The recipe I used for this cake was actually not a good choice.  It’s called a Kentucky Butter Cake and I found it in the website www.allrecipes.com

I have to admit I was impressed with all the positive feedback the recipe generated.  It’s just too sweet for our taste and if I ever do this cake again, some adjustments have to be made.  First of all, I will not leave the cake in the pan as long as I did.  It got stuck in the pan after I left it in the refrigerator for a day and took me a long time and a lot of hot water to get the cakes out.

So, instead of getting into the recipe, I’ll give you some tips for the assembly.

I started with two different sized pans to get as close to the shape of a car as possible.  The first pan was a  rectangular Wilton cake pan that’s about 10.5 x 6.5 inches and 2 inches deep.  The second pan was a 1.5 quart glass loaf dish.  It was not a perfect match since I had to trim about a third of the finished loaf cake to make it fit nicely over the first layer.

Since the cake was too sweet, I decided to just lay it on top of the first layer and didn’t bother with a filling.  The cake was dense enough that it didn’t budge once I had it sitting on the cookie sheet I lay it on.  This was a heavy cake so I had to put it on a stainless steel cookie sheet if I was going to be moving it around safely.

Then I cut a few tubular pieces of the cake trimmings to use on both sides of the hood.  I then had my prepared buttercream frosting divided into two unequal portions.  About half a cup was tinted black for the hood and the rest was tinted as close to apple green as possible.  I used the old Philippine brand Peotraco gel tint for the black and it worked very well.  The green tint was a combination of blue and yellow McCormick food color.  Just a few drops of blue and lots more of the yellow.

When I was satisfied with the colors, I started with the body.  The only way it was going to work for me was to pipe the icing and cover as much of the cake before I smoothen it all out.  I used a small spatula to smoothen it out but as the icing melted, I used my clean fingers and that’s why the photo shows a dimply-looking surface.  I tried to  contour around the roof and hood sides but this melted eventually so go easy on the contouring around the edges or use a Royal Icing recipe. Then I piped the black frosting on the hood and smoothened that out strictly with my fingers.

Then I took four choco cookies and cut out foil rounds that fit in the center of each cookie.  The foil pieces stayed on the cookies with a little dab of frosting.  Then on to the sides of the cake they went for the perfect tires. Spouse said the edges even resembled treads so that was a nice bonus.

I then cut out some pieces of regular aluminum foil for the windows,  windshields, license plate, front grill and tail lights and stuck it on easily.  There was a little add-on not every car will have – a padlock.  I wish I had gold colored foil but I didn’t so I just made a teeny-tiny padlock shape thing with the regular foil and it worked for. For a finishing touch, I put some red candy decor pieces for the turn lights, both back and front.  Voila!  There’s your car cake!

Now that I’ve written this all down, I think I’m up for another cake decorating job!

Hi, this is the Spouse chiming in here at The UnofficialCook. Mita and I have been enjoying working on this site for several years now. Recently I signed up with a company called ReviewMe which offers bloggers a chance to write reviews of products that advertisers want to showcase. We’ve been eagerly looking forward for the first appropriate assignment, and here it is. I’m sad to say it can’t be very positive, but hey, here at “The Cook” you’re always going to get the unadulterated truth. The product in question is a web site sales service known as:

Absinthe Alcohol Online. I strongly suggest you read the rest of this review before you run off to visit them, though. There are a few reservations .. well more than a few .. I have to share with you. I’m going to break them into two sections … Legalities and eCommerce concerns:

Legalities:

The very first thing that came to my mind is the question, is this legal? The answer is a little muddy on several levels. I’m going to address first the legality/illegality of Absinthe in the United States … because that’s where most of our readers are and that’s where the body of legal data is concerned with. If you live elsewhere then you need to check up on the local laws in your country because they likely vary widely from the US “take” on the issue.

Absinthe [AB-sinth] Reputed to be an aphrodisiac, absinthe is a potent, bitter liqueur distilled from wormwood and flavored with a variety of herbs. It has a distinct anise flavor and is 68 percent alcohol (136 proof). Absinthe is usually diluted with water, which changes the color of the liqueur from green to milky white. The US FDA banned the human consumption of absinthe under Food Inspection Decision 147 in 1912. The “culprit” mainly responsible for the banning is the chemical Thujone, a terpene-like ketone, which is a result of the distillation of the wormwood herb. In recent years there has been some effort to sell “Thujone-free” absinthe … but the products Buy Absinthe Alcohol.com sell all clearly contain Thujone. Indeed the product descriptions pages state the Thujone concentration for each product.  Personally I don’t believe in telling anyone what is or isn’t good for them … but in this case I feel the FDA has made the situation pretty clear. I would advice any US citizen within the US to exercise extreme caution in making any sort of Absinthe purchase. I’m indebted to the Ask Erowid site for this Absinthe legalities summary and suggest you go there to learn a lot more about the laws and rules on Absinthe. Most likely:

