From Baking to Biking

It was sometime in 2020 - the start of the pandemic - that Ate Bullet, Ray and the 2 boys started talking about opening a coffee shop for bikers. 

Ray is an avid bike enthusiast, and part of their trips would be looking for good coffee apres riding. One of their usual haunts was a place in Makati called Kohi Coffee. It was during those rides that they planned of having their own coffee shop one day.

In 2022, that dream finally became a reality with Kuro. And in a few days, they'll celebrate their 1st year.

The shop is located beside the old bakeshop owned by Ray, which is great because they've already built a loyal clientele there. Now, with the influx of bikers, their old bakeshop habitue has expanded. So, it's a good mix of old and new.

Looking back at how they were just discussing this shop, to reading about it here, it's clear that their passion for both baking and biking is what will make Kuro even more successful in the future.

Early birds

Finally, Mark was able to visit the new shop in Katipunan early this morning! And Ate Bullet and the family were so glad to see him.

Bonus: we were able to have a good and heart breakfast there! Courtesy of Ate's excellent cooking skills, of course.

Here's to more get togethers at Dexter's/Bite The Bullet/Kuro soon!

From Sketch to Superb

As expected, Raymond took my Chicken-scratch sketch and turned it into a superb-looking cake creation.

This cake is just so pretty, I can look at it for days.

Superb work, as always!

Berry, Berry Nice

As a major fan of Strawberries, this new product from Dexter's thrilled me to bits.

Strawberry bits, that is.

Yup, they now have Strawberry Pianono!

Not biased or anything, but this is the best pianono. 

I'm berry sure of it!

Pan-tastic!

I'm so glad that my brother-in-law decided to start baking their Pan de Coco again!

I've been craving for this type of bread for some time now, and it's hard to come by because of the quarantine. So, imagine my thrill when Ate brought home a whole bag for us.

Cravings satisfied! Pan-tastically!

Boy, oh Boy!

A few weeks ago, my colleague came up to me to ask about Dexter's making a cake for Boy Abunda's birthday.

After confirming with them that Ate can make a cake within their time frame, they put me on the spot and asked me to sketch a cake design.

This is what I came up with.

And this is how Dexter's executed it.

Pretty cool, eh.

Sketchy Stories: Nice and simple

Last Saturday, Mark's godson - Luigi - was baptized. As Ninong, he decided to give Luigi a cake, and asked me to come up with a design.

If Mark had his way, the cake would have Thor and Unicorns. Harhar. But since it was a easy, quiet celebration, I thought the cake should be nice and simple as well.

Thus, an elegant cake based on the color scheme and invite of the event.

Simple can be really, really nice.

Digital Design

There are times when I'd like to sketch something, but a nice pen or pencil is nowhere to be found.

Odd, but true.

In that case, I just open the trusty photoshop and try to digital my way out of the predicament.

Just like this design that for Richard's cake. Dexter's is going to do a great job on this.

It's actually faster to do it digitally at times. But call me old fashioned, but the traditional sketching is still my preference.

Bring out the smiles

One of our clients celebrated her birthday, and they asked me to design a cake for her.

They own the brand Smileys, the sandwich cookie that we launched last year. And inspired by that, this was the sketch I made.

The concept is 2 Smiley cookies on top of each other, and the top layer features the face that's on their vanilla flavor.

I gave the design to Ate and they came up with this!

Heck, I couldn't help but smile.

Sketchy Stories: Dressed up cake

One of our clients celebrated her birthday last Friday, and the office asked me to design a personalized cake for her.

If there's one thing I vividly remember about this client, it's how she's a big fan of flannel shirts and ballet flats. So, I sketched this design for her.

As expected, Dexter's was able to execute my idea beautifully.

It was such a sweet surprise for our client.

Pop goes the wedding

Last weekend, I saw this Dexter's cake that was ready for delivery. I had to stop and take a snap of it,

The couple must be huge Funko Pop fans. Not to mention Bat-fans as well.

Another excellent cake from Dexter's.

Simply Jesse

Today was an extra special day because we had an extra adorable and extra special guest.

Baby Jesse!

Baby Jesse is Mark's nephew and he dropped by Dexter's with his parents after getting his vaccination. Aside from being super duper adorable, he's a very nice baby. He didn't complain when I carried him, neither when Ate Bullet carried him as well. He was smiling a lot, and he'd laugh when you made googly sounds.

All that adorableness at less than 5 months old!

This visit really made my Sunday.

It's all in the cards

One of my favorite design tasks is laying out materials for Dexter's. Last week, Ate Bullet asked me design their calling cards, and just like the last time, we used some of their best cake creations as focal point for the cards.

