Ebai's Apple Walnut Cake

I try to shun away from walnut cakes, for all those I've tried were parchingly dry. But when we were in Baguio for a much needed pre-Christmas vacation, the head of our office branch in the city handed me a small box of what she labeled as Ebai Cafe's best. 

I accepted gratefully, but reserved judgement on its reputation. Ebai's owner had been a client of the agency I work for, and we had always supported her business, going to lengths to promote her products. But she had not been known foremost  for her culinary prowess

When in Baguio I always troop to Vizco's, for its distinctively local strawberry cake. But of course I will be very remiss in being a foodie if I don't give other cakes in the summer capital a chance, won't I, especially if it had been given for free. So we forced ourselves to avoid Session Road, and came straight to our lodgings after dinner to open the box and try a slice.

I believe you cannot cure a walnut cake, for it is naturally dry. But it can be moistened with fruit, so in this case, the apples - in great, soft chunks lounging in the crumb - provided the much-needed moisture and fluff. The cake is moistened further by the excellent cream cheese frosting, generously coating the entire cake, that was redolent of cinnamon.

And so I accept. Ebai's apple walnut cake is the cake to eat in Baguio City during Christmas. The spice, the apple-pie-a-la-mode affinity, are a festive match to the cold holiday air perfumed by pine needles, mint and pungent thyme. Great with steaming tea or coffee, but good enough, on its own. A holiday discovery that will haunt the rest of the year, and the next.

Happy holidays, everyone!   

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Eba's Cafe and Pastry151 Upper Session Road
Baguio City
Tel. No. (63-74) 4469722
Mobile No. (63-939) 9035593

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Cakes to Give, and Receive

I’ve been giving these cakes throughout the year. To friends, on their birthdays, and as an alternative for Christmas when I couldn’t find the time to make something. To people I feel more or less obliged to – bosses, my children’s teachers after the school year or during school Christmas party, acquaintances who have extended favors. During potluck parties, for out-of-town hosts.

These are the cakes I also dream of receiving. But I dread opening cake boxes to find one of those I blacklisted three years ago, so to be sure I just buy one of these. Or two.

Each is worth buying whole, to share with the family, and expected - and unexpected - callers during the holidays. Though  a slice is also nice to have with coffee or tea in the afternoons during breaks from all the crazed shopping.

I also look forward to a calmer season, when all the festivities have come and gone, and I could sit in a lounge chair with a book, by the garden, lulled by the sound of running water from the fountain. I’d have a slice of one these cakes beside me, with iced tea, or cold milk tea, and sigh, with happiness and contentment.

Quezo de Bola Cheesecake

Chef Lau's Pugon Roasts (formerly BFAST)
Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati City 

The depth and sharpness of flavor from a properly aged edam cheese is mellowed  by the candied pili nuts atop this cheesecake. The sweet caramel crackle breaks into the silkiness that languidly coats the tongue, affording a wonder of enjoyment.

This is one of just two QDB cheesecakes I know of available in Metro Manila. The other one, which came out earlier than this, was so bland and boring that I banished QDB as an ingredient worthy of a cheesecake. Good thing I checked this one out. I finally found a better way – a much better way – of enjoying queso de bola for Christmas.

Chunky Monkey 

Chef Lau's Pugon Roasts (formerly BFAST)
Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati City

Just looking at that thick, gooey peanut butter makes me want to run to the Ayala Triangle Gardens to have a taste. Alas, I rein myself, because one slice is just too much for one, even for me. But I have the audacity to declare this is the best banoffee pie hereabouts - and I don't even think anybody has the right to be saying anything is the best anywhere. 

But I do love this pie dearly - it is so full of contrasting flavors and textures that it never ceases to hold my awe, to the last bite. There's a chewy layer of chocolate atop which is that tall crown of whipped sweetened cream - which is actually edible unlike that atop the cakes being peddled next door - and below snake slices of fresh ripe bananas so malagkit I can't fathom what variety they are. Then there's that luscious peanut butter oozing out of every cranny and enveloping the bananas - the intensity of the experience is just too much. I take a breath, and ponder how such a simple dessert could do this to  me.  

Happy Ever After

Bread Talk

My problem with the cakes at Bread Talk is the dryness – I can’t swallow the chiffon that’s the core and foundation of every one of them. But I had this cake at Buffet 101, and just one bite made my eyes grow round and lighten up like Gollum’s upon seeing his precious. The chocolate chiffon was light and soft – not too much, but at least not dry – but it was the hazelnut buttercream icing that decided it for me. Nutty, buttery, creamy, lightly sweetened to allow the hazelnut to lord it over. It's one of a kind - but try to buy this freshly made, and eat it at once.

Tiramisu

Illy - Power Plant Mall, Mall of Asia, NAIA Terminal 3

Again I'll be so bold to say this is the best tiramisu I've had in a long while - probably my whole life even - and I've had a lot, because my husband and I will always have it if it's on the menu. And I daresay tiramisu should be made this way, and this way only - pieces of excellent crispy broas or lady fingers not compact together but apart - spaced just so to balance one another, while in between are teardrops of sweetened mascarpone, the whole thing dusted with cocoa powder. Only upon serving is a demitasse of espresso poured on it, so that the broas are not soaked and limpid, but still possessing crackle and chew. The mascarpone is sufficiently sweet to stand up to the bitterness of the coffee, the balance enlightening me to what this dessert truly is all about. 

