FOODie MOMster

Sweet Treats from Max’s for this Month of Hearts

(This is a Press Release from Max’s Corner Bakery)

I NSPIRED by the Filipino’s remarkably sweet and thoughtful nature, Max’s Corner Bakery ingeniously launched its most romantic line of desserts, a wide variety of indulgent and heart-warming delights for the season of hearts.

To make the celebration even more memorable, Max’s Restaurant is inviting couples and family members to spend sweet, unforgettable moments with their loved ones on Heart’s Day.

Sweet conversations can be best enjoyed while sharing their favorite meals, like Max’s sarap-to-the-bones Fried Chicken, and classic Filipino dishes Sinigang, Crispy Pata and Kare-Kare.

As a heart-warming gift from Max’s, diners will receive a box of melt-in-your-mouth pastry bites by Max’s Corner Bakery for a minimum spend of PhP 1,500 from February 10 to 14.

Taking the excitement to the hilt, Max’s Corner Bakery’s best-selling delights have also taken on a new form. All of its scrumptious cakes will be heart-shaped in time for the season! Customers can surprise their loved ones with Max’s Corner Bakery’s Heart-Shaped Cakes as a sweet token of their affection.

Other sweet Valentine gift suggestions are available at selected Max’s Restaurants nationwide from February 1 – 29. Time to troop to Max’s for a memorable Valentine celebration!

For news that will melt your heart, log on to www.maxschicken.com or visit www.facebook.com/maxsrestaurant to be a Max’s Restaurant Facebook fan. Click on www.facebook.com/maxscornerbakery to sign up for Max’s Corner Bakery’s fan page.

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About Max’s Restaurant

Max’s is the country’s leading fast-casual dining restaurant that serves the infamous “sarap-to-the-bones” fried chicken. Among every Filipino’s list of their most loved brands, Max’s traces its roots to a family’s generosity and passion for good food. Max’s, “the house that chicken built,” continues to innovate and expand worldwide with plans to open branches outside the United States. Today, Max’s Restaurant has established itself as a household name with 123 branches in the Philippines and 11 branches in global locations. Max’s is an institution, and a proud Filipino tradition, zealously upholding the values passed on from its early beginnings in 1945 to the present –day generation of food aficionados.

About Max’s Corner Bakery

Max’s Corner Bakery is the bakery brand of Max’s Restaurant, one of the most enduring global Filipino brands today. Max’s Corner Bakery is famous for its perennial dessert – the Max’s Caramel Bar, and a roster of other oven-fresh, saccharine treats that have captured the heart of Filipinos all over the world. Max’s Corner Bakery’s delectable product line includes a wide variety of cupcakes, classic and custom-made cakes, breads and pastries.

Heart Shaped Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for The One You Heart

Revel in the romance with Krispy Kreme this Heart Month!  From February 6 to 14,  Krispy Kreme’s is serving heart-shaped Valentine doughnuts.

Your favorite Krispy Kreme doughnuts are lovingly shaped into hearts this season. Celebrate love and share the sweetness of Valentine with a box of your favorite doughnut and coffee brand.

Enjoy Chocolate Ice Sprinkles, Peanut Butter with Choco Drizzle, Cookies & Cream, Snickers Classic, Powdered Strawberry, Chocolate Ice Custard, Chocolate Ice Kreme Filled, Caramel Kreme Crunch, New York Cheese Cake, Kitkat, and Choco Mania Doughnuts, as they come in cute, romantic heart shapes.

Grab a box now – no, make that two boxes!  One for you and one for your special someone.

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Serving world-class doughnuts and coffees since 1937, Krispy Kreme made its way to the hearts of Filipinos when it opened its first branch in the country back in 2006. Today, Krispy Kreme has outlets on 27 different locations nationwide, with hotlight stores in SM Mall of Asia, Greenhills Shopping Center, Festival Supermall Alabang, Bonifacio High Street and Cebu IT Park. Dubbed as the doughnut theater, Krispy Kreme’s hotlight stores serve everyone hot, freshly-made doughnuts straight from the fryer. To get more information and updates about the brand and its products, you may become a friend of Krispy Kreme by visiting www.krispykreme.com.ph or by liking Chloe at www.facebook.com/ChloeKrispyKremePH.

