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Friday, January 8, 2010

Yummy Buko Pandan, anyone?

One of my favorite desserts for special occasions is Buko Pandan. And the original recipe below is from my niece who made it last Christmas...yummy, yummy...









Ingredients:
2-3 kilos Buko (young cocount, grated)
6 boxes of powdered gulaman (green, pandan-flavored)
1 big can condensed milk
1 small can of condensed milk
3 tetra packs of all purpose cream
1 cup cooked small white sago
2 tsp pandan syrup

Procedure:
1. In a large bowl, clean the shredded buko and then set aside.
2. Cook / prepare the powdered gulaman (follow the instruction on the box).
3. In a medium-sized bowl, combine condensed milk and cream and pour the pandan syrup. Mix well.
4. Pour the mixture into the buko, mix well. Then add sago and gulaman and mix well, too. Add more condensed milk if you want a sweeter-tasting salad.
5. Chill before serving.
*Makes 10 servings.

Enjoy!




Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Sweets Lover since 19-forgotten

Cakes, chocolates, ice cream, donut...name anything that tastes sweet or is perceived sweet and I'll crave and love it. My first memory of eating a candy when I was just a kid and loving the sweet taste in it started my craving for sweets. Up to now specially when job-related stress or personal tensions come up I rely on my ever sweet-activated taste buds to give me a feeling of pleasure. Special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas Noche Buena or no occasions at all can never be complete for me if no desserts or sweets are served. Sometimes, I feel like I will be eaten alive by ants because half of my blood is already filled with sugar. But nothing can make me stop eating these well-loved, sugary foods that make my heart beat faster.

Cakes












Cake is a form of food that is usually sweet and often baked. Cakes normally combine some kind of flour, a sweetening agent (commonly sugar), a binding agent (generally egg, though gluten or starch are often used by lacto-vegetarians and vegans), fats (usually butter, shortening, or margarine, although a fruit purée such as applesauce is sometimes substituted to avoid using fat), a liquid (milk, water or fruit juice), flavors and some form of leavening agent (such as yeast or baking powder), though many cakes lack these ingredients and instead rely on air bubbles in the dough to expand and cause the cake to rise. Cake is often frosted with buttercream or marzipan, and finished with piped borders and crystallized fruit.



Cake is often the dessert of choice for meals at ceremonial occasions, particularly weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays. There are countless cake recipes; some are bread-like, some rich and elaborate and many are centuries old. Cake making is no longer a complicated procedure; while at one time considerable labor went into cake making (particularly the whisking of egg foams), baking equipment and directions have been simplified that even the most amateur cook may bake a cake.

source: Wikipedia

Chocolates











Chocolate comprises a number of raw and processed foods produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America, with its earliest documented use around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican peoples made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs and the Maya, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs are then ground and liquefied, resulting in pure chocolate in fluid form: chocolate liquor. The liquor can be further processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Pure, unsweetened chocolate contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining chocolate with sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. "White chocolate" contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids (and thus does not qualify to be considered true chocolate).

Chocolate contains alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. It has been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Scientists claim that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.[1] Dark chocolate has recently been promoted for its health benefits, including a substantial amount of antioxidants that reduce the formation of free radicals, although current scientific evidence is against health improvements by dietary antioxidants.[citation needed][dubious – discuss] The presence of theobromine renders it toxic to some animals,[2] especially dogs and cats.

Chocolate has become one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes have become traditional on certain holidays: chocolate bunnies and eggs are popular on Easter, chocolate coins on Hanukkah, Santa Claus and other holiday symbols on Christmas, and hearts on Valentine's Day. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, to produce chocolate milk and hot chocolate. The world's top producer of cacao beans is Africa, where recent controversy has focused on the use of child labor in cocoa production.


source: wikipedia

Donuts

  







 
A doughnut or donut is a type of fried dough food popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet (or occasionally savory) snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets. They are usually sweet, deep-fried from a flour dough, and shaped in rings or flattened spheres that sometimes contain fillings. Other types of dough such as potato can also be used as well as other batters, and various toppings and flavorings are used for different types.


The two most common types are the torus-shaped ring doughnut and the filled doughnut, a flattened sphere injected with jam, jelly, cream, custard, or other sweet fillings. A small spherical piece of dough may be cooked as a doughnut hole. Baked doughnuts are a variation cooked in an oven instead of being deep fried. Doughnut varieties are also divided into cake and risen type doughnuts.

Various doughnut incarnations are popular around the globe. Shapes include rings, balls, and flattened spheres, as well as ear shapes, twists and other forms. Not all doughnuts are sweet: in Southern India for instance, savory doughnuts called vadai are served

source: wikipedia