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…

Sanctuary: a mirror glaze cake

When I was conceptualizing a dessert for “Sanctuary” by Utada Hikaru, I wanted to make something that represented the aesthetic of Kingdom Hearts, specifically the all-white aesthetic of Castle Oblivion and the tropical feeling of the Destiny Islands. I wanted a mirror glaze cake with a clean white exterior, blue and white-swirled interior to represent…

Passionfruit cheesecake shumai

These dumplings came about from my excess of passionfruit(what a problem to have, clearly) as well as me wanting to try making a steamed cheesecake dumpling. So I figured, why not mix the passionfruit into the cheesecake and make something truly original? To be a little more fun, I decided to dye the shumai shells…

Passion fruit-coconut-caramel naked layer cake

I literally only made this cake because we had about 15 passion fruits lying around and I needed to start getting rid of them before they went bad. The cake itself has five different layers to it, being coconut-brown sugar cake, salted coconut caramel soaking liquid, coconut cream, passionfruit curd, and coconut crumble. I think…

Passionfruit Souffle

Passionfruit is easily one of my favorite ingredients of all time. My dad has fond memories of eating a ton of them in Taiwan, mostly because they grow quite frequently there. For me, it is a reminder of my heritage and I just love the sweet-tart flavor of the pulp coupled with the crunch of…

Passionfruit Gelato

I remember the first time I made passionfruit gelato, I came back to my apartment from a two week break, and I just recalled that I had purchased passionfruits, left them in the fridge, and I didn’t touch them for almost a month. Freaking out, I realized that I needed to preserve them somehow, so I…