Cupcakes and orders

I've been trying put some of the recipes I saw online. I got some pretty awesome reviews from relatives and friends so I started baking some for sale. I'm pretty thankful to my friends who were my first customers. They so love me. :)) I'd post some photos up but I don't have my iPad with me right now so it would have to wait.

If you happen to be craving some sweets lately, feel free to check out my page: https://www.facebook.com/cubbie.cake

That's it for now.

Ta-ta! :)

Carrot cake and baking stuff :))

I've been bitten by the baking bug! I've baked over a dozen cupcakes and three cakes within two weeks! And I couldn't be happier! :))

I know I wrote about baking in my last post but I just had to write this one down...coz I'm so proud! Haha Today I made my first "maarteng" carrot cake. It had buttercream frosting and gumdrop carrot candies and grated carrots as sprinkles. It was fabulous. :)

Also, I dropped by this shop called All About Baking and gathered some supplies there. I got a muffin pan for a little over 200, baking cups at 150/50pcs, muffin liners at 56/57 (can't remember) per 100pcs., something like wax paper (I forgot what it's called) at a little under 50, chocolate chip for 80ish, pastry bag for 80ish, and piping tips for a little under 40. Not bad! I don't really know much about baking, since I am a noob, but I think the prices were cheaper here and I really think it was a steal, so if you're looking for affordable baking stuff, you can check this place out. :)

For the buttercream frosting, I used unsalted butter, powdered sugar and vanilla flavoring. I can't really tell you the proportions since I myself don't know. But I did use 1 1/2 cups of butter. About a cup of sugar and two teaspoons of vanilla flavor...(that's is roughly estimating haha) I adjusted the sugar and flavor according to taste so feel free to make any revision to this.

I was going to upload some pictures but it seems I can't upload it directly from my iPad. Oh well. I'll edit this post later.

That's it for now.

Ciao. :)

Cakes: From Scratch And A Box Mix :)

This blog hasn't been updated for quite sometime. I already got a lot of backlogs that I wanna write about but I don't know where to start. A lot of things happened this past few months. Lots of tears were shed because of both academic and personal reasons. Being in Med school is tough and losing the person you trust most, your lover, makes it harder. Again, my guy and I drifted apart. I'm not gonna elaborate much on this but this time, I really think this is the end of our story. What a sad intro! I'm feeling a bit better now though so no need to worry. :)

Just a few of the things I did this week is to finally try my hand in baking. This isn't really the first cake I made but this is the first time I baked a cake entirely from scratch and with frosting! So yeah, I'm really proud of it. ;)

Presenting Cubbie Shell's Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting!

I only had one cake pan with a size I'm not even sure off so the recipe I followed gave me a bit too much cake mix so I decided to split it and make two cakes instead. It was a good thing too since I kinda messed up in the first cake. :)) I thought the cake was already done so I took it out and look-and-behold, it wasn't! Haha Half of my cake was still undone. So off it went back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so. This explains why only half of the cake was shown here. :)) Half of it, the fallen part, wasn't decent enough to be frosted. It was good enough to eat though so it was ok. :)

This second trial was so much better than the first one. I got it all right! It wasn't overcooked in any way. Needless to say, it was much softer than the first. ;)

 Frosted with dragees. Design care off my little helper, my niece.

The recipe I followed for this cake can be seen here. Initially, I thought I made a mistake following the instructions 'coz there was really a lot of oil in this recipe but after mixing it a few more times, eventually the mix evened up. I really liked how the cake turned out. I was just a bit surprised that it needed that much food color. a whole McCormick bottle (20ml). But again, I did like the cake, what I didn't like was the frosting. I used Heritage Cream Cheese and Che-Vital butter for the frosting. The recipe called for 6 cups of confectioner's sugar which I think was too much. After roughly 4 cups of sugar, I gave up following the frosting recipe since it was already too sweet for me.

