One last backpack (and some printed books for sale!)

{If you aren't interested to read about the backpack (again) then feel free to scroll down to the bottom for some news on the printed "Cakes from the Heart" book I am selling.}

So...I'm back again with one last backpack.  As I've mentioned the other day, I was going to make another bag, this time, for an adult.  I am actually giving this to my soon-to-be 22 years old niece for her birthday in March.  I noticed she was more into fabric drawstring and/or tote bags than leather bags so I thought this would be a perfect present for her 😄.

The fabric is again a Japanese cotton duck.  The skulls are actually shiny, metallic gold in person.  When I first saw this fabric at Spotlight, I knew straightaway that this would make a great bag for my niece.

The lining is again a pre-quilted fabric, this time in black.  

Unfortunately, I made a mistake in cutting the fabric pieces for the side pockets, so instead of them being elasticized, I had to make do with simple slip pockets 😭.  They're alright, I guess, but I was a little disappointed nonetheless.

I ran out of polyester webbing so I just made the fabric straps.  They turned out well and coordinated with the black plastic sliders.

I am so pleased with the three backpacks that I made and I certainly loved the time I spent sewing them, even it meant late nights for me! I probably will pack up my sewing machine for now (or if I can be bothered, I might just make small zippered bags and/or wristlets out of the excess fabrics before doing so!).

Ok, so now for some news on the printed book.  I recently ordered three more softcover copies from Blurb as they were discounted again.  I have now listed them on my Etsy shop.  The price is still much lower than the selling price over at Blurb but higher than the first time I listed printed books on Etsy because my price depends on how much I got them for (meaning how much discount I received). If you are interested in purchasing a copy, you can do so here.

Have a good week!

Backpacks

I wanted to veer away from cakes for a short bit and talk about one of my other loves..........sewing!

I am guessing that most of you weren't here from the very start.  Way back before the cakes started, I was so into sewing and those following me were more into crafting than baking.  Not long after I learned how to sew simple tote bags from the internet, I started making bag tutorials myself.  Two of the most visited (non-cake) posts here are, in fact, my messenger bag and city backpack tutorials.  I was and still am, very proud of those bags, because I created them at a time when I was still very inexperienced in sewing.

Shortly before my grandson was born, I sewed lots and lots of things for him - quilts, blankets, rompers, bibs, nappy stacker, jacket, small pillowcases, etc. but one thing I didn't get to make was a bag! Now that he is two and a half years old and going to daycare once a week, I thought of making him a small backpack 😄. I used the same pattern for the city backpack but I changed it a bit to make it more kiddie-friendly.  I turned the slip front pocket into a zippered one and I also added elasticized side pockets.

Here is the first bag I came up with.  The fabric is a heavy Japanese cotton duck with dinosaur prints (Lachie's fixation nowadays is dinosaurs!).

Isn't that so adorable?

I reinforced the fabric straps with polyester webbing.  They turned out very sturdy but was quite thick to sew into and I had to force them into the metal sliders.

Instead of sewing a drawstring from fabric (as with the original city backpack), I used a nylon cord and a coordinating cord stopper.

The bag lining is a pre-quilted fabric.  I have used this kind of fabric with many of the bags I have made in the past.  I like not only the look of it but also it's thickness and softness.

After I finished the bag, I realized that the side pockets were a little short.  It was ok for a small drink bottle but taller bottles might fall out 😞.

For a final touch, I ironed on a label. Everything I make for my little one is made with love, of course!

Although I was very happy with the dinosaur backpack, I decided to make another one because I wasn't satisfied with the side pockets.  Here is the second one, now with a similar Japanese cotton duck, this time with doggy prints 😉!

The side pockets are now taller.

It holds Lachie's bigger drink bottle more securely.

The straps are much simpler with just polyester webbing.

The lining is still the same pre-quilted fabric!

And of course, still with the "Made with love by Grandma" label 💓.

Overall, having made these bags, I'm one happy grandma!

I still have one more backpack lined up.  My fabric this time is for an adult.  I will do the backpack the same way.  Let's see how it will turn out!

Thank you (and some good news!)

