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Sorry blog, I neglected you once again. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:
Chocolate cupcake and almond rosewater cupcake.Tinkering around with rose-inspired frosting designs. I've been spying cupcakes frosted to look like roses 'round Flickr and it's been driving me crazy. I really couldn't figure out how those bakers did it! After a few experiments I finally broke the code. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a super baker's secret, but what the hell. You basically use a 5-point star tip, start frosting from the center and work your way out. So simple yet so stunning.
Missing old childhood food. I don't miss the dead animal flesh mind you, I just miss the familiarity of eating a burger sandwich, using an actual bun, filled with ketchup and mustard. I took this photo about 2 months ago and uploaded it in Flickr 3 weeks ago. As of this post it's received 99 views. Hmmm. I guess vegans do miss familiar food. This is a burger bun filled with 3 vegan burger patties, a couple of lettuce leaves, and a good dose of mango vinaigrette. I know, not conventional, but it went pretty well. The vinaigrette was a version of this recipe but with cane vinegar subbing for the calamansi juice and olive oil subbing for the sesame oil. The burger patties are a version of Vegan with a Vengeance's.
Promoting vegan cupcakes to mainstream media. I sent a box of these cupcakes to a well known local food magazine for a pictorial. They actually found me on Multiply! So so tickled. Anyway, the magazine edition with the cupcakes should come out sometime in the 4th quarter. This box has 6 flavors.Top, L-R: red velvet, chai latte, lemony.Bottom, L-R: banoffee, carrot cake, almond rosewater.I sent the same box to a vegetarian restaurant in the Makati CBD called Corner Tree Cafe. They seem to like 'em, they've been ordering every week for their customers. If any of you readers are around Jupiter St. in Makati, hit up Corner Tree Cafe! It's near Aristocrat.(I also sent another box of cupcakes to a lifestyle magazine targeted to Southern Manilenyos, not pictured. Well received too!)
Cupcake-catering for my lolo's / grandfather's 95th birthday party. My dad asked me to make cupcakes for giveaways for guests. In the span of 7-8 hours I was able to come up with 100+ cupcakes, packaged in these beautiful silver cardboard-plastic boxes. They looked smashing, if I do say so myself. I just cringe when I think about the amount of waste these generated. I hate using plastic...Anyway, here are some closeups:
Red velvet cupcakes.
Banoffee cupcakes. Banana cupcakes topped with coffee buttercream and shaved dark chocolate.
Lemony cupcakes.I can't resist some cupcake porn:
Closeup of a red velvet cupcake.I'm really loving the foil cupcake liners. They're pretty costly but they look so professional. They go really well with the silver boxes, and they don't absorb moisture from the cake (vs. paper liners). I like that they hide cupcake batter spills too!I also can't resist a gratuitous photo of cute animals:
I found these guys trying to cross a major road in my village as I was heading out to Sunday lunch. I quickly snapped a photo of them before herding them back to the creek from whence they came. I'm glad to report that no one got hurt! Motorists actually halted for these cuties.That's about it, so I've been quite busy. Hopefully my next post won't be too far off.
(rosewater tea cake with rose water buttercream)
(studded with pistachios)
(up close)
There's something about the pistachio... it must be the only multi-colored nut. Green, yellow, and pink... truly a site for sore eyes.
I like to call this a tea cake, even though by definition, a tea cake is a piece of unfrosted bread or cake served traditionally with afternoon tea, sturdy enough to be picked up with your fingers.
In Ireland, a tea cake is a soft, chocolate-coated marshmallow on a biscuit base. In Britain, it is a light, sweet, yeast-based bun containing dried fruit served with butter. In Sweden, it is wheat soda bread served with butter and jam. In the US, it is a cookie. In Australia, it is a sweet cake served toasted with a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon.
I can't find any information on tea cakes in Turkey and Narnia, but I'd like to think this cake is the way to go.
Street food carts, especially this refreshing one, can literally be found anywhere around the metro:
I am not a big fan of artificial obese causing drinks (aka soft drinks) and "juice drinks" -- I think those companies should have never been formed! Down with capitalism, down with huge food conglomerates that are out to rob you of your health and wealth!
Sorry, on to mofo'ing...
