part. They consist of a baked cake, a set mousse, a mirror glaze, and at least one or two cute or unique toppings. The reason I tend not to make them often is because…

Gjetost-miso custard with brown butter and apples: a plated dessert

The inspiration from this dessert actually came from a restaurant in Boston that I went to my freshman year of college for dinner. I won’t name which one, because sadly the dessert I had ordered there was one of the worst ones I have ever had. It was a miso creme brulee with apple mille…

Angoori jamun pon de rings

I came up with these because I got obsessed with gulab and angoori jamun, which are these ghee-fried balls of milk fat that are soaked in a rose and saffron syrup. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they are a treat that originates from India, and while it sounds counterproductive to soak a fried…

Tsuki no Hikari wagashi

I really came up with this dessert because I was inspired by snow globes initially. I wanted to make this pretty snow globe wagashi situation, and that was what this would have been originally. But on the night I was making it, I looked up and saw a full moon peeking out of the clouds,…

Pork belly and almond cream stew with vegan “cheesy” scallion and herb biscuits

So this recipe was actually a part of a collaboration a bunch of us Masterchef contestants did with Imperfect foods a while back! The company, Imperfect Foods, takes the produce that grocery stores and farmers don’t sell due to visual imperfections, and gives them to consumers at a cheaper price, which I adore, being somebody…

Dulcey-piña colada cake

So I made this cake for my friend, Carolyn, specifically on her birthday. She was hardcore craving a “toasty, tropically flavored” cake, and she literally gave me a list of what she wanted. She wanted a coconut cake with crunchy macadamia nuts, something with pineapple, but it had to be cooked, toasted coconut, and something…

Vegan tofu gnocchi with shiitakes and chili oil

I came up with these gnocchi when I had the epiphany that tofu, being so similar to cheese, is whippable. Because it is whippable, you can use the tofu just like a ricotta or mascarpone, and in the case of the former, ricotta gnocchi is a thing, so surely tofu gnocchi could work, right? And…

Rough puff galette de rois

Galette de rois is a French pastry that consists of two circles of puff pastry surrounding an almond/frangipane-type of filling. Usually, there is a bead, bean, or some kind of trinket baked into the cake, and whoever finds it is crowned the king (or queen) for the day! Because of that, this cake is usually…

Crunchy mala-spiced popcorn

Whenever I go running, I always come up with really fun food ideas. I don’t know why, maybe it is because my body is craving certain kinds of foods while I am exercising, or the adrenaline is going to my head and it helps me think better or more creatively, but this recipe, regardless of…

Kabosu dango

So I had no idea what kabosu was until the end of 2020, when I was at a Japanese grocery store, and I found a bottle of kabosu juice. Looking at it, I thought it was like the Filipino citrus calamansi, based on the green exterior and bright yellow interior. But researching into it more,…

Cannoli loaf cakes

Whenever I think of cannoli, I am immediately taken back to my time in Boston, where we had one of the most famous cannoli bakeries in Mike’s Pastry. Oh, Mike’s. It was controlled chaos. Crowds and crowds of people, lined up along the street, waiting to get into a cramped store with display cases filled…

Sunburst: a plated dessert

I named this dessert ‘Sunburst’ after a Tobu and Itro song that came out a while ago of the same name. And also for my Chinese namesake, which translates to Winter Morning Sun. I had to use sesame since it is a favorite ingredient of mine, and I paired it with sea buckthorn to add…