Kinako is one of my favorite ingredients, I feel like it is highly underrated. Translating to “gold powder”, kinako is a Japanese toasted soy bean powder. It is very nutty, similar in flavor to Korean injeolmi or even just peanut butter, and it quite frequently used in Japanese desserts. For me, I grew up eating…
Tag: Mochiko
“Present Box” Petit Gateau
Before you ask, these little egg nog-cranberry present boxes are my modern, gluten-free interpretation of a Christmas cake. Christmas Cake, at least in Japanese culture, are soft spongecakes with cream and usually strawberries, just to capture this red and white aesthetic. I wanted to take the red and white aesthetic, along with some more traditionally…
Togarashi-Walnut Mochi Brownies
I am a more recent eater of the mochi brownie, first having had one from my friend Ann, when she sold them at a pop-up in Venice Beach! And honestly, I am so annoyed that I never had one prior to 2020. Crispy at the edges, super gooey on the insides, it is the perfect…
Ghost Mochi
For Halloween, I absolutely had to make something ghost-themed. I wanted to use tonic water in this recipe as well, just because it contains quinine, a fancy way of saying that it will glow under black light. It has admittedly been a minute since I last made a dessert using tonic water(mostly because tonic water…
Baby Seal Mochi
One trend that I remember seeing a lot of were these little mochi that were shaped into baby seals. They were adorable to look at, and that was enough of a motivation for me to attempt making these. I have seen different fillings being used in these, ranging from strawberry daifuku(strawberry and red bean stuffed…
Hojicha-red bean-mochi madeleines
I made these madeleines half because I wanted to test out a few hojicha recipes, and half because I also made red bean paste using a pressure cooker, and I had to use it somehow! What I love about madeleines are that they are super customizable – since they are these cute, seashell-like cookie-cakes, they…
Violet Ohagi
So this recipe came about because I had a lot of red bean paste, and I had to use it up somehow. One of the first things that came to mind when I was trying to figure out what to do with the red bean paste was ohagi. Ohagi is a type of Japanese wagashi(confection)…
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…
Vietnamese Coffee Sticky Buns
There are two beautiful things about being on a diet. The first is obviously that you lose weight and in a healthier way. The second is that you continuously develop cravings for things you know you should not be eating, and that is a wonderful basis for some really delicious desserts. These sticky buns are…
Red and gold(en syrup) tang yuan
If you are Chinese or Taiwanese and do not know what tang yuan are, then I truly have seen it all., Tang yuan(literally translates to soup balls or rounds) are a super popular Asian dessert, consisting of small poached mochi balls floating in usually a sweet syrup. They are often eaten during the holidays, and…
Red bean doughnuts(an-doughnut) with roasted miso sugar
These doughnuts were inspired by an-doughnuts(red bean doughnuts) that I found in my local Japanese grocery store. The doughnuts that I purchased were a cake doughnut base with a chunkier red bean paste(called tsubu-an) in the middle, finished with granulated sugar around it. While I liked the concept of it, I felt like there was…
Kabosu dango
So I had no idea what kabosu was until the end of 2020, when I was at a Japanese grocery store, and I found a bottle of kabosu juice. Looking at it, I thought it was like the Filipino citrus calamansi, based on the green exterior and bright yellow interior. But researching into it more,…
Blonde chocolate and brown butter mochi Madeleines
I was really inspired to make these from my friend, Ann, who sells a lot of butter mochi products in her business, Pair of Pears. She does these really delicious and toothsome butter mochi doughnuts and brownies, and it made me garner a much larger appreciation for it. For those of you unfamiliar with it,…
Fireflies in the night: a plated dessert
So when I first acquired pandan-buko extract, I had to play around with it a ton, since I had very little familiarity with it. Upon testing it with dango, I found out that it turns things green because of how strong of a green coloring that extract had. So I wanted to capitalize on that,…
Kinako chiffon sandwiches with black rice cream and mochi
These were really just my take on a dorayaki sandwich. I wanted to do something wagashi-inspired, and I also wanted to try baking chiffon cake in circles, like a whoopie pie, so that’s how this dessert came about! I used kinako, a toasted soy bean powder, to flavor the actual chiffon cake itself, while I…
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,…
Sakura-matcha affogato with homemade boba
I really only came up with this recipe because I was testing out some homemade boba recipes, and I also had to get rid of my leftover cherry blossom ice cream. Truthfully, this was a really simple dessert, at least for me, to make, just because the most labor-intensive thing was the ice cream. Making…
Find my heaven: a plated dessert
I really wanted to try branching out and doing new things this year, be it with techniques or plating. The dessert itself is inspired by me just trying to find my happy place in the kitchen, and obviously, that’s through baking and cooking with Asian-fusion influences. So I went with a hojicha panna cotta with…
Mochiko milk rolls
This recipe came a multitude of reasons. The first being me accidentally buying 8 sticks of salted butter and needing to use them somehow, the second being that I was craving homemade bread with oxtail stew, and the third being I miss Japanese-styled bakeries, and those fluffy milk rolls they’d always sell. So after doing…
Freddy's Harajuku 