This was inspired by the Japanese story called “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”. The story itself featured a bamboo cutter who uncovered a little girl, named Kaguya, one day when he was cutting open stalks of bamboo. She was specifically found inside of a glowing bamboo stalk. As the story progresses, Kaguya is revealed…
Tag: mousse
Sesame Checkerboard Bunnies
I felt major FOMO when I saw so many of my fellow Asian bakers posting bunny-themed desserts during Lunar New Years(I was unfortunately in Texas during the week leading up to it with limited access to a kitchen, so I could not join in on the bunny dessert festivities nor did I have the foresight…
Matcha Kokedama(Moss Balls)
Kokedama are these decorative moss ball plants that are super popular in Japan. They are used as planters for other plants more often than not, and they give any room a pleasant, earthy aesthetic that I just adore. My first time seeing a kokedama was when I was playing Animal Crossing New Horizons, where they…
Ruby Forest Petit Gateau
This is an homage to the black forest cake, which was my birthday cake for the first 14 years of my life. The reason why we would eat black forest cake was because we would celebrate my birthday in Taiwan, and the bakery in the Shida district where we would stay/live only made one kind…
Raspberry-Champagne Linzertorte “Hearts”
Linzertorte is a classic Austrian dessert that consists of a tart shell, an almond cake-like layer, and raspberry jam. I wanted to reinterpret that by embracing the almond and raspberry, while also introducing champagne to the mix! The end result were the little hearts that you see here. Special shout out to Shari or Spiced…
“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…
Passionfruit Mousse Cake
I was fortunate enough to be gifted fresh passionfruits from a family friend, and it was actually around that time that I wanted to make a mousse cake with them. Not necessarily a mirror glaze cake, but just a mousse with layers of chiffon cake embedded inside of it. A while ago, I made a…
Apple Mont Blanc
So my fellow AAPI pastry friends (Dara Yu and Jess Wang) and I wanted to challenge ourselves to make a fun holiday dessert using apples, just in time for Thanksgiving. While I have also done a pie collab with my dear friend Sam, in case you are not a pie lover, this recipe is here…
Nutella-Cold Brew Cake
I made this cake mostly because I wanted to create a chocolate-forward cake. That and I wanted it to be a little playful and sophisticated, using black(Dutch-processed) cacao to add a fruitier cocoa flavor, as well as cold brew to intensify the chocolate flavor, and Nutella, because why not? Nutella makes everything better, unless you…
Kir Royale Cakes
One of my favorite hobbies back when I was first learning about pastry was visiting bakeries and patisseries and buying their most intriguing or unique items. At Patisserie Chantilly in Lomita, CA, that item for me was their Kir Royale. Being 15 at the time, I had no clue what that was. But the cake…
Black Rose Entremet
It’s been a minute since I’ve last tackled an entremet, so I wanted to do another one, as I had a bunch of random components here and there that I knew I could use. I was making Turkish delight for Pinktober and realized that I had an entire piping bag of leftover ruby chocolate mousse…
Blackberry Blood Orange Sunset Cake
Back in high school, my “signature” cupcake was a blue velvet cake with orange curd, blackberry Italian meringue buttercream, and white chocolate “stems”, with the entire cupcake designed to resemble a flower with the shades of an oceanside sunset. It was inspired specifically by the oceanside sunsets that I would see growing up in a…
You’re my superstar: a geode cake
I’ve made so many galaxy cakes over the years. I just love the aesthetic of stars and constellations! For this specific recipe, I wanted to decorate it with konpeitou, which are these really pretty rock candies that come in different colors. They look like the star bits from Super Mario Galaxy and they are just…
Chocolate Fraisier Cake
Now I have done Fraisier cakes in the past. What I love is the appearance, being this perfectly cylindrical cake with slices of strawberries peeking out from the cream that the layers of sponge are sandwiching. For this rendition, I wanted to go with a chocolate-ish version of it, featuring a fluffy black cacao sponge,…
Marge and in Charge: a petit gateau
When coming up with this recipe, I had a random epiphany that piping something like a mont blanc could cause it to resemble Marge Simpson’s hair. That and this idea came to me about two weeks prior to Mother’s Day, so I felt like that was a weird coincidence, and that I should just run…
Chocolate-Whiskey-Tangerine Mousse Cake
My family friend was kind enough to gift me with their homegrown tangerines, something that I look forward to every spring. For this year, I wanted to go back to a project I did years back, which is recreating Lady M desserts in my own way. This time, I went with their Whisky Dark Chocolate…
Lil Peep Egg Tarts
While I do not celebrate Easter in the religious sense, I can still appreciate the fact that the holiday is closely associated with rabbits and eggs. Those are cute things to make desserts from, and the latter if what inspired this dessert! Well, that and marshmallow peeps. Fun fact: I was originally going to do…
Princess (Mirror Glaze) Cake
This is my petit gateau(mini cake) take on the Swedish Prinsesstarta(Princess Cake). The Princess Cake usually consists of layers of vanilla cake with a vanilla custard/pastry cream and a raspberry jam, finished with fondant and/or marizpan. Now I could do fondant or marzipan, but those just don’t really taste good to me, nor do I…
Persimmon mousse tart
I am very fortunate to have a coworker who grows his own tropical fruits and vegetables! Earlier this year, I got fresh passion fruits, while right now, I got fresh fuyu persimmons. Truthfully, I never really had a ton of persimmon desserts growing up. I usually would either eat them fresh from the tree in…
Gluten-free sesame-buckwheat mousse cake
I had yet to make a true vegan chiffon cake prior to writing and testing out this recipe. Last year, I did make a pumpkin roll cake, but it was not a true chiffon batter, just a cake roll. When I say chiffon, I’m talking whipped whites folded into an egg yolk mixture. Doing so…
Freddy's Harajuku 