Caramel Cake

Cake of the Month

As the family marks my third child’s progress onto her first year, I will be celebrating her monthly birth day in this blog by featuring a cake. Lined up for the next twelve months, and hopefully on afterwards, are old-time favorites, reliable standards, as well as new discoveries, as I go on a quest for the best cakes around the country.

In Metro Manila, the best caramel cake is synonymous with the name Estrel's. Estrel's has been using a turn-of-the-century recipe for its caramel cakes since 1946, and has not made any change in the ingredients and process. In fact, the cakes are totally preservative-free, and have only two days shelf life, so the staff insist that you get your caramel cake on the day you're going to serve them.

Avowals and testimonies abound in the internet. It is also one of the most written about in printed media and sworn-to cakes in foodie circles. The following is almost fanatic in nature.

I got introduced to Estrel's by a doctor, who bought the cake for the birthday of a friend. I had to mention this fact because Estrel's caramel cake is very, very lightly sweetened that the caramel flavor is so subtle - the exact opposite, the perfect anti-thesis, to the usual and more commonly known throat-inflaming, diabetes-triggering, sticky-sweet caramel.


Estrel's caramel cake is vanilla chiffon with a whiff and a hint of lemons, dressed with a very, very thin icing of a superlative caramel spread, and finished off with butter roses and whimsically piped curlicues and scallops of buttercream that is a well-known trademark.

To me, Estrel's is the finest cake there is. The caramel cake is akin to a lady, nay, a princess of the highest pedigree. The use of high-quality ingredients is most evident, as is the utmost care in baking and icing, to the way the staff respect their product.

There is no other chiffon as soft, as light and delicate, yet so full of flavor in every forkful, as Estrel's. And the caramel - a paper thin, golden tan rendition of sugar, butter and cream that's lip-smackingly wet, but not gooey, and by all purposes graceful, if I may use the word.


As I said Estrel's caramel cake is a lady. An elegant lady, not a girl. The fineness of it all may be lost on those who cannot appreciate the subtlety of flavors and the refined mouthfeel. The caramel may not be sweet enough, nor thick enough for those used to the sweeter, rougher, side of things.

But it's a toothsome. There's a certain lusciousness to it, though still in a very restrained manner. It is beauty, and grace, embodied in a cake.

---

Estrel's
Scout Tobias corner Scout Limbaga Streets
Barangay Laging-Handa, Quezon City
Tel. Nos. (632) 3722965, 3717938
Website

In photo, 8"x12" with filling (caramel in between two layers) Php750
Without filling less Php100

---

Cakes of the Month
Divine Chocolate Cake, by Divine Sweets (Puerto Princesa, Palawan)
Cakelines, by Jon-Rhiz (Cavite City)
Dayap Chiffon Cake, by Kiss Cafe (UP Diliman, Quezon City)
Belgian Chocolate Cake, by a La Creme (City of San Fernando, Pampanga)
White Chocolate Mousse, by Gateau de Manille (Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City)
Mango Cake, by Red Ribbon (with outlets all across the country)
Ube Cake, by Goodies and Sweets (several locations across Metro Manila)
Mango Charlotte by Sweet Bella (Dasmarinas Village, Makati City)
Strawberry Cake by Vizco’s (Baguio City)
Almond Chocolate Fudge Cake by Malen's (Noveleta, Cavite)
Marshmallow Birthday Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)

Kamansi

Scientific Name Artocarpus camansi

Common names in other Philippine languages

• kamansi (Tagalog/Bisaya/Hiligaynon/Pangasinan)
• kamongsi (Tagalog/Bisaya)
• dalangian (Bisaya)
• pekak (Pangasinan)
• pakak (Ilokano)
• ogob (Bicol)

I got the scientific name and the regional terms from this website, but I'm not sure if they all refer to the same thing, and if they actually refer to the kamansi that I know.

The Pangasinan kamansi is a rotund green fruit, skin raised in pointed peaks all around, and very, very sappy. It is believed by the old folks to be a galactagogue - it purportedly aids in increasing the production of breastmilk.

