Freddy's Harajuku

digging deep: a carrot cake

I actually quite like carrot cake. Ever since I started as a baker, carrot cake was one of those desserts that I came to appreciate, because it takes a lot of ingredients to transform a vegetable into a dessert, in my opinion. I really love the idea of making a carrot cake that resembles digging…

Frangipane, chocolate, and miso de leche babka

I actually never made babka before making it for this specific recipe. I really just was inspired to make it because I love using yeast-leavened doughs, and this one seemed really fun and playful to make, with all of the different layers of bread and chocolate. Traditionally, babka is like a brioche that is layered…

Pork belly, apple, and cauliflower bowl

I really just came up with this dish after reading through the “Everything I want to eat” cookbook by Sqirl LA’s Jessica Koslow. In the book, there was this delicious pork belly bowl, and I wanted to make my own version of it. They paired the housemade bacon with a sorrel pesto, farro, ricotta cheese,…

Vegan Oreo cake with vegan Swiss meringue buttercream

This dessert was a simple one, but it’s a simple win as well! To hear the phrase “vegan Swiss meringue buttercream” already gets me excited, because meringue buttercreams were one of the reasons why I had to stop baking vegan, as I thought that they were impossible to do! But with the help of aquafaba(canned…

Vegan sunchoke shuumai

When I was trying to think of new and creative dumpling ideas, I decided to go back to pasta dishes I had in the past. One of them was the trois soleil dish from Baroo, LA. The dish itself featured sunchokes three ways, in pickles, chips, and a “cream” sauce. I use the quotations there…

Here comes a thought: a plated dessert

When I came up with the concept for this dessert, it really was to be something that would tackle the themes of anxiety and depression, two things I had to deal with a ton when I had come out. Having an entire student organization essentially outcast and passive aggressively bully you, as anyone can imagine,…

Butter chicken potstickers

In continuation with my dumpling project(where I take dishes and translate them into little parcels of love and joy), I wanted to try merging butter chicken with potstickers, just because I felt like the two could have a lot of potential to really compliment one another. So we have the chicken thighs that are marinated…

Sunshine, funshine: banoffee eclairs

I’ve been seeing so many eclairs with mirror glazes on my Instagram feed lately, so I figured I should try one of my own! I had a ton of bananas in my freezer, with the intentions of making them into vegan milkshakes, but I decided to spare two for this particular recipe, since I was…

tarte au chocolat: a raspberry-chocolate dessert

I did attempt a couple of chocolate-raspberry tarts two years ago, but I wanted to make the intended vision I had for the tart this time, as opposed to just what I was forced to make due to running out of enough chocolate to fill the tart with. For this version, we have chocolate pate…

All Right: a plated olive oil cake

This dessert was inspired by three things. The fennel pollen-olive oil cake that Kristen Kish never got to serve in her finale for Top Chef, Northern Californian olive oil my friend David gifted to me that has pleasant and fragrant grassy notes, and finally the song All Right by Koda Kumi, which ties in with…

sweet escape: a plated dessert

This is a bit of a throwback, since this dessert I made when my friends, Bri and David, were visiting during the 4th of July! I dubbed the dessert “sweet escape” as a reference to that! We were preparing dishes for Bri and I’s first pop-up, and while we had already decided on what dessert…

Summers in the black forest: a layer cake

Black forest cake reminds me of a ton of things. Most specifically, season 9 of MasterChef when Emily, who in my eyes was the strongest cook there, got sent home over one. Truthfully, seeing her go out on one is a general reason why I stay away from them. Seeing somebody who I personally would…

Mixed berry cheesecake and black sesame macarons

For the second half of MasterChef’s Sweet Week, we had 60 minutes to make a box of twelve macarons in two flavors, and they actually had to all fit inside the box. In the past, I have royally messed up my macarons because they got too runny and melted into each other at the piping…

My matcha dreamscape: a green tea-coconut layer cake

So before the cake replication challenge during MasterChef’s Sweet Week, we actually did get hints that we would be making a layer cake! So thinking we could make our own, I went ahead and thought up of a matcha and coconut layer cake. For the inspiration, I just imagined my trips to Taiwan and Japan,…

Kuromitsu kouign-amann

Kouign-amann, pronounced almost like “queen a man”, is a popular French/Breton pastry, originating from the Brittany region. I remember first learning about it from “Chef Steps” on YouTube, back in high school, where I horrendously butchered the pronunciation of it because I don’t speak French. The last time I successfully made kouign-amann was spring break, during…

“Welcome to the lantern festival!”: a plated dish

This dish was definitely my favorite to make when I was in the competition. Not only did I get to impress the judges(and finally claim some much needed emotional redemption!), but also Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto as well! And with a freaking $500 Alaskan King Crab! Like what the hell?! Even to this day, I…

Tooigai: a fried chicken sandwich

Who doesn’t like a fried chicken sandwich? I know I’ve made my fair share of them in my 24 years of living. For this rendition, I wanted to do a Japanese take on a Southern classic. I went with milk rolls, and karaage styled fried chicken, using mochiko to crust some thigh meat. For the…

Honey-yuzu Paris Brest

This recipe really just came about because I wanted to make a Paris Brest, aka a ring shaped éclair. When I thought about my fillings, I decided to go with three in total. A yuzu Bavarian cream, homemade honeycomb candy, and honey mascarpone cream. I also made a honey-yuzu-bee pollen glaze, and infused the actual…

Beef and Broccoli Revised: a plated dish

On the back of that wedding challenge, the elimination that followed was a freaking outdoor grilling challenge, in the patio where we all stood during the helicopter intro! It was crazy! The contestants on the losing Red Team had to choose from a huge variety of steaks and grill a dish in an hour. Which…

Above and beyond: a galaxy cheesecake

Truthfully, I have done a galaxy entremet before. But this one is slightly different in that the filling is made with cream cheese, and it’s a little less ficklesome. That and I topped it with zefir, a Russian marshmallow made with apple puree, but instead of apple, I used cherimoya, aka custard apple. Why? Because…