Food Tasting # 21: Toy Cakes and Pastries by Chef Kiko

Okay, this is not the usual food tasting entry that you guys are used to because I didn't really attend a caterer's grand food tasting. Instead, I, along with some W@Wie friends, went to Chef Kiko's house to taste some of his delicious cakes and desserts! I already booked my cake supplier, but I just couldn't pass the chance to taste some delicious treats for free!

I've heard a lot of great reviews about Toy Cakes and Pastries by Chef Kiko, and I personally love the cupcakes that he baked for the W@W Grand EB, so I was really excited to taste more of his goodies! :)

We picked the perfect time for our cake tasting because another client had booked Chef Kiko to do their dessert buffet, so there was a table full of cupcakes and other goodies when we arrived. And these were all served to us! Yey!

Now let's get a more close-up look at all these desserts. First up are the panna cottas. We had the Kit-Kat Panna Cotta, the Fruit Panna Cotta, and the Malteser Panna Cotta. I just made up the last one since I'd completely forgotten the name of the panna cotta. I just called it the Malteser Panna Cotta since it has a Malteser in it. Haha!

From L-R: Kit-Kat Panna Cotta, Fruit Panna Cotta, and Malteser Panna Cotta

What I love about Chef Kiko's panna cottas is that they have the right amount of sweetness to them, even those with chocolates as toppings! Hindi siya nakakaumay talaga. I especially love the fruit panna cotta because the sourness of the fruits was the perfect complement to the panna cotta. I loved them so much that I got three shot glasses! Patay gutom lang. Haha.

Then we had the cupcakes, both the bite-size and full size versions! We had Dark Chocolate Ganache, Banana Walnut, Red Velvet and Lemon cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes

Boy, all of the cupcakes were yummy! Mox especially liked the dark choco ganache, although I found them a bit too sweet. Just one or two of these bite-size babies would satisfy my choco cravings. The banana walnut was also delicious, but I'm not a fan kasi of anything with nuts in it, so I'll probably pass on this one. I loved the red velvet and lemon cupcakes because both were not too sour nor too sweet, and yet you can still taste their distinctive flavors (the cream cheese frosting for the red velvet cupcake and the lemon flavor for the lemon cupcake).

Lastly, we hadFruit Tarts and Truffles. I really couldn't comment much on the fruit tarts because I didn't taste them, but for the truffles, I only have one thing to say: choco overload! Imagine this chocolate ball that is the size of a jackstone ball covered with cocoa powder. It was delicious, but I could only take so much chocolate for the day. Ako na ang gumive-up sa kanya! Haha!

Truffles and Fruit Tarts

Chef Kiko also showed us a sample of his three-layered cake, which costs about P6,500. The cake has one edible layer, which is the bottom part, and is taller than the average three-layered cake. I guess in a way, sulit na rin siya. And of course, you can be sure that your cake would taste delicious.

Despite being tired from conducting a dessert tasting for one client and baking a wedding cake for another client, Chef Kiko was still so cheerful and friendly to the group of very noisy people who went to the cake tasting. And mind you, we were 13 in the group, including the grooms. Talagang sinugod namin si Chef! Haha! Still, he was able answer all of our inquiries and even took a group picture with us.

Thank you again Chef Kiko for the very warm welcome and for the delicious treats! :) I'm really looking forward to tasting your Chocolate Cheesecake. A note to my darling fiance, you now know what cake to order for my birthday. Haha!

TOY CAKES AND PASTRIES BY CHEF KIKO
#5 16th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City
0905-3191296

Wedding Cake: Booked!

Our wedding cake was not a priority. In fact, I even said before that I wouldn't get a cake because I find the usual three-tiered cakes too expensive. But then again, the parental units insisted that I must have a wedding cake because it is part of the tradition. Since I didn't want to stir any trouble with them, I just decided to find the cheapest cake possible.

I started scouting for cake suppliers that offer the most affordable cake-only rates at bridal fairs. I wasn't interested at availing their usual packages with the additional mini cakes, cupcakes and other freebies since our dessert buffet from Purpledish already consists of cakes. Baka magmukhang Oompa Loompa na ang mga bisita namin sa sobrang daming cakes. Haha!

Sadly though, most of the suppliers' rates start from P6,500 to P7,500, which was over our budget. I was actually thinking of just spending around P4,000 for our cake. Kuripot much? Hehe. Even Goldilocks offer cakes that were out of our budget range!

