Some weeks ago, I made these desserts in honor of my pamangkins (nieces and nephew), Iya, Mio, and Karu. i christened them Lady Iyas, Mio Mansters, and Karu Karu Kacupcakes. My sister made handmade labels for each of the desserts, and we served them during a special sunday family lunch.




Lady Iyas - delicate mini pavlovas with strawberries and sprinkles for Iya, the panganay (oldest). She's blossoming into a very pretty girl, a little shy, very sweet, and with a dignified ate (older sister) demeanor :)



















Mio Mansters- gooey clusters of walnuts and marshmallows dipped in milk and dark chocolate. I thought it was a nice, manly sweet for Mio, who speaks his own language, screams and gallops at very high speeds :)















Karu Karu Kacupcake- lemon poppy seed cupcakes with butterfly wings. Because she's landi :) (sorry, no translation comes to mind)



Iya and Mio left to live abroad a few weeks ago. Karu might be following suit as well in a few years. I'm glad I knew how to bake when they came along. I'm glad I got to make these desserts for them before they all left :)

Me and my chocolate cake.



Not a perfect looking cake, but I always liked big fat squashy cakes that looked like they had too much icing. I made it for a chocolate freak friend. This was a really simple recipe, with cocoa sponge layers and an incredible bittersweet chocolate icing.

question, what's better, the word "icing" or "frosting"? Just wondering :)

ahem

Reasons why I started to bake:

The Chocolate Room in "Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory"

Tita Nona's fabulous homemade Milo cake, shaped like a huge doughnut and slathered with creamy Milo (chocolate malt) and condensada (condensed milk) icing

The candy shop in Disney world where I saw great swirly lollipops big as my head

The Hansel and Gretel story book I had as a kid that used real dolls and real cookies in the illustrations


And so we begin:




This lovely pile of cookies was my first foray into baking. Very simple, basic recipes

cinnamonamons - a simple snickerdoodle recipe, great buttery balls of dough rolled in cinammon sugar
spicy senoras - a softer sweeter gingerbread type cookie
lemonadas - lemon crinkles with a cracked sugary crust
tsokolate con tsoknat - chocolate cookies with a creamy peanut butter filling

A few months in to my baking, I decided to try something a bit more ambitious:



Lollipop cookies!!! Sprinkles!!! Sigh...
This was a sugar cookie recipe with easy creamy icing and sprinkles. I remember I was making these until ten in the evening.

And finally, I baked my sister a birthday cake.




Of course I'm only showing the successes. I've had dry crumbly cookies, sad deflated cakes, gooey soupy pies. But I will continue my butter stained efforts. My cookies are never the same size, my cakes tend to lean on one side, my icing poured and swirled in quick slapdash peaks, but I don't want to be a pastry chef. I want to make big colorful messy sweets, the gingerbread house of my dreams, and my own private chocolate room. Yummy. Yay. Here we go.