Whenever I think of persimmons, I remember my earlier childhood – our backyard had white guava, white peach, and fuyu persimmon trees, so depending on the time of year, we had fresh fruit to eat! Persimmon in particular are an interesting fruit, because depending on their ripeness, their flavor and texture can completely change. With…
Tag: dessert
Rose Apple-Yuzu-Almond Crostata
This recipe came about because I purchased one too many hidden rose apples and I did not want it to go to waste. Hidden rose apples are a naturally pink-fleshed apple(not pink peel, like the actual color of the fruit is pink), and they are usually only available 2-3 months in the year. They have…
Polenta-Fennel-Yuzu Cake
So I was watching Next Gen Chef on Netflix and there was one contestant, Abby, who made a recipe very similar to this one for the first challenge, where the contestants had to work in teams to make a progressive tasting menu inspired by one of three famous CIA alumnus. Abby tackled the dessert making…
Icebox Cake Gingerbread House
For the holidays, I figured I just had to do something akin to a gingerbread house. Now I won’t like, I suck at decorating them. I admire those who can do all of the fancy isomalt or gelatin sheet window-pane tricks, because that requires a lot of precision, patience, and skill. But in my case,…
Yuzu Castella with Blueberries
This recipe kind of combines two of my old recipes, being my Blueberry Dreams baumkuchen and my yuzu castella strawberry shortcake. I love the combination of blueberries and citrus, since blueberries on their own have such a mild, sweet flavor, while tartness just adds a sharp contrast, keeping things interesting. Yuzu in particular is a…
Pistachio-Cherry Shortbreads
These shortbreads were made with a love for Italian spumoni in mind. Spumoni is usually pistachio and cherry ice cream, so the combination of the two is something I absolutely adore. Pistachios are nutty, smoky, and salty, while cherries are sweet and tart. In the case of this recipe, I used pistachio flour, made by…
Matcha-Kinako Daisy Crown Shortbreads
I saw someone on Instagram making these cute ring-shaped shortbreads, comprised of smaller shapes that were arranged in essentially a crown/wreath shape. Aesthetically, I found that to be extremely pleasing, and also since it is a shortbread made of other shortbreads, that invited a lot of possibilities in terms of fun or different flavor combinations!…
Chocolate-Hazelnut Langue de Chat
Langue de chat are one of my favorite cookies to eat. If you ever had a Milano before, it’s basically like that. Thin, melt-in-the-mouth cookies sandwiching a filling, usually chocolate-based. In this case, I went with a chocolate-hazelnut langue de chat. I love Nutella, and often get jars of it from Germany whenever we go…
Snowmen Coconut Cookies
These coconut snowmen cookies were loosely inspired by a cute box of white chocolate snowmen cookies I purchased while in Niigata, Japan. The cookies themselves were simple designed, being two round disks with little circular bits to represent the arms, and they were dunked in white chocolate to finish. I wanted to replicate that, but…
Flourless Chocolate Cakes
A little earlier this year, I was tinkering around with a flourless chocolate cake recipe. Fast-forward a few months, and I was trying to think of a fun way to make a chocolate fondant-like situation. I envisioned this dainty but tall chocolate cake, similar to a molten lava cake, but firmer. I wanted this to…
Pumpkin-Maple Flan
For a while now I’ve been on and off experimenting with doing purins and flans using pumpkin/kabocha flavoring of some kind now. Fun fact, but purin(Japanese pudding, which is basically flan, or a sweet egg custard with a caramel layer) was the first thing I ever learned how to bake. We did not grow up…
Chocolate-Pumpkin Cheesecake Brulee
Way back when I first started as a baker, one dessert concept I had was a baked chocolate-pumpkin cheesecake cupcake, inspired by the Halloween colors of black and orange. While Halloween obviously is over(how we’re already in November, I really don’t know), I still wanted to make a pretty little pumpkin-chocolate cheesecake number, just in…
Maple-Acorn-Apple-Persimmon Entremet
This recipe was the end result of me being indecisive and not being 100% sure what autumnal ingredients I wanted to commit to. I wanted to do this acorn flour-maple situation, and then I started introducing apples to it, just to give the dessert more acidity. Then I happened to have persimmons that were REALLY…
Kimchi’s Cajeta Pumpkin Pie
Before anyone asks, no this recipe does not have kimchi in it. Kimchi is the name of my friend Brenda’s maltese. He is an adorable little pupper and is generally well behaved. Except when I brought this cajeta pumpkin pie for our annual Friendsgiving, and Kimchi decided to help himself to 40% of the pie….
Aomori Apple-Ricotta Loaf Cakes
This recipe came about because I still had a spare Aomori apple lying around, and I wanted to use it to make something with the leftover ricotta cheese I also had. Yeah, I mentioned it somewhere before, but maybe 1 in every 4 of my recipes on this blog came about from me needing to…
Miso Caramel Apple Dumplings
First time I had apple dumplings was living in Boston; my friend Tina made them for us when we were having a baking night together back in freshman year of college. I literally had no idea what an apple dumpling was, come to find out, they were these parcels of baked dough, stuffed with caramelized…
Chocolate-Hazelnut Fondant
It felt like forever ago that I made a chocolate fondant, so I wanted to make one as we start getting closer to the holidays, and I wanted to make some more festive or celebratory desserts. Chocolate fondant is comforting, because it is a decadent chocolate lava cake-type of situation. In this case, I went…
Pumpkin Pie Taiyaki
Ever since I bought a taiyaki pan, I only ever used it once. And not even to make traditional taiyaki batter! Hilariously, back in college, I did make taiyaki a few times when I borrowed a classmate’s pan. However, I did not own a pan of my own until 2023, and even then, I totally…
Earl Grey-Sesame Duskull Tea-ramisu
I will be honest in that while I absolutely adore the Hoenn region, the Duskull line wasn’t something that I would say I particularly cared for. Of the various Ghost-types in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, I was more partial towards Sableye or Shedinja because of how unique each of them were. With Duskull, they are…
“Scarecrow Cake”
This is my autumnal version of my dreamy hummingbird cake. For this variation, I replaced bananas and coconut with pumpkin, pineapple with raisin, and pecans with pepitas. Initially when I was testing this recipe, I tried to just use my carrot cake recipe, but subbing out the grated carrot with canned pumpkin puree. But that…
Freddy's Harajuku 