Sibuyas Republic

I don’t know if it’s due to my PMS but definitely I have this BIG cravings for sweets.

Without having second thoughts, I went straight into the kitchen (just after lunch) and perspire for 2 hours (preparation and cooking) to come up with this plate-0-sweet.

Bathe in sweetness. I couldn’t care less. I’m going to indulge!

Leche Flan Cooking Tips:

I have been cooking Leche Flan for years now. Mind you, it’s an intimidating dessert. There have been too many cooking tips around to come up with better Leche Flans. One thing I discovered today?

Beat and Sieve

That, it’s okay to beat up your egg mixture at high speed (using electric mixer. Yes, it’ll create bubbles. Some say, when there’s too many bubbles, you’ll have a soggy Leche Flan. To solve this, I took out a clean cloth and use as a sieve. Gently pour in the egg mixture into the cloth making sure the bubbles are separated.

Then, pour egg mixture into separate molds.

Use the egg whites, too

Another thing. How many people have you heard to use egg yolks only in cooking Leche Flan? Many I guess. They say, the egg whites are not good in making Leche Flan -Egg whites are full of fats. Eggs whites can only make your Leche Flan create too many air pockets when cooked.

Whether it’s for health purposes or for aesthetic appeal of the dessert, it pains me to waste those egg whites. Especially that I am not making meringue

Steam at very low heat

And to lose those tiny air pockets (I said, sieving is the first solution), here’s what to do. Let the water in your steamer into a rolling boil. Afterwards, you can now lower the heat and start cooking your Leche Flan. You can achieve a super soft and smooth Leche Flan when you cook it at low heat.

Can we enjoy the sweetness now?

Check out How to cook Leche Flan? a la RIZ

Twas another lazy and scorching hot summer Saturday afternoon. To beat the heat, the eldest daughter prepared “black gulaman” to quench our thirst. While she was cooling down the “gulaman” (soft jelly) unto a mold, I hastily prepared and cooked up “banana-langka turon”.

Perfect tandem…

Right after preparing and cooking, we headed outside to the garden and enjoy the coolness of air while indulging in these sweet treats. Love this kind of staycation -weekend bonding with the family, al fresco dining…nothing could have been better.

The quench-buster black gulaman drink. Served ice cold.

Nothing beats these classic Pinoy foodies. Easy to prepare. Easy on the budget. Sweet treats to enjoy lovely Saturday afternoon with the family.

After sharing you the Mango Pie (which was baked), I want to share another fruit pie. However, instead of baking, I had opted to fry them in the hopes of achieving that crispier dough a la Jollibee pies

And, look what I got after deep frying the pies on a very hot oil…

Crispier and more tastier fruit pies…

Here’s the quick recipe guide:

For pie dough: Check here my easy-peasy basic pie crust recipe.

For filling: Since I have sweetened jackfruit in the fridge, I decided to make it as pie filling combined with sweetened banana (saging saba).

Procedure:

• Knead the dough, then form into whatever shape you desire. Place the filling near the center of each form dough then seal.
• Deep-fry into a very hot oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes.

Let me share you the difference between frying and baking pies. (applies also to meat pies)

Texture. I must say, the difference between baked pies and fried pies are in the texture. Frying pies will result in a more crispier dough. With baked pies, the texture will depend on how minutes the pies stay in the oven. More minutes means you’ll have a crunchier dough. While baking the pies in shorter minutes will achieve a chewy dough.

Concern for health. Naturally, frying means using oil. If you are one who’s been avoiding oils and other fats, baking pies is more the better choice.

Taste. Pies, whether baked or fried, are equally delicious. However, frying intensifies the flavor of the butter (in the dough mix) which is then mixed into the filling which makes the it more flavorful and moist.

Honestly, me and my family prefers frying the pies.

What about you? Have you tried making your own pies? It’s a great snack for the whole family.

Maybe, this is the most common dessert most Filipinos love to prepare. Why? It’s a no-bake, no-fuss preparation. It’s a super easy sweet treat that everybody loves to indulge.

