Noche Buena Ideas with Alaska Crema from the Merry Cremas Festival 2015

When December comes and we all start feeling the cool breeze, I can’t help but get all giddy with excitement for Christmas. Ken and I always look forward to Noche Buena because that’s when our nanay prepares extra special dishes for the whole family to enjoy. In the past few years, nanay and Ken have made it a habit to prepare something new every Noche Buena. This is why we always look forward to the annual Alaska Merry Cremas Festival where we get to see what new dishes we can add to our Christmas feast.

Merry Cremas Festival 2015 by Alaska Crema at Trinoma Activity Center

This year’s Merry Cremas Festival was held at the Trinoma Activity Center. As expected, there was quite a delicious lineup of sweet and savory dishes made using Alaska Crema All-Purpose Cream. We weren’t able to taste everything, but it’s fun to see how creative you can be and how one ingredient – Alaska Crema – can be incorporated in a variety of dishes to give them that extra creamy goodness. Let’s start off with our top favorites from the 2015 Alaska Merry Cremas Festival.

 

KISS’ Mille Crepe Cakes

During our first round of food sampling, KISS wasn’t open yet. Good thing we came back because we would’ve missed their creamy tower of mille crepe cakes. From the endless stream of people crowding their booth, I can say that their cakes were on the top of the best-sellers at the Merry Cremas Festival. We bought a slice of their Salted Caramel Cake. They used Alaska Crema in their buttercream, so it was oh-so velvety! Since I don’t have an oven now in my condo, this is one dessert I can’t wait to recreate! 🙂

KISS' Mille Crepe Cakes filled with buttercream made with Alaska Crema

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The Maya Kitchen Baking Class with The Burp Society

After our dinner at Van Gogh is Bipolar, we thought it’ll be fun to organize a different kind of activity for the next The Burp Society meet-up. Thankfully, The Maya Kitchen gladly helped us organize a baking class for our group, which turned out to be a completely fun and learning experience for all of us.

The Burp Society and Ms Rory at The Maya Kitchen

Ken’s an excellent pastry chef, which has inspired me to want to learn how to bake. So, I thought it’ll be a great idea to hold a baking class exclusively for The Burp Society. And, almost immediately, I thought about The Maya Kitchen Culinary Arts Center.

Maya Kitchen display of products

I’m sure you’re all familiar with Maya, the brand well-known and trusted for decades by us Filipinos because of the quality of their products. You’ve probably prepared pancakes, brownies, cakes, cookies or even champorado at home with ease because of Maya’s mixes. But, did you know they have been helping out entrepreneurs and home bakers and cooks for years now through the classes they hold at The Maya Kitchen? You can learn more about this through their website: www.themayakitchen.com.

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Where to Buy Cronuts in Manila

If there’s one thing we love about the widespread use of social media in the country today, it’s got to be how the hottest, latest and yummiest trends from all over the world quickly become all the craze here in the Philippines. The most recent fad has to do with the sweet, flaky goodness of Cronutsâ„¢. And if you’re yearning to know where to buy cronuts here in the Philippines, read on.

Cronuts by Chef Dominique Ansel

Photo from Dominique Ansel Bakery

If you haven’t heard of these delightful pastries yet (have you been living under a rock? :D), Cronuts are made with a special laminated dough closely similar to croissant dough, and fried like donuts (originally in grapeseed oil), filled in with cream, then rolled in sugar and glazed or topped with frosting. The original cronut is a creation of Chef Dominique Ansel who owns a bakery in New York and if you check their website, his cronut recipe requires a more complex method, which is why it took him 2 months and 10 tries to finally perfect the recipe that will enable him to fry the laminated / croissant dough without it breaking apart.

Chef Dominique Ansel - Cronuts

Photo from Crains New York

Wildflour Cafe Cronuts Croissant DonutsSince he launched the cronuts in May this year, everyone seemed to be clamoring for a taste and this quickly spread all over the world (with people lining up for hours and some even paying as much as $100 for one cronut), and has finally reached the Philippines last month through Wildflour Cafe + Bakery. Thankfully, I haven’t seen anyone who’s too obsessed with these pastries yet here in Manila.

I first heard about the cronuts when I saw all the tweets about it on my work Twitter account (I have social media clients based in NYC). I asked Ken if he can make them at home. He said it’s not an easy task to make such an intricate pastry. But, he said he’ll try to make his own version at home. We’ll see. 😉

Anyway, between the two of us, Ken’s the only one who has tried Wildflour’s cronut. He loved it, but he’s not as enamored as everyone seems to be. Still, he said, there’s no doubt it’s a beautiful creation, which is why I cannot wait to have a taste. We’re now on a quest to find out which cronuts are the best, so I listed down all the restaurants and pastry shops here in the Philippines that are serving these croissant-doughnut hybrids. If you know of other places we haven’t added yet, let us know. 🙂

 

Where to Buy Cronuts in Metro Manila

Note: The photos in this post are not ours. See the photo credit links at the bottom of each photo. Those without labels were taken from the resto/store’s Facebook pages.

UPDATE: So far, we’ve tried the cronut versions of Dolcelatte and Le Coeur de France. We’ll post our reviews of them soon.

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Chocolate Lover : A Baking and Confectionery Store

There are many things I’m currently enjoying about Ken being in culinary school. First, of course, is everything he bakes or cooks at home so he can practice or prepare for an upcoming test or lab activity in school. I especially loved these cream puffs and éclairs he made for our birthday celebration weeks ago. Everyone loved them! 🙂

Eclairs and Cream Puffs Ken baked for our birthday party

Secondly is shopping with him for ingredients and tools he’ll need at home. One of our favorite stores now is Chocolate Lover in P. Tuazon in Cubao, Quezon City.

Chocolate Lover - a store for your baking, confectionery and packaging needs

If you’ve passed through their area in QC, we bet you saw the eye-catching design of their building. I mean, seriously. How can you miss this castle?

The Chocolate Lover castle store in Cubao, Quezon City

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