White Is the Color of Sin

It's weird how we associate the color white with goodness, when some truly evil things come in white packages.

At a shoot for another mag, I got cupcakes and some cake to style a couple of setups. Some wonderful home bakers supplied us with these so-good-they're-bad treats (all white, as I requested):

The lovely Dessert Fairy, Karla Hernandez, provided us with equally lovely cupcakes.

Pretty cupcakes in full bloom

She can do colorful icing, but for this shoot, she stuck with white, and even tweaked her cake recipe to come up with the whitest cake possible. Since I needed them for a floral setup, I requested that the frosting be made to look like flowers or just a simple swirl. She gave me both. As I looked into one box, I admired the lovely toppers, before she even pointed out that she created different "blooms." She actually rattled off real flowers as she pointed to each cupcake, so I'm kind of convinced that she moonlights as a florist.

Karla lived in the US for a while, and so was used to US ingredients. When she got back to the Philippines, she was aghast to find that the quality of the ingredients here is rather...different, to say the least. She has experimented with many different brands (she's still on a quest to find the perfect non-gritty confectioner's sugar, but she's found some she could live with), so you can be sure that you're getting quality stuff.

Gay Vazquez sent us a macadamia sansrival that the Yummy Magazine managing ed was raving about.

You'll go nuts over this update on the sansrival.

Our photog had his eye on this cake in between setups, and when we finally gave him the go-signal to chow down, I could hear him praising the almighty.

Gay describes this cake as "four layers of wafer mixed with nuts and frosted with rich and pure buttercream frosting that is melting in your mouth and topped with chunky macadamia big enough for the eyes to see and the mouth to feel. Gets better the longer it stays in the freezer." It is very very sweet, but the nuts--being so large--temper this sweetness.

And the last in this three-dessert feast is the tres leches by Karen's Kitchen.

Mapapa-"leche!" ka sa sarap!

Karen is known for producing cakes that have made it onto some "10 (or 20) best" lists that have been well-circulated on the net. The tres leches is made by soaking the cake in three different kinds of milk. The center is all gooey and milky, encased in a surprisingly soft and not at all soggy cake. These are all surrounded by a thin layer of smooth icing and topped with big white chocolate shavings. I can only have small slices at a time due to its richness. But I could certainly have several slices staggered throughout the day!

Of course, after we shoot, we eat. Just another reason I love my job.


Contact The Dessert Fairy through 0928-5241166 or email dessertfairy@mac.com. You can also check out her stuff at dessertfairymagic.com.

Get your own 7 x 11 macadamia sansrival for P900 (kasuy sansrival is P650). Call Gay Vazquez through 0917-3010615 or (02) 631-0125.

Come face to face with sin itself by ordering a tres leches cake for someone's birthday...or no occasion at all. Contact Karen's Kitchen through 0917-5394986 or (02) 898-2280. See more of her goodies at karenskitchen.com.ph.

Tisha Eats New York: Just Desserts

What better way to end my New York series of posts than with glorious dessert?

Cupcake Cafe
*18 West 18th St. (between 5th and 6th Aves.), NYC
*545 9th Ave. (between 40th and 41st Sts.), NYC
www.cupcakecafe-nyc.com

I was hankering for a cupcake, and figured New York had to have some pretty good cupcake places. (An In Style article said a pre-Tom Cruise Katie Holmes christened one in her neighborhood her favorite. Couldn't figure out where it was though.) There was Magnolia Bakery, of course, of Sex and the City fame. (It, in fact, had a long line snaking outside the store when I swung by with friends days later.) But I guess I wanted something a little more low key.

King used his kick-ass Google phone to find a nearby cupcake place, and we found ourselves in cozy little Cupcake Cafe. In the display cases were showcased cupcakes bedecked with flowers. We chose a trio of flavors: vanilla icing on vanilla, chocolate icing on chocolate, and maple icing on walnut. Each small cupcake was $2.50. King was particularly taken with the maple on walnut one. I--well, I'm a chocolate girl.

The Bread Factory Cafe

470 7th Ave. (35th St.), NYC
www.breadfactorycafe.com

My relatives and I popped in one night as we were walking to the train. It was pretty chilly and we needed a place to warm up. The bright lights and the yummy-looking goodies set out were enticing, so we walked in. We ordered a chocolate cake and a huge cookie, and hot chocolate to heat up our near-frozen tropical blood.

Serendipity 3
225 East 60th St. (between 2nd and 3rd Aves.), NYC
www.serendipity3.com

Anyone familiar with the John Cusack starrer would certainly be familiar with this cafe. (Hmm...I didn't even know it had a "3" at the end of it.) Motts and I were lucky enough to get a table without waiting as we walked in on a weekday afternoon. My friends and I swung by early one evening and found a line with a three- or four-hour wait! Insane!

The place is probably what Madame Auring's house would look like, made kitschier by the added Christmas decor. Since this post is devoted to dessert, I'll skip talking about the Hot Springs Wings I ordered, and go straight to the, er, sweet of the matter.

Motts ordered--get this--Celestial Carrot Cake ($8), pictured above. And to this, I said, "We're in Serendipity, and you ordered...carrot cake?" In all fairness, it was pretty awesome carrot cake.

I got the must-order, which is Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate. In terms of size, there is plenty to go around. But in terms of flavor...I guess I expected more. I didn't really get much of the "frozen" or the" hot." It was actually a lot like Milo, except that it was $8.50.

Talk about supersize!

Roxy Delicatessen
1565 Broadway (between 46th and 47th Sts.), NYC

It's supposedly a legendary cheesecake place on Broadway. When Amar and I went, there weren't a lot of people, possibly because everyone was still in the theaters. I imagine tourists flock to the place after catching a show.

There's a whole bunch of cheesecakes on offer. If I remember right, the waiter commended me on my choice:

Raspberry Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk! It was probably one of the most evil things on the menu. Just looking at it is enough to make you gain a couple of pounds. It was incredibly sweet, and at $9.95, something I probably won't try again. But hey, thanks Amar!

I tried looking for a gelato place that a friend referred, but I think gelato and ice cream places are on hiatus when winter rolls around! It's alright, though, as my next planned trip back would take place in the warmer months. It's a major hassle packing cold-weather clothes!

And so ends my New York food sojourn. My stay was way too short, my budget way too small for this city filled with great eats. But it's one of the reasons--aside from friends and family--that made me declare that, indeed, I shall return.