My in-laws have several trees growing in their backyard, and the fruits were all that they would feed me every time I gave birth. Probably partly due to this, I was able to breastfeed all my three children for as long as they wanted (the longest at more than two years) even though I always went back to office work after the mandated 60-day maternity leave.

The kamansi tree grows high, with large leaves - as in really large, big enough to cover one's head like an umbrella during hot afternoons - that are deeply serrated, similar to a papaya's. The fruits sprout singly on top of the tree year-round.

The fruits are eaten as a vegetable, in Pangasinan stewed with bagoong (salted anchovy paste) and topped with grilled fish. It is also stewed with meats (beef or pork), seasoning with salt or patis (the amber liquid by-product of bagoong-making).

It is never sweetened. The candied fruit uses another variety, which is seedless and is closely related to kamansi. Breadfruit, rimas, pekak, are all under the same family species as the kamansi, but are entirely different fruits. The first two are the seedless variety, the last one, at least in the Pangasinan term, refers to a smaller fruit riddled with small seeds that pop when eaten, and is cooked the same way as the kamansi. These come out only upon the onset of summer.

Langka (jackfruit), durian, and including the marang, are also close relatives, but are more of the "dessert" fruit kind, eaten when ripe (though unripe langka is also cooked as a vegetable). Kamansi and pekak are the "savory" kind, harvested young (the more immature, the better) and cooked unripe.

Mature kamansi is rubbery, the seeds hard, making it inedible. So the immature ones are prized, which keep up to about three days, but taste best when cooked immediately after harvest.

Cross-section of a young/immature kamansi

Oxidation at work a minute after slicing, turning the fruit "rusty"

The common companions of a kamansi stew - cabuey (sigarillas) and okra. Sliced green papayas, if available, are also added, as well as string beans or yard-long beans and its young leaves/shoots. They are all constant companions, whether in the stew with bagoong or with the preferred meats, although in the latter the kamansi can be had on its own.


The kamansi flesh is akin to that of the langka, sectioned and filled with large starchy seeds that are also edible, with the flavor and texture of gabi (taro). The kamansi flesh is rougher and pasty-hued, oozing a lot of sap.

I know that kamansi is eaten all over Pangasinan, and in parts of Southern Luzon. In Metro Manila and Cavite they know the fruit, but vegetable vendors say they are rare, compared to the more common green/unripe langka.

Related Post
Pekak

Other Galactagogues
Ginataang Mais

Sala Thai

Yam Pla Duk Fu
[Crispy catfish flakes salad, Php215]

This quiet and charming, hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant in what was once bacchanalian Malate is among the top in my highly recommended restaurants list. It is probably one of the best restaurants to eat Thai food in the Philippines.

It's just almost along Taft Avenue, by the side of the Philippine Women's University (PWU). It is very small, but it guarantees a romantic evening of good eating and conversation, away from the frenzied crowds.

Pla Muk Phat Prik Phao
[Stir-fried squid in roasted chili paste, Php190]

Khao Phat Kung
[Fried rice with shrimp & egg, Php170 medium size]

Kaeng Khiao Wan Kai
[Chicken Green Curry, Php170]

Cha-yen
[Thai iced tea with sugar & milk]

---

Sala Thai
866 J. Nakpil Street
Malate, Manila
Tel. No.s (632) 5224694, 5216683

---

Don't you go, oh, don't you go...

To far Zamboangaaaah.....!

That was a fair enough popular song when I was a child. I even played a simplified version on the piano, with its staccato rhythm that imitated a square dance. The singer was pleading for a loved one not to go to Zamboanga because it's too far, and he might all be lost to him.

Back to the present, Zamboanga is, literally and figuratively speaking, still far away from Metro Manila - about Php10,000 one-way plane ride, two days by ship, or about five days by land traversing the Pacific coast. It's not no-man's country anymore, as are many parts of Mindanao, but you can never know.

It's the last frontier - at least in the Philippines - for me. Its exotic culture, so different from my seemingly boring one, holds attraction like how a clear jar of multi-colored candies is to a sugar-deprived child. I have been around the country, and to me Zamboanga represents what's colorful, exciting, something that would keep me wide-eyed for a very long time.