Just dropping in really quickly to say a huge 'Thank You!" to everyone who bought the Cakes from the Heart eBook in the last couple of weeks! It has been heartwarming (and a bit overwhelming) to know that many of you really believe in what I do and want to continue baking with me and learning from me. I hope you will have loads of fun baking all the cakes in the book! As much as you say I inspire you, I am also, in return, inspired by you, to continue creating and I am now really pushing myself further so I can deliver a Book 3 in the near future 😉. I hope my cakes will remain a part of all your family occasions for years to come!

Some of you have been asking if you can buy a printed copy of the book. As I've mentioned in my last post, I've checked the prices over at Blurb and they are really high! This book is even more pricey than the first book because it has more pages. Anyway, Blurb offers discounts quite often and if you sign up for an account, you will get notifications when these discounts are available. You don't really have to buy it at full price.

Recently, Blurb offered a 40% off if you buy at least 4 books so I took advantage and ordered my very first hard copies. After much anticipation, my books finally arrived today!

Just like the Frosted Heaven book, the cover came out a little bit dark. I don't blame the printer though.  To be honest, my cake photos aren't very professional and were all just taken from my old iPhone. I don't do any styling or what not. I take photos not really for the intention of putting them in a book.  It just so happens that they end up in one! The photos are not too bad though.  They just look better in their digital form!

Other than the darkness of the cover, everything else is great! I do feel ecstatic to see my hard work come to life.  I know it's a simple, little book but I am nevertheless proud. 😊

Anyway, I don't really need four copies of this book. I bought one hardbound book and three softcovers. The good news is....I have decided to sell the two softcovers on Etsy! If you really want to have a printed copy, here is your chance to get it at a much lower price! And whoever will buy these two copies will be the first two people (aside from me, of course) to own one!

Want it? Go get it from Etsy now!

UPDATE: The two copies are already SOLD. I am listing my THIRD and LAST softcover.  You can grab it here.

UPDATE: Third copy is SOLD as well.

Cakes from the Heart

It's finally here.

Book Two.

Yey!

In a way, I am thankful for how things had happened.  If I hadn't known that someone out there was claiming to have developed a recipe that they had actually copied from here, I wouldn't have pushed myself into finishing this book. It's been a long time coming.

It's a lot of hard work.  I don't think I've slept for more than 4 hours a night for the last two weeks.  And that's just the writing, editing, lay-outing and proofreading part. The work that went to create the cakes is another story. Some people do not realize that, I guess.  Especially when what they like doing is simply 'copying and pasting' stuff into their own Facebook pages or websites.  Sad.

But that's water under the bridge.  My hope is that whoever wants to have a copy of this book, wants it for the right reason.  And the only reason.  To bake!

So here it is. A bit of a preview for you... (click to view on full screen)

I titled this book, Cakes from the Heart, because all of the cakes within, are cakes I made for my family and friends.  Majority of the pictured cakes here are my actual first attempts at making them! Although I thought much about what I could offer in this blog, my foremost goal was always to create something special and new for my loved ones.   After all, they are the ones who get to eat and enjoy them!

You are familiar with some of these cakes.  There are 34 in total, 12 of which have never been featured here. It is a great mix of cakes, if I may say so myself!  You will definitely have a blast baking them for every occasion there is!

The new cakes on the block are: the taisan, chocolate roll, Malacanang roll (do you know this one?), creme brulee, white forest (the cover), ube (different version), cookie butter, chocolate mousse (most requested!), chocolate pistachio, rocky road, chocolate peanut butter, and chocolate salted caramel pretzel.  The yema icing for the yema cake is not the same as was posted here before.  The new one is more true to the Spanish yema cream of eggyolks and sugar syrup. Easier to make too. I also have a slightly different way/recipe of making marshmallow frosting.  I've never been consistently happy with the one I was using before but I had an epiphany one day, and lo and behold, a marshmallow frosting that is super stiff and stable, finally.

I dedicated this book to my auntie who passed away very recently. I went home to Manila to say my goodbyes because I was quite close to her. I have a lot of her handwritten recipes (including the ensaymada). She wrote them in a little notebook so we (her family) can learn to make them ourselves. I have shared her lemon squares, food for the gods, lengua de gato, arrowroot cookies and sansrival recipes here as well. I will never be able to thank her enough for inspiring me to bake.

