puto | Marryl All Write

My husband found Tablea, conveniently next to Mochiko Mochi Ice cream at the Ayala Center Cebu.

For those of you who haven’t read my previous post, my hubby and I are up for a P100 Challenge - to amuse ourselves The goal is to find something interesting that’s under P100. That’s about $2.35.

Tablea Chocolate Cafe is one of those I’d like to call Cebuano ingenuity. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air to find something very local ( they make use of Philippine cacao beans) yet surprisingly very world-class. They try to find new ways of using tablea or that unsweetened tablets from pure cacao beans.

My husband ordered Churros Con Chocolate for P95.00 or about $2.22. I have to say this is definitely a winner.

My first taste of Churros was in high school at Le France cafe and since then, I’ve been searching for the best churros.

I think you get about 4-5 churros served with a rich Chokolate drink. Quite soft to the bite which is a good thing. If only it’s a little bit bigger it’d be almost perfect. I think a good churro is something that is moist and light in the inside and a crispy exterior that’s coated with sugar and cinnamon. Tablea’s churros come with a very rich chocolate dip, you can almost close your eyes as you savor this rich dessert..and then feel guilty, Mwahahaha Well not really. I think the chokolate is made from real cocoa beans that’s a good antioxidant (yeah, right!).

They sell batirols that brought back childhood memories back when my Mama used to make sikwate using a batirol. They look more like the batidors from Mexico with their patterns. Batirols or Batidors are actually wooden whisks used for making Tsokolate or a Hot chocolate drink using tablea.

The Churros Con Chocolate is at P95 so I think the husband won.

He said he had a lot of leftover chokolate and it’s a shame to be wasting such rich chocolate drink, he said it would be perfect with Puto! I wasn’t sure if he was just making excuses but he said I should definitely add this in my blog especially for my fellow Filipinos in the US and other parts of the world who miss Puto and Sikwate.

For an additional P25, you get puto and drizzle your leftover chokolate. In Cebu we call it sikwate. Puto and Sikwate is a popular Cebuano dish. Puto is sticky rice that’s perfect if paired with sikwate or warm Chocolate drink made from real cacao beans.

If you get the chance to go to the malls, try something interesting like Churros Con Chocolate. If you’re like my husband who will not let his warm chokolate go to waste, add in this really good puto and you can almost close your eyes and savor the richness of this chokolate…and then feel guilty

‘Til next challenge, Marryl!

P.S. While we’re at it, why don’t you join in the fun and try to amuse yourselves with our P100 Challenge. Let me know what interesting thing you’ve done that’s under P100! or $2.35!

Puto Cheese is a popular Filipino delicacy also known as rice cake. This is by far the best recipe I’ve tried. I tweaked it a bit and came up with my own version.

This isn’t your usual puto cheese that’s dry and has egg whites. This is very moist and creamy. The secret is in the powdered milk. You can add more than a cup of powdered milk to make it creamier.

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup powdered milk ( This is what makes it different from the other recipes which call for fresh milk or evaporated milk) If you’re from the Philippines or in the US, the best powdered milk that works well for this recipe is Bear Brand or Nido which you can easily find in Oriental or Filipino stores.
2 1/2 tbsp. baking powder
2 3/4 cups water
strips of cheese

Procedure:

Sift the flour, sugar, powdered milk and baking powder together.
In a bowl, add the water to the sifted ingredients. Mix all the ingredients together using a mixer. I added a teeny bit of flavoring (mango and vanilla to my mixture) and a wee bit of coloring since my daughter insisted that she wants them in pink, green and purple we don’t want our food boring. So this is not the usual white puto cheese, hee! hee!
Smoother a bit of butter on each mold.
Carefully pour the mixture to the molds leaving about 1/3 cup space at the top. This is to give enough space for the mixture to expand.
Place strips of cheese on top of the mixture.
Steam for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the puto cheese.
The puto cheese will easily unmold. You may refrigerate them which I think tastes so much better.

Here’s how they look like. The colorful molds that I used were really tiny so these puto cheese are oh so cute.