I don't know if it can be ordered to take home, with the espresso, and how the travel time will affect the cake. Best to eat it at the cafe, and an order is good for three to four people. But I shared this with a friend, after a hearty lunch, and we had no problem polishing the plate between the two of us, it was that good, really.

Chicago Cheesecake

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

I adore the simplicity of this untopped cheesecake. Silky, rich and lemony, it dares to be  unadorned because it is confident of the quality of all the ingredients that went into it. 

Yema Roll

Edna's Cakeland

Kapitan Pepe Subdivision

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija

(63-44) 4630387

Yema cakes are the "in" cakes in the countryside. It's the promdi version of caramel cakes. I've had great ones from Quezon province, Pangasinan, and from Cagayan Valley. But this one is remarkable, and stands apart because of the addition of one ingredient - a lemony accent. 

Eggs, butter and sugar boiled together becomes yema, which by itself is ambrosial, but is elevated to a whole new level of divinity when something citrus is introduced. The tang breaks the cloying sweetness, and perfumes it with zest. 

The chiffon  in this roll is so soft it is almost unable to withstand the yema it looks to be drenched it. But I am grateful for the excess, licking the yema from my fingertips.

Yema Sans Rival

A La Creme

Dolores, MacArthur Highway

San Fernando City, Pampanga

Yet another yema dessert, this one in the form of that impossibly thin layered cake that resurrects and resurrects in various forms. The difference with using yema is the structure and form - because it is boiled, it doesn't really melt. And because yema is the stuff of childhood sweetness, I feel gleeful biting into yema that cracks, crackles, and breaks. 

[Margie's Kitchen]

Chocolate Cakes

Everybody bakes, or sells, a chocolate cake, it seems. I even tried to bake some, and I realized how truly, honestly difficult it is to come up with something moist enough without being too sweet, and being powerfully chocolatey but still soft and light. So now I have great respect for bakers who can realize the impossible.

And they're not that many. Chocolate cakes that have impressed me are made by the following:

Nothing Like Homemade

21 Stella Street, Bel-Air, Makati City 

Tel. No. (632) 8960396

Panaderia Antonio

De Venecia Highway

Calasiao, Pangasinan

(63-75) 5220007

Margie's Kitchen

Butuan City

Dulcinea

Josiah's Catering, Inc.

I hope with this post I have made amends on that venomous blacklist that's perpetually on the Popular Posts bar of this blog. I hope it gets on that bar, too. And with that, wishing all of you a sweet and joyful Christmas!

More Cakes to Give

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)
Caramel Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)
Pinkie's Fondant Cakes, Pinkie's (Dagupan City)
Sans Rival, et. al., House of Sans Rival (Dumaguete City)
White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, Calea (Bacolod City)
Mango-Layered Cheesecake, Sweet Ideas (Makati City)

Home-made Desserts
Food for the Gods
Kundol
Strawberry-Chocolate Float
White Tropicale Salad
Cathedral Windows

Crema de Fruta
Black Forest Cheesecake
Langka Cheesecake
Arroz Tres Leches
Floats

Sweet and Sticky in Quezon

I am always giddy with anticipation every time a trip south is scheduled - to the Quezon Province, and even on to Bicol, as long as it involves a road trip.

The one, sole reason for my fevered agitation is Quezon's special tikoy, that hefty, copper-colored block of malagkit, sugar, butter, milk, and cheese mixed into sticky sweetness that defines what ecstacy is for me.

I don't need to declare I am a kakanin addict, I'm sure that's pretty obvious. This tikoy, this very special tikoy, is the height of kakanin heaven for me.

It is toffee, it is caramel, but not so sweet it hurts your throat, and not hard-sticky that bits and pieces bury themselves in between your teeth, stubbornly clinging there however much you suck on them and prod them with your tongue.

No, the toffee-caramel is tempered by the soft, chewiness of properly mixed ground glutinous rice that ends in a fine, smooth texture. Cheese prevents sawa, but who says this special tikoy is nakakasawa? I could finish an extra-large hunk of this and still hanker for more.


Truth to tell, the sizes that this tikoy come in are puny compared to regular, ordinary and common tikoy. It even comes in bite-sized individual pieces, which to me are cut too small, just the size of an average thumb.

Quezon's special tikoy lasts only three days. Beyond that they develop fuzzy molds. I've tried hoarding and putting them in the ref. The mold development was retarded a bit, but the tikoy lost its distinct gooey chewiness, becoming hard as real caramels. They still tasted great after a stint in the toaster (or microwave), but not as great as when newly cooked.

That's why this special tikoy cannot be found anywhere else outside of Quezon. That's why I become crazy with joy when I go visit the province, or pass by it on my way farther south. As they say, absence makes the stomach fonder....


All along the way to Lukban, in the municipalities leading to it from Laguna and around downtown Lucena, I espied hand-written placards advertising yema cake in all the street-corner bakeries that we passed.

I've never heard of yema cake, though I of course knew yema. Which is egg yolk custard - egg yolks, sugar and milk (though the short-cut version is to use condensed milk for the sugar and milk), with or without a dash of calamansi juice that provides bursts of tangy sunshine, hand-stirred over low fire til thick.

Yema is caramel that is eggy, a bright, deep yellow. It is mixed til dry and formed into triangular candies wrapped in colored cellophane. In its spreadable form, it is the filling for brazo de mercedes, that roll of sweet paean to eggy heaven.

