My first memory of baking can be traced back to when I watched Starting Over Again a few years back. I remember how Iza Calzado explained to Toni Gonzaga how delicate baking is – that it needs patience, consistency, and focus. Once you’ve put the batter inside the oven, there’s no turning back. Unlike cooking, you can still add salt, vinegar, water to adjust the dish's final taste. In baking, there's no way you can add sugar once the cookies or cake are baked already. There's no way to alter the taste except during the process of measuring and mixing the ingredients.
Then years passed, life caught up; work caught up; adulting caught up. My friends would often ask me my secret in managing my time so well. For two semesters, I was teaching Marketing-related subjects such as Customer Behavior, Retail Management, Total Quality Management, and Social Entrepreneurship in the evening while keeping my day job in Virginia. And despite that, I can still manage to exercise, jog early in the morning or late at night, attend The Feast on Saturdays, and still have time to go home in Carcar and spend quality time with my family (my non-negotiable).
Then Covid-19 happened. A heartbreaking reality that took time to finally sink in. 💔 The first quarter of this health crisis taught me to stop, to breathe, and to just, once and for all, slow down. For the first time in a very long time, I was forced to stop and think of what truly matters to me now and in the next days and years.
That’s when I found myself working from home (WFH) for the next two months. This is the longest time I’ve stayed at home since the day I left my little hometown to study in the big city.
And as naturally social as we are expected to be, the lockdowns planted boredom in us sooner than we could even realize. We were restless at home, trying to fight the anxieties from all the uncertainties surrounding us. This is when we started cooking, baking, and just doing practically anything new just to refocus our attention on something other than COVID.
I remember that time when fads like making Dalgona Coffee, Ube Cheese Pandesal, Korean Cream Cheese Garlic Bread, Sushi Bake, to name a few were all over the internet.
I couldn't help it so I tried making a Milo Dalgona. Just Milo-based since I don't drink coffee. Unfortunately, it didn't look as perfect as the ones I've seen on Instagram. 🤣
The Beginning: What pushed me to bake?
I’ve never been happier and at peace spending time at home with my parents and my brother but the time came when I realized that this pandemic shouldn’t stop me from achieving something. I know I was achieving something each day when I decide to get up in bed, exercise, eat healthy food, take care of my family and work as if our internet connection at home isn’t so bad.😞 But I wanted to do more – I always make sure that I learn something new every now and then.
And while the world had so many reasons to stop and not do anything and just wait ‘til the pandemic’s over and continue from thereon (which is totally understandable). I was convinced that this pandemic should work for me, this pandemic should work to my advantage. Either I take that opportunity or let it drift like water flowing from the faucet.
I was the girl who got a basin to catch the water flowing from the faucet. ❤️
I found myself searching for simple recipes that I can just do at home. There's a little problem tho: I don’t have an oven at home. Lovely! Haha! 😒 Luckily, there are countless recipes that don’t need an oven. You just need a steamer or a rice cooker to call yourself a baker. In my case, I decided to buy my own big three-tier steamer. It's big enough to start a siomai business! 🤣
And before I forget to mention, we used to run a small, real bakery, one of our family businesses. And my father used to be one of the bakers. Although it has been ages since he last baked, imagine the pressure of perfecting the goodies I'll bake because Pa knows what's good and what's not good enough for human consumption.
That's it! Then I bought all the ingredients I could find in town and started honing another skill that one day I do hope I could be truly proud of. ❤️
What you'll see in this post?
If you've read my last post about our trip to Biliran, I've mentioned there that I'm a terrible hoarder of thousands of photos that don't make it to my social media. Well, here they are, arranged chronologically to show my progress since Day 1.
Before you continue browsing through this post, I hope you're not hungry. Because if that's the case, you might want to go back some other time. Haha! 😋
Continue reading at your own risk, then! 😁
My mother loves eating custard cake. She'll ask me to buy one on her birthday and other special celebrations. It's the balance between the sweetness of the egg custard pudding and the softness of the chiffon cake that made this appear on Ma's favorites list.
And partially one of the reasons why I bake is I want to feed my family; I want them to try different goodies freshly baked from our kitchen. That's basically the reason why I chose Custard Cake to be the first cake I'll bake at home with a steamer.
I struggled to make this. It took longer than expected to bake. Was it good for a first-timer? Taste-wise, yes, but in terms of texture, I'd say this has so much room for improvement.
I took an entire week off before I'll go back to the big city because our management decided not to allow WFH set-up anymore by June 2020. So I made this little moist chocolate cake for one of our afternoon snacks. It was also the first time I made a ganache from scratch. ❤️
I still used my steamer in baking this one, as you can see it worked! I had to horizontally cut the cake so I can put the chocolate ganache in between to serve as filling. This one's too sweet tho that only my brother came back for a second serving.
How was it? Hmmm... I didn't particularly like the recipe. I figured the recipe was focusing much on cocoa powder, making the flavor of the cake too artificial. In my opinion, this is best paired with hot milk for breakfast.
Up next is, one of my favorites in terms of simplicity in the needed ingredients as well as the baking procedure.