Then I chanced upon Hearts and Bells at the Weddings and Debuts bridal fair around two weeks ago. I've been reading great feedbacks about them from W@W for their designs, flavors and affordable rates. I plan to have a customized wedding cake that would showcase our theme, and Hearts and Bells quoted my design at only P4,000 to P6,500, depending on the diameter of the cakes. They do have a delivery charge though of P600, but it was still within our budget.

I was itching to book them already, but I wanted to wait for Mox to help me decide so I started looking for other suppliers. Then I saw Gervy's Cakes at another booth. Instead of using fondant, they use chocolate to cover their cakes—dark, white and even colored chocolate! The cakes even have some chocolate fillings inside! Oh my, I was in chocolate heaven!

Gervy offered this mini cake tower, which has around 20 or 30 mini cakes on it, and a cutting cake, which is customizable to your wedding theme. It costs around P8,000, which was supposedly too expensive for us, but I thought it was too cute to resist. Haha!

Gervy's mini cake tower (taken from their Multiply site)

But when I showed it to Mox, he didn't felt the same way that I did. He didn't want a mini cake tower; what he wanted was a traditional three-layered cake. Gervy's three-tiered cakes were too expensive—starting at around P10,000 I think—so I had to let them go. Sayang.

So I went back to our original choice, Hearts and Bells. When we checked out their portfolio, we saw that they have already made several beach-themed wedding cakes, so I gave them plus points for that. So after discussing things with Mox, we decided to finally get them. Since we booked them at the wedding fair, we had a choice to either have a P10% discount or 15 pieces of cupcakes. We decided to just get the 10% discount so that it would at least cancel out the delivery charge. Hehe.

We just picked out our design from their catalog since we found the perfect beach-themed cake that also had our color motif. I won't paste the picture here though; you just have to attend our wedding to find out. :) A few more suppliers to go and we are finally done! Yey! :)

HEARTS AND BELLS CAKE ARTISTRY
934 Alvarado Street, Binondo, Manila
242-0599 / 244-0255 
heartsnbells@yahoo.com

Food Tasting # 8: Ma Del's Cuisine Part 2

Mox and I were supposed to go church hunting last Tuesday, but it seemed like luck was not on our side because all of our ocular visits were all in vain. Our first stop was at Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills, but a wedding was taking place when we arrived so we weren't able to take pictures of the interior of the church. Not only that, the parish office was closed so we couldn't ask them when their 2014 calendar will open. Ang malas lang diba? Our next target was North Greenhills Clubhouse, but because it was a holiday, the office was also closed. We were so frustrated that we decided to cancel our last visit, which was supposed to be Mary the Queen Parish, and just go home.

One good thing did happen though: Mox was able to accompany me to another food tasting with Ma Del's Cuisine! My parents and brother were the ones who were with me during my first food tasting, so I scheduled another one to let Mox taste their food. The food served today were the same as the ones served before, except for the chicken and fish entrees. Forgive me though because I forgot again to take pictures of our plates. Masyado ulit kaming naexcite kumain eh.

We again had the Fettuccine Italiana for our pasta. Surprisingly, I appreciated the dish this time around because it was more flavorful than the last time. I don't like my pasta sour, which is why I am not a fan of tomato-based pasta, but the Fettuccine Italiana was packed with meat, which made it a bit salty—just the way I like it. Mox thought it was so delicious that he literally gobbled it down. Patay-gutom lang ang peg. Haha!

Another repeater was the Roast Beef with Mushroom Gravy. Last time, I said that my roast beef was tough to chew. Now I believe that it was bad luck at that time because now my roast beef is very soft and tender. The mushroom gravy again has that sweet-salty taste that I love. Think the gravy used in Jollibee's burger steak, but even better! Basta ang sarap niya. It’s just too bad that the famed Spanish Beef Caldereta was not served during our food tasting so I couldn't compare both beef entrees.

We then had the Chicken Flambe next. Flambe means to ignite food that have liquor or liqueur added, so I  thought the chicken has some alcohol in it. But the Chicken Flambe looked nothing like what I'd expected; instead it looked just like the Chicken Cordon Bleu because the fillet was fried, filled with ham and cheese, and had some gravy on top. I couldn't taste a single drop of alcohol in it. However, I'm not complaining because the chicken was very juicy and the gravy balanced the cheesiness of the dish. Plus, I'm not really a fan of alcohol-soaked food, except for my mom's nilasing na hipon (but of course, the shrimps were soaked in Sprite rather than alcohol so that's not counted). Mox loved this dish so much that he even ate the rest of my share. Haha!