Most serious bakeshops I've come across have caramel cakes in their repertoires, but never a yema cake. Now why is the biggest question I have after sampling one. Now I wish all bakeshops had yema cakes, or yema rolls, to be precise.

The yema roll I tasted was purchased on a last-minute whim as we stopped by a pasalubong stall in Lucena City on our way back home. The vendor said it was newly delivered (apparently a bakery supplies the shops), and had several rolls as well as individual slices for sale. The yema piled around the rolls was enough to make me buy an entire roll, and I regret I didn't buy more.

Yema was thickly smeared all around two layers of angel food cake, with a thin spread in between the layers. Grated cheese adorned the top, interspersing saltiness with the yema's sweetness. It was brazo, resurrected in cake form. More voluptous than caramel cake, it teased out the inner child in me, and brazenly played with my kids' sugared dreams.

The ride back home hadn't been kind to the cake - but I only had to scrape the yema that stuck to the plastic container back onto the cake.

Now I have two reasons for longing to go back to Quezon.


Pencil-thin mini pianono (chiffon roll) from Dealo's Koffee Klatch, filled with toffee caramel instead of the usual sugar and margarine. In Quezon, sweet and sticky tortures never end.

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Neng's Special Bibingka

The label "special" is really meant in Neng’s Special Bibingka. It’s big enough to be a cake, the moist crumb eggy and buttery with a refined sweetness, the itlog na maalat not bitingly salty but brings just the right contrast, is outstandingly fluffy yet dense not airy. And it is available only during the Christmas season and thereabouts.

Despite living in Cavite for a number of years now, I’ve only had Neng’s twice. I got introduced to it when I visited a friend’s house in Kawit, a stone’s throw away from Neng’s kiosk, about ten years ago. It made such an impression - it was that incredible - that I never forgot about it.

Sad to say I never got the chance to have it again. We moved to Cavite about four years ago, and always around the holidays we were always in a hurry passing by the kiosk to wait for the cooking bibingka (it takes about twenty minutes for one to be ready), or it was late and Neng has already closed for the day.


She doesn't cook bibingka all day, anyway, opening around the afternoons and cooking til early evening only.

This holiday season was no less harried for all of us, but traffic was light on the day we went to the circus, we had more than enough time, and when we passed by Neng's there was a bibingka that was almost ready.

A member of the family was also celebrating a birthday, so I reasoned to the husband we could have the bibingka as a sort of native birthday cake. And so we waited by the roadside. And after a decade I got my special bibingka again.


With a photo of Neng besides, before she lifted our bibingka from the makeshift oven. She said she's already famous with all sorts of buyers and travelers asking for her photo.

And while we waited for the bibingka to cool down a bit before being packed, Neng poured galapong batter into the emptied clay pan. My camera went out of focus, but the cubes and cubes of margarine floating in the batter shows through the blurred photo.


The margarine melts while cooking, imbuing the bibingka with a golden surface and flavoring the crumb with a richness you can't find in any other.


From Php120 about nine years ago for a 9" bibingka that's about two inches thick, Neng has disregarded inflation rates by selling the same delicious bibingka nowadays for only Php160, or an increase of roughly 33%. Incredible. And by the looks of it, she's just happy baking.

And those two inches of bibingka is really two inches of bibingka. No surfeit of baking powder to fluff up the crumb, no stiff beating to incorporate air. Just plain old galapong (rice batter) that's sticky and fills your stomach like it should.


I'll remain in blissfull anticipation until the next holiday season. Nothing but special for a special season.

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Neng's Special Bibingka
Brgy. Marulas, Kawit
Cavite
(63)9174227522

from Manila, on the left side of the road, just before turning right on the detour around the Aguinaldo Shrine

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Calea

Negros Occidental, whose capital is Bacolod City, is an island of vast sugarcane fields. It is the country’s major cane sugar producer, exporting to other parts of the world.

Of course the industry had a major impact on the foodscape of the region. Traditional Negros products are guaranteed to induce sugar highs – piaya, butterscotch, napoleones, biscocho, baye-baye, pinasugbo.

In Bacolod, sweetness pervades non-traditional fare, as well.

After we were treated to dinner at Aboy's by my office colleagues in the Negros region, we were taken to Bob’s Café, across 21 Restaurant along Lacson Street, for coffee and some dessert. The display case contained cakes and pastries, but I can’t remember why nothing appealed to me. Which was strange - maybe they had all looked familiar and I was looking for something new, or maybe I was too full from all the tipay I had eaten.

A colleague wanted durian ice cream and ordered a pint, so I decided I’d just ask for a spoonful or two of it. Over the course of the evening someone mentioned that the ice cream cakes of Calea were much sought after by out-of-towners because, apparently, that kind of frozen dessert is rare anywhere else, or Calea’s version/s was/were much better.

I filed that information in the must-try section of my memory bank, and it was the first thing I mentioned when my long-time friend and Bacolod host asked the next day where I wanted to go.


We went to the branch at Rob, short for Robinson’s Mall, which was a small affair, but cosy and very accessible. I was told ice cream cakes, so my eyes glazed while passing over the other cakes, and cleared only upon reaching the chiller containing the semifreddos. Which was unfortunate.


I could only order so much, after eating my way around Bacolod the whole day. What’s worse, my friend wasn’t into sweets, even though he was born and grew up in Bacolod.

It was regrettable that I only ordered ice cream cakes, because I didn’t like the quality of the ice creams. Not really poor, but not really awesome either. Just mediocre. One cake was rendered way too sweet it hurt my tonsils by the chocolate syrup, which wasn’t very good, too.


