Skip to main content

A galore of Christmas Delights from Tinapayan


As the premiere bakeshop in Iloilo City, Tinapayan once again delights the taste buds of Ilonggos as it offers a galore of specially made as well as specially packaged goodies for the Yuletide season. Dubbed as Tinapayan’s Christmas Delights, the 2011 collection is a mix of cakes and pastries as well as chocolates and breads that will surely add color and flavor to the celebrations.

A special food tasting session was arranged by Tinapayan Bakeshop exclusively for the Iloilo Bloggers Inc last Tuesday at The Promenade 2 of Days Hotel Iloilo. Ms Evelyn “Owa” Que, owner of Tinapayan was all smiles when she greeted us all and presented around 40 of Tinapayan’ Christmas Delights.
And we got to taste the specialties of the bakeshop for Christmas starting with this delectable Dark Fruit Cake. As I always say, “looks good, tastes even better” – yes each slice explodes with the goodness of the richness of the wine infused cake and the quality of fruits mixed in it giving it a lingering flavour that ultimately becomes a craving for another slice. If fruit cakes were this good, I doubt if they will stay inside the fridge for a year! (On that note, I also like fruit cakes that are a year old or so. Just like with wine, the older it gets, it justs tastes better.) It comes in loaf or small cake variants.
Another intoxicatingly good cake was this Tanduay-infused Walnut Prune Loaf. Same dense cake with a burst of flavour and texture in each bite – the crunch of the walnuts, the appetizing walnut and the bite (and kick) of Tanduay. Again, it’s intoxicatingly good!

Next was the familiar, Panettone, for we usually have it at home. It’s an Italian sweet bread loaded with fruits and raisins among other giving it the nickname “fruit cake bread”. It was a break from the “nakakalasing” cakes but it was also as good.

After just one break, we’re with two liquor cakes – Rhum Butter Cake and Espresso Rhum Cake. Both look good and complementing – as the Butter cake sports a light brown finish the Espresso cake was dark giving an instant recognition of its flavours.

The butter cake was an easy eat – light and sweet not to mention it smells good too. The espresso has the “kick” of the coffee as one bite can certainly perk up anyone with its bold taste yet balanced by the icing and walnut toppings.

I really love the Mazapan de Pili! A concoction of crushed pili nuts and sweet but tamed condensed milk (?) in an unlikely base/bed of lumpia wrapper. Yup it’s the usual spring roll wrapper used just to hold the mix in the mold so it can be easily molded out. But then it gives a crunch to this already good dessert. Mazapan de Pili is available all year round but just in squares (maybe 1.5 inches) but it’s only during Christmas one can get hold of this big serving of Mazapan de Pili. (Esteemed food writer and restaurateur Claude Tayag told me that he really loves this Tinapayan treat, when we met during the Tabu-an Food Fair last month).

We also got to sample the Pure Butter Christmas Cookies that come in a big glass jar or just a small pack. The food for the gods gave us our most moist eat that time – moist, delectable and full of flavour – no wonder it is named as such. And also present were twin Santas - dark and milk chocolate.

Also the three flavoured Lengua de Gato that comes in three variants – butter, chocolate and mocha. Each comes in plastic containers of the same kind or you can have the three in one – a perfect sampler!

As we felt all these Christmas Delights will gain us 5 lbs just for one afternoon, out came big servings of Seafood Marinara from the kitchens of The Promenade and mind you, each serving is good for two persons. I was among the more gallant ones who have finished it all – to the last morsel or so.

It was another gastronomic afternoon for the members of the Iloilo Bloggers Inc as we had a another food tasting session in a place we can almost call “our home”. With good food, enjoyable company, the best view and ambiance and the unmatched service among others – these makes Christmas comes a lot earlier than Dec. 25.

And with the Christmas Delights from Tinapayan, sure thing that Christmas can be celebrated all year round!

