I was a surprisingly busy bee for the month of September, though I didn’t actually write enough to make me feel like I accomplished much. I procrastinated and slacked off a lot with my blogging is more like it. Sometimes I come home from a long day thinking about blogging, but I end up falling asleep with my thumb pressed on the space bar only to snap back awake and find that I’ve filled up an entire post with blanks. That’s pretty symbolic stuff, since sometimes my brain is so tired all I can think about is going home to take a shower then lie in bed doing nothing. Well, if sleeping counts as doing nothing anyway. The real world can sometimes be exhausting, as most of us know. But even though a lot of things have made my posting schedule a mess, with October coming round I am feeling optimistic that I’m back, baybeh!

Okay, so I haven’t been the most religious when it comes to posting monthly round-ups, but then I looked through my Instagram posts for September and noticed that there was enough colourful food-related posts in there to merit one. I also made a recipe that I was hoping to succeed so much because it is so interesting and unique, yet it didn’t quite come out the way I expected. Normally that would go to my forgotten pile of failed recipes immediately, but it tasted soooo good I felt very strongly about discussing it. Let’s get to it!

The Foodstagram

1. I think we could all agree that I started September off in a good way with these Puto Pao. Just one among my favourite Filipino treats!
2. Every month I need to get my Japanese cold noodle fix. For September it was courtesy of this yumminess from Kokoro Ramenya.
3. I had business cards made! Ahhhh! That’s like taking a huge leap of faith for me in making this whole food blogging thing feel official. Thank you so much to @popspecialist for the amazing service and these amazing cards! Love them so much!
4. After a long search for Guinness beer, I finally managed to make these cupcakes. They’re coming at ya real soon! Probably early next week if I manage to follow my schedule.
5. The first time I ever used the magical Wilton 1M tip is when I was piping these cupcakes. (Recipe coming soon too!) Now I’ve made it my new mission in life to pipe every cupcake I ever make in the future with it.
6. In my dreams I went to Hogsmeade and got to speak in a British accent around a table full of butterbear with my fellow students from Hogwarts. In reality I had a taste of the butterbear my brother bought from Healthy Options haha! It tastes like a buttery carbonated drink. Had it more for Harry Potter nostalgia purposes really.
7. I understand that a lot of people need quickfire meals. But THIS is the real deal. Spicy Peanut and Chicken Soba, anyone?
8. These Fluffernutter cookies mark my first (and possibly last) encounter with marshmallow fluff. It was aggravating!
9. Thanks to Nesvita Philippines for this surprise package when I got home last week! 🙂
10. Asian noodles soups are good for the soul. Beef pho was the choice this time, and boy was it healing. <3
11. You guys have no idea how long I have been craving for some Auntie Anne’s. Almost more than a month! I actually have a recipe I made way back that is quite similar to what I ordered. About time I post it.
12. My very simple birthday gift for Gilbert in the form of these Matcha-Oreo Muffins. He says he loved them. Well I’m glad because it’s the smallest of gestures for a BFF!

Special Events

I’ve heard of food walks but have never gotten the chance to join one, so when I got invited to this one even though it was just inside a mall I immediately jumped at the chance. Dragged Gilbert along with me too! It’s only right for SM Megamall to promote their restaurants specifically in their new Mega Fashion Hall so that people will know that there aren’t just one or two great restaurants there. There’s a lot! And the food walk we had doesn’t even begin to cover half of them. It’s a start though! Check out my post about the Mega Food Wok.

Kitchen Heartbreaks

I don’t make loaf cakes as often these days since I found out my brothers don’t really care for them much, but upon perusing Yummy Magazine’s September 2014 issue, this recipe called out to me in ways I can’t explain. The idea of eating a calamansi cake with a white chocolate topping that is infused with wasabi tickles my tastebuds. The first bite confirmed my suspicions.

It was amazing. One of the best flavour combinations in a loaf cake that I have ever had the pleasure of consuming, as confirmed by my brothers. Strange at it may seem, the combination of the slightly-tangy calamansi cake with the glaze and the mangoes was like an epiphany in every bite. How could such an out of this world combination end up being such perfect pairings?

The glaze is really something else. The heat from the wasabi is made mild by the white chocolate glaze, at the same time the wasabi considerably lessens the sweetness of the chocolate. But the thing is you can still tell there’s wasabi and there’s white chocolate in there. I don’t even know how to begin to explain how much we ended up enjoying this rather unique recipe. So why is it in my kitchen heartbreaks then, if I love it so much?

Well I didn’t quite get the texture of the cake correct.

As you can see from the below photos, my cakes ended up looking like sliced cheese instead of the moist cake that the magazine had a picture of. Actually the texture is reminiscent of cheese as well. Trying to figure out what went wrong, I’m guessing I didn’t mix too vigorously enough that the olive oil didn’t quite incorporate itself into the batter. It could even be that the olive oil and calamansi reacted with each other, which is unlikely since a lot of olive oil cakes involve citrus anyway. Or maybe using extra-virgin olive oil had to do with it?

In any case, everyone is welcome to share their wisdom as to how I could rectify this crumb and textural issue for when I attempt this again. Because the taste is so spot on it’s crazy!

Has anybody else tried this recipe from Yummy mag? How did yours go? 🙂