For a very long time, I have really been unmotivated. And knowing that a lot of people are just disrespecting my work by copying and distributing them, posting them on baking group websites, even making PDFs out of them, did not help. 😭 But today I am feeling really good about what I have accomplished. I am much prouder of the cakes in this book than I am with the first because with the first book, my concentration was to just make copycat cakes (since that was what the readers really wanted). Lately though, I have been trying to think more outside the box and doing my own thing.

I am looking forward to making more cakes and more books!  One day, I will hopefully muster enough courage to actually go to a real publisher. Maybe someday I will even get to see my book at National Bookstore. 😏Someday.

To anyone interested in having a copy, the eBook is now available in my Etsy shop. Be the first to own it! Your support will be greatly appreciated.

PS.  I have also made a listing for the two eBooks together at a discounted price.

One more thing - I am not listing this book yet on Blurb (to be printed as a physical book).  The prices are just outrageous, even for a softcover.  I won't even order a copy for myself yet.  I will wait for when they have big discounts.

Sneak peek (or not)

Where has all the time gone? In just 5 months, my grandson Lachlan will already be 2 years old!  It hasn't even been that long since I shared about his existence here! He is my world these days and everything I do seems to revolve around him. When he is with me (which is a LOT), I can't do anything much that doesn't involve him and I have had to adjust my own life according to his schedule. It is much like being a first time mother all over again! It has been a great challenge but I am not complaining.  I am happy!

When Lachlan is not with me, that is when I squeeze in my baking. I try to finish cake orders first. If by some miracle, I still have the time (and will) to do some experimenting then that is a huge bonus! Today, for instance, Lachlan is at daycare.  Guess what I am having for lunch? Cake 🙅!!  I made a Rocky Road cake this morning,  the recipe of which I intend to include in my "I don't know if it's ever going to get finished" second book.

It's another copycat of a Red Ribbon bakeshop cake.

Truth is, I have been making new cakes for the past several months with the same intention of putting all of them in the book. Sometimes I have to time it when there's an occasion, like this Chocolate Pistachio cake which I made for my husband's birthday last November...

Or this Biscoff (or Speculoos) cake for my sister in-law's birthday in December.

Other times I make cakes just because it makes me feel guilty not to exert more effort...

Mocha crumble cake

Coconut almond (Rafaello) cake

Chocolate mousse cake

There are still more but I am going ever so slowly with the writing and drafting 😢 And I still have this whole list of ideas for cakes to do!

I know I have been real unfaithful to this blog. But I do hope you are all still out there.  And I hope you are still willing to wait patiently for me. Motivate me, please 🙏 If you have any request for cakes that you want me to "copy", let me know! Make my list even longer 😄!

Ok that's it for now!  I have to go and clean up everything I used to make my Rocky Road cake.  I just dumped them in the sink so I can update this blog while I still can.  Till next!

Updates

Firstly, a very, very belated "Happy 2017!" to all of you. I would have done this post sooner but life has just been crazy busy and stressful since before Christmas.  My grandson Lachlan had been quite sick and had to stay overnight twice in hospital last December due to bronchiolitis. I'm sure you understand how emotionally distressing it is to see a child suffering. He is better now but it seems the cold virus just doesn't want to let go of him ever - he has the sniffles almost all of the time!

I know I owe you all an update on the Bakeoff challenge.  The final results came out last January 11. Unfortunately, although my cake made it to the top 10 (thanks to your votes!), it did not end up in the top 3. 😞 That means I didn't get a share in the $10,000 prize. I didn't tell you this before - if I had won a part of the prize money, I would have used some of it to go to the US for my niece's wedding in October.  I had the chance to meet her American fiance during our grand family reunion in the Philippines last September.  He was so overwhelmed with all the love he received from the family and in true awe of his experience.  It would have been wonderful to be a part of their wedding. Oh well, if it wasn't meant to be then that's that! There will be other opportunities in the future. Thank you once again for the support you gave me!  I really, really appreciated it! 💗

Anyway, because of the stressful time pre-Christmas, I had to turn down a ton of cake requests. At the same time, I also wanted to concentrate on making Christmas day special for my own family and I knew I wouldn't be able to do that if I was too preoccupied with other people's cakes!

