Chocolates and Candies Archives

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.

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! 🙂

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Make Someone’s Christmas Delicious with Mondelez

It’s a few weeks before Christmas, and I haven’t done any gift shopping yet. Thankfully, I share many interests with the people I’m buying gifts for, particularly, my love for chocolate. If you’re in the same situation as I am, you’d be delighted to know that Mondelez Philippines has a lineup of goodies that you can give away as instant gifts this Christmas.

I love receiving and giving personalized gifts, and in the past years, I can no longer count with my 2 hands the number of times I’ve received and given personalized Toblerone bars as gifts for birthdays and the holidays. It’s cute, personal, and, not to mention delicious too. I especially love the Crunchy Almonds variant. 🙂

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Champorado and Bibingka with Toblerone & Cadbury – A Sweet Twist to Your Favorite Pinoy Merienda

Whenever the clock hits 3 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s like our bodies are programmed to want to have merienda. We grew up like this, and I still remember our nanay knocking on our doors at 3pm, announcing it’s merienda time. When we follow her to the kitchen, we’ll be delighted by the spread of different snacks she bought or prepared for us. You’d usually find pansit luglog or Pansit Malabon, lugaw with tokwa’t baboy, turon (we call it valencia), sopas, ginataan, ensaymada, bibingka and, my favorite, champorado.

Yes, champorado. Some may think that it’s better enjoyed for breakfast, but I beg to disagree. 😀 I love champorado for merienda because it gives me a much-needed boost in the middle of the afternoon that’ll last until the end of the day. 🙂 I also love turon, ginataan, peachy-peachy, and, of course, Pansit Malabon.

Ken’s merienda favorites are lugaw, Pansit Malabon and bibingka. The latter, you’d think you can only find people selling them during the holidays, but in Malabon, it’s a regular snack choice because it’s readily available all year round (that’s why we LOVE our home town 😀 ).

If you’ve seen our past recipes, you already know how we enjoy adding our own twists to usual dishes. This time, Ken came up with 2 Pinoy merienda recipes with a sweet twist that we’re sure you’ll both love. He used products from Mondelez Philippines.

Mondelez Philippines, formerly named Kraft Foods, has been around for over 5 decades. They’re the authority when it comes to snacks. Don’t believe us? Under their belt, they have Oreo, Toblerone, Cadbury, and Tiger Enery Biscuits. Their Eden Cheese is a regular when we prepare spaghetti. We also add cheesiness to our ‘flying saucer’ sandwiches with Cheez Whiz. Merienda won’t be complete, especially for our nanay, without a pitcher of her favorite Tang.

Mondelez has been constantly innovating, coming up with new flavors that us Filipinos love. Have you tried their Oreo Coconut Delight? You must! How about the Tang Dalandan, Honey Lemon and Calamansi? 🙂

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Baon Ideas with Oreo and Tiger Energy Biscuits

I remember when we were still kids, our nanay wakes up really early in the morning to prepare our baon for school. Ken and I usually didn’t know what she prepared for us, and we’ll just be pleasantly surprised come recess time. I guess that’s why we always look forward to opening our lunchboxes during our breaks. She always makes sure we have something to eat that’s not just delicious, but will also energize us for the rest of our school day.

I’m sure many moms would agree that a good baon is vital during school days. I’m seeing a lot of moms getting creative with their kids’ baon nowadays. If you’re one of them, and you need a little inspiration, we’ve got a few ideas for you. We used 2 well-known products fromÂ Mondelez PhilippinesÂ for these recipes.

If this is your first time hearing about Mondelez (pronounced ‘mohn-dah-leez’, meaning ‘delicious world’), their company was formerly named Kraft Foods. The company has been around for decades and theyâ€™re behind familiar brands likeÂ Oreo cookies, Tiger Energy biscuits,Â Tang, Eden Cheese, Cheez Whiz, Cadbury, and Toblerone. If you check their website, you’ll find delightful recipes forÂ fun baon ideas for your kids.

Ken and I love putting a twist on our favorite dishes, and we did exactly that with the recipes belowÂ usingÂ Tiger Energy Biscuits and Oreo cookies, which are already good baon as is, but we thought of other creative treats you can make with them. These snacks / baon bites will surely give you a boost of energy, so it’s not just great for kids, but also fun snacks to take with you to the office or as merienda at home. Let us know once you’ve tried these recipes, okay? Enjoy! 🙂

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Celebrate the Best of Filipino Cuisine at Corniche of Diamond Hotel

There are but a few world class hotels in the Philippines that celebrate the culinary heritage of their host country. Diamond Hotel is one of those few, and they promote our rich cuisine by launching an annual Filipino Food Festival. This year, they have asked 3 of Manilaâ€™s most celebrated chefs to come aboard and showcase their prowess by reinventing all-time Pinoy favorites at The Best of Filipino Cuisine lunch and dinner buffet in Corniche RestaurantÂ from May 13â€“23, 2014.