Including my family. I guess, we’ve come up with more versions than I can remember -we made ripe mangoes as topping, and Oreo topping, too.

Even kids can do this dessert. Boy! They love doing this dessert. So, I am hands-free. Er, I have to do the dishwashing

Anyways, here are the ingredients.

2 packs crushed Grahams
2 package of All-Purpose cream (chill and mix until thick)
2 cups fruit mix
2 cups honey (I use pancake syrup)

Preparation:

• Mix together the crushed Grahams and the honey/syrup.
• Press half of the mixture into a pan.
• Pour in half of the cream.
• Place the remaining Grahams mixture then pour the cream.
• Then, top with fruit mix.

Done!

Let’s indulge with this pretty simple dessert.

Let kids do kitchen preps.

Thank you kids for helping me out. It always feels great knowing that kids show interest in cooking. It’ll be a lot of mess when kids take active part in kitchen preps. Never mind the mess. What’s more important is the learning experience they’ll reap out of the activity.

From the time the husband gifted me a small stand-up mixer, I had been painstakingly trying hard to bake. I began with cookies, cupcake, loaf bread, pies, easy cakes and more. Oftentimes, I get heartbreaking results with my “creations”. But, that doesn’t stop me from moving forward to learn more of baking.

We love to eat. We’re sweet-tooths here. So, instead of buying from bakery shops, it’ll give me a lot of savings if I’m going to bake all the goodies we crave.

Thank heavens that I fared well baking this carrot cake. It’s my no-fuss, no-fancy-ingredients-take on the classic carrot cake.

The ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder (optional)
4 cups grated carrots

 Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.
• Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and eggs until thick then, stir in the oil.
• Gradually mix in the sifted dry ingredients.
• Fold in the carrots.

• Then, spread evenly into the greased pan.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes.

DONE!

Honestly, I was surprised at how it turned out. The cake is soft and moist despite the simplicity of the ingredients.

’nuff said. Let’s eat. There’s a whole tray to indulge.

I’m a happy newbie baker. I don’t have to spend more on bakery goods every time we visit the city.

Have you tried baking at home? What your favorite dish to bake?

Halo-halo has become a Filipino culture. And so, roadside halo-haluan in our community sprouts like mushrooms. For 15 peso per 12-ounce disposable cup, you get that indulgent and icy cold Pinoy dessert. Nothing beats summer here than a glass of halo-halo.

And, to make sure I do not spend 15 pesos x 5 or 7 (when niece and nephew makes palibre) a day on halo-halo, I get to prepare our own halo. It’s like “do your own halo-halo, make sawa-sawa on the ingredients”.

I bought sago and powdered gulaman on the market and cooked them accordingly. I have to cook the sago with a little brown sugar, just to make sure it’s clean and safe to eat. I also cook sweet potatoes (a.k.a kamote) and saba bananas -sweetened them with brown sugar and pour in few drops of vanilla just for flavor. Then, the leche flan -I try to cook as many as 6 llaneras (aluminum mold) of this dessert either for halo-halo or as dessert. We’re really a family of sweet tooths.

From those sangkap (the red mongo beans and nata de coco are store bought), the rest of the family can enjoy “Eat-All-You-Can-Halo-Halo).

Beat the summer heat. Enjoy halo-halo. Indulge!

Any time of the day.

PS.

I must tell you how excited the kids can it be preparing their own halo-halo. One kid doesn’t like kamote, one kid doesn’t like mongo beans. However, they tend to add in more of their favorite ingredients especially the leche flan and sweetened bananas.

They even ask me to cook ube (purple yam). Geez! Can they have enough?

This one’s I recommend for those who’ll dine in at Shakey’s. Not so much for the ice-cream. But, the brownie underneath is super-like. I enjoyed the three-flavored brownie…

Marble Brownie a la Mode
174 pesos

Holy Week it is. Yet, my small kitchen is busy. Holiday and vacation means there are mouths to feed. There’s the “forever hungry” kids who always looked for foods. There’s the eldest daughter who came home from a four-day trip to the mountains of Nueva Vizcaya. They’re always hungry.

