This recipe was directly inspired by the mango mochi at ECK Bakery in Houston(special thank you to my friend Amanda for taking me there, because the mochi was incredibly delicious!). So on my recent trip to Texas, I stopped by in both Austin and with my friend Amanda and her husband Jimin, we all went…
Tag: Wagashi
Hanami Chiffon Sandwich
I’ve made it a point to make hanami desserts every single year, so I definitely did not want to stop that trend this year. Hana-mi refers to flower viewing, specifically the viewing of cherry blossoms blooming every spring. As a whole, this is meant to symbolize the beginning of a new year, or at least…
Snow Bunny Dango
Inspiration was from Paper Mario, and Super Paper Mario, where there was an item called the Snow Bunny. From how they looked, a Snow Bunny resembled an usagi manju, which is a Japanese bun shaped like a rabbit. These manju are quite cute, usually being made with mochi, although I have seen baked varieties as…
Snom Wagashi
Ever since I saw Snom when Sword and Shield came out, I was a fan. They are these cute little worm-caterpillar-larvae bugs-things with a layer of ice spikes around their bodies. And they are hilariously adorable, namely because of their super simplistic design! For those unfamiliar with what wagashi are, it is an umbrella term…
Kinako-Tofu Rare Cheesecake
Tofu cheesecake literally takes me back to high school. I still remember taking Japanese 3, we would have these cooking projects, and one of them was making Japanese desserts. One of those desserts was tofu rare cheesecake. The crust was made with these digestive biscuits, while the cheesecake filling was made with cream cheese/yogurt, and…
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…
Cyndaquil Manju
Since I had already made recipes for two of the three Pokemon: Legends Arceus starters, I figured, why not round out trio, and make something Cyndaquil-themed? Cyndaquil is based on a hedgehog, but instead of spikes, it has flames on its back! They are really cute, with these stubby legs, beak-like snout, and squinty eyes….
Polar Bear Shaved Ice
During my most recent trip to Oahu, I had the fortune of being able to go to Matsumoto Shaved Ice! I’ve been wanting to go since I was about 8 years old, so it was create to finally go and experience it! What makes Matsumoto so special is that they use a lot of Japanese…
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…
Milky Way Yokan
I love Tanabata. For those unfamiliar with it, Tanabata is a Japanese holiday where they have a star festival, celebrating all things wishes! It is held to commemorate the one day in the year(July 7th) where two lovers, Orihime and Hikoboshi, who were separated by the Milky Way can see each other. Tags with wishes…
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…
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)…
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…
Hanami cake
Hanami roughly translates into “flower viewing” from Japanese. It usually refers to the blooming of cherry blossoms, or sakura, in early April, and signifies new beginnings. One thing I love about hanami, besides how gorgeous the cherry blossom-filled skies look during that time of year, is of course the desserts that come with it. Cherry…
Shaymin Nerikiri
I would be lying if I said this recipe was easy. Namely because it took me 4 hours from start to finish. A lot of it, not going to lie, is just the amount of time it took perfecting the color and shape of these little nuggets. That and I tried to make a half-batch…
Matcha purin dorayaki
I have done dorayaki in the past, and I have even done purin-stuffed dorayaki as well, but this is a slightly different take on the usual. Typically, Japanese purin(also called pudding), is made of a baked custard topped with a layer of caramel, similar if not exactly the same as Mexican flan. However, my take…
“Fever Dream”: a plated dessert
I literally named this dessert after my favorite mxmtoon song, “Fever Dream”. For me, that term represents memories and milestones of your life, past, present, and future, just melting together into one moment. So I wanted to do that in this dessert! For starters, I wanted to use cherries, since my birthday cake growing up…
Sweet potato and salted duck egg Hiyoko manju
I have actually wanted to make Hiyoko manju since I was a high schooler. These little buns that are shaped like birdies(manju being a type of bun and hiyoko being the Japanese word for ‘chick’ or baby bird), they just looked so cute yet difficult to make. However, after getting as much wagashi and bun…
Rainbow dango(suama)
So I was brainstorming different rainbow desserts for Pride this year, and I literally came up with the idea to do these when I was walking through my local Japanese grocery store(which I frequent a lot these days), and stumbled upon Fugetsu-Do‘s rainbow dango, also called suama. For those unfamiliar, Fugetsu-Do is a highly popular…
Chocolate-chestnut-matcha entremet
I was mostly inspired to make this because I wanted to make a really woody and vibrant-green dessert. Mostly because with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I had to get together as many green, Irish, beer, or gold-themed dessert ideas together as possible. So this would be one of them. For my components, we have…
Freddy's Harajuku 