Freddy's Harajuku

Thai Tea-Coconut Carrot Cake

This recipe came about because I had a bunch of carrots I needed to get rid of. A while ago, my friends and I visited a farm in Irvine, with the intention of going strawberry picking. But because of all the torrential rain Southern California has been experiencing, the strawberry crops were dead, and we…

Banana-Custard Phyllo Pita

I came up with this recipe because I was craving something banana pudding/banana cream pie-esque, but with super flaky, laminated pastry, like puff pastry or a croissant. The thought of crispy dough, custard, and cooked down bananas just sounded really good to me in the moment, so I figured, why not make that a reality?…

Strawberry-Rhubarb-Corn Tart

I feel like I have done variations on strawberry-rhubarb-corn tartlets in the past, but this one really takes the cake(or pie/tart?). Mostly because of the technique that went into making it. I wanted to make sure that strawberry, rhubarb, and corn were each used in two different preparations in this recipe – ironically, the tart…

Ube-Passionfruit Mousse Cake

I had the initial inspiration for this cake when I was visiting my friend, Ann, who lives in Oahu. There was a shrub with these gorgeous purple flowers, and I had the idea to make a cake with that kind of visual inspiration. In light of everything going on in Maui, I felt like it…

Vegan Spumoni Ice Cream Sandwiches

I am unashamed to admit that the recipe you are about to read was the result of me needing to clean out my refrigerator of several leftover components. I purchased way too many fresh cherries, I had half a block of unpureed bright green edamame tofu that I needed to use up, some chocolate ganache…

Carrot Cake Bunny Shortbreads

These carrot cake shortbreads came about because I had about half a bottle of carrot juice in my refrigerator, and I needed to find a creative use for it. So then I thought, why not reduce it down into a jammy consistency, which will then have an intense carrot flavor to it, and then use…

Gooey Lemon Curd-Olive Oil Cakes 2.0

So a while ago, I made a gooey olive oil cake with lemon curd, but I wanted to do another rendition of that recipe. While this version is also 100% vegan, I wanted to try a couple of different things. The first is instead of piping the lemon curd into each cake before baking it,…

Tonka Bean Black Forest Cake

Black forest cake was my birthday cake growing up for the first 13 years of my life. Not because I particularly liked it, but because we would always go back to Taiwan for my birthday/winter break, and celebrate it at my grandma’s apartment in Taipei. And the only cake that the bakery underneath her apartment…

Matcha-Frog Shortbreads

I am hesitant to put this out there on the Internet, but I used to have a gigantic phobia of frogs. I’m not 100% what it was, but until the Pokemon Froakie came out, I found frogs to be kind of gross? Slimy, bulbous eyes, the expanding throats, the randomly differently colored underbellies, and the…

“Buffet-Food” Lemon-Strawberry Tartlets

I feel like this recipe is classic, and not trendy. These tartlets are the stereotypical catering or banquet dessert you would find in a gala or at a golf club buffet. A perfectly round tart with a lemon filling and a meringue, torched on top. Or a dessert with cut up berries on top of…

Miso Corny Cookies

I feel like I have done so many iterations on corn cookies in the past, but I keep making tweaks to my recipe in an attempt to make the absolute most perfect version of one. My usual corn cookie recipe starts out like your standard American cookie, with whipped butter and sugar, then to that…

Sesame Panda Shortbreads

Whenever I make panda-themed anything, I always think about one of my friends from high school, Karen. Fun fact, I had two friends from high school named Karen, who weirdly enough, I still keep in touch with, but also, they have never met each other before. That Karen-themed tidbit about myself aside, the panda-loving Karen…

Sweet Corn Coffee

So I was watching Single’s Inferno, and to semi-avoid spoilers(I won’t include specific names), there was an instance in one of the seasons a contestant was so enamored with the concept of sweet corn coffee that, at least it seemed like this to me anyways, she dumped all of her other prospective suitors to pursue…

Poliwag Tang Yuan

When I think of cute O.G./Gen 1 Pokemon, Poliwag immediately comes to mind. Mostly because I remember accidentally running them over in Pokemon Snap in the River stage(whoops), and seeing Misty’s Poliwag(which managed to make it all the way to a Politoed!) back in the original anime series. Poliwag are these round, blue tadpole-like Pokemon…

Choco-Bear Shortbreads

Ever since I purchased a plethora of cute-shaped cookie cutters, I wanted to capitalize on that and use them in fun ways. I have been seeing a lot of these sandwich cookies or shortbread cookies with fun shapes cut out of the center of them, and I wanted to try my hand at them today…

Classic Pan Con Tomate

I love pan con tomate. I had it for the first time in Jaleo in Washington, D.C., and it was such a simple concept – crusty, airy bread, rubbed with raw garlic, garnished with juicy, crushed tomatoes, olive oil, and sea salt. So straightforward in the components, and honestly very refreshing and light! The perfect…

Modern Pan Con Tomate

Originally was going to serve this recipe with homemade ricotta and whey, specifically using the whey in the crystal bread, but I opted out of doing that, mostly because even the classic pan con tomate doesn’t use ricotta cheese, so this recipe should not either. There are times when cooks, myself included, can get a…

Passionfruit-Coconut Choux

For the final white and blue dessert on my tea tower, I had to do a French pastry. It was between macaron or pate choux, and I opted for the pate choux, strictly because they were easier to present in an afternoon tea tower. I love making pate choux. It is the dough used to…

Pretty in Pink Anmitsu

For this recipe, I wanted to do anmitsu, but make it pink, as I was inspired by the new Barbie movie. My sister had Barbie dolls growing up, and we totally Kate Mckinnon/Weird Barbie’d her dolls a lot. That and my only other real Barbie-related memory was that my sister owned that Barbie car toy,…

Blueberry-Yuzu Mont Blanc Tarts

One trick I learned a year ago was using upside down muffin pans to bake tart shells on. Prior to that, when I wanted to make mini tarts with muffin pans, I was lining the inside of muffin pans with butter/oil and flour, and then pressing the dough into them. However, doing this meant that…