I would have been to Tawi Tawi - the real last frontier - last year on a work assignment, had the boss not changed his mind and sent a guy instead. I don't see any possible future trip to that most unreachable, inaccessible, so impossible of all Philippine locations, but Zamboanga was a more realistic possibility.


So when a loved one went there I did not sing that song. I helped load the luggage, with the hopes of loading my own when a good time comes - during Christmas vacation, perhaps.

But as luck would have it, a turn of events erased Zamboanga from my most possible vacation spots list (it had been on top). I did not get to spend the long Christmas vacation there. The opportunity has passed.

So nowadays I let myself be consoled by fresh seafood that come - as pasalubong, and subsequently upon requests - from far Zamboanga.


Lapu-lapu (grouper), eyes opalescent from their stay in the freezer. Named after a Filipino folk hero believed to have killed the Portuguese sailor Ferdinan Magallanes (Ferdinand Magellan) in the island of Mactan in Cebu, in the southeastern part of the Philippines, the species span a family consisting of reds, oranges, browns and spotted, and can grow to a good length of about a meter or so.

White-fleshed, it abounds in most Philippine waters, and is considered a delicacy. It is great fried and topped with sweet and sour sauce or escabeche, but I love it steamed then poured with a sauce of sesame oil, ginger and scallions.

With these I tried what is commonly served in the provinces during festive occasions - steamed whole, skin slathered with mayonnaise, then decorated with grated cheese, julienned carrots, crushed pineapples, sliced eggs, spring onion, pickles. It did not photograph well (I am a bad artist), and I found the mayonnaise coating too rich and heavily cloying.

I'd prefer the sesame-ginger steaming kind (referred to as Chinese style) anytime.


I've heard so much about this crab that is identified with Zamboanga - called curacha, "cockroach" in the local Chavacano language (pidgin Spanish). It's said to be a cross between a crab and a lobster, it's monstrously large and hairy. At Php400 a kilo, it costs more than the fresh crabs in Pangasinan and around Metro Manila (at about Php250-300).

I don't find it better or tastier than the crabs I'm used to, though. It's very meaty, the flesh dispersed among many compartments as in normal crabs, but with the crab fat oozing in each and every nook and cranny you could find (and there are many, I tell you).

The taste is a bit blander than red crabs. I don't know. The first time a box of this arrived I was out of town, and the househelp put all the contents in the freezer without even telling me. So when I came back home we took them out and promptly steamed them, to better appreciate their flavors. But the crabmeat was all in disintegration mode, though nothing untoward happened to any member of the family.

For the second shipment (both arrived in ice boxes, loaded with, naturally, ice) we steamed the curacha promptly, but still got the same result. Not flaky, succulent meat, but flesh in tatters. So I had to extract all the meat and saute them with garlic, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, peas, bell peppers and celery. Perhaps next time I'll ask my benefactor to cook the curacha first before shipping it.

Cabuey, Uong, Apayas, Luko

[Sigarilyas, kabute, papaya, gabi/
Goa bean, oyster mushrooms, green papaya, taro]

This would have been heaven with wild mushrooms that sprout overnight around the base of banana stalks after a thunderstorm, but it's not thunderstorm season in the Philippines right now. So I substituted with the best alternative, cultured oyster mushrooms, though they are not that regularly available these days, either.

This was triggered by a comment in the previous post about the vegetable cabuey (sigarilyas, winged or goa bean). The Pangasinan vegetable mix of apayas tan agayep (papaya at sitaw, green papayas and yard-long or string beans) is the base, boiled with a thumb of ginger and seasoned with bagoong isda.

But to provide additional points of interest, we add cabuey and luko, the one for crunch, the other for alternating soft chew-iness and some starch. The mushrooms make it a luxuriant dish - the crowning glory with its meaty taste and tender bite.