On a day when the sun turns you black in 10 minutes (everyday!), humidity is at 90% and the temperature is at 90-95 degrees F (30-35 degrees C), a cool refreshing drink is always welcome to soothe your parched throat. Buko juice (never labelled "young coconut water"; juice sounds much more delicious!) is the liquid from the cavity of a young or unripe coconut. The juice is highly nutritious and contains sugar, fibre, protein, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. It also provides isotonic electrolyte balance and is a good substitute for those sugary drinks marketed as "electrolyte balancing". I guess this makes sense, as living in a humid tropical country drains your body from moisture and makes you tired all the time.
One way to have this drink is to have the "coconut man" cut out the top with his hunting knife and pour the juice into a plastic bag; stick a straw in the bag and you're good to go.
Another far less wasteful and far cleaner method is to have him cut the outer shell of the fruit, slice off the top shell, exposing the meat. Stick a straw through the flesh and drink to your heart's content. It's always nice to share a drink with friends or coworkers. At P16 or US$0.34 for 1 shell, it's a steal.
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If you recall my post about my obsession with rose water, I finally got around to experiment and came up with rose water cake. Here it is fresh from the oven, with the parchment paper still stuck to the bottom. I'll be giving this with frosting on top to my cousin Monica who'll be celebrating her birthday this weekend. The cake came out... how should I say it... skinny? It was about 1-1.5 inches tall. I hope she likes it! The smell was intoxicatingly good. Since it's skinny it feels like a guiltless pleasure and can be eaten it everyday...
I am just floored by the sophisticated flavor of rose water. I was able to aquire some from Assad's Mini Mart, a Pakinstani grocery store in Makati. At P80 (US$ 1.70) for 250 ml of "50% distillate of rose, 50% distilled water", it was a steal. The flowery scent is literally hypnotic. Try taking a teaspoon of that stuff straight up and it won't taste like anything. My friend Buens thinks it smells like a rosary; my brother Martin thinks it smells like a grotto. If you can get your hands on rose water, I totally encourage you to buy it!
Ever since I acquired a copy of Isa and Terry's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, I've been insistently teased by the book cover which has a picture of Pistachio Rosewater Cupcakes. With a bottle of rose water in hand I was finally able to bake these for my birthday dinner. My cupcakes mayn't have come out as pretty as theirs, but the taste was just perfect. The combination of pistachios and rosewater is a match made in heaven, seriously. I don't know why it's taken me this long to hear of and taste rose water! Those damn Middle Easterners have been hiding this stuff from us.
For those not in the know, according to Wisegeek and Wikipedia, outside the Western hemisphere and English speaking countries, rose water is known as گلاب or Golâb in Persian, Gül suyu in Turkish, ماء ورد Māʾ ward in Arabic, گلاب رس in Urdu, and розова вода in Bulgarian. It is the hydrosol or liquid remaining after crushed damask rose petals and water are distilled together to make rose oil, or attar of roses. The steam-distillation process was founded in Persia and Bulgaria during medieval times and was particularly used by Arabian doctor Avicenna in the 10th century.
It is used heavily in Middle Eastern cuisine -- Turkish delight or gulab jamuns; Iranian tea, ice cream, and cookies; Arabian and Indian milk-based beverages (lassi) and dishes (rice pudding); a Malaysian and Singaporean milk-based beverage (bandung); and Western European marzipan and madeleines. The ancient Romans bathed themselves in rose water and considered it to have anti-bacterial and antiseptic properties. It also figures largely in Muslim and Hindu religious ceremonies.
Please excuse the yellow-ness and darkness of this photo. These are the Pistachio Rose Water Cupcakes with Rose Water Buttercream that I made for my birthday dinner. I used a petal tip for the piped frosting so it really looked like a white rose on top of the cupcake. These were a big hit at the dinner and I feel encouraged to experiment more with this potion. Biting into a cupcake, I felt like I was in the Tashbaan in Narnia, having tea and cupcakes with Aravis as she told stories of the people and history of Calormen.
Things I'm planning to make with rose water:
Rose Water Cake
Rose Water Cookies
Rose Water Ice Cream
Rose Water Pudding
Rose Water Milk Tea
Any suggestions? I am literally in love with this stuff. Rose water must be what a love potion would smell like.
And speaking of love, have you ever wondered why the rose (as a flower) is associated with the female external reproductive organ? In Hinduism, the Shiva lingam, or phallus, is bathed in rose water during the Mahshirvrati festival, which is the annual day of devotion to Shiva and the day Shiva marries the goddess Parvati. While Shiva is depicted as having both male and female attributes, he is considered a god rather than a goddess. So perhaps the lingam being bathed in rose water represents the act of love. Just a food for thought.
