Busy, busy

Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t been updating lately. I have so many pictures that I have to download to my PC from my mom’s camera phone and upload to the net.

I’ve been busy lately–not only with Chipper Cupcakes, but also with preparing for the start of the school year. Yes, I’m a teacher, and I love what I do, and I’ve spent days preparing my syllabus and readings. I also have to focus on my thesis (I’m finishing my master’s degree this year) which I had woefully neglected.

(Oh, and did I mention that I was on ANC this afternoon, for a non-teaching and non-cupcake related reason? I represented JVP on ShopTalk, and I feel very privileged–and a bit shy–to have had represented such a great organization on television. It was my first-ever TV "guesting"–and it was aired live!)

Rest assured, though, Chipper Cupcakes is still here! There are also some upcoming media appearances lined up–I’ll tell you more about them in another entry!

(Now, to get those photos onto the PC asap…)

Busy, busy

Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t been updating lately. I have so many pictures that I have to download to my PC from my mom’s camera phone and upload to the net.

I’ve been busy lately–not only with Chipper Cupcakes, but also with preparing for the start of the school year. Yes, I’m a teacher, and I love what I do, and I’ve spent days preparing my syllabus and readings. I also have to focus on my thesis (I’m finishing my master’s degree this year) which I had woefully neglected.

(Oh, and did I mention that I was on ANC this afternoon, for a non-teaching and non-cupcake related reason? I represented JVP on ShopTalk, and I feel very privileged–and a bit shy–to have had represented such a great organization on television. It was my first-ever TV "guesting"–and it was aired live!)

Rest assured, though, Chipper Cupcakes is still here! There are also some upcoming media appearances lined up–I’ll tell you more about them in another entry!

(Now, to get those photos onto the PC asap…)

out for the weekend!

Hi everyone! I’ll be at a (non-baking-related) seminar from Friday to Sunday, so I will be able to go online and check my mail only by Monday morning, 19 May. If you need to get in touch with me ASAP, please contact me through my mobile. 

:)

And since I’m taking a long weekend off, I’m leaving you with some photos!

These are for tomorrow, for Aileen S.’s son. So cute! 

 And a little bonus–my dad’s kamote bread!

so pretty! they look like whole-grain rolls!

One of the most frequently-asked questions that I get from potential customers is, "What other things do you bake?" To be honest, I bake a lot of other things–tart tatin, quiche, brownies, cookies–but just for my family’s consumption. We love our food, but since eating out is a bit expensive, a lot of times we make our own versions of our favorite food. (Just this evening, we made our own version of callos, based on my lola’s recipe, which uses garbanzos and not white beans.)

One of my dad’s favorite food is bread. These last two months, he actually started teaching himself how to bake bread–something I’ve never tried myself, because I don’t have the patience for waiting for dough to rise. He’s been surfing the internet and reading up on bread-making, and in the span of a few short months, he’s gone from tough (kailangan-isawasaw-sa-kape-para-lumambot) bread rolls to this:

look at that texture! the crumb! I actually ate FIVE of these, they were that good! 

I’m seriously thinking of expanding Chipper Cupcakes’ product line to include My Dad’s Bread. What do you think?

celebrations!

The past four days have been filled with celebrations, and Chipper Cupcakes is happy that it was a part of some of them.

The first celebration was last Friday, at the Filway corporate offices. Chipper Cupcakes helped Filway and its corporate foundation, AHON (Acts of Hope for the Nation), celebrate AHON’s Second Anniversary. AHON is helping public elementary and high schools all over the country build real libraries and promote the culture of reading and learning. (Fast Fact: Did you know that, even though all high school graduates in the country know how to read, not all of them actually understand and comprehend what they read?)

 The cupcake tower. The candles were a hasty addition by my friend, Val, who is one of the project officers of AHON. 

  Blowing out the candles! In the back is Mr. Tagaysay, the really jolly, happy big boss of Filway and AHON. (He’s also chair of one of the alumni committees in Ateneo, he raises funds for scholarships. As a former scholar myself, thanks Mr. Tagaysay!) 

Sunday, of course, was Mothers’ day. Here’s a hasty photo of one of the Mothers’ Day orders:

Finally, Monday marked a boy’s birthday–Sheryl C.’s nephew’s birthday, to be exact. My first attempt at doing the Transformers in fondant:

an experiment in taste

Last night, I had some friends taste these:

chocolate cupcakes with a lemon-black pepper cream cheese frosting.

The inspiration for these cupcakes was a chocolate bar that I saw about a month ago at the Rustan’s Supermarket in Gateway. Made by the Swiss chocolate maker, Frey, they immediately caught my eye, initially because it was dark chocolate of a fairly high cacao percentage (which I love, love, love). A closer look at the label revealed something incredibly intriguing: it was a dark chocolate bar flavored with lemon and cracked black pepper.