The whole mix could also be made the vegetables added to nilagang baboy or baka (tender slices of pork or beef in clear broth), forgoing the bagoong isda (not the ginger, though), and seasoning with patis (salted fish sauce) or sea salt. Just add to the simmering broth (with the meats already cooked), cook for about five minutes, and serve. Guaranteed to be a great alternative to your usual nilaga.

Related posts
Green Papayas and String Beans
Sauteed Goa Beans and Taro
Wild Mushrooms (Kabute sa Punso)

Cabuey

[Goa Bean/Winged Bean]

Psophocarpus tetragonolobus, also known as asparagus pea, four angled bean, manila bean, but commonly known in the general Tagalog region as sigarillas/sigarilyas/sigadillas.

(If it is called something else in your area please let me know via the comments section or email, so we could compile the local names, listed below)

In the Pangasinan language we call it cabuey (KA-BEY, with a guttural e, as in perm) or gabuey. My dad once told me the plant is a weed - it grows just about anywhere, on its own, and without any care - and is valued as a weed. But we eat the fruit (the elongated, square-angled pod), cooked as a vegetable.

What little literature about this vegetable indicates that it is a perennial, but I see the fruits only seasonally, like about half the year, starting from the end of the rainy season. And the whole plant can be eaten, including the flowers and roots.

The pod comes in two colors - waxy green, and red violet - and in two sizes - really long ones, about a foot, and the really short ones, three inches or thereabouts. It contains vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, and other trace vitamins.

Unlike any other pod that I know, the cabuey is four-cornered, but thankfully there are only two "strings" that need to be pulled out from its "seams" before cooking. Frills, or linear "wings," run along all four corners, thus the name.

Cabuey has to be harvested young, or else it becomes rubbery and inedible. And it has to be cooked on the same day it was harvested, to get its premium taste (likened to asparagus). I've seen it sliced thinly and stewed in gata (coconut milk), a common dish in Kapampangan restaurants, called gising-gising.


In Pangasinan it is boiled with bagoong isda (salted fermented fish in paste) and a thumb of ginger, along with other vegetables, like squash and string beans, perhaps, or maybe sliced green papaya. A common Ilocano mix is patani, bataw, and sigarillas.

Here I sauteed sliced (more like torn) cabuey pods with previously boiled cubes of gabi (taro tuber), seasoned with bagoong. A simple but classic pairing.

Ginisang Sigarillas at Gabi

a thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced thinly
garlic, peeled and crushed
one small red onion, peeled and sliced thinly
a tablespoon or two of bagoong water, strained
2-3 bunches sigarillas, de-stringed and quartered
100 grams (about 4 small pieces ) gabi, peeled, halved and boiled

1. Heat a teaspoonful of cooking oil. When smoke is rising put in ginger, frying for about a minute.
2. Put in garlic and stir around until golden.
3. Mix in the onion, and cook until translucent.
4. Pour bagoong water, stirring around until it starts to bubble.
5. Mix in gabi and sigarillas, then pour a swig of water. Let boil for about two minutes, covered.
6. Adjust the flavor by adding more water if too salty, or adding more bagoong if bland. Serve immediately.

Yields one serving. String beans can also be added, even kamansi, and okra.


Names in other areas in the Philippines

• cabuey / gabuey / parlang [Central Pangasinan, or where the Pangasinan language is spoken]
• padlang [Pangasinan, in outlying areas where Ilocano is spoken]
• pallang [Isabela]
• kalamismis [Batangas]
• pagulong (Bicol - Camarines Norte)
• balagay (Hiligaynon)

Equivalent terms in other Asian languages:

• dambala [Sinhala]
• kacang botol [Malay]
• kecipir [Indonesian]
• jaat [Sundanese]
• sirahu avarai [Tamil]
• tua phoo [Thai]
• đau rong [Vietnamese]

---

Bahay Kubo
(A Filipino folk song)

Bahay kubo, kahit munti
Ang halaman doon ay sari-sari
Singkamas at talong, sigarillas at mani
Sitaw, bataw, patani


Gundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa
At saka meron pa, labanos, mustasa
Sibuyas, kamatis, bawang at luya
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga

---