Popular posts from this blog

An Ilonggo favorite - Valenciana

Found in almost all occasions like fiesta, birthdays, reunions and others, Ilonggos really love valenciana because most if not all have grown accustomed of having it in special gatherings at home.  A complete " go, grow and glow " dish because it has the carbohydrates, protein and vitamins and minerals in just one spoonful, Valenciana is really an " occasional dish ".  Here's the recipe for Valenciana

Ultimate Ilonggo Favorite: KBL Kadyos, Baboy, Langka

K.B.L. or Kadyos, Baboy, Langka is the ultimate favorite dish of most Ilonggos. It is also one of the most missed native dishes as kadyos and the souring ingredient, batwan , are hard to find when outside of the Ilonggo region.  Basically, it is boiled/stewed pork dish owing its "deliciousness" to the combination of the soft and tender pork, the tamed sourness of  batwan  and the  malinamnam na sabaw .  One of the "secrets" of the malinamnamn na sabaw , is the fact that the pork, whether just the plain meat or pata (hocks) are first grilled or broiled. This gives the broth a rather smoky taste that makes it more appetizing.. Learn how to make the Ilonggo dish KBL (Kadyos, Baboy, at Langka) with the recipe below. Ingredients 1 kilo Pata (pork hocks) or pork cubes, GRILLED and sliced into bite size pieces  1 unripe Jack fruit, cubed 2 cups pigeon pea (kadyos) 6-8 pieces batwan fruit  (or tamarind powder) 1 piece pork broth cube (

Easy Century Tuna Recipes

If you're looking for simple, easy  and delicious Century Tuna recipes online, congratulations, you've found it right here! How about spicy tuna sisig or tuna sinigang ? Maybe stir fried tuna with pickles or just yang chow fried rice .  I love Century Tuna from its flakes in oil variety, the spicier the better, but when I discovered the versatility of its solid variant, it became an obsession. At first I was just into the usual tested recipes; pasta and sandwich filling, but then it got simpler – I just eat it straight from the can! Usually with a piece of bread or an apple. I just add a few drops of vinegar to spice it up a bit. Then came the experiments. Yup I got tired of that habit that one day, I decided to test my skills in the kitchen. Serendipity, you might call it yet most of them turned into good recipes that I have shared now and then. Satisfying my Palabok cravings had me experiment on this recipe on the spot. With Century Tuna in lieu of the usu

Takway

The gabi (taro) is just one of those plants which is edible from "roots to tops". The most popular of which is the tuber part which is used in a variety of dishes and mostly in combination with coconut milk. Its leaves, of course, is the main ingredient of a Bicol specialty, laing . It is dried then chopped and sauteed with other ingredients including, again, coconut milk. Then there is takway . The local term for its tendrils/runner, that part which is torn between being a stem or a root for it neither grows upwards nor downwards - it grows sideways . Scraped off of its outer skin, takway is often a key ingredient in vegetable dishes like laswa and the gabi tuber with coconut milk and local snails know as bago-ngon . It is also popular when cooked adobo style with guinamos , the local bago-ong . It is very popular in the region that even big supermarkets sell takway in style - cleaned and plastic wrapped in styro with some additions to make it easier to prepare.

A native delicacy called Inday-inday

Now you may ask, what is Inday-Inday ? It's another repetitive-feminine named native delicacy that is made from rice like its more popular sister - baye-baye . While the latter is has its own original flavor and make, inday-inday is actually a combination of two well loved native delicacies - muasi ( palitaw ) and bukayo . But the muasi portion is not the the usual palitaw  recipe for the it's more firm and gummy (I don't know the English term for kid-ol ). Actually its more like a hardened kutsinta and this makes it more to my liking since I'm not really fond of muasi in the first place.  And its not quite easy to find inday-inday in the market today, though I've seen and tried it in Sabor Ilonggo stalls but their's is more like suman latik for the based is ibos -like. Ibos is malagkit rice boiled in gata which is called suman in Tagalog. Despite the uncertainty for its nomenclature (I've read that inday-inday is just plain pal