I did 10 different designs and I wouldn't be surprised if clients collect all 10. Each cake is really a visual masterpiece. But if I were to choose my favorite among the 10, it has to be this Vera Wang inspired wedding cake.

It truly is a masterpiece in sugar!

Alfie's sketchy stories: Making the cake

It's been more than 2 decades since I've began sketching cakes as a hobby. 

First, they were just random sketches, then, sketches for birthday cakes, and eventually, wedding cake sketches.

Among the wedding cake sketches that I really enjoyed doing are the wedding cakes of D' Frendz. From Bonique, to Grace, to Rona, each cake had its own story. Because I'm making it for my best Frendz, there's more pressure. After all, I only want the best for them.

The latest wedding cake sketch I made was for Alfie's wedding. The inspirations for her cake were her favorite colors and her wedding flowers. Alfie has always been a purple girl, so I made each layer of her cake in a different shade of purple. And on the sides, I added hydrangea motifs.

Alfie and Bon are both very laid back folks, so even the bride and groom figures were laid back. Instead of standing, I designed them to be sitting relaxed on the 2nd layer of the cake. Finally, I put their wedding emblem on top.

Needless to say, the sketch came to life beautifully under the masterful hands of my brother-in-law, Raymond. 

Judging by how Bon and Alfie loved the cake, and seeing how so many people were having their photos taken with the cake, I'd say the design was a success. And making a successful cake for Alfie made it even sweeter.

The Life of Fi

A few days ago, my sister told me this funny story that happened at their bakeshop. There was a conversation between their server and customer, and it went like this:

CUSTOMER: "Miss, meron ba kayong wi-fi?"
SERVER: (After thinking about it for a while) "Wala po, sir. Ang meron po kami, Chicken fi, Pineapple fi at Apple fi."

Now that's a conversation.

This takes the Cake!

Presenting the sinfully delightful concoction that my Ate Bullet prepared for me for my birthday!

It's a chocoholic's dream! Chocolate cake with Nutella filling, then covered with Kit Kat, Snickers, M&Ms, Reese's, Maltesers and Raisinets! It's all my favorite chocolates in one cake!

No wonder my celebration is much, much sweeter.

From the Mac into a Magazine

A month ago, I wrote about this birthday cake that I designed digitally. It's a blue and green checkered cake that was designed to look like gift boxes.

Then, a week ago, Sonee sent me the photo of the actual cake as it appear in a business magazine.

I really like how the cake came out. And from what I heard, ECJ like the cake a lot, too.

Digital dessert

After trying my hand at designing a garment digitally, I found myself having to design a cake in the same manner.

It happened 2 weeks ago when I was in a shoot. My friend, Jing-jing, called me up and said that they needed a rush design for a cake. Having no pen and paper at that time, and only having my computer, I used my photoshop program to come up with this:

It didn't turn out too bad. And the client also appreciated the design.

I should do digital designing more often.

Masterpiece in sugar!

There was never a doubt that my brother-in-law is a master cake designer and creator. He, along with his team at Dexter's bakeshop, has been creating sugar masterpieces for over 30 years!

But after seeing the cake he did for Alecx's 18th birthday, I was much more impressed by his mastery and attention to detail. The Disney castle he created was simply astounding!

So outstanding that my Dad and his friend Mario couldn't help but have their photos taken with it. (Dad rarely does this, so this is really special!)

This cake was a creative challenge for Raymond. Actually, he started work on it as early as January! But the result was well worth all the effort.

Congratulations, Raymond!

There's a fruit cake for everybody...

For as long as I can remember, there's a long running joke about fruit cake and Christmas. Some people say that fruit cake is the "gift that keeps on giving." That's basically because if you give someone fruit cake, chances are they'll give it away to another person.

Fruit cake is also said to taste better as it ages - which isn't a bad thing. That's basically because it's going to be stuck in the freezer for who knows how many years!

Needless to say, everybody seems to be shying away from fruit cake during Christmas.

Everybody except me, of course. I just adore fruit cake! Especially the one that Dexter's makes! (And I'm not just saying this because Raymond and Ate Bullet makes these fruit cakes.) 

I still remember the first time I tasted Dexter's fruit cake. It was in 1990, and Raymond was just courting Ate Bullet that time. Raymond brought fruit cake at home, and when I tried it -- divine! The texture was very dense, there was fruit and nut with every bite, and there were a lot - a whole lot - of cherries. And as everyone knows, I'm a big fan of cherries.

It's been 22 years since I tried this fruit cake, and I still like it as much now as I did back then. That's a good gauge of how awesome Dexter's fruit cake is.

Everybody should try it!