Overall, I'm still proud of myself for making a cake entirely from scratch! :))

So since I wrote about baking already, do check out one of my favorite baker bloggers, Bakerella. She has a ton of cool stuff up her blog. I first encountered her blog a few years back when she posted about a valentine chocolate box made entirely out of cake! I was really amazed. ;) I like her. Challenge yourself too. Make something yummy this summer. ;)


Btw, I had a lot of left over frosting so we decided to make carrot cake earlier. This one's from a box (Maya) though but still yummy. It's funny, though, that I can't seem to get the right temperature or time to bake this. It was a bit hmm too moist? To the point where I question whether it's already done. Haha But it's good, nonetheless.

The presentation here's a bit unsightly so I cropped it instead. I was a bit impatient waiting for the cake to cool down so you can guess what happened. :)) My niece had a great time baking with me though. Ain't she such a sweetie? ;)

Tagaytay trip with the fam :)

I haven't really updated my blog for some time now. Makes me feel guilty. Sorry about that. Any way, last weekend our US-based cousin visited us together with her husband and other cousins and their parents. It was our cousin's first visit here since 2004 and we wanted to show her around a bit. After eating lunch at our house and my mom's special take with the food and her experimental steak which tasted really really good, we were all set for Tagaytay. Tagaytay claims to have the biggest Ferris wheel in the Philippines located in Sky Ranch. Driving to Tagaytay from Batangas last weekend was scary. There was low visibility due to the fog and it was raining pretty hard too. The road was a little slippery and the zigzag road didn't really make it any better. When we got to Sky Ranch the Ferris wheel was not in operation because of the heavy downpour. The only ride open at that time was the carousel which we did not bother to ride. We just had our picture taken with the lovely Ferris wheel in the background, though we couldn't really see it clearly. Then we headed to Nuvali for dinner. We were two cars in tow but since I road with my balikbayan cousin, her husband and Ninong, we stopped at Colette's and Rowena's first before driving to Nuvali. We bought Buko pie from Colette's and espasol from the girl outside of the store. I wasn't able to try the Buko pie but from experience it was good. The espasol which I bought to bring home to Bam was really good. I'm not really a fan of espasol because I find it bland but the one I bought there was tasty. The taste of macapuno was not too subtle. I like it.

My Ninong was telling us of another good pasalubong place, Rowena's. he said their tarts were really good. He was bragging about it that it made us curious and wanted to try it for ourselves. When we got there, we saw that Rowena's have a wide variety of food delicacies to offer but I think they're most well known for their tarts. We bought a box each of buko, mango and pineapple tarts. I tried their blueberry tart and it was good. Like eating cheesecake. Their cornik was good too but I like ilocos cornik the best. The Buko tart was good too. It was soft but not too crumbly. And the balance of Buko and sweetness was just right. Ninong bought Sylvannas and had us try them. They were ok. They tasted like broas with moussey buttery creamy sandwiched between them. They're best eaten when they're cold.

Driving to Nuvali took us around 30minutes or so from Tagaytay.and since we have all those sweets
and cornik, needless to say, we were stuffing ourselves with desserts before dinner. We got to Nuvali at half past 8, I think but by them most restaurants were already closed. We decided to go to Paseo instead. Because it was raining, we didn't walk around much anymore and settled with Chowking. Despite the rain, I'd still say it was a swell time. We had a road trip, ate a lot of good food and discovered new places and spent time with family. What more can I ask for? ;)

Quick Update: Happy Meal Minions!

I've been seeing a lot of Minions (from Despicable Me 2) update in FB. I read my friends' frustrations on not getting their hands on these little guys whenever McDonald's ran out of stock. There are also some interesting stories of how my friends wind up in a faraway McDonald's store just to find this elusive Happy Meal toy. :)) I just thought I'd join the wagon! :))

So here it is! My very first Happy Meal minion!:))

Cute minion. I can't understand what you're saying but you're still cute :))

I actually haven't watched the first movie but my friends who did liked it very much and are now excited to watch the second installation. Hope I'm free then so I can watch it with them. :)

Off We Go to Matgalne (June 3, 2013)

Bam and I, together with our friends, Fritz and Osche decided to get together for dinner earlier. Since I'm an avid fan of The Pickiest Eater, upon reading his recent post, I decided to take his lead and found ourselves in Makati---on the lookout for his recent hole in the wall find, Matgalne Korean Restaurant.

