Whenever I think of mille feuille, I actually think of my friend from college, Sena. We took some boring math general-education class together, and one day while we were bored, we were talking about our favorite desserts, mine being financier, and hers being mille feuille. A mille feuille, translated from French to mean “a million…
Tag: namelaka
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…
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…
Peach Bellini Pate Choux
These pate choux, in a lot of ways, are an homage to my Masterchef bestie, Bri. Peaches just because her family has a peach orchard in Texas, prosecco because I know she loves her sparkling wines(fun fact, a bellini is a drink made from peaches and prosecco), and the usage of molecular caviar as it…
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…
Red velvet loaves with whipped cream cheese
I will admit that red velvet is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love to talk a ton of crap about it being a red-colored chocolate cake, but I still go out of my way to order it whenever I’m at a bakery and want to buy more than just one flavor of cake or…
Mango lassi mille feuille
So with this dessert, I wanted to combine Indian flavors with Albanian and French techniques. For the pastry, I went with a homemade phyllo, brushed with ghee just to guarantee that beautiful browning on the dough. With the filling, I did a yogurt and cardamom namelaka, which is a ganache that is whipped. For this…
Strawberry and pistachio pate choux
I was pretty happy with how these puffs came out, considering that ever since I got some Strawberry Inspiration(naturally strawberry flavored chocolate) couverture from Valrhona, I wanted to do a strawberry and pistachio dessert. There was something about crunchy and salty versus sweet and tart which just sounded like a fun combination, and while the…
Jade Fairy: a petit gateau
So this dessert went through several phases because I was not 100% sure where I wanted to go in terms of the flavor profiles. I knew it had to be green, and that I wanted to feature pistachio and chrysanthemum tea. For those unfamiliar with it, chrysanthemum tea is a popular Chinese/Taiwanese drink made from…
Freedom: a plated dessert
As with a lot of desserts I make, I named this particular one after a Miyu Irino song of the same name. It was this dynamic and fun song that emphasized standing up for what you believe in, and being free from the doubts in your mind. I also love that you cannot spell the…
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…
Red wine-chocolate cake with namelaka cream and chocolate ganache
“Am I going to die?” – My sister’s reaction to eating/hearing about namelaka cream for the first time when eating this particular dessert Since this needs to be established first and foremost, no, you cannot die from eating namelaka cream. Unless somebody has poisoned it or tampered with it or you choke on it, or…
Wind chime in dirt: a plated dessert
I was inspired to make this dessert when I saw a Japanese wind chime, also called 江戸風鈴 (edo fuurin), just laying on my desk, and thought “maybe that would be fun to create a dessert from.” After deciding that I could replicate the entire wind chime using sugar for the glass dome and either white…
Freddy's Harajuku 