1. It is illegal to sell thujone containing absinthe in the US for human consumption.
2. It is illegal for someone outside the US to sell thujone containing absinthe to someone inside the US.
3. It is not illegal to purchase thujone containing absinthe for personal use in the US.
4. It is not illegal to purchase thujone containing absinthe for personal use from outside the United States
5. Thujone containing absinthe can be seized by US customs (if it appears to be for human consumption).

eCommerce:

In general I am a big proponent of eCommerce. I live away from my native land and I find the ability of buying things online is a great benefit of the Internet. Even when I lived in the US I bought online whenever possible. But obviously one must exercise a basic level of caution. Online merchants owe their potential customers a certain level of legitimacy and in my view this company falls woefully short. Here’s what I found when I visited their site at midnight, GMT, 15 September 2007:

• Coding Errors: There is a top line menu that doesn’t display. Within that menu are important items like contact information. I eventually found the “Contact Us’ info within the code of the site and was faced with no physical address and a phone number listed as 000-000-0000. I didn’t bother to try to place a call. Not good.
• Policies on Privacy/Refunds/Shipping: Conspicuously absent. This is a basic requirement of eCommerce. Not Good.
• Site Ownership: The domain name is registered through a Malaysian privacy service. certainly nothing wrong with doing business with Malaysia … my wife and I live right next door. But to give no physical address, phone number, owner’s name? A huge red flag to me … I won’t buy or recommend anyone buy from anonymous sources. Not good.
• Site Location: Doing a “whois” on the domain shows that it is being served from Mexico. Very unusual since US servers are ‘better, faster, cheaper … heck most of the Asian firms I do business with have their servers in the US. Of course, nothing wrong with a Malaysian? firm running a web server in Mexico to sell to US customers, but it seems pretty obvious to me they didn’t read point number 2 in the legalities summary. At the least questionable.
• eCommerce Provider: How good or how bad your online buying results are depends in large degree upon the actual merchant services form that accepts you credit card, pays the merchant and in general oversees the deal. The provider in this case is a subsidiary of Digital river, one of the largest and lost well-established of these firms. And, guess what? When you attempt to place an order … the merchant services provider has suspended the operation of Buy Absinthe Alcohol’s sales. frankly, I think a big name provider knows a lot more than I do. Very bad news.

In short, my personal opinion is best summed up by what one of my favorite Soprano characters said in reference to partnering with Tony … “we should avoid this in droves”!

I was at Hi-Top Supermarket along Quezon Avenue in Quezon City with Eldest and Youngest Sisters, the Father, the Spouse, the Nephews and Eldest Sister’s Youngest Daughter on Maundy Thursday. Hi-Top is one of my old stomping grounds and I’ll write more about it when I have a photo to go with the post. For now, take a look at the ice cream photo here. Have you seen a greener ice cream?! If you’re Filipino, you’d probably answer in the affirmative. We’ve all had Avocado Ice Cream after all. Yes, you read right – Avocado Ice Cream.

I was looking at Hi-Top’s selection of ice creams and found it very interesting indeed. They have more flavors and brands, including Häagen Dazs and what I thought was no longer manufactured, Magnolia Ice Cream! I actually have to check on that info again on my next visit because I still can’t believe it.

Their selection from Arce Dairy was also very interesting, they had more flavors than I’ve seen anywhere. I picked up a half-gallon of their Green Tea Ice Cream just for kicks. I’ve read about all sorts of things flavored with Green Tea and even tried a green tea ice cream in some Japanese restaurant years ago. I was not very impressed and wondered what all the fuss was about. Could Arce Dairy do it better perhaps?

No one can, not for me anyway. Eating this ice cream was like eating through a Lipton tea bag! The texture was not smooth, it felt like there was this fine powder all throughout what should’ve been creamy goodness.

Then Spouse, who lived in Japan a few years, tells me that this ice cream reminded him of the free green tea from green tea vending machines along Japanese toll highway stops. The machine apparently spits out hot water into a cup and follows it with another of powdered green tea. You then mix it with a wooden spoon, but the powdery green tea leaves remains and leaves a fine grittiness in your mouth. So this wasn’t all alien to him.

But it was to me. I just didn’t take to it. Some people will like it I’m sure. I’m more of an Earl Grey hot tea person I guess.

And the color was just a complete turn-off. Seriously, I’ve never seen green tea THAT green ever. Spouse and I were having a lot of laughs about it while we were eating and exchanging big, green toothy smiles.

A little lighter on the green and I probably would take this ice cream more seriously.

This sherbet is made with young coconut which we call “buko” in the Philippines. Buko is perfect for a sherbet because the water from a young coconut has a slight sweetness that makes the perfect base. The tender coconut meat when chopped fine and churned with the buko juice also enhances the sherbet’s texture, making it amazingly creamier.