FILIPINO CELEBRITY CHEFS + DIAMOND HOTEL EXECUTIVE CHEF

Filipino celebrity chefs Bruce Lim, Sau del Rosario and JP AngloÂ join Diamond Hotel’s Executive Chef Marko Rankel in celebrating the flavors of Filipino cuisine. We loved every twist they added to the dishes they prepared for this food festival. 🙂

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A Luxurious Lunch at Spiral in Sofitel Manila

Our family loves eating at buffets. It all began when our Nanay finally decided that she’s too old to throw grand parties at home. We can’t blame her though. She painstakingly handles everything from planning, shopping, cooking, and even cleaning up. Since then, buffets have become our go-to place when we’re celebrating something special. We’ve tried a number of buffet places like Yakimix, CafÃ© Jeepney, Seoul Garden, 7 Corners of Crowne Plaza, F Restaurant at F1 Hotel and our recent favorite, Viking’s. But one place we’re dying to try is Spiral at Sofitel Manila. We were supposed to celebrate our nanay’s birthday at their restaurant earlier this year, but she had something else in mind.

The New Spiral

After the devastation Typhoon Pedring had caused, Spiral had to close for 13 months as it went under an $11-million renovation. They took inspiration from the Filipinos’ resilience and viewed all that has happened as a blessing in disguise. They were given a clean slate and a chance to start all over again. And as the saying goes â€” “When you’re down, there’s no way to go but up.” Boy, did Spiral soar high! The old Spiral was already great, but the new one definitely blew all competition out of the water!

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Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Villa del Conte’s Box of Chocolates

I’m not a big fan of flowers. So, when I think of Valentine’s day, the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about the perfect romantic gift is a box of exquisite chocolates. 😉 And if you’re thinking of sending some AMORE (Italian for “love”) to your special someone this Heart’s day, here’s a sure-fire hit: a box of Villa del Conte’s chocolates.

Villa del Conte is an Italian artisanal chocolate shop well-known for their expertise in the creation of the finest cioccolato (Italian for chocolate) using handpicked cacao beans and premium quality ingredients. You might have heard of them already as they have shops all over Metro Manila. They’ve been in the art of making chocolates for 81 years, and so our expectations were high when we received this gorgeous box of their chocolates.

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Brownies! Unlimited New Flavors and Brownie Chips : Your Kind of Brownies

If you’re looking for more foodie gifts for the holidays, here are our last minute recommendations: Brownies! Unlimited‘s new flavors and their addictive Brownie Chips. 🙂

First, let me tell you about their Brownie Chips. When we posted about the Brownie Brittle we recently got to try from Joe & Cherry, we found out (from a fellow foodie) that there’s actually a local version of it and it’s from Brownies! Unlimited.

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Jollibee Mix-in with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses

I don’t know anyone who is not fond of Hershey’s Kisses. I prefer to enjoy them by letting them linger on my tongue as the chocolate goodness melts in my mouth. So, when we found out Jollibee came out with their new Sundae Mix-in with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses, we immediately wanted to try it.

Good thing there’s a nearby Jollibee here in Malabon. Okay, not really nearby – a tricycle and a jeep away is what we meant by that. 😀 We received gift certificates to try their new Mix-in, so we had lunch with my BFF Jasmin and our nanay’s BFF, Tita Beth. We all were eager to try the mix-ins, but we haven’t had lunch yet so we decided to order their chicken meals first.

We were all surprised to know that Jollibee now offers buttered corn and mashed potato alongside your ChickenJoy with rice orders (SuperValue Meal also comes with a drink and sundae). They also have bucket meals now that include these side dishes. Of course, Ken and I picked 2-piece ChickenJoy with rice. 😀

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Moist Chocolate Torte Recipe

I recently got myself a new Nikon D3200 DSLR. I have been very envious of my sister Mhel ever since she got her D3100. On the weekend that I got my camera, I had no idea what to take pictures of, so I decided to bake something to put our food photography skills to the test. I remembered we bought a packet of Hershey’s semi-sweet chocolate chips the last time we were at the supermarket. From then I knew just what to make with it â€” Moist Chocolate Torte.

This is probably the simplest yet the yummiest cake that was taught to me by my pastry chef at the hotel where I previously worked. I recall eating all the leftovers by the kitchen sink, so I can easily pretend that I’m washing our kitchen tools because our executive chef is very sneaky. 😀 He’ll just pop out from nowhere the moment you’ve already put something in your mouth. I’ve been caught a couple of times, but never really got scolded for it. He knew I was always hungry. 😀

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