In Which One Bakes a Proper Red Velvet Cake…

In the tin

Red velvet cake is something of a pseudo-tradition in my family because my sister always asks for something similar to it for her birthday.

The first time she asked for one resulted in a deep purple dessert dubbed the Sky at Dusk because it was the color of a night sky and decorated with stars cut out of cake trimmings on top of a lemon cheesecake frosting.  This would eventually be followed by the much-darker imperial velvet cake and other similar treats.

And finally, this: a real red velvet cake.

Ready to serve

And not just any red velvet cake, mind you: this monster is a chocolate red velvet cake.

The average red velvet cake is, pretty much, a butter cake loaded with red food coloring.  However, the original red velvet is a cocoa-flavored butter cake that took its characteristic maroon hue from the chemical reaction between acidic buttermilk and the more alkaline cocoa powder.  Unfortunately, many modern red velvet cake recipes add just a smidgen (two tablespoons or less) of cocoa and load up on food coloring; not cool, if you ask me.

Mine is adapted from the one from the Hershey’s Kitchen – but has the added advantage of a quarter-cup of chocolate chips tossed into the deep red batter before baking.  Thus, this one has ample chocolate flavor and is considerably richer and more satisfying than the red velvet cake you’d pick up from some commercial bakery.  Add the fact that the icing on this particular cake is a caramel cream cheese frosting, it was a cake that definitely put a smile on my sister’s face on her special day.

And, believe me when I say this is guaranteed to make you smile, too.

Sheer and absolute delight in every bite

Chocolate Red Velvet Cake

For the Cake:

• 1/2 cup vanilla-flavored margarine or soft unsalted butter
• 1-1/2 cups granulated white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup buttermilk or 1 tablespoon vinegar + enough milk to yield 1 cup total liquid
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the Frosting:

• 1 bar (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup caramel-flavored margarine or soft unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup icing or confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees / Gas Mark 4.

Grease and flour a standard-sized regular Bundt or fluted Bundt pan.

Cream together the vanilla margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, cocoa powder, and vanilla; mix well.  Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda.  Tip half the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture.  Mix well and pour in half the buttermilk; mix until well combined.  Tip in the rest of the flour mixture and blend well with the rest of the buttermilk until a smooth batter is achieved.  Stir in the food coloring and mix until well-incorporated.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake 55 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the frosting.  Using a hand-held mixture at medium speed, whip together all the ingredients until soft peaks form.  Chill for at least 15 minutes.

Remove the baked cake from the pan and set onto a serving plate, reserving any crumbs.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.  Top the frosted cake with any reserved crumbs.

Serves 12…just.  😉

 

 

In Which There is DIY Ice Cream for Milo-holics…

Cream, condensed milk, Milo…

I grew up drinking Milo, Nestle’s malted chocolate milk drink.  Well, to be exact, I grew up eating Milo – scooping up the powder with a tablespoon and scoffing the lot with impunity.

As I grew older, though, Milo became a running gag in my life on account of the infamous Milo biscuit episode of my years in college.  Fortunately, that incident has mellowed into a funny memory and I have moved on to using Milo for better desserts that are a lot gentler on teeth.

Yes, there’s a Milo packet there.

Case in point, this nifty malted chocolate ice cream.

This no-churn wonder is flavored with Milo for a gloriously dreamy cream ice that is richly chocolaty despite its rather pale beige appearance.  I threw in another childhood treat – Kit Kats – to make it even more decadent.

I like to think of this recipe as all your guilty childhood pleasures all grown up and skirting just the very edge of divine decadence.

Mind you: this is going to be a lot richer than your usual ice cream, so keep servings modest.

Have a scoop…or two.

Malted Chocolate Ice Cream

• 2 cups heavy or all-purpose cream
• 1 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 cup Milo
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 four-finger Kit Kat bars, diced

Whisk together the cream, condensed milk, vanilla, and Milo.  Pour into a covered container and freeze for 1 – 2 hours.

