Black Forest Bread Style

As I have mentioned before, I'm a big fan of the Black Forest flavor. So far I have seen it used as a variant of cakes, ice cream and coffee. And I thought the food manufacturers have already exhausted the kind of products they can use this flavor on. So I was surprised and excited to see Gardenia making a Black Forest bread. They have really out done themselves this time.

So how does the flavored bread fair? The pastry has a strong sweet, chocolaty scent. But to my surprise, the taste is very (emphasize on "very") faint. You have to focus on your taste buds' actions to notice the weak aftertaste. It claims to be made of cherries yet I sense no fruity sensations other than the ones in the bread's scent. There is a thin lining of, what I suspect to be, cherry jelly swirls on the slices. However, these swirls are not uniformly present in each loaf, probably because the breads are made in batches and not by piece. A good indication of a relatively heavy jelly content is the bread's dark color. The darker or heavier the color, the more flavorful it is.

Despite this feedback, I'm not at all disappointed with Gardenia's flavored bread. After all, if they really intended to create a pastry with a strong resemblance to cake, then they would have made cupcakes, muffins or pies. At Php 65 per loaf, it's quite expensive and it's no substitute for the real black forest cake. But the innovative idea behind its flavor still makes it, as it says on the label, AMAZING!

Just When You Thought It Couldn't be Anymore Filipino

The mamon is the Filipino version of a yellow sponge cake. I thought that the pastry alone was already a symbol of Filipino creativity and culture. But then Red Ribbon redefined the common notion of the sponge cake and turned it into an even more Filipino product. This is the Ube Mamon. It is infused with the flavor of Ube or purple yam, a traditional Filipino confection made from a type of root crop.

The sponge cake has a glossy surface because it is topped with a thin layer of the purple yam cream. The exterior has a deep purple color, which makes it more appetizing. The inside of the pastry is soft, moist and flavorful. It is like eating Ube Cake minus the cream so there is less fat. Also, the texture is firm unlike its cake counterpart, which crumbles down easily. For Php 20 per piece, the price is reasonable and the product's uniqueness is worth your money. So the next time you want to buy pastries, drop by Red Ribbon and have a purple dessert.

White Forest Cake

Presenting the White Forest Cake, the latest creation of Red Ribbon. Honestly, using white chocolate on cakes never entered my mind so this is really an innovative concept. I'm a big fan of white chocolate so this product is a must-try.

Since white chocolate has more milk and sugar than cocoa, the bitter-sweet taste is absent. This enhances the taste of the cherry jam lining the layers of fluffy chiffon cake. The cherry flavor penetrates deep inside the entire pastry. To be honest, the strong fruity taste slightly overpowers the milk chocolate. I'm not sure if milk chocolate is really weaker compared to its dark counterpart or if my taste buds are just indiscriminate to this kind of taste. It seems that the creamy characteristic milk chocolate is supposed to have is not that noticeable. I'm still impressed though, since the cake's concept is innovative and its cherry flavor achieves my standards of taste intensity. Cheers to Red Ribbon!