Banana-Passionfruit Milky Way Cake

This cake came about because I wanted to do a passionfruit-banana cake of some kind, just because of the flavor contrast. Passionfruit being tart and tangy while banana is mild and sweet, both tropical fruits play off of one another beautifully here! The big debate for me, internally, was whether or not I introduce chocolate…

Soy Milk Rare Cheesecake with Passionfruit and Ruby Kiwi

This dessert was what I made for Mother’s Day with my mother specifically in mind. My mom LOVES fruit-based desserts, despises carbs, and likes cheesecakes, so that actually made it super straightforward for what I was going to make for her. Initially, I was going to use just passionfruit, since it is so naturally tart,…

P.O.G. “Pearl”: a Petit Gateau

These little pearls were inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii(yes, I have been to Oahu 4 times in the past 3 years, I am addicted. Well, that and I have a bunch of friends who live there – shout out to Ann and Lauren – so Waikiki along with Austin have been two places…

Lilikoi Chantilly Cake

Contrary to what you may think, “chantilly” is a term for two different pastry components. The classic French version is just a sweetened whipped cream. However, in Hawaii, it means something a bit different. I was surprised a few years ago when I was in Oahu with my friend Lauren that she introduced me to…

Starry Night Lilikoi Cookies

These cookies were the brain child of me being on a cute, linzer sandwich cookie-type of kick, and me having passionfruit puree to play around with. I thought from a visual standpoint, how cute would it be to make these cookies look like a starry night’s sky? And voila, that’s how we ended up here…

Ube-Passionfruit Mousse Cake

I had the initial inspiration for this cake when I was visiting my friend, Ann, who lives in Oahu. There was a shrub with these gorgeous purple flowers, and I had the idea to make a cake with that kind of visual inspiration. In light of everything going on in Maui, I felt like it…

Passionfruit-Coconut Choux

For the final white and blue dessert on my tea tower, I had to do a French pastry. It was between macaron or pate choux, and I opted for the pate choux, strictly because they were easier to present in an afternoon tea tower. I love making pate choux. It is the dough used to…

Ube-Passionfruit-Coconut Cake

This recipe came about because I had ube paste, coconut milk, and fresh passionfruit, all of which I wanted to use, and preferably together. Ube(pronounced oo-beh) is a Filipino purple yam that is sweet and nutty in flavor. Almost like if you took a purple yam and toasted it with brown butter. Ube is a…

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….

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…

Passionfruit-Champagne Tartlets

I was fortunate enough to be gifted fresh passionfruit from a family friend, so I wanted to celebrate that! With passionfruit, you have this soft pulp with crunchy seeds, and a sweet and sour flavor that really just pops and works well in both sweet and savory applications. I know that people would hear me…

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…

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…

POG Jelly with Passionfruit

I was inspired by Taiwanese grass jelly when making this dessert. Grass jelly is an Asian dessert that consists of these dark brown cubes of jelly that are flavored with mesona chinensis leaves(the jelly basically tastes like a pleasant black tea with grassier notes). Usually grass jelly is topped with sweet braised peanuts and tang…

Passion Pearl: a petit gateau

These little pearls only came about because I had an abundance of passionfruit(what a problem to have), and I wanted to find some interesting or fun ways to utilize them! For the dessert itself, we have a coconut mousse that is surrounding a passionfruit gelee, on top of a blue spirulina cookie. I wanted to…

Purple passionfruit mochi truffles

I’ve done mochi truffles in the past, and these were some that I wanted to do, featuring passionfruit! The interior is passionfruit liquid core with a passionfruit mousse, while the exterior is a super soft mochi made with shiratamako, dyed purple naturally using acai powder, just to mimic the color and appearance of a passionfruit….

Passionfruit chouquettes with passionfruit spun sugar

I made these chouquettes with a friend of mine, Sylvie, as a thank you for sowing up a couple of holes I had in one of my sleeveless hoodies, and one of my pairs of work pants. Sylvie loves passionfruit, and in exchange for agreeing to sow up my clothes like the talented seamstress that…

Yakudo: a plated dessert

With this dessert, I wanted to just focus in on two flavors: chocolate and passionfruit. I really love the contrast between dark and bitter and bright and tart, so putting the two together just made perfect sense. For my components, we have a dark pate choux with passionfruit inspiration namelaka, dark chocolate mousse, dark chocolate…

Storms and bad weather: a plated dessert

When I was conceptualizing this dessert, I wanted to come up with something with a lot of visual contrast and tropical flavors. So I went with passionfruit, and since the inside of a passionfruit is yellow and black, I wanted to focus on those two colors. I knew I wanted to make the dessert inspired…

“Paopu” dole whip popsicles

In the lore of the Kingdom Hearts video game series, the fictional paopu fruit is a star-shaped fruit that is shared between people who want to be bonded together forever. To make that into a flavor, I knew starfruit was an obvious must, as it is the closest fruit in real life to a paopu…