Freddy's Harajuku

Dratini Tteok

Tteok are Korean rice cakes that are eaten in both savory and sweet applications. They are quite similar to mochi, and have a delicious chewy texture to them. One of the more common savory applications of tteok is tteokbokki, which literally translates to stewed rice cakes. The cakes are usually stewed in a spicy, kimchi-gochujang…

(Shiny) Torchic Sundae

This recipe came about because I had way too many persimmons and I basically was desperate to get rid of them. So I figured, why not make an ice cream with them? Persimmons are sweet, almost creamy, and very jammy when ripe, which are nice characteristics to incorporate into an ice cream base. The skin…

Whipped Cheesecake with Brown Butter Carrot Cake: a plated dessert

This recipe came about because I was thinking what I could make with rainbow carrots, and I thought about a fun plated carrot cake meets a cheese platter. Whipped cheesecakes are always a favorite dessert of mine, because they are super easy to do. Cream cheese, gelatin, sugar, and there you have a silky textured…

Swablu Hummingbird Sundae

Back in 2002 when I played Pokemon Sapphire, a much younger Fred adored a Pokemon called Swablu. Swablu is a blue bird-like Pokemon with white, cloud-like wings. It is classified as the Cotton Bird Pokemon, and evolves into Altaria, which honestly looks like a bigger blue bird with cloud-wings, but is somehow a Dragon-type Pokemon….

Vegan Tea Scones

The first important factor is the thickness of your dough. You need to roll out the dough, keeping in mind that the height(thickness of the dough) to width(size of your cookie cutters) ratio needs to be pretty close to 1:2 for the scones to rise appropriately and proportionately. My first batch, I went 2:3 for…

Chocolate-Assam tea cake

I made this cake because I was craving the chocolate cake from Matilda, but I did not want to just make the chocolate cake from Matilda. Don’t get me wrong, a rich fudgy cake with a chocolate-scented buttercream, enrobed in chocolate cake sounds like a dream all day, every day, but at the same time,…

Blonde Chocolate Crumb Cake Doughnuts

I would be lying if I said this recipe was not just a crumb or coffee cake baked with a hole in it. That’s literally the recipe. However, there is something doubly nostalgic about a crumb cake that also looks like a doughnut, since those are the two coffee shop staple desserts you would usually…

Fidough Box Cake

I have made many cakes in sake cups before. I just love the minimalistic aesthetic of a small wooden cake and when you scoop into it, there’s cake! The concept of this recipe is definitely inspired by the tiramisu from Cafe Bora, but since there is no coffee/tea or alcohol being used, it felt wrong…

Vegan Scones with Strawberry-Basil Jam

This recipe came about because I had an opened can of coconut milk, a pint of strawberries, and a large amount of Thai basil that I needed to get rid of. So I figured, why not try my hand at making vegan scones? And serving them with a strawberry-basil jam? Worst comes to worst, I’ve…

Uber Fluffy Chocolate Layer Cake

This chocolate cake is the intersection of everything I could possibly want from a chocolate cake. The sponge is somehow both fudgy and rich, but light and springy with this almost honeycomb-like crumb structure that could only be achieved by whipping the living hell out of egg whites, and adding in just the right amount…

Pork and Miso Cream Stew

This stew is me throwing almost every umami-developing technique I have in the book(minus dried mushrooms, tomatoes, or cheese rinds) into a pot of Japanese-styled cream stew. I have made pork cream stews in the past, but I was always disappointed by the color of the cream. I had envisioned this light, pale color, but…

White Sesame Tropezienne

Tropezienne has always been one of my sister’s favorites. Fluffy brioche that is brushed with a simple syrup, finished with pastry cream/lemon curd and fresh berries. Basically a shortcake using brioche instead of a biscuit or cake is the simplest way of explaining it. Ever since she had it in France and told me about…

Diglett Rocky Road Doughnuts

When I think back to Generation 1 of Pokémon, one of the funniest designs for me is Diglett. It’s supposed to be like a living whack-a-mole situation, and it looks like a brown bump with eyes, a pink nose-mouth-thing, and it is just sticking out of the ground. It apparently has legs and an actual…

Dijonnaise de Chocolat

So this is probably the most random thing to admit to, but I grew up on shoujou anime(aka CardCaptor Sakura, a pinch of Sailor Moon, and Mirumo De Pon to name the main ones I watched), and there was an anime I was exposed to called “Yumeiro Patissiere”, which was a baking anime. I had…

“Present Box” Petit Gateau

Before you ask, these little egg nog-cranberry present boxes are my modern, gluten-free interpretation of a Christmas cake. Christmas Cake, at least in Japanese culture, are soft spongecakes with cream and usually strawberries, just to capture this red and white aesthetic. I wanted to take the red and white aesthetic, along with some more traditionally…

Gluten-Free Levain Cookies

So I am fully aware of my penchant for making giant cookies. I just happen to own a really large ice cream scoop, so with that comes really large scoops of ice cream and cookie dough! So when I would visit New York, once of the most iconic bakeries there was Levain. Known for their…

Blue(berry) Goat Cheesecakes

This recipe hilariously came about because I had leftover blueberry gelee cores(from my Jigglypuff recipe), leftover white chocolate shavings(from my lemon-white chocolate snowballs), leftover goat cheese(from my pumpkin toast recipe), and leftover shortbread dough(from my Oshawott cheesecakes). Before anyone asks, since all of these recipes were clearly posted months apart, yes, I do make content…

Oatmeal-chocolate chip scones

These scones came about because I dun goof’d on an oatmeal cookie recipe – I did not sub out enough flour when adding in the oats, resulting in what were supposed to be cookies not spreading as much, and developing a more biscuit/scone-like texture. I know with scones, there is usually a stigma with them…

Soft Matcha Cookies

Green tea shortbreads are something I usually make in the fall ever since I did a fundraiser with them in my sophomore year in college for the Taiwanese club. The combination of bitter, floral matcha against a sweet, buttery cookie is so pleasant and fun, and gives a similarly enjoyable experience to eating green tea…

Lemon-White Chocolate “Snowballs”

Back in my earlier days as a baker, I remember watching an episode of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network, and there was an episode in season 1 where a baker named Kara made these vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd, Italian meringue buttercream, and rolled in white chocolate sprinkles. The idea of super soft cake…