But all wasn’t lost. Upon leaving I bestowed a cursory glance at the regular cakes on display, and decided there must be more to Calea than the semifreddos. I couldn’t take in any more sweet stuff, but since I was going home that day I thought maybe I could bring some slices to share with the husband for dessert that evening after dinner.

I got a slice each of the white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry syrup and the “imported chocolate cake” (after having three outlets already you’d think Calea would be much more imaginative in naming their cakes) to take home, but I was aghast to learn that the cake slices would be put on a paper plate and slid inside a small paper bag.

Obviously, take out materials aren’t given much thought at Calea, and the owners don’t much care how their cakes slices arrive at their ultimate destinations. Maybe because they’re only slices? I couldn’t buy a whole cake that could have been put in a box because I wasn’t sure I’d like it, so just a slice to sample and a whole one for the next trip.

Alas, I had to hand-carry two cake slices in a paper bag all the way to the Silay airport, besides a mountain of assorted pasalubong, for the two-hour wait for my flight, which extended to three hours due to turn-around delays. So when I had the cakes on the dinner table at home they were less than presentable.

But oh my God. After taking a forkful from both all the lament I felt vanished. They were worth the effort it took, the worry it entailed, the irritation at the injustice of it. I just regret that they became unphotogenic so that all the photos I have here in this post are of the unimpressive semifreddos.


I had reservations about the cheesecake because I was told by a Calea staff that it wasn’t baked, so I was expecting it would melt during the flight. But it was baked alright, and held up nicely, even though it was deformed by my handling. The deformation didn’t in any way alter the taste, which was awesome.

As in awesome. There was perfect balance - salty, sour and sweet – between the cheese and the white chocolate, and the cake was dense yet crumbly. It had a very good, more than your ordinary graham, crust at just the right thickness, and the raspberry syrup was the crowning glory. Tart more than sweet, it complemented the sourness of the cheesecake, pairing nicely with the saltiness, and freshening up the sweetness.

The chocolate cake - the imported one - was purely first rate. It was soft, the chocolate mighty potent, the sweetness level restrained to a comfortable level. Now if only the same quality chocolate was used in the semifreddos. But I realize you can’t have all you want. So it's a whole cake - in a box - that I'm bringing home next time. And I'll ignore the ice cream cakes.

The Cake of the Month Series

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Bring Home Bicol

What else to bring home from Bicol aside from bade and bags? Pili, of course, in all imaginable forms. Pili brittle, roasted pili, crunchy pili with honey, pili tarts, pili marzipan, pili-coco jam, pili bar, salted pili, it can go on and on. No apologies needed, because that nut associated with the Bicol region can only be found in the eastern middle portion of the country - from Bicol down to Samar-Leyte.

In photo up top are samples of pili sweets from Sorsogon. Clockwise from bottom right - bombones de pili, with the consistency of a moist macaroon; pudding de pili; pili tart; pastillas de pili. Not so sweet, all of them, which lets the unique, milky flavor of the nut be the lead in the experience of enjoying the treats. All are wrapped in colorful, shiny cellophane, and can be put in hand-woven, environmentally-friendly mini bayongs.


One, relatively new pili product that has entered the pasalubong market recently is this wrapsody, squares of crispy but syrup-drenched wafers encasing chopped pili, which come in individual foil wrappers.

This is much like baklava, but not as sweet. The wrapper layers, however, are not as thin, and with the syrup and packaging, they come off as a bit chewy, as opposed to crackly phyllo layers.


Then of course we have pili panutsa, pili halves in molasses cooked to form round flat discs that are then wrapped in dried leaves. 100% biodegradable.


Ever since I ran that cake of the month series two years ago, I have always been alert to any cake finds. So in my travels I always try to have at least a slice of cake, or, if my stomach won't permit, at least I try to bring home some. My kids have come to expect nothing less.

The Penafrancia being such a lucky season, it wasn't a surprise that I had cake luck, too. It was while waiting for our pinangat orders at Molino Grill, which took quite some time, that I decided to venture into the neighboring Bean Bag Coffee to inspect what was on offer. They had these mini cakes that stimulated my salivary glands even though we just had dinner. My companions weren't cool about coffee or cakes, so I decided to just take out, either for later that evening or the following day.

What's good about taking out is that you could order a lot without worrying if you could finish everything in sight. So I got the mango cheesecake, because the blueberry cheesecake was allegedly the bestseller but I didn't like how it looked so I took the next best thing. Unfortunately, it was a bad choice. More like a mousse than any cheesecake. No mouse would go near that cake.

Next was this intriguingly-named cookie monster cake, a version of which was also available at Biggs Diner. I was expecting layers of chocolate cookies inside the ganache topping but it was a very dense, very chocolatey, chewy cake that I regret I didn't try the one at Biggs, too.

But what took my breath away was the strawberry cake. I expected the least from it, as Naga is so far away from any strawberry farm (of course discounting any artificial flavorings - I'm always an optimistic gal). But it's a cake that's meant to exceed any impression anybody might have.

That icing is so straw-very it's like having strawberry milkshake made with tons of the fruit. With the natural tang to it. No, this cake is not strawberry-creme-sweet. It is strawberry tangy. The chiffon is another thing - fluffy, soft, moist, my chiffon quest stops right here. And that strawberry syrup that drench the chiffon layers and decorates the icing gives another dimension to the strawberriness of the cake that I was huffing and puffing out of extreme excitement.

