Freddy's Harajuku

Sanctuary: a mirror glaze cake

When I was conceptualizing a dessert for “Sanctuary” by Utada Hikaru, I wanted to make something that represented the aesthetic of Kingdom Hearts, specifically the all-white aesthetic of Castle Oblivion and the tropical feeling of the Destiny Islands. I wanted a mirror glaze cake with a clean white exterior, blue and white-swirled interior to represent…

Beet red velvet cupcakes with rose cream cheese frosting

Thanks to my friend Roshni, I was invited to be one of thirty featured “artists” for Lemonade’s Lemonade Social Festival. For this live streaming event, I got a chance to demonstrate how to bake something, and in my case, I decided on a fun take on red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I wanted…

Matcha-coconut cookies

Continuing along with the dessert Instagram lives I have been doing with Shari, we decided to do cookies as our next demonstration. This is funny to me, just because we went with something as technical as working with yeast to something even less forgiving like a souffle to something a lot easier, being cookies. I…

Kouign amann egg tarts

When I was figuring out some Easter themed desserts, one thing I couldn’t get out of my head was the idea of doing something egg-themed. It was either that or something rabbit themed, but I’ve done that for the past two years and kind of wanted to change it up. So instead, I went with…

Rabbit rack with carrot puree and warm kale salad

For my second rabbit dish, I wanted to feature the loin and rack instead. I always loved the look of a chop of meat, be it a tomahawk steak or a lamb rack, because it appeals to that carnal instinct we all have from being descendants of cavemen. Despite that being an inspiration, I wanted…

Braised rabbit leg with mushroom risotto

In honor of Easter and April, I wanted to make another dish using rabbit. So I decided to embrace buying a full rabbit by making two dishes with it, this risotto being the first. Risotto has always been such a fascinating dish for me, just because I was used to eating either steamed rice or…

Feelings of make-pretend: a plated dessert

I came up with this dessert half out of needing to get rid of my leftover vegan macaron components, and half because I just wanted to do something playful and elegant. With what I already had made, being the ice cream and the gelee, I was able to come up with a couple different ideas,…

Vegan coconut-sticky rice soufflé with mango creamsicle sauce

So this is the recipe I actually made on Instagram Live with Shari from my season on Masterchef. We were doing soufflé demo’s, and we each did a different flavor, hers being chocolate, while mine being this one. I didn’t want to go traditional to begin with, since I wanted to conserve eggs, and because…

Sakura blooming: vegan macaron ice cream sandwiches

So the idea to make a vegan macaron sandwich came up a long while back, I think in December 2019. But I never really got a chance to make them, mostly because I was too lazy to buy a can of chickpeas to make aquafaba. But recently, a bunch of stars sort of aligned, and…

Quick cassoulet with black pepper cornbread madeleine

In light of the quarantine pandemics surrounding the coronavirus, my plating bestie Bri and I thought it would be a lot of fun, very interesting, and perfectly fitting if we could take canned foods and transform them into gourmet or fine dining dishes. The challenge was to see what we could make in an hour…

Miso apple pie sticky buns with Calpico cream

So the flavors of this dessert came about from a lot of random things coming together. While in quarantine, I have limited amounts of butter and flour, so I was conceptualizing something where I could combine concepts to not only be original, but to conserve my supplies while hitting on all of the cravings that…

Gomakashi: a plated dessert

When I was coming up with this dessert, I had already made a black sesame flan in advanced, but didn’t necessarily know what else to pair it with. Luckily, my friend Ellen had just reached out to me, suggesting I make a dessert using dalgona coffee. Dalgona coffee, which has been recently been popularized on…

Citrus-bee pollen tropezienne

I was in one of those bread-making moods the other day that and I didn’t really want to be boring and predictable and make another cake just quite yet, and I wanted to make one of my favorite desserts, tropezienne. Tarte tropezienne, the formal French way of saying it, is basically a brioche that is…

High tea on high teas: a plated dish

I really wanted to just dabble more with savory cooking, just because I do so much with dessert, and not nearly enough with actual cooking. When I was conceptualizing this dish, I was actually running. Some of the best (or most original) ideas come to me when I’m experiencing an adrenaline high, and everything is…

Stay gold: a plated dessert

I recently purchased some dulcey (blonde chocolate) and was thinking of different things I could do with it. Blonde chocolate is basically a slow-roasted white chocolate that tastes like dulce de leche. It’s very much caramelized and nutty, and I wanted to play around with that flavor profile. So looking at some of my older…

Hikari: a petit gateau

I’m basically starting a new pet project where I’m making desserts inspired by the many songs from the Kingdom Hearts franchise, specifically, Utada Hikaru’s songs. She has so many theme songs from the series that I thought it would be a fun way for me to tackle some new aesthetics, flavors, and combinations in desserts…

Pot of Gold: a plated dessert

For St. Patrick’s Day, I had to go one of two ways. Either a green dessert, or an Irish-y dessert. I went with the latter, to a degree. I wanted to do something with stout, since that’s huge in Ireland, and I also wanted to do something with a pot of gold as the inspiration….

Pistachio mille crepe

Before I worked at Milk Bar, I never was a particularly huge fan of pistachios in desserts. I typically used them in things like dhukka or in salads, and I preferred using hazelnuts or almonds in my desserts instead(I did make pistachio desserts, but removing the damn shells also annoyed me and my fingernails to…

Pistachio-lemon tart

In honor of Pi Day, I knew I had to do a pie or a tart of some kind. So I went with the tart route, and made some mini pistachio-lemon tarts. The flavor combination was inspired by the lemon-pistachio brioche we sell at Milk Bar, but also my need to get rid of an…

Ivory Spring: a petite gateau

I feel like it has been a while since I brought out the wooden sake cups, well that, and I knew that I wanted to make something green in the spirit of St. Patty’s day, so that’s where the idea to make a matcha-misu (matcha-flavored tiramisu) came from. I had some really cool flavors of…