Freddy's Harajuku

Pineapple Cake Madeleines 2.0

I did attempt to make pineapple cake madeleines before, and while I was relatively happy with the batter portion, I felt like the pineapple was not where I wanted it to be. While whole chunks of pineapple reinforce the flavor of the fruit in the end product, it was not quite enough like the jammy…

You’re my superstar: a geode cake

I’ve made so many galaxy cakes over the years. I just love the aesthetic of stars and constellations! For this specific recipe, I wanted to decorate it with konpeitou, which are these really pretty rock candies that come in different colors. They look like the star bits from Super Mario Galaxy and they are just…

Ube-coconut cupcakes

Now I did a layer cake with ube and coconut recently. But before anyone tries to tell me that I am double-dipping, there are some differences between the two recipes, beyond one being cupcakes and the other being a layer cake. The first is that the layer cake gets a soak. The second is that…

Apple brandy krempita

This dessert was an evolution of a previous post I made. Krempita is a Montenegrin dessert that consists of layers of phyllo dough and custard. It is similar to a napoleon, a mille feuille, or Greek galaktoboureko in that sense of being flaky pastry with a custard-y filling. This interpretation of it takes that Montenegrin…

Sourdough Socca

Since I have a lot of sourdough starter leftover from the pita recipe, I wanted to test out some more flatbreads that I could make with it. So that’s when I decided on socca. Also called farinata, socca is a European flatbread made from chickpea flour(also called garbonzo bean flour!). Because of that, it is…

Chocolate Fraisier Cake

Now I have done Fraisier cakes in the past. What I love is the appearance, being this perfectly cylindrical cake with slices of strawberries peeking out from the cream that the layers of sponge are sandwiching. For this rendition, I wanted to go with a chocolate-ish version of it, featuring a fluffy black cacao sponge,…

Lemon-Thyme “Rainbow” Tart

For Pride this year, I waned to go with a bit more of a whimsical take on rainbows. When I think of rainbows, immediately I think of light and water. Since you know, the two work together to create a rainbow! So for the light side of things, I went with a lemon-thyme curd tart,…

POG Jelly with Passionfruit

I was inspired by Taiwanese grass jelly when making this dessert. Grass jelly is an Asian dessert that consists of these dark brown cubes of jelly that are flavored with mesona chinensis leaves(the jelly basically tastes like a pleasant black tea with grassier notes). Usually grass jelly is topped with sweet braised peanuts and tang…

Ube Wool Buns

I have always adored the aesthetic of wool bread. The dough is scored repeatedly on one side then rolled up prior to baking to create these really pretty ridges on top of the dough. There is just something about that appearance that takes me back to Asian bakeries. I wanted to make sure that this…

Sourdough Pita

The initial idea for this recipe came about because my friend Sylvie was nonstop raving about how good the sourdough at Bavel in LA is. To quote, she said it was the fluffiest pita bread she ever had. And that piqued my interest. I happened to own the Bavel cookbook, so I looked up their…

Pistachio and EVOO Mimosa Cake

Mimosa cakes have steadily become one of my favorite kinds of cakes to bake over the past 4 years. Mostly because I love cutting up cake into cubes, in case you haven’t already figure that out. For this specific recipe, I wanted to utilize yuzu as well, just to add something tart and bright to…

Salsa Macha Noodles

I was craving some chili oil-noodle business, and I was watching the Chef Show on Netflix, where they were making salsa macha, and that was literally how this recipe came about. For those unfamiliar with it, salsa macha(not to be confused with matcha green tea), is a salsa made with dried chilies, sesame seeds and/or…

Malted miso and black vinegar chocolate cake: Season 10 Revisited

This is my updated take on the “shines forever” dessert that got Gordon Ramsay licking the plate clean. The main differences being the usage of black cacao powder to really intensify the flavor of the cake. I also updated plating style to be more in line with something I would present now, as opposed to…

Sourdough Starter

Whenever I hear the term “sourdough starter”, I get immediate pandemic 2020 flashbacks to when everyone hogged up all the flour and made sourdough with it. I was one of the less lucky individuals who did not get ahold of any all-purpose flour during that time, I wound up learning how to bake gluten-free during…

Chocolate-Coffee Layer cake

This cake is basically a chocolate and coffee lover’s dream. Layers of dark chocolate cake with an Ovaltine latte soak, whipped chocolate ganache, a chocolate cookie crumb, cocoa-coffee French buttercream, and coffee tuiles. With each layer, I wanted to make sure they all brought different forms or textures of chocolate or coffee. We have the…

Coconut Sago with Yuzu and Milk Jellies

One of my earliest childhood memories was eating at this Chinese restaurant with my parents and being served a bowl of sago pudding for dessert. The tapioca pearls were swimming in this sweet coconut milk-based dessert soup-type of thing, which had bits of seaweed in there as well! That was the baseline inspiration for this…

Matcha-Azuki Basque Cheesecakes

I have made quite a few basque cheesecakes on this site. However, what sets this one apart from the other matcha cheesecakes I have made is really the flavors and textures of this one. I haven’t made a matcha-flavored basque yet, and since I had a buttload of azuki(red bean) paste leftover from a hilariously…

Hojicha-red bean-mochi madeleines

I made these madeleines half because I wanted to test out a few hojicha recipes, and half because I also made red bean paste using a pressure cooker, and I had to use it somehow! What I love about madeleines are that they are super customizable – since they are these cute, seashell-like cookie-cakes, they…

Violet Ohagi

So this recipe came about because I had a lot of red bean paste, and I had to use it up somehow. One of the first things that came to mind when I was trying to figure out what to do with the red bean paste was ohagi. Ohagi is a type of Japanese wagashi(confection)…

Chrysanthemum Douhua

One of my earliest food memories was going to dim sum with my parents on Sundays. We would be served chrysanthemum tea with everything we ate and we would usually finish off a meal of spareribs, sticky rice, and dumplings and fried radish cakes with egg tarts and a sweet tofu called douhua. Douhua, which…