This strawberry cake, easily, trumps down Vizco's.


I also brought home two, very long pili rolls, which is a popular merienda fare and is called pianono in the region. Finely chopped pili is cooked in eggs, sugar and milk resulting in a yema-like mixture (custard caramel) that is spread on a layer of chiffon and then rolled.

The kind that I got used a very inferior chiffon - it was parchingly dry, which was too bad, because the pili-yema filling was so good it should be jarred and sold commercially. Nevertheless, an entire, three-foot roll was gobbled up at home by some in-laws who were visiting at the time I arrived from Bicol.

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Bean Bag Coffee
Magsaysay Avenue, Naga City

Wrapsody Pilinut Filled Pastries
C.O.P. Pili Sweets and Pastries
Banag, Daraga, Albay
Tel. No. (63) 916-6430696
Email: cindyspecialties@yahoo.com

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Mango Layered Cheesecake

This is probably the best, commercially available mango float in Metro Manila. I was introduced to it by my office colleagues who frequented the food court of the Pacific Star building, where the food shop that makes this cake used to have an outlet.

The office colleagues were addicted to it, but I initially wasn’t cool about trying it. As a general rule I don’t buy mango floats. Or any floats for that matter. For the simple reason that they are the easiest thing to assemble at home. Anything made at home has the advantage of cheaper cost, controlled ingredient list, assured safety and hygiene.

There’s also the subject of ground graham crackers. I don’t particularly like using graham crackers in desserts, finding them lame in taste and texture. And I abhor pre-ground commercially-sold grahams, which approximate sawdust.

I gave in to my colleagues’ constant promotion of this cake just to give it the benefit of the doubt. I took my first forkful with indifference, haughtily thinking I could easily replicate it – nay, make a better one - at home.

But the last bite – I had more than half of the slice shared among me and a couple of friends – was taken with wonder and amazement, that which had grown by leaps and bounds over the course of five minutes.

It was mango float, alright, made with the requisite crushed grahams, sweetened cream and ripe mangoes. Instead of a single thick layer each of grahams, cream and mangoes, the layers are spread thinly in multiple assemblies, like thin compressed floats stacked on top of one another.

But there was something else. There was saltiness in the sweetened cream. And it was thickly viscous, even almost chewy. The saltiness brought out the mangoes’ sweetness, plus its natural hints of sourness, while the grahams acted as the foil to prevent cloyness from setting in. The flavors perfectly melded together, resulting in a deliciously refreshing cake.

And that viscous cream held everything together, so that the itinerant cubes of mangoes stuck to the cake, and the sawdust grahams were into a defined layer.

Of course the cream’s saltiness and consistency are due to the cream cheese, as I found out later. The cake is actually sold as a cheesecake, a multilayered one. But since we were told to get the float and the cake looked exactly like a float, we didn’t bother to ask what it was, and there was no label in the display showcase to tell us otherwise.

So we ate the cake with the expectations due for a float, and those expectations were pleasurably surpassed. I only got to know its real identity when I bought a whole cake, and when I checked the receipt I read that what I had bought was actually a mango layered cheesecake.

The question, though, is this. Had we known it was supposed to be a cheesecake would we have been as happily satisfied as we were? For a float and a cheesecake are as similar as the moon and the sun. In terms of structure, for one, the cheesecake is highly defined. Though the play in this layered cheesecake is that it is thin enough, but multi-layered enough, so that it teases without being stingy.

It is actually a clever way to go around the thickish cheesecake issue that mandates a slice to be shared by about three people so that it doesn’t get cloying. So this layered cheesecake can be finished by just one person. And who cares? Pockets and hips be damned. It is P55 only per slice, and the cheesecake is just about a fourth of the portion in an average cake. This float, masquerading as a cheesecake, or this cheesecake masquerading as a float, has the best of both worlds.

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Sweet Ideas

• G/F, LPL Tower
  Legaspi Street, Legaspi Village
  Makati City (fronting Greenbelt 5)
  Tel. No. (632) 8131775
  Facebook


• G/F, Manhattan Square Condominium
  Valero Street, Salcedo Village
  Makati City
  Tel. No. (632) 565830

Slice Php55, Half-box Php270, Whole Php400

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The Other Cakes in the Cake of the Month Series

House of Sans Rival

Spent four days, inclusive of a weekend, exploring the southern part of Negros Oriental, in the Visayas, on a child-friendly itinerary. Since my youngest has turned a year old and is already running, though awkwardly and still falls from time to time, I decided it was time to break my self-imposed vacation ban, after two years, and go island hopping.

Nothing too rigorous and too demanding as I had been used to, just a stretch of beach so the children can build sand castles, a grilled picnic among some mangroves, and an entire morning spotting dolphins.

The Dumaguete airport is the nearest access point to the places I wanted to cover, so the city of Dumaguete became our base. Though we stayed there for only one night, we crossed the city several times during our trip, and it was where we naturally ate more than half of our meals.

The House of Sans Rival, near the famed Rizal Boulevard, was one of the few restaurants we made sure to visit. The pastry shop gave rise to The House of Silvanas proliferating in the food courts of most malls in Metro Manila, specializing in silvanas and sambos, which are just really individual-sized sans rival cookies.

Sans Rival was established in 1977 in Dumaguete City. More than three decades later it is still managing a bustling operation in a cute shop done in blue, and serving pre-cooked meals during lunch and dinner hours.

