Freddy's Harajuku

Nutella Zebra Banana Bread

These banana breads were the end-result of me roasting several of them in the oven for hummingbird cake, only to realize that I roasted three times the needed amount. I didn’t want to store these, nor did I want to throw them away, so in the spirit of 2020 baking memories that I did not…

Spicy Eggplant Pasta

I love eggplant. And I HATE how much the Internet has ruined what an eggplant represents. For me, I try not to associate it with…body parts. Body parts are body parts, vegetables are vegetables. Just clearing that up now, because I feel like anything who reads “spicy eggplant” will have thoughts. Or even just “eggplant”….

Buttered Radish Ribbon Pasta

For Christmas, I purchased a pasta extruder for myself, because certain pasta shapes(i.e. bucatini, penne, and mafaldine) could not be made simply by hand or with ye old pasta crank that I’ve owned since December 2013(crazy to think that was 12 years ago at this point). I first wanted to get a pasta extruder because…

Persimmon Tang Yuan

Whenever I think of persimmons, I remember my earlier childhood – our backyard had white guava, white peach, and fuyu persimmon trees, so depending on the time of year, we had fresh fruit to eat! Persimmon in particular are an interesting fruit, because depending on their ripeness, their flavor and texture can completely change. With…

Breakfast Carbonara

This recipe came about because I was making a giant chiffon cake, and had a ton of egg yolks leftover. While I can think of 5-6 desserts off the top of my head that use up said egg yolks, I figured, why not do something savory for a change? I’ve seen people on social media…

Rose Apple-Yuzu-Almond Crostata

This recipe came about because I purchased one too many hidden rose apples and I did not want it to go to waste. Hidden rose apples are a naturally pink-fleshed apple(not pink peel, like the actual color of the fruit is pink), and they are usually only available 2-3 months in the year. They have…

Pasta Napolitan

I love love love Japanese/yoshoku stye pasta dishes. They really combine the best of both Western and Eastern cuisines. Pasta Napolitan is an interesting one, because it features spaghetti in a spicy tomato sauce with onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and Vienna sausages. It is hearty, warming, and perfect for what my unofficial theme for January…

Custardy Hot Chocolate Milk Tea

Even though it’s after Christmas, I would feel like a real Grinch if I didn’t put out a hot chocolate recipe of some sign off the year on. In this case, I have been seeing a ton of people posting videos of piping marshmallow mixture around the edge of your cup and torching that, then…

Polenta-Fennel-Yuzu Cake

So I was watching Next Gen Chef on Netflix and there was one contestant, Abby, who made a recipe very similar to this one for the first challenge, where the contestants had to work in teams to make a progressive tasting menu inspired by one of three famous CIA alumnus. Abby tackled the dessert making…

Icebox Cake Gingerbread House

For the holidays, I figured I just had to do something akin to a gingerbread house. Now I won’t like, I suck at decorating them. I admire those who can do all of the fancy isomalt or gelatin sheet window-pane tricks, because that requires a lot of precision, patience, and skill. But in my case,…

Chocolate-Hazelnut Mille Feuille

I usually refrain from making puff pastry from scratch frequently, because it is such a time-consuming process. Chilling, resting, and rolling a butter-laden dough pretty much summarizes how you make puff pastry. Because you have to rest and chill the dough between rolling it out, it takes at least 90 minutes to make a laminated…

Bacon, Liver, and Onion Pasta

A while back, I made a liver and onions picatta dish, and it got me craving more calves liver. Which is hilarious because I love calves liver already. When I made that picatta dish, I went with lighter flavors, using a lot of acid, capers, and caramelized onions for a more dainty feel/contrast. So I…

Pistachio-Cherry Shortbreads

These shortbreads were made with a love for Italian spumoni in mind. Spumoni is usually pistachio and cherry ice cream, so the combination of the two is something I absolutely adore. Pistachios are nutty, smoky, and salty, while cherries are sweet and tart. In the case of this recipe, I used pistachio flour, made by…

Oat, Tonka, and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I still remember back when I went to Hospitality school, one of our courses was a semi-recreational cooking course – no, I did not go to culinary school, this class was basically a blip in my college education that was otherwise geared towards hotel operations. We had to work in teams, and basically execute a…

Spiced Chocolate Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc is a French chestnut dessert, usually consisting of chestnut cream, piped in a string-like matter to resemble the peaks of a mountain, and finished with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar to effect snow tops. Mont Blanc is literally French for “white mountain” for that reason. While the dessert is French in origin, it…

Matcha-Kinako Daisy Crown Shortbreads

I saw someone on Instagram making these cute ring-shaped shortbreads, comprised of smaller shapes that were arranged in essentially a crown/wreath shape. Aesthetically, I found that to be extremely pleasing, and also since it is a shortbread made of other shortbreads, that invited a lot of possibilities in terms of fun or different flavor combinations!…

Chocolate-Hazelnut Langue de Chat

Langue de chat are one of my favorite cookies to eat. If you ever had a Milano before, it’s basically like that. Thin, melt-in-the-mouth cookies sandwiching a filling, usually chocolate-based. In this case, I went with a chocolate-hazelnut langue de chat. I love Nutella, and often get jars of it from Germany whenever we go…

White Chocolate Snowprint Cookies

So this recipe went through a couple different test phases. I was originally trying to make funfetti cookies, but it turns out the sprinkles I bought weren’t bake-proof, so those cookies ended up exploding from the excess sugar content. Life lesson – make sure that you’re buying bake-proof sprinkles before you buy a quart of…

Snowmen Coconut Cookies

These coconut snowmen cookies were loosely inspired by a cute box of white chocolate snowmen cookies I purchased while in Niigata, Japan. The cookies themselves were simple designed, being two round disks with little circular bits to represent the arms, and they were dunked in white chocolate to finish. I wanted to replicate that, but…

Pumpkin-Maple Flan

For a while now I’ve been on and off experimenting with doing purins and flans using pumpkin/kabocha flavoring of some kind now. Fun fact, but purin(Japanese pudding, which is basically flan, or a sweet egg custard with a caramel layer) was the first thing I ever learned how to bake. We did not grow up…