Under the Selecta brand then, this sherbet was available in the Philippines back when I was a kid and then suddenly disappeared when Selecta stopped production. Eventually, the brand was sold to a large food company who now produces the Selecta brand.
Fortunately for a new generation of Filipinos, the Arce family has revived their old creamery and is churning out familiar favorites again. Distribution is not as spotty as it used to be too. You can get Arce Dairy products virtually anywhere you have an SM Hypermart which is quite a few places around the country now.

The sherbet is best served when it’s starting to melt so you’d have to leave it out at room temperature for about 10 to 30 minutes before scooping it out. Being a sherbet and having no dairy ingredients at all, it’s very refreshing and light – just perfect for a hot afternoon in the tropics. In fact, I have a 2 and a half year old nephew who, unlike other kids, doesn’t like ice cream and other rich foods but he took to this sherbet instantly.

My nephew’s acceptance of this product really made me smile. You see, this was my Lola Blanca’s favorite and seeing it in the frozen food section of the supermarket the other day reminded me of all the hot summer afternoons in the garden where we enjoyed this sherbet. I’m so glad my little nephew can enjoy it too and I hope he’ll always be reminded of happy times in the garden whenever he takes a spoonful of his buko sherbet in the future…

 Has anyone tried the new slow churned ice cream Dreyer’s has been advertising with that goofy commercial?  I say goofy because I didn’t get it that the man who enters the supermarket is the manager…oh well, my brain was slow-churning I guess.

The idea of an ice cream with half the fat sounded a bit dubious.  How can just slow-churning make it richer tasting?  I don’t know, but it does.  There was absolutely no single ice particle in this pint we got.

I love how rich in flavor this ice cream is.  It was just perfectly-flavored and smooth.  It reminded me of the old-fashioned coffee ice cream from the Philippine brand, Selecta. 

Selecta, to those who know it, used carabao (water buffalo) milk for their ice cream.  Buffalo milk has a much higher fat content than cow’s milk.  The original Selecta ice cream which the Arce family manufactured was the best ice cream you could get in the Philippines when I was a kid.

We also tried the special edition Peppermint flavor.  It was good…but I think I made a mistake with the flavor.  There was this malt shop near our old house in Quezon City that was only open for a few months.  It was run by an American student studying at the University of the Philippines they said.  My favorite ice cream flavor from that shop was peppermint…always the peppermint.

The peppermint in Dreyer’s slow-burned ice cream was the mint candies they normally give at cheap restaurants with your bill…crushed, but just that. I guess I’m getting older…I don’t like peppermint anymore.  It looked really pretty though…white vanilla ice cream with swirls of pink from the candy bits.

NOTE:  The Unofficial Cook will be on the road again later this week.  The posts are all in and those who have left comments before will be able to post in the future.  Everything should run on auto-pilot for at least a couple of weeks.

This trip is going to be extra long.  We’re driving south and leaving the cold behind us….through the high plains of Southern Colorado and the steep slopes of Raton and on to Albuquerque and Gallup in New Mexico.  From there we drive through the Arizona deserts parallel to historic Route 66 and further on to that great Californian Desert, the Mojave.  In that great, sprawling city of Los Angeles we take a plane bound further south – to the Philippines.  A long trip indeed, through beautiful scenery I’ve never been through and ending at home where my family and everything familiar is waiting!

I bought dried fish from the Filipino Sari-Sari Store the other day…my craving for a Filipino breakfast overcame my apprehensions about getting one of good-quality.  This wasn’t so bad.  But man…was it salty!  My tastes must have changed more than I realized.  I used to enjoy dried fish. 

This was dried “bisugo” fish.  It’s very potently fishy.  In fact, I remember we would sometimes say it tasted like iodine, “lasang iodo” we would say.  I opened all the windows in the house and turned on all the exhaust fans so it wouldn’t stink up the house so much.  But when I put those fishes in the hot oil…..wheeeee….it reminded me of home!   I started salivating as I was frying it up. 

I have  a theory this package was actually saltier than what you can get in the Philippines because it was meant to last longer…being for export and all.  I hope so…because I always enjoyed my daing breakfasts…with that native vinegar…yummy.  I’m not put off totally…disappointed yes.  More so because this package of 4 dried fishes cost $3.99 – before the 6% sales tax! 

I also have another theory that my predisposition to salt was affected by my conscious efforts to use less salt and sugar in cooking as a consequence of an experience with a family member’s health concerns. 

Before I moved to the US, that family member got sick and the doctor ordered a strict, no-salt diet which I had to oversee.  I was just terrified of going back to the hospital after several confinements and was determined we were going to have the blandest diet the other side of Salt Lake City.  I even came up with this theory that one should drink as much water as  could possibly manage only to find out water retention is another detriment to your health! 