During our visit the outlet was full-packed with people, ordering whole cakes or slices and eating lunch, even though it was still a full hour before noon. We decided to wait for a table while perusing the pastry showcase, taking tabs of what we wanted to sample.

The lunch set looked promising so we took an early meal. It was a good decision, as we enjoyed everything that we ordered, with good value for money. There were two choices for the main dish, accompanied by a bowl of potato salad.

Fish Almondine, fragrant with lemon-butter sauce

beef stew

The pastries, while not superbly outstanding, can hold their own compared with many pastry shops in Metro Manila. The ingredients used were not the finest, but they are of good quality, and they were all well-made. This is a bit of a wonder, actually, because not a slice went beyond Php30, with even some priced below Php20, yet in every bite you get something incredibly good.

More importantly, all the pastries that we sampled were very lightly sweetened, so that we were able to finish several without suffering sugar glut, and we left the shop full and satisfied, and in the mood for a leisurely walk along Rizal Boulevard before our flight back to Manila.

Cheese Brownie and Opera

Brazo de Mercedes

Silvana

And the sans rival? We nearly weren't able to sample it, as it wasn't displayed in the showcase cabinet. Good thing my companions had the sense to remember what we were there for, and promptly ordered a slice.

Like the rest of the pastries, this sans rival was light in sweetness, but big in flavor. Toasty, spongy meringue layers sandwiching good quality butter and bits of cashew nuts. A cake worthy of being the foundation for which a name, and a legacy, have been built.

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House of Sans Rival
Cakes & Pastries
1 San Jose Street
Dumaguete City
Tel. Nos. (635) 2254440, 2254393, 4229482

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For other posts like this, read The Featured Cakes in the
Cake of the Month series

Pinkie's Fondant Cakes

When it had been time for me to decide where to source my wedding cake several years ago, I only had one choice.

Well, it helped that the baker is the sister of my then groom-to-be's grade and high school classmate, so we were able to get a big discount. But we actually had no choice - we were going to hold the wedding in Baguio City, and we didn't know any reputable bakers there.

Besides our acquaintance, though, Pinkie's baker (the bakeshop was named after the youngest in the family, while the baker is the oldest daughter), had got a real good reputation in Dagupan City and the rest of the province of Pangasinan. That time all bakeshops had all been local, and she was one of the only few who had acquired cake-making skills abroad.

I was ecstatic when she agreed to do a cake my groom and I had envisioned, which resulted in the simple but elegant, beige-dyed, layered fondant cake above. It matched perfectly the flower arrangements at church, the intentionally sparse decor of the reception venue, and the color and design motif of the entourage. We were even touched when she volunteered to take the cake to Baguio City, from her bakeshop in Dagupan City, herself (she and her whole family had been invited, of course).

She is such a talented baker that most of the cakes she does are executions of the whims of brides, and maybe debutantes she has satisfied. So she has a catalogue of all the original designs she had done, and the best part of it is that she has named all those cakes after the ones who conceptualized them in their imaginations.

So the cake above had been named after me, in her book. Not the name I use in this blog, which is just a nickname, but my full name. It is a three-layered fondant cake decorated with sugar white "drapes," and ribbons and pearls in matching colors. The cake was carrot-walnut, but only for the top and bottom layers. The middle layer was made of styrofoam for the entire cake to hold up, but the carrot-walnut cake intended for that layer was given to us, unadorned, after the ceremony.

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Pinkie's Bakeshop and Catering Services
Look for Tet-Tet Siapno

• Perez Boulevard, Dagupan City
  (beside Five Star bus terminal/Mercury Drug)
  Tel. No. (6375) 5225483, 5155119
• Corner Zamora and Gomez Streets
  Dagupan City
  Tel. No. (6375) 5222945

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Related Posts
Chicken in Mangoes
The cakes in the Cake of the Month series

The Cakes That Did Not Make It To The List

[Attivo Cafe's Kahlua Chocolate Cake]

Cake of the Month

When I started this blog I vowed to publish only good reviews and just keep silent on my bad dining experiences, if any. But early on I realized that perspectives change when your choices and selections are made for the purpose of writing about it.

I also realized that I cannot cover each and every item that can be categorized under the general topic food. Which became a quandary, because if I kept silent on the bad, they would have been treated the same as the good that I won’t be able to write about.

So I have published some posts berating restaurants, though they are few and far in-between.

In the course of the past year I became very much involved in commercially as well as privately baked cakes for my cake of the month series. For each cake, there were about two to three that the family sampled, but which didn’t get actually featured for various reasons.

One main, underlying reason being, it wasn’t good enough. For the few months after I started the series I actually encountered a lot of cakes which elicited frowns and stares from whoever I was sharing it with.

Which made me decide that after everything is over and done with, I would compile all those cakes – all those fat! the sugar! – in one post. In retaliation for the money unduly spent, and the 40 pounds I gained these past twelve months.

So be warned. [Name of the cake is italicized, name of the bakeshop in bold letters]

• Nono’s Chocolate Oblivion by Baba Ibazeta, Classic Confections, 2/F, Greenbelt 5, Makati City
  I loved this cake. Very, very light and airy, but the chocolate flavor was immensely powerful, the cocoa powder dusting and walnut praline provided crunch and textural “surprise.” However, the praline was too distracting – too hard a crunch on the soft cake. I was afraid the kids would choke on its many bits and pieces.




