Back in high school, my “signature” cupcake was a blue velvet cake with orange curd, blackberry Italian meringue buttercream, and white chocolate “stems”, with the entire cupcake designed to resemble a flower with the shades of an oceanside sunset. It was inspired specifically by the oceanside sunsets that I would see growing up in a…
Tag: blackberry
Mixed berry chiffon cake
This cake was inspired from my favorite Paris Baguette item, which literally is named the same thing. Back in college, I was obsessed with the mixed berry chiffon cakes that they had, and it would be my go to order there all the time. Fluffy cake with cream and fresh berries, it was always a…
Blackberry-semolina cake with olive oil and Meyer lemons
I literally came up with this recipe because I went to the grocery store, and saw 99-cent cartons of blackberries on sale! I knew it was a sign from whatever powers that be that I had to make something with these, so I bought about three 6oz containers of them! I had a couple of…
Yo-Yo- Tsuri: a plated dessert
When I was conceptualizing this dessert, I was mostly just focusing on what things come to mind when I think of the summer. In this case, I remembered Omasturi(お祭) which is a festival in Japan where they celebrate the village gods(御神輿) with games and other celebrations. One such game was where you fish for water…
Scattered wind chime: a plated dessert
So this was my first dessert where I attempted to use isomalt for blown sugar. I was trying to redo a dessert I made years ago, but using some more interesting technique. The base of the dessert is a blackberry-yuzu posset, while we also have matcha crumble, blackberry-yuzu gelee, yuzu curd, and the isomalt to…
Chocolate-blackberry izba crepe cake
I haven’t made izba cake in years, so I wanted to revisit it, using my newfound love for making crepes. So we have tubes of cocoa-mochi crepes stuffed with whipped yuzu-mascarpone cheesecake mousse, brown butter-ruby chocolate macerated blackberries, chocolate feuilletine, and chantilly cream. Izba cake is typically done with tubes of pastry, but I subbed…
A very berry (vegan) layer cake
Now I really wanted to make this cake for a couple of reasons. The first being, a lot of people have been complaining that Swiss meringue buttercream is hard. Personally, I don’t think that it’s hard, it’s more about knowing how to make it. To give a little explanation about meringues, we have three kinds….
PB&J Layer Cake
So I came up with this concept after a quick chat with my friend Sam (you might remember him as the lawyer from my season of Masterchef). His son Jude’s 2nd birthday was coming up (it will actually be when I post this, so go and wish his son a happy birthday if you’re reading this!)…
Flexibility, love, and trust: a plated dessert
I took inspiration from a couple things when I was conceptualizing this dessert. The first was wanting to use tofu and kinako(toasted soy bean flour) in a dessert, just to do a soy-forward concept. The second was the lyrics of the song from Steven Universe, “Here Comes a Thought”. I feel like you need flexibility…
Mixed Berry Opera cake
I made this cake with my friend Adrienne just because I’m still trying to convince her to audition for season 11 of MasterChef and I wanted to see how quickly she can pick up arguably a tricky cake to make. Ever since my first Opera cake, I wanted to do another rendition, but using more…
Blackberry-almond Arnold Palmer cake
This was a cake I made with my dad in mind, for his birthday. He loves to golf, so the Arnold Palmer is a caddy shack reference. He loves my lemon curd cakes, to the point where he has actually eaten a cake I made before I even finished decorating or photographing it before, so…
Skyward bound: a mirror glaze cake
This dessert was inspired by an ex-best friend from high school, who liked blackberries, hazelnuts, and lemons. While the friendship didn’t work out, I still have to admit that I love playing around with the combination of those three ingredients. For this variation, I wanted to include thyme, which I love to pair with lemon…
L’eclipse: the blue cheesecake
While I was sick with bronchitis, all I could think about was what I would bake the moment I stopped coughing my throat out. I thought back to my old cupcake-making days from high school, where I remembered one of the very first desserts that I have ever thought of: a blue velvet cupcake with…
Mixed berry naked layer cheesecake
I love cheesecake and I wanted to do something that represented the fun of being a kid. Cutting into a cake and exploring the different flavors hidden between the layers of cake, cream, and some sort of fruit-type of components, it’s a lot of fun. For my dessert, I wanted to take two kid-favorite desserts,…
Eternal memories: a plated concept
I was inspired to create this concept from a song by Crystal Kay of the same name. The chorus talks about finding yourself, despite how difficult that may be to do so. The song just reminded me of my own culinary journey so to speak, coming up from being a vegan cupcake baker to a…
Lapis Lazuli fruit tart
The inspiration behind this fruit tart came from the lapis lazuli gemstone. It is a naturally blue mineral studded with gold and white streaks. I wanted to also make this dessert an homage to my hometown of Palos Verdes, where wild fennel grows, and that’s where the inspiration to use fennel pollen came from. I…
Fruity ube layer cake with ube mini doughnuts
I’m too lazy to write a foreword for this, so I will keep it very short, sweet, and to the point. This cake was inspired by Momofuku Milk Bar, and I wanted to incorporate tropical ingredients, so that’s where the coconut, banana, and ube came from. I used blackberries as well, because they add a…
Prickly pear-blackberry sorbet
I love using cactus pear (also called prickly pear or xoconostle) in sorbets. One of the first ice creams I have ever made was actually a prickly pear-orange sorbet back in my sophomore year of college (where I didn’t even have an ice cream machine, just an immersion blender). For this recipe, I added in…
Toasted soy chiffon cake with lemon curd cream and blackberries
So I first came up with this concept because my parents needed me to prepare a dessert for their friend’s 4th of July party (that I wasn’t even invited to)….bastards. Since they were all old anyways, my parents told me specifically to use less sugar….I’m starting to feel less salty about not being invited. No…
Ube souffle pancakes
I love ube. Ube is a purple yam indigenous to Asia and it’s great for making many desserts with. Souffle pancakes, also called shiawase pancakes, are a very popular breakfast item or snack in Japan, known for their fluffy texture. Combine them together and theoretically, it should be a social media phenomenon. For my recipe,…
Freddy's Harajuku 