Freddy's Harajuku

Black forest swan puffs

Whenever I think of pate choux, I always think about pate choux swans, since they are the most obvious go-to in terms of what you can do with that kind of dough. I wanted to do a take on a pate choux swan, but instead of making the neck and wings out of the pastry,…

Gyakkou: a plated dessert

With this dessert, my aim was to create something that was delicate and light, while at the same time, having a pronounced flavor. So I opted for rose and almond for the flavor combination, being inspired by Persian baking, and me wanting to use Turkish delight and almond cake in some way or form. So…

Hot cereal milk cakes with cereal milk ganache and corn cookies

This cake would be my complete homage to milkbar. Corn and cereal milk. That’s literally it. Hot milk cake is a cake that uses warm milk to create a tender crumb and batter. By using cereal milk instead, you then have a hot cereal milk cake, which I find to be an instant one-up. On…

Peach Charlotte

I have made charlottes before, but with this one, I wanted to emphasize the flavors of peaches, and I wanted to test out a new trick with making a ruby chocolate collar. So the components of a charlotte are primarily ladyfingers and spongecake that are stacked with cream and fruit. For mine, I went with…

Matcha-yuzu cheesecake tart

I really only made this because I had a fruit tart order, and when I was measuring out my ingredients, I thought that a doubled recipe for my standard shortbread dough would be enough for two 6-inch tarts, but then I wound up with a generous amount of pastry and filling, so I was able…

Tsuki no Usagi tartlets

I always loved the myth of Tsuki no Usagi, or the moon rabbit. The idea that there is a rabbit on the moon, making mochi, just sounded like really cool to me, and I would take that rabbit over the Easter bunny or the Trix Rabbit any day! I wanted to take Japanese wagashi and…

Plum and cream naked cake

So I had about two hours to come up with a cake for a last-minute request, and this is what I came up with. I knew that I wanted to do something simple with cream and cake and some kind of fruit, and it just so happened that, being 1/4 Chinese, I had a ton…

Miso hojicha cookies with milk tea jam

I feel like one thing that I came come to love making during quarantine and social distancing is miso-hojicha sugar. It is honestly like a miracle ingredient, just because it is sweet, salty, creamy, toasty and smoky. Honestly, it’s a perfect ingredient to use in many desserts, and I used them in these cookies just…

Pistachio and chocolate milk bread babkas

So when I was making this recipe, I wanted to do something babka-esque, and as I was measuring out the dry ingredients to make a brioche, it dawned upon me that maybe doing a milk bread babka could be a lot of fun! With brioche, it is rich, dense, and buttery. With milk bread, you…

Lemon hot milk cake loaves

I came up with this recipe because I had about 6 lemons in my pantry that were on the verge of going bad, and I had to use all of them up as quickly as possible. So I figured, why not make a cake, syrup, lemon curd, and candy some lemons with them? That’ll be…

Yaki Imo Basque Cheesecakes

These cheesecakes were the brainchild of me having purchased far too many yams and trying to figure out how to get rid of them. I remember fondly eating yaki imo as a child, which are just yams that are roasted on coals, and then served to you, wrapped up in parchment and piping hot. They…

Plated devil’s food cake

I was playing around with a new silicone bar mold that I just bought, and that’s where this dessert came from. Well, that and me wanting to make a dessert that was inspired by chocolate and tofu. We have a chocolate cake with a tofu-chocolate mousse, soy caramel ganache, cocoa praline, and a tofu ice…

Skyward bound: a plated dessert

I really only came up with this dessert because I wanted to do something with a burnt honey cremeaux. I don’t know WHY I wanted to do something with a burnt honey cremeaux, it just sounded like a cool component, and that was really it. Something about a silky, creamy texture of a set custard-like…

“Wake up and smell the roses”: a crepe bouquet

For the ruby chocolate ganache:3/4 cups ruby chocolate1/4 cup heavy cream1 tablespoon unsalted buttera pinch of salt Melt together your ingredient in a pot on low heat. Pour through a sieve. Reserve 1/4 cup of your ganache for the mousse balls. For the rose and ruby chocolate mousse balls:1/4 cup ganache2 tablespoons rose hip jam1/4…

Coconut Delight Entremet

I actually made this for my sister’s birthday back in August, since I knew that she loves Coconut Delights/Samoas, and this cake made perfect sense for that. My typical format for an entremet is chiffon cake, mousse, maybe a filling in the mousse, and the mirror glaze. For this one, I wanted to semi-change it…

Goodnight, Meteorite: a plated dessert

So I actually made a dessert years ago, though realistically most of you wouldn’t know that because this was pre-Masterchef, aka the period of time where legit nobody really knew about me, named Goodnight, Meteor. That dessert featured coffee, chocolate, and cookies. So I wanted to take that, and redo it in a cooler format….

Snow White’s Apple: a plated dessert

I really wanted to work with custard apple, also called cherimoya, and that’s where the inspiration came from for this dessert. Custard apple, as the name suggests, tastes like a creamy pear or apple. The catch is that it has tons of poisonous seeds in it that need to be removed. Ugh, me with inedible…

Peach “mille feuille”

I came up with this dessert because I wanted to try something new, and also in honor of two restaurants in L.A., Vespertine and Auburn(R.I.P. Auburn, you will be missed dearly). In Vespertine, we had this gorgeous parsnip and pear dessert where they garnished the edges of the bowl with circles of shaved pear. In…

Storms and bad weather: a plated dessert

When I was conceptualizing this dessert, I wanted to come up with something with a lot of visual contrast and tropical flavors. So I went with passionfruit, and since the inside of a passionfruit is yellow and black, I wanted to focus on those two colors. I knew I wanted to make the dessert inspired…

Pork belly and mushroom cream stew

I love making cream stew. In Japan, they make it all the time, and it’s this velvety, creamy(as the name would suggest) sauce with braised meat and vegetables in it. If you have ever had Japanese curry before, it’s like that, but without the spices, making for a very delicate flavor profile. Truthfully, it has…