Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf: Sweet Teas Open House 2016

Summer is here and so is CBTL's new Sweet Teas. It's the new summer drink with the sweetness of fruit. Swirl rewards card holders got to try this for free from 11 AM to 1 PM today, a day ahead of everyone else. It will be available to others starting tomorrow, April 4, 2016.

Today, I got to try the Pear Berry Ice Blended drink. It's a little refreshing sweetness (but not too sweet) to cool you down from the summer heat. BERRY-licious and PEAR-rific indeed. See, it already got me thinking about fruit puns. Passion Fruit and Red Orange flavors are also available. They also have these over ice.

Also tried the Pistachio Pound Cake Slice today. A compact cake slice topped with cream and pistachios.


Just a little note, I liked the spring inspired design of the tray's paper mat.


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Home Baking Series: Choco Marble Cake

After chocolate sponge cake trials, here's my attempt in making a marble cake. This time, I used the plain spongecake mix.

Ingredients:
1 pack Tecso sponge cake mix
1 egg
water
melted chocolate
walnuts

Procedure:
1) Prepare sponge cake mix with egg and water as per instructions at the back of the cake mix pack
2) Pour in half of the mix
3) Scatter walnuts
4) Pour in the second half
5) Pour the melted chocolate
6) Mix lightly to create marble swirls
7) Top with walnuts
8) Bake in the oven following the instructions at the back of the cake mix pack.

Fluffy and airy, as expected from a sponge cake, but with the chocolate swirls of a marble cake plus a layer of walnuts, is the output for this one.

The pre-made mix really makes the procedure easier.


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Home Baking Series: Faux Choco Brownie with Sprinkles

The newbie baker in me will feature another home baked goodie this week. Still using the same mix as last week's item, the Chocolate Sponge Cake mix served as the base for these hybrid brownies. I call it hybrid because it turned out to be a brownie for some parts, but a sponge cake for some parts.

Feeling a bit more experimental, instead of just pouring the whole mix into the baking pan, I added an extra middle layer. I prepared the mix by following the instructions on the packaging, then melted some white chocolate, and poured the mixes as follows:

1. Poured half of the cake mix into the pan.
2. Poured melted Goya Easy Melt White Chocolate Buttons into the pan to cover the whole surface.
3. Added some walnuts.
4. Poured in the remaining cake mix.

Following the baking instructions, I left it in the oven for 20 mins (temperature settings also indicated at the back of the mix packaging).

While it was fresh and hot, I put some of the Easy Melt Dark Chocolate Buttons and spread it on top as it melted. Before it hardened, I also sprinkled it with rainbow candy sprinkles for some color.

Slicing the output, I noticed that it had a fudgy center, probably from the melted white chocolate that seeped in through the cake. It was gooey and sweet. The dark chocolate coating on top added a little crunch. The occasional walnuts added texture too.

After leaving some overnight in the refrigerator to cool, the white chocolate middle layer was more evident and also had a little crunch to it.

It was a tasty good experiment indeed.


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Home Baking Series: Choco Walnut Cake

There was an abundance of Buy 1 Take 1 Tesco branded baking mixes last holiday season so I took the opportunity to try out some of the items and practice baking a little. This February, let me share to you my home baking adventures.

For my first trial, I used a Chocolate Sponge Cake mix. You only need 2 eggs and some tablespoons of water and the mix is ready (quantity and preparation instructions are indicated on the packaging).

Of course I had to put toppings. For this one, a generous amount of walnuts and dark chocolate chunks did the trick. I used chopped Goya Dark Chocolate Buttons and unseasoned walnuts from Dough-it-all.

Since I used a pretty wide square pan, the finished product resembled brownies in size and shape, but had the fluffy, airy quality of a sponge cake. The cake itself was not that sweet. You can go ahead and add icing on top if you want something more sugary.

It was easy to prepare. Mix it, add toppings, then bake - you are done.

Not bad for my first try, right? Sadly, I don't have photos of the ingredients nor the preparation stage for the baking series. But I'll try to recall the procedures and ingredients used for the rest of the posts. Everything I did was quite simple and easy to make.


More DIY baked goodies to follow this month of February!




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Cakes R' Us: Design Your Own!

Trying out Cakes R' Us design your own cake for the first time since we bought an online discount voucher for a 5-inch, heart-shaped, chocolate cake. Here's the main description of my design: white background, purple lining, three purple-pink stars - yes, I had the Gastronomer's Diary logo (the stars part) designed on my cake. I gave them a copy of the logo as reference.

Time to pick-up the cake...ta-da!

Plus points for the effort to copy the purple to pink gradient of the stars.

This cake can be finished by two very hungry people with a sweet tooth. As the cake is heart shaped, the icing was a bit uneven with some sides having thicker icing. They probably used the icing to define the heart shape.

The novelty about this cake is that you can design it any way you want. You can have a unique cake perfect for the occasion. The overall taste is just okay. But I like their effort to follow the design was given to them even if it is not a perfect copy.



Branch visited located at: Mall of Asia, Pasay City

Cafe Mary Grace: Mango Bene

Cake has always been present in our family’s birthday celebrations. For the first celebrant of the year, we bought something from Cafe Mary Grace, the Mango Bene.

Suspense.
Take a glimpse of the cake inside the box.

Now inside…

…just look at those mangoes on top of the cream – fully covered with mangoes.

We have been craving for a good mango cake and Mango Bene was the answer. “Bene” means “good” in Italian

Alternating layers of mangoes, cream, and meringue. Yes, there are mangoes inside the cake as well. The layering made the texture interesting. There were different kinds of sweetness as well. Sugary meringue, fluffy cream, fruity taste from the mangoes equals satisfied cake lovers.



Let's have another look at that cake…

Happy Birthday, indeed.

Branch visited located at: Mall of Asia, Pasay City