Healthy Carrot Cake

     This carrot cake is for my friend Corrie's parents who had celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary yesterday. Wow! They have already come this far and wishing them to reach 50th. Then probably they might want me to make their golden anniversary cake hehehe.

     This cake is made from carrots with ground cinnamon, crushed pineapple and raisins. I used raw sugar (we called it here Mascubado) because of its not too sweet and the vitamins and minerals are still present on it.While it is in the oven, the whole house smells like a combination of everything... smells heavenly! It made my mouth watery and want to take a bite from it.  I guess the neighbors are drooling over the sweet scent on the air coming from the oven.  The icing was made from cream cheese, a little of butter, vanilla, lemon and some confectioners sugar so the taste isn't too sweet... just the right amount of sweetness.

     I delivered the cake personally to her parents. They already moved to Talisay City so I have no idea where to find them. Good thing I'm familiar with the subdivision and there were only few houses. The address says block 5 and I find myself asking for direction in block 18... Gosh! Thirteen blocks away. I laughed at myself thinking why I haven't asked someone in the guard house. Then I remember, there's no one in the guard house. I was texting Corrie who's in Aussie right now asking for directions. Luckily, someone pointed to me about a new house being constructed and when I got there I saw Corrie's father. Her mom let me in to their new house. A cute modern bungalow type house with wide space for gardening but the place isn't finish yet. Have a chat with her mom like 30 minutes or more before going home then call it a day. 

Happy Birthday to my Papu Soryme

Another year had been added to your life. Whether it  was good or not so good, I'm still thankful because I was part of that whole year that had passed. And now that we are undergoing some misunderstanding, I felt that you are drifting away from me or did you intentionally drift away from me? But i'm still hoping we can patch it up together before its too late. Still wishing you the best in life and hope all your heart's desire to come true.. Wherever you are... Take good care of yourself.. Still loving you so much.. Happy Happy birthday.

Meriah Hazel's Baptism Cake

     This simple cake made of orange chiffon frosted with boiled icing and decorated with sugar flowers is for my newest goddaughter Meriah Hazel. This isnt my first time to make boiled icing but all failed in the past. It always gave me headache wondering what went wrong. Makes me think that the problem must be with the ingredients, my sugar must not be ready yet, the procedure or is it because I'm only using an electric hand mixer.  My first try with boiled icing was a total failure. It icing became runny after I put colors on it, even if I'm using a gel color. And the colors sink to the bottom after a few minutes. Then the next one, I overcooked the sugar which makes the icing crunchy, with solid crystals on it.  My third try was kinda alright. It has the perfect firmness but after I put colors on it, it became a little bit soggy.  This is my fourth try, its not perfect because I was in a hurry and the sugar wasn't ready yet.  With more practice I think I'll be able to do it perfectly next time.

Starry Starry Chocolatey Cake

     When it comes to cakes, we Filpinos just couldn't resist a calorific chocolate cake.  Ruel's second cousin will be celebrating his 21st birthday today and they requested if I can make them a simple chocolate birthday cake.
     I don't know why I'm so addicted to chocolates, chocolate candies and bars, chocolate drinks and lots and lots of cakes with chocolate as one of its ingredients.

    Instead of the usual two layers with filling in between, I made it three layers of super super rich in Swiss cocoa chocolate cake. The filling is a vanilla pudding made of egg yolks, milk, sugar, cornstarch, butter and vanilla.
     For the frosting, I used Bensdorp cocoa, condensed milk, evaporated milk and butter cooked for several hours in a double boiler until it thickens in spreading consistency.  This is a very tedious job and next time i'll try cooking it in a heavy saucepan to lessen the cooking time.
     And my chocolate icing needs more time cooking because after a few minutes of pouring it on the cake, the icing started dripping on the sides leaving the top portion with a very thin coat. Good thing I didn't pour everything on the cake so I return the icing on the stove.
      Not much on the presentation, just star shape candy sprinkles.  I just hope that they would like the taste.  This is my first non fondant birthday cake and I hope that I can also make a cake with boiled icing but I think I need to practice more on making boiled icing. More egg white and sugar to waste (sigh).

Chess board cake for her hubby

     I wanted to thank Marikoy of mareeyah.com/ako for giving a chance to be a part of surprising her husband last Valentines day.  A week before Valentines I received a message from her asking if I can make a cake to surprise her husband for V-day. I said yes. She didn't have anything for the design so I asked her what does her husband likes to do or favorite things to do. She told me that he likes cars and loves to play chess too so she came up with an idea of a chess board cake with a black king and white queen in the center and hearts on the opposite sides. 

     It's just a plain chocolate cake with buttercream icing covered with white marshmallow fondant. My boyfriend was the one who gave me the idea on how to make the king and queen chess piece. I don't know where he got the idea but I was thankful to him cause he made it easy for me to do. Instead of putting a cross on the king, I suggested that we make little crowns for the head.

     On Valentines day, I personally delivered this cake to her husband as what I promised her.  I've know Marikoy since high school, we were classmate but hadn't got the chance to meet her husband during their wedding cause I was not able to attend it due to a flu.  I got  in Talisay around 11 in the morning and I sent a message to her husband telling him that I was waiting at the guard house with a surprise from his wife. Her husband was so kind that he even asked me to have lunch with him but I politely said no because I was in a hurry to go back to Bacolod. 

     You can check out Marikoy's blog http://mareeyah.com/ako/ for the wonderful write up she posted about the cake. 

My Valentine Treats

     If you would ask me how did I celebrated my Valentines day, I would say very very very busy. My boyfriend and I didn't have our date, instead we had dinner at home with my family and my brother's girlfriend which everybody enjoyed.
     A week before the hearts day I was busy making red chocolate heart lollipops for the children of Sum-ag Elementary School and several orders of chocolate cakes. And on Valentines Day, I delivered them all myself =)
     It was tiring but I had fun and I think I lost a few pounds after walking and skipping lunch but gained twice after a sumptuous and gastronomic dinner.

     I called it Project Lollipop. Since chocolates cakes are quite not affordable, i thought of something that even elementary students can afford to have one. I was thinking of chocolate lollipops for Valentines day. I bought a heart with a rose plastic mould, plastic lollipop sticks, plastic wrapper, red metallic ribbon and a few red chocolate bars.

Checkered Green Fondant Theme

     My fourth fondant creation.  This one is for my friend's co-teacher in elementary.  They wanted to have a green checkered cake made of fondant. They don't have any specific design in mind so they leave it up to me to decorate the cake.

     This is going to be a surprised cake for the birthday girl who will be celebrating her 25th birthday.  I'm was    so excited when they told me that they wanted me to make the cake.  My first problem was how to make the checkered without overlapping the squares. Since I focused on the top portion, the sides will definitely overlapped. I decided to leave it anyway. I instead put flowers to hide it.  Next problem is how to decorate the cake. It's checkered and its for a girl =(  I have a lot in mind. Then again, Ruel reminded me not to overdecorate cause the checkered design already looks good.  Since its for a girl, I made a light blue high heeled shoe with diamond cut crystals on it as a design.  I also put diamond cut crystals on the name to goes well with the shoe.