• Chocolate Cake at Mary Grace Kitchen, kiosks in most food centers of Metro Manila malls
  I used to worship this cake. Very chocolatey, light but substantial, the custard filling not too sweet. But when I bought a box recently it tasted so lame, the chocolatey taste just a whisper. I chided the saleslady for the change in recipe. But she vehemently denied any change, insisting the recipe used was the same since Mary Grace started selling chocolate cakes. I guess, in between the first time I tasted it and this last time, I had tasted chocolate cakes that were more forceful, in comparison.



• Prune Cake at Mary Grace Kitchen
  Sweet, but not as sweet as most sickly sweet prune cakes around. The sweetness is tempered by some hints of acidity, the cake enrobing the pieces of prunes very moist and hefty. Alas, the cake has been taken out of Mary Grace Kitchen’s shelves. No amount of pleading had been successful in getting me a cake. The baker said it is undergoing “re-engineering.” No need, for me. This cake was perfect. Sigh.



• Kahlua Chocolate Cake at Attivo Café
  This was a rich, moist, perfectly sweetened chocolate cake. I had qualms about the liqueur content before we ordered, but our waitress said she ate it while she was pregnant. So. Within the first few bites, though, I was sweating and was getting red in the face, literally. I have very low tolerance level for alcohol, is why. So. I wasn’t about to give that cake to my kids. They might have inherited my defective genes.



• Mango Torte by Dulcelin, 36 Times St., West Triangle Quezon City
  I love mangoes. Which goes to say I hate everything else that incorporates the fruit but does not make any effort for it to shine. Dulcelin’s Mango Torte is all about the crust, or cashew nougatine layer, not the mangoes. The nougatine is way too sweet and too crackly that the mango balls atop are reduced to frozen mush of bland fruit.



• Chocolate Ganache by Dulcelin
  Touted for the use of Callebaut chocolate in the ganache, this cake is all about the icing. Which is superb. But I wish more thought was given to the cake. Because for me, the cake is the main event, and the icing is just that – just icing on the cake. A bonus, an extra. But here the cake is too dry that without the thick ganache it crumbles to unimaginable dryness.



• Chocolate Cake by Celine, Caltex Gasoline Station, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave. (near corner Pasong Tamo), Makati City
  Too over-hyped cake, probably due to its cheap price. I couldn’t see what the buzz is all about. It’s super moist to the point of being chewy – because it is too sweet. And it tastes of fake vanilla and fake chocolate.



• Death by Tablea at Chocolat, North Wing, SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City
  Too smoky, the cake exudes the taste of inferior cocoa beans that had been burnt while roasting. Perhaps to mask its low quality? The native hot chocolate cup also tastes the same.



• Classic Chocolate Cake at Chocolat
  This is better than the tsokolate cake, though it’s too simple and straightforward, and the chocolate is not as forceful as I would have liked.



• Tsokolate Cake at Tsoko.Nut, SM Makati, Makati City
  In this series I wanted to feature local ingredients, as much as possible. So I tried this one, and gave up.




• Italian Chocolate Cake at Starbucks Philippines outlets
  This is a rich cake – a take on Starbucks’ classic chocolate cake, gussied up with thick ganache, mocha layers and chocolate chips. But it was way too rich, the chips too hard.



• Truffle Cake at Gloria Jean’s Café outlets
  Truffle chocolate topping so thick it goes halfway down the cake. This cake would have benefited from using the best baking chocolate there is. But it opted to use something more inferior in quality, and it suffers. Besides, the cake (the other half) is too dry.



• Brownie Cheesecake at Indulgence Cafe, Perea Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City
  This is a good example why brownies are not favorite toppings for cheesecakes. It doesn't add any dimension, which results in a cloying, hard-to finish slice.



• Death by Chocolate at Indulgence Cafe
  Supposedly you will be smothered to death with the amount, and variety, of the chocolates involved in this cake. To me it is tasteless. Not one kind of chocolate shines on its own, and it's so disappointing. Death to this chocolate cake!



• BTS Cake at Karen’s Kitchen, Adalla Street, Palm Village, Makati City (also available in UCC Cafes)
  Chocolate ganache cake, dulce de leche, whipped cream, chocolate shard layers. Soft, playful, whimsical. Delicious. Luscious. I don’t know why this didn’t make it to my monthly feature. Perhaps because of its name? I was celebrating an infant’s monthly birth day, after all. But I should have closed my eyes, and renamed it. The friend I shared a slice with didn’t know what BTS meant, and when I asked a guess, the reply was, in all innocence, better than sugar? Maybe I should have adopted that monicker. Delicious is still delicious by any other name.



[Karen's Kitchen Strawberry Shortcake]
poor, sad-looking strawberries


• Strawberry Shortcake at Karen’s Kitchen
  I should be grateful to Karen’s Kitchen when it provided me a strawberry cake in the middle of the rainy season, when all that my eldest asked was a strawberry cake for his birthday and nothing more. All commercial bakeshops and private bakers I called said no strawberry cake is available so out of the season. But Karen’s had one, and I thought I was saved. The website declares the cake is one of its bestsellers, and the person who took my order confirmed this. I wonder why. I wonder who likes this cake. Not for a thousand years will I begin to like a tiny morsel of it. Nor will my kids. The looks of it alone made me want to cringe. I will be giving this to my son? And it tasted as bad as it looked.



[Alba's Tarta de Sta. Teresa]


• Tarte de Santa Teresa at Alba’s, Jupiter Street, Makati City
  This was included among the top 20 commercially produced cakes in Metro Manila, in an article published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I’m sure the author did not really try all those cakes she cited. She has a scapegoat, in that she qualified that the list is a compilation of recommendations from foodies and bloggers. Everybody else except her.
  