I'm not really familiar with Makati. I know a few places but I haven't been around much ever since I left my last company, which was along Ayala Ave. Makati Ave. was an area I'd go to only when I'm off to visit Bam (he works somewhere there). When he read that it was near St. Giles Hotel, he said he knew how to get there. So off we went! :)) Looking for Matgalne was a bit difficult since they didn't post their English name outside. What caught our attention their poster of their grilled meat buffet! We went inside, still unsure whether it was the right restaurant but Bam reassured me that it was the one and the same Matgalne we read about earlier.

We ordered the grilled meat buffet (slices of pork belly and beef brisket) for 399/head with a buffet of Korean side dishes. I was a bit surprised since the poster said that it was only 299 only to be told by our waitress that it was for their lunch promo. Still, a buffet for only 399 is relatively cheap compared to the other buffets I know so it was a good deal. My ability to retain foreign names, in this case Korean food name, was a bit slow. Heck, I even forgot about the proper Korean name of the meat buffet we had! :)) (It was Sam-something...I later googled it and the correct name is Samgyeopsal (pork belly) and Chadolbaegi (beef brisket)). 

Oh yeah! Meat all the way! Yummy!!! :) The meat was not seasoned. It was up to you to make your own dipping sauce. I was okay in eating it cooked well and crispy, unseasoned and without dipping it in any sauce. Bam, however, requested for some soy sauce. It didn't exactly change my mind about eating it the way it is but adding soy sauce did make the meat yummier. :)


Aside from the unlimited supply of meat, there was an array of Korean food. From what I read, the dishes served there were a reflection of how Korean mothers cook for their children and guests. In short, Korean homemade dishes. The restaurant was owned and run by a Korean national so the dishes were prepared the authentic way. I think the restaurant was run by the owner and her husband ( I THINK, hehe). I just got this idea 'cause when we dined there, there was a middle-aged Korean couple inside, later joined by an older Korean woman, who later thanked us warmly with their smiles for dining there. 

The food served in Matgalne was okay. The Kimchi was perfect for me. It was not too spicy but season just right. The kimbap was ok (the maki-like Korean dish). I loved their chapchae and sweet and spicy chicken. I would have eaten more of them but I wanted to try at least a bite of all of their dishes! In a buffet setting, a little goes a long way! hahaha Besides, you can always go back if you want a refill. I also make my own bibimbap! Again, a little goes a long way! :))

Here are some of the dishes we tried:

The chicken that I loved.

DIY Bibimbap

Kimbap

Tofu jeon

Since I read some writeups about this restaurant earlier I was excited to try some of the dishes that I found on other foodie blog like the mushroon jeon (a pancake-like Korean dish made mostly of eggs and flour with beoseot---mushroom), Odeng bokkeum (stir fried fish cake), jumeok bap (dried seaweed riceball), and the pancake dipped Kimbap to name a few but sadly those dishes were not available during our dinner. None the less, the dishes there at the time were all good. :)

I actually got too much food. It was the last call already before the take away the side dishes. I was expecting my friends to share a bit of the food I'll get since only Fritz and I stood up to refill our plates. I didn't really get TOO much but just enough for me and a little to share, but still I wasn't able to finish all the dishes that I got. :'( I'm really sorry for that. I would have taken them out and eaten them at home if it was allowed. The food in my plate did not deserve to be left unfinished. huhuhu

 In this battle between food and I, food won!!! :'(

 I'm sorry, food. :'( I'll stick with the "little goes a long way" next time! I swear!!!

Just before leaving, my hand was acting up again. I actually burned my hand before dining there and due to some unforeseen event my blister popped. Since it was really bothering me (open wounds are more prone to infection that closed ones), I summed up some courage to ask if they have alcohol for my burn (I know, kinda weird asking for something for my burn in a restaurant). Good thing they have some and I was really grateful for their concern. They were really friendly and accommodating.