My boyfriend tried making his own version of banana cake at home before I did mine. And because I wanted to make sure that I get it right the first time, I asked for his recipe. Thus, this banana cake, still from the mighty and powerful steamer!
The best feeling when eating banana cake or any fruit-based cake is the idea that you're not just eating sugar and flour, two of the basic ingredients in baking. You're eating something that's packed with potassium and other vitamins and minerals which are what we basically need to help boost our immune system these days.
And this next one is my favorites in terms of the joy it brings to my olfactory nerves! Butter, butter, butter cookies! 😋
To start with, I like butter cookies. I'm actually drawn to anything with butter and garlic. Writing this makes me salivate. Oh, no! 😁
Anyways, I've grown eating butter cookies readily available in the supermarkets but then one day in June 2020 while looking for the next recipe, I stumbled upon a recipe of butter cookies. So I gave it a try and voila! I couldn't stop inhaling the aroma as it spreads all throughout the room while baking.
By June 2020, I was already staying in our staff house located within our Head Office compound. I'd like to believe that the universe conspired for this to happen. Why? There's an oven in our office. And we are free to use it anytime, even after office hours. So when everyone else is gone, I'd go back to the office to bake.
Going back to the butter cookies, they might not look as gorgeous as I'd like them to be (I even burnt some, well about 25% actually. Haha! 😂) But the taste is far ahead from the butter cookies I've been buying in the grocery. And on this note, I'm victorious! 😊
These next goodies that I've baked were specially prepared for my boyfriend. If there's one thing I'd like to spoil my boyfriend with that's food and that's food that I'll personally prepare. ❤️
If I remember it correctly, this was my second attempt at making chocolate chip cookies. There's this unspoken rule that I'll never ever send any goodies when it's my first time making them. As much as possible, I'd like my boyfriend to try the best batch!
Were the cookies delicious? Well, my boyfriend mentioned in his post that the cookies were a bit sweet but he liked it anyway. That's all I have to know to bake more for him. This wasn't his favorite out of all those I've baked for him. I'll share with you soon which recipe won his heart (so you can also make one for your boyfriend or anyone you actually care about). ❤️
Here's another breakfast favorite of mine! This recipe is just a combination of Banana Cake and Chocolate Chip Cookies. There are just days I'm bored with the normal recipes so I try hybrid which entails combining two or more recipes to make one. The recipe I used for this Chocolate Chip Banana Loaf was given by my college blockmate's mother. She also loves baking. Thanks, Tita! 😊
I've mentioned that this was once a breakfast favorite of mine. Maybe because it's one of those rare goodies that gets better as the days pass by. I'd probably bake this soon but with lots of nuts and raisins and dried cranberries. Sounds yummy! 😋
And here's the most exciting part! Drumroll, please. Louder!!! I don't know if you like cheesecake but in my case, cheesecakes should be made a staple in every household. Oh, I could only wish. 😌
I've been to Bacolod a few times for work and personal stuff. One time, Danilo, a friend from college now based in Bacolod, showed me around and treated me to dinner and, of course, dessert. We went to Calea's and tried their cakes and oh my, that day onwards I labeled Bacolod as the dessert capital. Maybe that was when I realized my love for cheesecake specifically blueberry cheesecakes.
Wanna know my motivation in perfecting my first-ever cheesecake? The costs of the ingredients. When I started baking, I slowly understood why baked goods are pricey. For cheesecakes, the biggest cost contributors are the cream cheese and the blueberry filling. That's why I was careful not to miss any instructions because I don't want to end up wasting my money. With patience and focus, I did deliver an outstanding blueberry cheesecake for the very first time. ❤️
And here's my last entry for today's food blog. When asked what time is it? You say it's brownie o'clock! 🤣
Have you tried Brownies Unlimited? If yes, you might be familiar with how much a single square of brownie costs when you buy it on retail. And I've questioned this pricing because it's too much for a small piece of chocolate goody. But when I made my own brownies, damn, it's really costly.
The secret to creating the best brownies is the quality of the chocolate you use. The better the quality of chocolates, consequently, given you follow the same procedure, you'll end up getting the best melts-in-your-mouth kind of brownie. Better chocolates usually may cost you a bit higher than typical ones. In my case, I used Malagos, a local brand from Davao. I've tried Beryl's but still Malagos for this win.
That's it for Part 1 of my Baking Diary since the pandemic started. I'm planning to share my recipes soon. Let's see if I have time for that. The BER months are just across the street and I'll be dealing with too many things at work, but I do hope I get to continue sharing interesting stuff here in Hive.
We're not yet done here, okay? I still have about 6-7 goodies that I've baked in the past year. Stay tuned for Part 2. ❤️
You keep safe wherever you are! 😊
Living life intentionally every single day, she believes that there’s no limit to one’s potentials. Right now, she’s on the loose for the pursuit of an endless holistic self-growth and development. She wants to light the way for others. She believes there’s no better way to leave a legacy than to pay it forward. Her ultimate goal in life is to reach the state of enlightenment where there’s nothing but peace, love, happiness, and contentment - nothing more, nothing less. If you are captivated by what this girl just wrote here, an upvote is pretty appreciated. Follow her as she tells her stories full of positivities. The next story might be for you! ❤️