Remove the semi-frozen mixture from its container and place in a large mixing bowl.  Using a hand-mixer, whisk at highest speed until at least double in volume or until soft peaks form.  Fold in the diced Kit Kats and scrape into a covered container.  Freeze at least six hours or overnight.

Serves 12.

In Which One Gussies Up Her Toast…

Not quite Shibuya Toast, but every bit as good…possibly better

Shibuya Toast is a dessert commonly found in Japanese or Korean cafe franchises.  It is, in essence, what it is: toast slathered with sweet toppings.  However, the toast in question is definitely not the same toast you scarf down for breakfast.  Au contraire, what these establishments do is grab a hunk of bread – say a quarter of an unsliced loaf – chuck it into the oven to crisp up, then load it up with syrups and conserves and goodness knows what else.

For this reason, I’ve never been inclined to order it.  For all that I’m for decadent desserts, turning your toast into a groaning behemoth of massive, sugary proportions is just overkill.

For the same reason, I prefer a little more constraint to my dessert toast.  I don’t want a hunk of bread; a somewhat thicker-cut sandwich slice works enough for me.  I don’t need all the bells and whistles of Nutella, matcha syrup, chocolate ganache, and gobs of sweetened adzuki bean.

Truth be told, all I need is a generous schmear of good peanut butter thickly slathered over the bread and a drizzle of wild honey.  Five minutes in the toaster gives the peanut butter a richer flavor and renders the honey crisp like thin, wispy shards of properly made caramel.  I finish it off with a scoop of plain, honest-to-goodness vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of more honey.  Easier to eat, no need to share; a divinely decadent dessert for one given elegant restraint.

In Which There are Churros at La Maripili…

Churros con choco?  Si!

I go on record as saying something to the effect about churros being my nibble of choice during times of stress and sheer and utter frustration.  I also remember saying something about how hard it was, at the time, to grab churros in the BGC where I was working at the time.

Things have changed since that post: I now work in Makati (again) and, while there are no churrerias within my immediate vicinity, I am grateful that I can get a cruller-fix on weekends at La Maripili Churreria at the Alabang Town Center.

Saunter up to the counter and place your order…

La Maripili is located at the Corporate Center, the newest building in the ATC grounds, and is a little difficult to find at first.  But, trust me: it’s worth looking for.

First impressions: a clean space reminiscent of Spanish interiors just after the turn of the last century or of Southern/Caribbean plantation interiors; plenty of wood and wicker, some bits and bobs of wrought iron; and mirrors on the walls.  A refreshing place where one can relax, really.  You can opt to hop onto a bar stool or sit at more conventional tables.

But I am, of course, not here for the decor: I’m here for the churros!

Yes, this is a SMALL serve

A small serve of churros sets you back P 60.00 and you throw in an additional P 110.00 for a cup of smoky-dark hot chocolate.

Mind you, though: these aren’t the skinny sticks you’d get at most lower-market establishments.  For scale, look below:

Yep. they’re pretty damn big

These crullers are as long as an average-sized glossy magazine is wide.  Again: you get six of these beasties to a serve and they’re the perfect size for sharing.  However, for hardened churro-holics like myself, these are just the right size to enjoy for a solo breakfast on a lazy Saturday morning.

These come in a paper cone and are lightly sprinkled with granulated white sugar; every order is freshly-fried so these come to you all crispy-hot and golden.

Sans chocolate, these are nifty on their own: there is an eggy, buttery savor to each bite that you crunch through.  But if you dip these into the chocolate, every bite becomes divinely decadent and you are torn between scarfing down the lot before they get soggy or leisurely crunching through the lot one by one.

It’s like an exquisitely posh take on a hotdog

Flavored churros (P 60.00 per piece) are also on the menu at this particular churreria and diners are spoilt for choice between sweet and savory options.