The first thing I baked were springerle cookies.

I shared about these cookies and my fascination about the amazing cookie moulds sometime ago.  I haven't made them in a long while and was very happy that I was able to use my Nativity mould again! I packaged the cookies individually and gave them away to guests at my brother's Christmas lunch. They have a battalion of family friends!

Another treat I made were french macarons. I used the recipe I shared here before and once again. it did not dissappoint.  I managed to successfully make nearly 200 shells in red and green!

The plan was to build a macaron tower.  I baked, filled and froze my macarons a couple of days before the 25th but assembled the tower only on Christmas morning.

I know my macaron tower is not perfect but I was still very pleased with it 😃. Christmas day here was super hot and my white chocolate ganache filling softened quite easily.  I was scared all my macarons would slide off even before we got to my brother's house.  Thankfully, it held up until all the macarons were gone!

And of course, there was cake too! How can there not be? Every year, I try to create something different. This time around, I made a Christmas wreath cake!

I started with a 12" round red velvet cake.  I cut off a 6" hole in the center to turn it into a wreath shape and then used the excess cake to make around 3 dozen cake pops.  I used some of the cake pops as baubles for the wreath. The cake turned out really, really pretty. No one dared to cut into it until the last minute! Next Christmas, I'm thinking I would take it up a notch and make a tree. That would be awesome, right?

All in all, it was a good Christmas season despite all the stress and worry.  Difficult as it may, I try to see everything as opportunities to pray and to trust more in the Lord, to hope and to love.  Isn't that what Christmas should be all about? Although life doesn't seem good all the time, all the time, God is good.

I wish you all a great 2017! Till next time.

Food for the gods

My dad turned 90 last September and our family had the grandest of reunions in the Philippines! I say "grand" but not in the sense that it was lavish or anything like that.  It was grand because we have not had a reunion of this magnitude since 2003.  My brothers and I are scattered all over the world and to be able to all fly back to Manila with our families at the same time is one great feat!

Every time I visit family in the Philippines, I always take the opportunity to browse through my aunties' recipe notebooks to see what I can copy and recreate when I get back home to Australia. Most of their handwritten recipes are not very detailed and are more of just a listing of ingredients. The challenge always for me is to be able to sort of fill in the blanks.  I try to figure everything out by myself as I really don't want to bother my auntie (the baker) with questions.  She is even older than my dad at 92 years! One of my nieces who came from the US became very interested in the recipes and asked if I could send her copies.  I promised I would but that I needed to test them out first to make sure everything was in order!

The first recipe I tried out was that of food for the gods.  This pastry was a staple in all our family gatherings but as a kid, I never really liked them.  I didn't like dates.  I didn't like that it was moist and chewy. However, since I tasted sticky date pudding some years ago, that all changed. Now, I love them!

My aunties' recipe is pretty straightfoward and it is not too different from other recipes you will find online. What I noticed though is that it had only half the amount of butter than other recipes and rather than melting the butter, it is creamed with the sugar.  It doesn't make it less tasty though.  It is still moist, just not very wet and sticky as other food for the gods are.  If that is what you prefer (like me), then this recipe might be for you!

FOOD FOR THE GODS

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon honey
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (about 150g) pitted dates, chopped
1 cup (about 110g) walnuts, chopped

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line an 8x8 or a 6x11 pan with baking paper.

In a small bowl, sift together the plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Add in the dry ingredients and beat mixture until just combined. Lastly, fold in the dates and walnuts.

Pour batter into prepared pan then level off with a spatula. Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the four corners of the cake comes out clean. (It's ok for the centre to be a little moist just as long as the top surface is already dry and uniformly brown.) Transfer pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool completely before cutting into bars.

PS.  Before I forget, thank you so much for those who voted for my cake in the Lifestyle Food Bake Challenge.  Thank you even more for those who expressed their support in the comments section of my previous post and for those who emailed me personally.  I appreciate it very much!  And just to let you know, WE ARE IN THE TOP 10!  Hope you can keep on voting for my entry till the 13th of December.  After that, I'm praying Matt Moran and Maggie Beer will vote for my cake too!