And, it seems, I am forever stuck in the kitchen cooking something to satiate their hunger. I’m starting to get a headache thinking what else to cook…Good thing, there’s these dessert boxes from my sister-in-law. What I love about this dessert treat is its quick cooking procedure. No need for eggs. No need to steam.

Each small boxes comes with two separate pouches for the custard itself and the other one for the syrup. All I needed to do is;

• Add 500ml of milk (I opted to use 2 cans of evaporated milk) for each box to make a small mold of this ready mix custard.
• Mix the milk into the powder until free from lumps.
• Bring to a slow simmer.
• Pour in the syrup into the preferred mold.
• Then pour in the custard creme.
• Let it set and when cooled, place in the fridge.

I love doing the old fashioned leche flan, but these quick cooking desserts made me save on precious time. Because, I still have dinner to think about

My share for 366 Blog Photo Challenge

Over the weekend, because me and the little miss had been busy reviewing for her monthly test at school, I fall short of cooking time expected from me. Still, our sweet cravings were met when I did saw few items in the pantry.

Oreo cookies, graham crackers, cream, and evaporated milk.

• Layer off the grahams. I bought the one with sugar coating.
• Hence, all I needed was a can of evaporated milk to help soften the crackers.
• Then, drizzle with the cream.
• Topped with cookies and cherries…

Easy does it

Ohhlala…

Linking this post to Dhemz’s Blog Photo Challenge.

First, Happy New Year foodies! Wishing every one a year of happy and healthy eating. Remember that healthy eating does not mean depriving ourselves of foodies, foodies that were so gastronomically abundant during the last holidays. Weeee! It’s been a lot of yummylicious foodie season that tested how much my digestive system can tolerate. The key to a healthy eating is “EAT IN MODERATION”.

Kicking off the year 2012, I would want to share this cheesecake I painstakingly and virtuously bake for New Year’s eve family dinner. Glad, hubby was there to helped out. He prepared the grahams crust using this Black & Decker mixer he bought for me as part of his Christmas present . We were both laughing out as we were preparing this dessert as the kids will surely rant out loud if it ended up not edible enough. We initially planned of buying a roll cake as we usually do on New Year’s eve, but, then, I wanted to take a risk on the cheesecake Even though, we weren’t able to find blueberries in can at the supermarket and we were lost at finding fresh strawberries after scouring too many a shop in the city I didn’t let that ruin my mood.

What I did was to find whatever’s in the pantry…

for the pie crust:

1 package of grahams crushed

3/4 butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

for the filling:

1 package cream cheese

1 pint sour cream

3 eggs

vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. For the crust, mix in the cinnamon to the crushed grahams then the butter and mix until resembles coarse meal.

2. Pressed the mixture into a cake pan or pie mold. Refrigerate.

3. For the filling, empty package of cream cheese into the mixer and slowly beat for 1 minute.

4. Add in eggs one at a time.

5. Mix in the sour cream. Mix until fully blended.

6. For added flavor, add in vanilla extract. I forgot to buy vanilla, as an alternate I used orange zest The aroma and the tangy taste is…be my guest to add in the apt adjective.

7. Place the creamy mixture into a cake pan and placed in another pan with water.

8. Bake 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until toothpick comes clean. Cake should jiggle.

9. Transfer the cream filling into the crust.

10. Topped with your favorite fruits.

Here’s my dessert on New Year’s eve. Thanks to hubs for helping out. Though, I wouldn’t want to share this one out to him. I’m kinda “madamot” when it comes to sweet treat

Happy healthy eating every one

Linking this post on Mellow Yellow Monday,  Ruby Tuesday, Orange Tuesdays

Wednesday Whites

(click for more cheesecake how to’s)