Here, oversized churro tubes are either pierced at the ends and piped through with creamy custards for sweet options (rumor has it that the classic crema Catalana and chocolate and chili mousse are quite popular) or split on one side and filled with either smoky-salty jamon Serrano or slices of paprika-spiced chorizo; the latter is finished off with a drizzle of honey.

The latter is a rather posh spin on a hotdog: a nifty little sandwich (or, to put it in context, bocadito) that is portable and easily noshable.  The sausage is said to be in-house and is excellent: just the right amount of paprika, deliciously porky, and has an even ratio of fat to lean.  The honey adds a light sweetness that offsets the spice and works beautifully against the eggy taste of the churro.  While putting a sausage into a cruller sounds ridiculous, I suggest you try it at least once – and you’ll find yourself craving for one.  Oh, and if you’re hankering for more substantial savory fare, La Maripili also has savory toast and sandwich options to choose from.

And, if you’re still craving for something sweet, this shop also has a selection of chocolate-covered churros (P 40 for classic dark or white chocolate; P 60 for fruit-infused white chocolate) you will be glad to sink your teeth into.

All things considered, La Maripili is definitely a place I’d be happy to return to…and I’ll be more than happy to head on back.

La Maripili Churreria: Ground Floor – Corporate Center, Alabang Town Center, Alabang, Muntinlupa

In Which There is Breakfast for Dessert…

Matcha Souffle Pancake

Under ordinary circumstances, pancakes and waffles are dishes usually considered breakfast or brunch.  However, a little creativity and a touch of divine decadence can take these mundane munchies to another level as seriously scrumptious desserts.

Take, for instance, the matcha souffle pancake (PhP 180.00) from a new discovery: Le Petit Souffle over at Makati’s Century City Mall.  At first glance, compared to the other green tea confections available on LPS’s menu, it looks rather plain: a thick, stodgy cake under a light snowdrift of confectioner’s sugar.  But when you take a bite…!

Splodge on some creme Anglaise et laissez les bon temps rouler!

You sink your teeth into a delightfully fluffy bit of cake: somewhere between a very thick breakfast buttermilk flapjack and a light and airy chiffon.  Here, the matcha has a very pronounced flavor: somewhat floral though without the grassiness that seems to characterize the taste of more common matcha-infused sweets.  There is no bitterness, though the herbaceous character of the matcha used (I’m half-tempted to describe it as la fleur de matcha because it is so headily fragrant) adds a very mild astringent hit.

This will arrive at your table with pots of vanilla bean creme Anglaise and maple syrup.  Tip: skip the maple syrup as it adds nothing to this pancake’s charms.  Instead, generously splodge on the rich, luxurious-textured vanilla cream on every bite: the lushness works gorgeously with the pillowy texture of the cake.

After these, you probably won’t want to eat waffles any other way

Now, as for the waffles, southerners should make a beeline for Milkbox at the Alabang Town Center and grab the dark chocolate waffle sundae (PhP 290.00 for a two-scoop serve).

Here, two dark chocolate waffles fresh off the iron are drizzled over with chocolate and strawberry syrups, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, scattered over with bits of brown sugar brittle and edible flowers, then topped with two scoops of the ice cream of your choice and a pair of toasted marshmallows.

No regrets if this is the only thing you’ll eat all day!

The waffles are properly crisp on the edges and fluffy within, their crevices a perfect catch-basin for dollops of syrup.  These cakes are more bitter than  sweet, by the way: the smoky richness of cocoa evident in each bite as well as the aroma.  (I swear: you can smell the waffles cooking several feet away.)

Milkbox denizens recommend dark chocolate, red velvet, and green tea ice creams for topping this bittersweet behemoth.  I recommend the latter two: the cream cheese in the red velvet adds a welcome tang that goes nicely with the strawberry syrup while the green tea helps balance the bitterness with a somewhat nutty – almost almond-esque – nuance.

Le Petit Souffle: 3rd Floor – Century City Mall, Kalayaan Avenue, Poblacion, Makati

Milkbox: Lower Ground Level – New Wing, Alabang Town Center, Alabang, Muntinlupa