The Filipino food bloggers’ event, Lasang Pinoy celebrates it’s first year anniversary this month of August. Congratulations and here’s to more participants and anniversaries!

This month’s theme, Definitively Pinoy, was not so easy for me.  I wanted to do  the Ilokano dishes “dinengdeng” or  “pinakbet” that my mother does so well.  I could,  but it just wouldn’t be the same without the best ingredients.  So instead, I decided to feature a very Pinoy food product everyone who grew up in the Philippines will remember from their childhood:  Choc-Nut.  Just the mention of this chocolate and peanut confection elicits happy memories for Pinoys. 

I mentioned this in a previous post on Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream of all things.  It’s just one of those things that with just a little bite, conjures up so many memories and faces from your childhood. 

It hasn’t changed at all and I’m grateful for that. Even in Colorado, a world away from my home, it still brings me back and reminds me how definitively Pinoy I’ll always be….no matter where I wake up.

This is Number 6 in the Top Ten Flavors from Ben & Jerry’s.  I’m surprised it isn’t higher on the list!  I scooped out a bit of the ice cream to show some of the chunks.  If you’ll look closely, the ice cream is almost overflowing.  That’s really because of the lower air pressure in Colorado.  Products packaged at lower altitudes have this tendency to almost jump out of their packaging when we open it here.  Looks like there’s more of the product….and that works fine for me.

This is really THE chocolate lover’s dream ice cream.  The base is a smooth milk chocolate, not too sweet, which is just the way I like it.  Then they  put a lot into this little pint.  What isn’t in this ice cream?  Not much.  It had generous chunks of white chocolate (my favorite), walnuts, chocolate covered almonds, pecans and dark chocolate chips.  If you haven’t tried it, you really must.

We went food shopping at the Peterson AFB Commissary this afternoon and I saw MRE packs on a shelf.  It’s not the first time they went on sale at the commissary. They had individual packs going for $7.32 and boxes at about $87.00.  As I was sifting through the packs, Spouse came up to me and suggested I get a couple to test for this blog.  Good excuse I thought….why no? Let’s see what US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are eating out on the field.  I chose only one very common American meal:  Roast Beef with Vegetables.  There were others but this sounded like a good place to start…

What a surprise it was when I opened the pack and out came all this individual packets which came falling down on the counter.  There was cocoa mix, a carton which contained the main entree, oatmeal cookies, raisins, a spoon, crackers, peanut butter, and there was a miscellaneous pack with gum (2 pieces),  moist towelette, a tiny bottle of Tabasco, salt and what-not.  Boy, thisone pack generates a lot more trash than I ever imagined. Spouse said there must be a lot of these brown bags scattered all over Iraq by now.

Then there was a curious light green bag with some kind of paper in it.  Apparently, it’s a bag you put your entree in, add a small amount of water, seal and return to the carton from where your entree came from.  It heats up the food in about 10-15 minutes.  There was a warning on the bag which said ventilation was needed if 10 or more packs were going to be used in a small space.  I have no idea how this works, but it did get hot and emit steam from the water hitting that whatchamacallit heating pad thing. The vapors were apparently hydrogen, it said so on the bag.

The beef roast came in a thick tomato-based gravy mixed with the vegetables:  potatoes, carrots, celery I think and a few slices of mushroom. I cut it for this photo below and it didn’t seem to be real meat. Apparently, the beef slice was encased in this reconstituted, (for lack of a better word) pseudo-meat mash, perhaps to make it a uniform size. About a third of this roast beef was this pseudo-meat.

The flavor could be better…but that’s why you have the miniature Tabasco bottle there I guess. I put a bit of ground black pepper over mine before I started on my dinner because I usually do, with any meal. It wasn’t all that bad. It reminded me of those Campbell’s Chunky Soups which I once bought on a regular basis.  Pinoys have this thing for canned goods you see…Spam, corned beef and Campbell’s soups.

But I know I’d not be all that happy to eat Campbell’s soup everyday…or even twice a week.  My Campbell’s binges were mainly for when Spouse was away and I was too lazy to cook myself a meal.

I remember my dad was crazy about C-Rations. You could get it in Manila somehow when I was a kid.  There was a PX lady in our neighborhood who supplied us with Crisco for my mom’s pies and Blue Bonnet margarine, chocolates and some other US goods.  I guess it was all black market….but it was the 70′s and it was Manila…everyone knew it was going around.

Anyway, I think this is better than those C-rations we tasted back then.  Those tasted too much of baby food….which I also liked.  In fact, I’d sneak into Youngest Sister’s Gerber bottles when no one was looking….and thought I got away with it.  I don’t know how my mom knew…there must have been a perpetual streak of that prune mush on my cheek or something.  Mmmm…Gerber’s Prune mush….