Chocolate and lemon together as two flavors are fairly familiar–many chocolatiers make truffles of some variation on the theme, and I remember eating one extremely luscious mini chocolate bar from somewhere in Spain that a colleague had brought to the office "Meeting Room" (really an eating room) as a pasalubong. That mini chocolate bar sticks out vividly because it had tasted like fresh lemons, not just lemon essence–but since it was a mass-produced chocolate bar, I have, to this day, no idea how they did that. (My only guess is maybe they used real lemon oil.)

But black pepper? With chocolate and lemon? I did a double take.

A few moments later, it started to make a bit more sense. After all, the Aztecs made their cocoa drinks spiced with chillies. In Mexico and other parts of the world, people regularly place all sorts of herbs and spices in their chocolate or cocoa–cinnamon, mint, nutmeg…

Why not black pepper? It is, after all, a spice like cinnamon and nutmeg.

So I made an impulse buy (supermarkets and marketers love me, I am the classic impulse buyer) and took that bar of Frey chocolate home with me. After tasting my first chunk off that bar, I regretted not buying more of it.

These cupcakes are really my humble attempt to re-create that chocolate bar in cupcake form. The lemon and crushed black pepper (freshly crushed!) gave the cupcakes such an intriguing fragrance. I rushed to my dad after taking a bite of the first cupcake I had frosted, and offered him the other half. The best way to describe the way it tasted–chocolate and lemon, with the black pepper giving more of an aroma than a bite. The smell of the black pepper was almost herb-like–rich and earthy.

My Dad and I love spices, so we both loved it, but it didn’t necessarily mean that others would like it too. So I brought it to a dinner party last night, with friends from college. What they said:

The boyfriend: "I love it!" (Reaches for the pepper shaker.) "More pepper!"

The guy half of the foodie couple: It’s an acquired taste, but it’s good.

The girl half of the foodie couple: Black pepper usually gets stuck in the back of her throat, but she loved it so much, she had two cupcakes, kebs ang epekto ng pepper. She also said that the cake base reminded her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Friend from high school to college, until now: The pepper was a great touch.

Friend with a huge sweet tooth: "Ayus ‘to. Panalo."

‘Nuff said, I think.

Chipper Cupcakes in SPOT.ph’s Mothers’ Day Guide

Check out Chipper Cupcakes’ listing in the SPOT.ph Mothers’ Day Guide!

:)

More Mothers’ Day cupcakes! :)

As promised, here is another design for Mothers’ Day cupcakes, as well as a sample of the Mothers’ Day packaging.

:)

Mothers’ Day Packages

Mother’s day is just around the corner. Here at Chipper Cupcakes, we love moms. Moms amaze and inspire and support. (Just a quick shout-out to my mom here: I love you mom, thanks for all the support!) What better way to show your appreciation for all their hard work and patience by getting them a dozen cupcakes?

I’ve put together some packages to choose from this coming Mothers’ Day:

Pacakge 1: Everything’s Coming Up Roses (Php 420)

• 1 dozen chocolate cupcakes frosted with pink vanilla buttercream
• the buttercream is piped in tiny rosettes all over the cupcake, like this:

• comes in a lovely candy-red box, with a pink bow, and a blank card for your message

 Package 2: I heart Mom (Php504)

• 1 dozen red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (made with Philadelphia cream cheese), or 1 dozen mango rum cupcakes, or 1 dozen vegan chocolate cupcakes*
• topped with fondant hearts, and 5 cupcakes that spell out "I [heart] MOM" in fondant letters. (Or, 6 cupcakes that spell out "WE [heart] MOM." Look out for some sample photos after this weekend!
• comes in a lovely candy-red box, with a pink bow, and a blank card for your message.

*I recommend the mango rum cupcakes, because they’re my mom’s faves. For health-buff moms, I recommend the Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. Just as good as my regular chocolate cupcakes. Come to think of it, they’re even better than my regular chocolate cupcakes, since they’re WAY healthier. Lovely stuff, I promise! It has the stamp of approval of my boyfriend’s (vegan) mom.

And because it’s Mothers’ Day and it’s really tough to decide what we want to give to our moms (trust me, it’s agony for me, too!), I’m giving everyone 3 days lead time for orders. All orders for Mothers’ Day cupcakes must be in by 8 May.   

Cheers!

more cupcakes (what else?)

 Just my most recent work.  ^__^

Chocolate baptism cupcakes for Rose C., for her daughter’s baptism. Isn’t her baby adorable? 

Nigella’s extra-moist chocolate cupcakes (with ganache frosting), for Mina C. I hadn’t made these in some time, and my eyes bugged out when I had to buy Valrhona chocolates at my favorite supply store. In any case, they’re worth it! They’re crazily-rich-moist cupcakes, and I love, love, love ganache. I could eat it by itself. (This is the reason, folks, why I’ve gained some weight…)