Our fish dish was Fish Fillet with Tartar Sauce. What I liked about this is that Ma Del's is very generous with their fillet. You can practically taste all of the fish in one bite, unlike other fish fillets where there are mostly bread crumbs. The tartar sauce is also the perfect dip for the fried seafood. Yummy! This dish is similar to Quido's Fish Fillet with Mayo Garlic Sauce but I'm more impressed with Ma Del's version.

For our pork entrée, we again had the Korean Pork. It tasted as delicious as before, but compared to the other dishes that we’ve tasted, I thought it was too salty and overpowering now. Yes, too much flavor can be a bad thing. Plus, it looked too boring next to the other entrees because it was the only dish without any sauce or dip.

And for our dessert, we had the Buco Pandan Salad. Honestly, I don’t know if it was really the Buco Pandan Salad that we ate or the Buco Pandan Jello. They looked exactly alike, from the shot glass to the whipped cream on top. The only difference was there was more coconut meat in the Buco Pandan Salad. Maybe it was really Buco Pandan Jello and Anj just made a typo on our menu for the day? I don't know; I should just stop confusing myself now. Bottomline is, the dessert was really delicious!

Since Anj already explained the inclusions of their packages during our previous food tasting, she just showed us some samples of her beach-themed setups, including the beach-themed wedding cakes made by her cake supplier. Since we will have around 150 guests, we are entitled to pick two freebies and one of those freebies could be our wedding cake.

Ma Del's offers both icing and fondant wedding cakes. There are template designs for the cakes, but Ma Del's also allows customized designs for an additional fee. I think the icing cakes would cost around P3,500 to P4,500 while a fondant cake would cost around P8,000. Here are some samples of an icing cake and a fondant cake from Ma Del's for a beach-themed wedding. I think the icing cake below is based on a template design while the fondant cake is customized to suit the theme.

Satellite Cake

Fondant Cake

I know I said before that a customized cake would be the least of our priorities, but I'm now ready to eat my words. Just look at it! It's so pretty! And while I still don't think we could afford a customized wedding cake, I am willing to look for other affordable suppliers for this, if there are any.

VERDICT: Mox just loved Anj and Ma Del's. He would probably book them on the spot if their 2014 calendar was already opened. He was quite participative during our meeting, asking Anj questions regarding their setups and other services. He even asked Anj to compute how much would it cost us if we would get their most expensive package with tiffany chairs. Bibong-bibo talaga si kuya! Haha! This was a surprise because he would rarely talk during the few times that he'd accompany me to a supplier meeting. I guess he felt the this-is-it moment with Ma Del's. :) Of course we still need to attend a few more food tastings before we make a decision, but Ma Del's is now a frontrunner in our search for our caterer.

No Cake Please

Whenever I would say that we might not get a wedding cake for our wedding, people would look at me in disbelief and say, "Di pwede yun! Dapat may cake!" It's as if I've committed a grave sin if I didn't have a three-tiered cake at our reception.

Honestly, I do not understand why it is such a big deal to have a wedding cake. I know it's for the cake-cutting ceremony, but we plan not to have that tradition in our wedding. (In fact, we'll probably omit most wedding traditions in our program, like bouquet toss and the couple's first dance, but that is another story.) Sorry, but I find it cheesy and embarassing to have Mox "help" me cut the cake. It reminds me too much of my childhood birthdays when people would force me to pose for pictures while holding a knife and pretending to cut my birthday cake. Ang corny sobra. Ugh.

I'm also not a fan of fondant cakes, which are usually used for weddings. The only cake I like is Goldilock's Chocolate Roll and only because I can lick the icing on its sides. But I doubt that could be used as a wedding cake. Besides, it's not like everyone could get a slice of cake. Most three-tiered cakes have only one edible layer—the bottom tier—while the two top tiers are made from styrofoam. I don't think the guests would like to taste that. Haha.

Now don't let me get to the price of the cake. Conventional wedding cakes cost an average of P10,000 or more, especially if it's customized to your theme or motif. Yes, a customized wedding cake would look good in wedding photos, but I still think it is not worth spending thousands of pesos for. I would rather spend that amount of money on my wedding gown or hair and make-up. Di hamak naman na mas maganda akong picturan kesa sa wedding cake noh! Haha!

Of course, if someone would offer to sponsor a wedding cake for us, then who am I to refuse that generous offer? But if not, then the cake would be the least priority in our wedding budget. A much better alternative would probably be a cupcake tower so that more guests would be able to enjoy the "cake", but I'm a bit iffy about that idea as well because it is also expensive. Oh well, I'll just look for cheaper options.