 All in all, our experience with Matgalne was so nice that I'm looking forwards to dining there again. :) And in case the 399 price tag is still too much for you, you can avail their lunch promo price at 299/head until the end of June. :) Or you can check out group buying sites for an extension of their lunch promo. :)

Found this in Ensogo. Enjoy! :)

Been there? Tell me about your Matgalne experience. :)

Matgalne Restaurant, Main Branch
4768 Kalayaan Avenue Corner Mariano Street, Poblacion, Makati City, Metro Manila
Tel #: (02) 890 – 2949, Operating Hours: 11:00 am to 11:00pm, Monday to Saturday Ortigas Branch
2F Millenium Place BIdg., Meralco Avenue, Ortigas Center, San Antonio, Pasig City, Metro Manila
Tel #: (02) 632 – 9714, Operating Hours: 11:00 am to 11:00pm, Monday to Saturday
- See more at: http://www.kitchencow.com/2013/06/07/matgalne-restaurant-korean-all-you-can/#sthash.2bKKgbX8.dpuf

You can visit Matgalne Korean Restaurant at: 

 Makati Branch 
Address: 4768 Kalayaan Avenue Corner Mariano Street, Poblacion Makati City,
Metro Manila
Phone: 890 – 2949 
Pasig Branch
Address: 2F Millenium Place Bldg., Meralco Avenue, Ortigas Center, San Antonio,
Pasig City, Metro Manila
Phone: 632 – 9714

Also, you can try reading other bloggers' Matgalne experience. Here are links to some of my favorite food bloggers:

 The Pickiest Eater in the World
The Purple Doll 
The Pigout Session

PS: Photo credit to my friends, Fritz and Osche. :)

Yellowcab Goes Sauceless: Mrs. Hudson's Pizza

Lately I've been reading a lot of reviews on Yellowcab's Mrs. Hudson's Pizza. They've been raving about this sauceless pizza for quite a bit already. Some of my favorite bloggers swear that they like it. Since they launched this food item as a limited edition, and would probably be gone by the end of June, me and my family decided to give this baby a try.

Yellowcab's biggest pizza would be around 18 inches. Since they changed how you refer to your pizza sizes, from merely ordering it based on it's diameter, they now refer to them as regular, family and new yorker sizes. They confused me a bit there. On the bright size, they now give you an estimate on how many people can share each size of pizza (regular-4pax, family-6pax, and new yorker-8pax). We ordered one new yorker size with a pitcher of coke to be shared among the 7 of us.

Since the pizza is relatively new, I didn't really feel too confident of my choice. It didn't help that half of the waiting time my sisters kept nudging on why I didn't choose New York's Finest (our staple dish at Yellowcab) and that given the picture, there wasn't much toppings. Also there seem to be an abundance of tomatoes which would mean that this pizza would have to be high on uric acid---one of the enemies of my aging parents.

When our pizza arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at how big it seemed. Maybe it had more to do with the color than the actually size though since they didn't really deviate from their original measurements. :P I would have liked our pizza in square cuts though (which you can ask the staff to do but I unfortunately forgot).

Upon tasting the pizza, I was again surprised. It was sweet. I knew it would have a bit of sweetness but I never actually expected the pizza to be just sweet! They claimed to have stroke a balance between sweet and salty but sadly it failed my expectations. It was just sweet. It's not bad or anything just wasn't what I expected. The cheese didn't even contribute a bit of saltiness to the dish. We ended up adding a bit of red pepper sauce to make it more palatable. It was just like eating sweet bread. Also, some parts of the pizza was caramelized making me think of toasted bread with butter and sugar on top. Since this pizza makes use of caramelized onions, I think the sweetness of the onions overpowered the dish. The pizza's saltiness it seemed mostly relied on its prosciutto. Again, it didn't do much for the dish in its entirety.

There were more ingredients in the pizza than tomatoes, prosciutto and caramelized onions. There were herbed Boursin cheese, which you can see as lumps in the pizza, that added a bit of creaminess. There were also tarragon and other premium cheeses. Since I don't really know what tarragon tastes like, I didn't really notice. And the other premium cheeses would have been good if they gave more saltiness than creaminess.

Overall, we weren't really satisfied with this pizza. It's not that it's bad, it just didn't fit what we we're looking for. As much as my mom said she liked it since it wasn't salty, she'd still go for our regular New York Finest.

On a brighter side, it was really a different pizza experience. ;)

How was your Mrs. Hudson experience? Share your thoughts. :)

Give them a hit!
Yellowcab's FB Page
Yellowcab's Official Site