Tofu Ice Cream

It took forever to perfect my tofu ice cream recipe. Back in college, when I was learning how to make ice cream from scratch, I thought tofu ice cream would be as simple as coconut milk, sugar, tofu, and that would be it. However, what happened was that the ice cream, even after churning it,…

Sticky Miso Toffee Pudding with Cardamom Ice Cream

Sticky toffee or sticky date pudding is one of those desserts I grew to appreciate during my time in Boston. I once ordered this gingerbread sticky toffee pudding with brown butter, apples, and sage, and it was absolutely delicious! The combination of super soft, fluffy, brown sugary cake drowned in a rich butterscotch sauce was…

(Shiny) Torchic Sundae

This recipe came about because I had way too many persimmons and I basically was desperate to get rid of them. So I figured, why not make an ice cream with them? Persimmons are sweet, almost creamy, and very jammy when ripe, which are nice characteristics to incorporate into an ice cream base. The skin…

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….

Cocoa brioche maritozzo

This recipe came about out of a necessity to use up my sourdough starter. I made the mistake of feeding dark chocolate cookie crumbs to my starter, which while it enjoyed profusely, the addition of cocoa powder caused my starter to take on a leather-brown color and produce a cocoa aroma. So I had to…

Shiso Mint Chip Ice Cream

I grew up on mint chip ice cream. For some reason, it was the only ice cream we would get whenever we went to Baskin Robbins, so it became a nostalgic flavor profile for me. That coupled with me eating a lot of thin mints as a kid. One random day when I was working…

Yakult-Passionfruit Popsicles

It has been a minute since I last made popsicles in general. I do love making them, though I find that with frozen desserts, they take a bit more time. That being said, popsicles are super simple to do, and there is a lot less manual or hands-on work that you need to invest in…

Cacao Parfait

I came up with this dessert because I was having MAJOR choco-holic cravings. If you were looking to get chocolate-wasted from a dessert, this parfait has your number. I did this in the style of a Japanese parfait, which features less fruit, yogurt, and granola, and more ice cream, crunchy cookies(I made feuilletine), and cream….

Strawberry-Pistachio Ice Cream Sandwiches

I love strawberry-pistachio anything. One is sweet and tart, the other is smoky and salty. Together, they really just work together. Personally, I think strawberries and any nut work well together, hence why peanut butter and jelly is such a great pairing(I’m team strawberry jam on that topic, but grape jam isn’t bad either). Though…

Vegan and gluten-free pecan praline brownie sundae

I came up with this recipe because I wanted to see how challenging it would be to make a dessert that is both gluten-free and vegan. I wanted to take the most decadent, self-indulgent dessert, being a brownie sundae, and make it 100% free of animal products and gluten. Truthfully, making a vegan and gluten-free…

“The Fourth Flavor”: a plated dessert

If you have ever watched Codename: Kids Next Door, you would totally get the reference here. If not, let me explain. According to that cartoon’s lore, there are three main flavors of ice cream, being vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. But there was also a legendary fourth flavor that was said to taste even better than…

Tofu ice cream with tofu water meringue

So this would not be the first tofu ice cream recipe I have made. However, it would be the first where I do not use coconut milk – that makes a huge difference in the actual flavor of the ice cream, as coconut milk, while it does contain the necessary fat to create creamy vegan…

Head in the clouds: a plated dessert

The inspiration for this dessert came from me testing out a couple new techniques – using sago, which are little tapioca pearls, to make a strawberry flavored “caviar”, and using lychee juice to make a foam. I wanted to create this sort of ethereal, sea-meets-sky, summery sort of dessert, embracing fresh lychees, and pairing them…

Sunburst: a plated dessert

I named this dessert ‘Sunburst’ after a Tobu and Itro song that came out a while ago of the same name. And also for my Chinese namesake, which translates to Winter Morning Sun. I had to use sesame since it is a favorite ingredient of mine, and I paired it with sea buckthorn to add…

Plated devil’s food cake

I was playing around with a new silicone bar mold that I just bought, and that’s where this dessert came from. Well, that and me wanting to make a dessert that was inspired by chocolate and tofu. We have a chocolate cake with a tofu-chocolate mousse, soy caramel ganache, cocoa praline, and a tofu ice…

Odessa: a plated dessert

So this dessert was my take on an almost-entirely black and white dish. I went with a sesame chocolate cake with tahini mousse, white chocolate mirror glaze, white chocolate-sesame bark, chocolate-sesame crumble, and white sesame ice cream. I was really happy with how this dessert came out visually, and I was also stunned when the…

Time: a plated dessert

When I was listening to Utada Hikaru’s song “Time”, I was thinking about what kinds of desserts could accompany that soulful, slow, jazzy tune. I thought about coffee, cafes, and other things pertaining to that, and from there, my mind went to hojicha. Hojicha is a toasted Japanese green tea, with this nutty, earthy flavor…

Bee who I want 2 bee: a plated dessert

I came up with this dessert because I was craving medovik, or Russian honey cake. That is essentially just an icebox cake with honey wafers. I love to infuse mine with bee pollen, just to give it a unique flavor. Since it would be kind of boring to just do the medovik, I went with…

Sea salt ice cream popsicles

Now that I finally have proper popsicle molds, I can make the actual sea salt ice cream from Kingdom Hearts. I have done renditions on it in the past, but this time, I feel like this is as close to the ice cream as I can possibly get. Just to make these more interesting, I…

Bright lights: a plated dessert

I really wanted to come up with a dessert that showcases the beauty of dairy and light flavors. Since I was making milk bread, I decided to transform that into something akin to a baba(a brioche that is soaked in a rum syrup), but instead of doing the traditional rum soak, I decided to go…