Ever since Universal Studios opened Super Nintendo World, I have been obsessed with buying a Yoshi headband. To elaborate, Universal sold these cute Mario character headbands, with a mini doll of the character placed on the headband in a way where it looked like the character was laying on your head. I personally find Mario…
Tag: kanten jelly
“Edamame”: a plated dessert
This dessert came about because I had a bag of frozen edamame, and another bag of mugwort powder, and I wanted to use them both. That and with St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, I wanted to do a green dessert that was not just lime, matcha, or pandan. Mugwort, also called yomogi in Japanese,…
Pretty in Pink Anmitsu
For this recipe, I wanted to do anmitsu, but make it pink, as I was inspired by the new Barbie movie. My sister had Barbie dolls growing up, and we totally Kate Mckinnon/Weird Barbie’d her dolls a lot. That and my only other real Barbie-related memory was that my sister owned that Barbie car toy,…
Snow Bunny Dango
Inspiration was from Paper Mario, and Super Paper Mario, where there was an item called the Snow Bunny. From how they looked, a Snow Bunny resembled an usagi manju, which is a Japanese bun shaped like a rabbit. These manju are quite cute, usually being made with mochi, although I have seen baked varieties as…
Snom Wagashi
Ever since I saw Snom when Sword and Shield came out, I was a fan. They are these cute little worm-caterpillar-larvae bugs-things with a layer of ice spikes around their bodies. And they are hilariously adorable, namely because of their super simplistic design! For those unfamiliar with what wagashi are, it is an umbrella term…
Yuzu-Castella Strawberry Shortcake
One of my favorite childhood memories growing up was coming back from a long day at school, and being greeted by my mom with some sort of baked good from the local Taiwanese bakery. Sometimes it was cheesecake, other times, mont blanc, but one particular favorite of mine is castella. Castella is a fluffy sponge…
Hanami cake
Hanami roughly translates into “flower viewing” from Japanese. It usually refers to the blooming of cherry blossoms, or sakura, in early April, and signifies new beginnings. One thing I love about hanami, besides how gorgeous the cherry blossom-filled skies look during that time of year, is of course the desserts that come with it. Cherry…
“Fever Dream”: a plated dessert
I literally named this dessert after my favorite mxmtoon song, “Fever Dream”. For me, that term represents memories and milestones of your life, past, present, and future, just melting together into one moment. So I wanted to do that in this dessert! For starters, I wanted to use cherries, since my birthday cake growing up…
Sakura financier
With cherries being in season, I had to make something fun with them! I had done cherry tarts in the past, but I wanted to change it up a little. While I love the combination of almond and cherry, I wanted to also use the salted cherry blossoms I still had, and that’s when I…
Dango with black rice pudding and salted rice milk
I love mango sticky rice. The stewed down rice with salty coconut milk and juicy mango, it’s a fun combination to play around with. For this particular recipe, I wanted to accentuate that classic Asian dessert by doing rice three ways, and mango two ways. For the rice, I used black rice and did a…
Tsuki no Hikari wagashi
I really came up with this dessert because I was inspired by snow globes initially. I wanted to make this pretty snow globe wagashi situation, and that was what this would have been originally. But on the night I was making it, I looked up and saw a full moon peeking out of the clouds,…
Tsuki no Usagi tartlets
I always loved the myth of Tsuki no Usagi, or the moon rabbit. The idea that there is a rabbit on the moon, making mochi, just sounded like really cool to me, and I would take that rabbit over the Easter bunny or the Trix Rabbit any day! I wanted to take Japanese wagashi and…
Eventide: a wagashi
I have been meaning to try making a mizugashi wagashi for a while. Mizugashi refers to clear water/translucent finish, which these desserts have. I really wanted to make one that was naturally colored, gluten-free, and vegan, just to embrace the beauty of nature, something that wagashi tries to embrace and capture. For mine, I used…
Uni-giri: an amuse bouche
So this was really the culmination of three of my favorite things to eat when I go to a sushi restaurant. Uni(sea urchin), rice, and eggs. And arguably, all three ingredients have wonderful synergy with one another, and definitely together. Raw eggs on rice is a staple in Japan, with the fluffy rice almost cooking…
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,…
Sakura blooming: vegan macaron ice cream sandwiches
So the idea to make a vegan macaron sandwich came up a long while back, I think in December 2019. But I never really got a chance to make them, mostly because I was too lazy to buy a can of chickpeas to make aquafaba. But recently, a bunch of stars sort of aligned, and…
sweet escape: a plated dessert
This is a bit of a throwback, since this dessert I made when my friends, Bri and David, were visiting during the 4th of July! I dubbed the dessert “sweet escape” as a reference to that! We were preparing dishes for Bri and I’s first pop-up, and while we had already decided on what dessert…
Got me going’: a plated dessert
Back when I was thinking of signature dishes for MasterChef, this was one of the four that I came up with, being a back-up dessert to my chocolate cake. Normally, when you think of a signature dessert, you’d think like a cake, tart, cream puff, something where a dough or batter takes the center stage….
koi no tsubomi: elderflower-citrus anmitsu
This was a dessert inspired by Koda Kumi’s song of the same name; the meaning of it in Japanese literally translates to blossoms of love. When I first heard the song, it was from the Driving Hits 7 soundtrack, so it was remixed and sounded really foreboding and intense. I didn’t quite like it. But…
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…
Freddy's Harajuku 