Om Ali with Pistachio-Cardamom Cream

I came up with this recipe because I had a lot of leftover brioche and phyllo, and I needed to use it up someway, somehow. Luckily for me, there is a dessert that literally can use up both, which meant that I did not have to sacrifice space in my freezer for either of those…

Thai Tea-Coconut Carrot Cake

This recipe came about because I had a bunch of carrots I needed to get rid of. A while ago, my friends and I visited a farm in Irvine, with the intention of going strawberry picking. But because of all the torrential rain Southern California has been experiencing, the strawberry crops were dead, and we…

Ube-Passionfruit Mousse Cake

I had the initial inspiration for this cake when I was visiting my friend, Ann, who lives in Oahu. There was a shrub with these gorgeous purple flowers, and I had the idea to make a cake with that kind of visual inspiration. In light of everything going on in Maui, I felt like it…

Poliwag Tang Yuan

When I think of cute O.G./Gen 1 Pokemon, Poliwag immediately comes to mind. Mostly because I remember accidentally running them over in Pokemon Snap in the River stage(whoops), and seeing Misty’s Poliwag(which managed to make it all the way to a Politoed!) back in the original anime series. Poliwag are these round, blue tadpole-like Pokemon…

Passionfruit-Coconut Choux

For the final white and blue dessert on my tea tower, I had to do a French pastry. It was between macaron or pate choux, and I opted for the pate choux, strictly because they were easier to present in an afternoon tea tower. I love making pate choux. It is the dough used to…

Coconut-White Chocolate Lava Bundt Cakes

Before I say any more about the recipe, I need to preface this by saying that these cakes are 100% gluten-free. I used coconut flour for additional natural coconut flavor(since coconut flour is just finely ground up coconut flakes) and mochiko(glutinous rice flour) for that stability. You can substitute the mochiko and upwards to half…

Buko Pandan Madeleines

This recipe is me revisiting the gluten-free coconut madeleines I made a few years ago. A while back, my friends, Ann and Brenda, and I went to a Filipino restaurant in North Hollywood, where we had buko pandan. Buko pandan is a Filipino dessert consisting of sweet coconut milk, young coconut flesh, pandan, puffed rice,…

Elderflower PiƱka Colada Cake

This recipe was originally going to be a ginger-white peach cake, but I couldn’t find white peaches, so I had to make substitutions. The peaches weren’t available, but the grocery store did have pink pineapple, so I made an impulse buy, and grabbed the pink pineapple instead. I’m personally surprised that pink pineapples were more…

Super Soft Mango Mochi

This recipe was directly inspired by the mango mochi at ECK Bakery in Houston(special thank you to my friend Amanda for taking me there, because the mochi was incredibly delicious!). So on my recent trip to Texas, I stopped by in both Austin and with my friend Amanda and her husband Jimin, we all went…

Coconut Bunny Cookies

These coconut bunny cookies were the brainchild of me wanting to make a cream cheese-based cookie, and me wanting to do something bunny-themed that was rolled in coconut flakes. What I love about cream cheese cookies is that they have this soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture to them that can only be accomplished by baking a dough…

Coconut-Blood Orange Blanc Manger

Blanc manger, also spelled blancmange, is a French milk jelly, quite similar to a panna cotta, but set using gelled cornstarch instead of bloomed gelatin. The result of it is a slightly firmer consistency, and a creaminess that lingers longer(try saying that phrase three times fast) than a panna cotta would have. It is quite…

Ube-Passionfruit-Coconut Cake

This recipe came about because I had ube paste, coconut milk, and fresh passionfruit, all of which I wanted to use, and preferably together. Ube(pronounced oo-beh) is a Filipino purple yam that is sweet and nutty in flavor. Almost like if you took a purple yam and toasted it with brown butter. Ube is a…

Mango Sticky Rice with coconut and pandan

Whenever I think of Southeast Asian desserts, mango sticky rice is probably at the top of my list for things that come to mind. Glutinous rice with ripe, fresh mango, and this salty coconut milk, the contrast and flavors are very different than what most people would associate with desserts. Some variations have toasted sesame…

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 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…

Thai”-mato soup” Tea Panna Cotta

Back in college, I made a Thai tea panna cotta and served it in a bowl. And everyone thought it was tomato soup. That was literally how this recipe came about, was people thinking I made tomato soup instead of a dessert. I personally love the flavor and color of Thai tea, and since this…

“Gansito” Petit Gateau

My friend Frances once described gansito to me as “a Mexican Twinkie”. So that is what a gansito is, in broader terms. But more specifically, gansito is a vanilla snack cake with a layer of strawberry jam, a cream filling, and it is covered in chocolate. So it is like a Twinkie, but with strawberry…

Lil Chickie Mango Puddings

I have an awkward confession: I hated mango as a child. Something about fruits with a scratchy, fibrous texture that just did not agree with me back then – 8 year old Fred was looking at you too, pineapple. Because of that, I never really understood was mangos tasted like until I was maybe around…

Sloth-acado Eclairs

So for my Sylvie(if you watched my audition on season 12, you will better remember her as “Fred’s Friend” who was making all of that commentary about my chocolate LOL)’s birthday, I wanted to make a fun dessert that was unlike anything I have previously attempted. Sylvie is obsessed with this sweet passionfruit-avocado tart that…

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…