So while I was in quarantine, I had been doing a lot of cookbook reading. And by that, I mean I was flipping through cookbooks and looking at the photos. I haven’t properly read a book since college and I don’t intend to start, even if coronavirus is going around. One of my favorite cookbooks is Everything…
Tag: dessert
At dusk, I will think of you: a mirror glaze cake
I felt like it had been a while since I made a proper mirror glaze cake, so I just set out to make one for the sake of making one. I just happened to buy a mamey sapote fruit(it is a cousin of persimmon, and very similar to a papaya or sweet potato in texture),…
Marimo truffles
I love how the Japanese manage to make everything cute. From clione (basically sea slugs, but they’re called sea angels), to daruma (those giant red and white dolls with the crazy eyes and mustaches), to marimo (little aquatic moss balls that some children even keep as pets). Marimo are super adorable, just because they’re perfectly…
Lemon meringue cookies
For my cooking mini-series with Lemonade(my friend Roshni’s social platform company), my co-host Marcin and I were actually tasked with making three different classes with three different themes. So we decided to go with ingredients, and to fit with the name of the company, we went with lemon dishes for the first class! For my…
Counting stars: a plated dessert
I actually came up with this concept when I was testing a dessert recipe for an upcoming pop-up in Dallas. Unfortunately, the test run didn’t necessarily go as planned, but I didn’t want to throw away the ingredients, so I shifted gears, and went with a rice pudding instead. What I love about rice pudding…
Loaded: a chocolate-caramel-misugaru tart
Since every grocery was raided of all all-purpose flour, I had to resort to several all-purpose flour alternatives so that I could continue baking regularly. For this dessert, I had a ton of fun making it, actually, just because I used kinako(7 to 17 grain mix, popularized in Korea), in place of flour. Misugaru is…
Strawberry-mochi crepe cake
Continuing on with my gluten-free desserts, I made this one actually out of curiosity. I used to love going to Harajuku Crepe in Beverly Hills(RIP, because they’ve been closed for years now), and they specialized in gluten-free crepes made with mochi. Now, I could NEVER get the same consistency, no matter how hard I tried,…
Vegan baklava with pistachio ice cream
Baklava is one of my absolute favorite Middle Eastern desserts. Layers of flaky phyllo(or spelled filo as well, but same thing), with a toffee-like filling of caramelized nuts, and a delicious spiced syrup that soaks through everything and really brings it together. The really cool thing, for me anyways, about Middle Eastern desserts is the…
Sanctuary: a mirror glaze cake
When I was conceptualizing a dessert for “Sanctuary” by Utada Hikaru, I wanted to make something that represented the aesthetic of Kingdom Hearts, specifically the all-white aesthetic of Castle Oblivion and the tropical feeling of the Destiny Islands. I wanted a mirror glaze cake with a clean white exterior, blue and white-swirled interior to represent…
Kouign amann egg tarts
When I was figuring out some Easter themed desserts, one thing I couldn’t get out of my head was the idea of doing something egg-themed. It was either that or something rabbit themed, but I’ve done that for the past two years and kind of wanted to change it up. So instead, I went with…
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….
Feelings of make-pretend: a plated dessert
I came up with this dessert half out of needing to get rid of my leftover vegan macaron components, and half because I just wanted to do something playful and elegant. With what I already had made, being the ice cream and the gelee, I was able to come up with a couple different ideas,…
Vegan coconut-sticky rice soufflé with mango creamsicle sauce
So this is the recipe I actually made on Instagram Live with Shari from my season on Masterchef. We were doing soufflé demo’s, and we each did a different flavor, hers being chocolate, while mine being this one. I didn’t want to go traditional to begin with, since I wanted to conserve eggs, and because…
Stay gold: a plated dessert
I recently purchased some dulcey (blonde chocolate) and was thinking of different things I could do with it. Blonde chocolate is basically a slow-roasted white chocolate that tastes like dulce de leche. It’s very much caramelized and nutty, and I wanted to play around with that flavor profile. So looking at some of my older…
Pistachio mille crepe
Before I worked at Milk Bar, I never was a particularly huge fan of pistachios in desserts. I typically used them in things like dhukka or in salads, and I preferred using hazelnuts or almonds in my desserts instead(I did make pistachio desserts, but removing the damn shells also annoyed me and my fingernails to…
Pistachio-lemon tart
In honor of Pi Day, I knew I had to do a pie or a tart of some kind. So I went with the tart route, and made some mini pistachio-lemon tarts. The flavor combination was inspired by the lemon-pistachio brioche we sell at Milk Bar, but also my need to get rid of an…
Ivory Spring: a petite gateau
I feel like it has been a while since I brought out the wooden sake cups, well that, and I knew that I wanted to make something green in the spirit of St. Patty’s day, so that’s where the idea to make a matcha-misu (matcha-flavored tiramisu) came from. I had some really cool flavors of…
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!)…
Rainbow of illusion: a mirror glaze cake
So the name of this dessert stemmed from the lyrics of a harmonicblend song, “Auf Wiedersehen”. When I was trying to conceptualize this dessert, I wanted to make something that can be made into a rainbow, and I wouldn’t necessarily say deconstruct it, but rather, emphasize aspects of the rainbow that I wanted to. When…
Meyer Lemon-Elderflower-Meringue Beignets
I love a good beignet. Fluffy doughnuts are honestly my favorite thing ever for munching on, especially when they’re stuffed with something. In this case, I had a ton of Meyer lemons sitting in my fridge, and I wanted to use them up. Immediately, my mind went to lemon curd. And with lemon curd, you…
Freddy's Harajuku 