  This was one of the most accessible for me, so I tried it. It was eye-candy, and upon the first bite it was nice. Now there are cakes that make you eat mouthful upon mouthful of. This cake, you set aside after the first one. Too boring and too bland. The yema balls and icing taste the same as the cake. It’s not even sweet enough to be a cake. Not even eggy enough. Nor buttery enough. It tastes…nothing. Which is a waste, since with just a little more sugar and some lemony essence, this cake would be incredible. As it was, it was a case of having your cake and not

having to eat it, too.

Needless to say, I did not venture to try another cake from that top 20 list. And never will.

Swiss Cake, Potato Almond Crunch, et. al., at Becky’s, 1061 P. Ocampo corner Bautista Street, Manila
For me and for a lot of my officemates and friends, no other brownie tastes as delectably and as incredibly good as Becky’s cherry walnut brownie. Super moist, dark chocolatey, rich but lightly sweetened, it’s perfect with tea, coffee or vanilla ice cream. I would have gathered bar upon brownie bar to make into a cake, or maybe ordered a box of uncut brownies. But Becky’s also sells cakes, so I had to try them. The most famous is the Swiss Cake, sworn to by loyal fans. And the Potato Almond Crunch, because of its novelty, and is supposedly a healthier alternative. I bought a slice of each, and all other else on the showcase cabinet – caramel cake, coffee cake, box cake, and more, but I forget their names. I forget, because not one cake is memorable. Too sweet, too dry, uninteresting. I’ll stick to the brownies.

[a slice of Conti's Mango Bravo]
what's so bravo about the mango?where is the mango?

Mango Bravo, et.al. at Conti’s Deli, Serendra, Bonifacio Global City
Again, a cake that doesn’t live up to its looks and reputation. Crusty broas (lady fingers) and some mangoes, which taste like it’s been put together in a rundown street bakery. Conti’s makes good business – some friends and I had to wait a full two hours for a table on a Friday evening. But the food complements the piped-in music – instrumentals that make you feel like you’re in those tacky wedding reception venues in Intramuros. The food likewise is like in a wedding reception – unimaginative, and smells and tastes of the warming, chafing dish. I was looking for salvation in the cakes, but they, too, tasted appallingly cheap.

Shortcake by Qitchen, Quezon City
I wanted very much to try Qitchen’s strawberry shortcake, or the mango shortcake. Or even just the peach shortcake that uses canned peaches. But until now I haven’t had the opportunity to do so. I kept pestering the lady answering my calls (at 63922-8380308), but she kept telling me the shortcakes are not available, and promised to call once they do make one. She never called, and she stopped answering my calls.

[Costa Brava's Caramel Cake]

Caramel Cake at Pasteleria Costa Brava, Bel-Air, Makati City
Everybody loves the caramel cake by Estrel, but everybody agrees that its location is too far when you’re in Makati. Especially since they don’t deliver. So, I was told, there’s an alternative that’s acceptable, though not good enough (nothing would be good enough compared with Estrel’s). And it’s located in Makati. I think my expectations were too high. The caramel cake looked a lot like Estrel’s, but was too far from taste and texture. The chiffon wasn’t fine enough, and the caramel was too thick. This may be good news to some, but at Costa Brava the caramel is not your amber-sweet, gooey syrup. It’s akin to sweetened burnt gravy that’s coagulated when put overnight in the ref.

Kesong Puti Cheesecake at The Coffee Beanery, Shangri-la Plaza Mall, Mandaluyong City
This cheesecake has a coconut biscuit crust and sports cubes of kesong puti (local white cheese) on top. The crumb is light, but the taste and texture is like it’s 0% fat, and lacks a little sourness that could have elevated it to something worthy of writing about. The kesong puti adornment is also a tad too hard.

Mini Cakes at The Tea Republique, G/L Pacific Star Building, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave. cor. Makati Ave., Makati City
The Tea Republique features cakes and desserts sourced from several bakeshops. Except for the ube cake, which is by Goodies & Sweets, its mini cakes are from The Purple Oven, and most of them – grandmother’s chocolate cake, sans rival, blueberry cheesecake – are negligible.

Mango Furumaji at Bread Talk outlets (most Metro Manila malls)
I have seen this being made by way of the see-through window separating the sales counters from the kitchen. Fresh mangoes are used, and the piping of a happy face on the cake captured my kids’ fancies. But it’s not always available, and I wasn’t amenable to substituting with Bread Talk’s other cakes, which are mostly indecipherable.

Red Velvet Cake, S’Mores Cake, Belgian Chocolate Cake, at Red Ribbon
The Red Velvet was debuted in time for mothers’ day last year, but I would have never given it to my mother. It was like eating a parchingly dry fruit cake, which I detest to the core of my being. The S’Mores, a take on the campfire classic, is too sweet, while the Belgian is so-so. The tried and tested Mango Cake and Ube Cake are still the best of Red Ribbon’s, for me.

Red Ribbon's S'Mores Cake

Cakes of the Month - The Cakes That Did Make It To The List
Cakes To Give and Receive
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)
Caramel Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)
Marshmallow Cake by Estrel's (Quezon City)

Other Cake Features
Pinkie's Fondant Cakes, Pinkie's (Dagupan City)
Sans Rival, et. al., House of Sans Rival (Dumaguete City)