Frozen treats to delight your kids

Ice cream treats have always been a favorite in our household ever since I was a kid.  We grew up with Magnolia frozen delights like Twin Popsies, Pinipig Crunch, drumstick and cup ice cream.  I even remember the time when they came up with ice cream cake on stick with flavors like Ana Banana, Speedy the Sailboat and Merry Molly. These are flavors that I’m sure my kids will also enjoy if Magnolia decides to bring them back.

Kids today enjoy a wide variety of frozen delights from local and imported brands that are readily available in groceries, malls and convenience stores everywhere.  Our regular fare of frozen delights consists of Selecta and Magnolia ice cream half gallon tubs.  Selecta’s bestselling flavors for our kids include rocky road, double dutch, coffee crumble and cookies and cream.  We also love Magnolia ice cream’s pinoy flavors like halo-halo, ube macapuno and fruit salad. 

Occasionally we treat ourselves to take-out treats like cup, stick or pint sized imported ice cream like Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, Dreyer’s double fudge brownie, cookie dough, and peanut butter cup.  Those who love mint ice cream will enjoy Dreyer’s Mint Chocolate Chip and their seasonal treat of Thin Mint flavor.  Haagen Dazs has mini cup and stick treats available in the grocery, our kids usually go for the cookies and cream stick bar while I prefer the vanilla almond flavor.  For a classic chocolate coated vanilla ice cream stick, you can grab a Dilly Bar from Dairy Queen.

Doubly Sweet Valentine Treats

The best treats come from sweet and thoughtful kids no matter what the occasion is. This Valentine’s Day the kids will make their own special treats for their friends and loved ones using the favorite goodie ingredient of all times… Chocolate!

The chocolate making process is quite tedious and complicated for the little ones so we made a few adjustments to make it simple and fun. Instead of using cocoa or baking chocolate we opted for the ready made chocolate bars from Chocolate Lovers. We also used a fondue pot in lieu of a double boiler to avoid accidental burns. Here are the steps we took for our Kiddie Valentine Treats Project.

1. Melt ¼ bar of finely chopped milk chocolate in the fondue pot. Make sure that you gradually stir the chocolate to make sure that it melts evenly.
2. Once the chocolate is melted put the chocolate into plastic molds making sure that there are no air bubbles on your chocolate. You may use a spoon to scoop and transfer the chocolates to the mold.
3. You may add some nuts, marshmallows or rice crispies in your chocolate mixture during the melting process or you can add it after you placed the chocolate in the molds to create special designs on the face of your chocolates.
4. Wait for the chocolate to cool and harden before removing from the mold. You can put them inside the refrigerator for a minute or two to speed up the cooling and hardening process.
5. Once the chocolate has hardened, remove from molds and carefully wrap in your chosen packaging.

The older kids who are aged 8-10 years old were able to create choco lollipops, heart sprinkled choco cups and shell shaped chocolates from this project. Our younger ones who are aged 3-5 years old settled with re-packaging heart shaped and bug shaped chocolates into Valentines’ Day themed boxes.

These sweet treats certainly become a lot more sweeter when specially prepared by sweet and thoughtful kids.

Grab a 100-peso drink from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at One Archer’s Place

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® comes to One Archer’s Place!

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® opened its doors to its first customers at One Archer’s Place yesterday, the 30th of January.  In line with its debut, the new CBTL branch is holding a special promotion that will coincide with De La Salle University’s 100th year celebration.   Come to the store from 12:30 to 1:30 in the afternoon and purchase your favorite drink for only Php 100.  You heard it right! Just 100 pesos for any of CBTL’s signature blends.

This promo will run only until February 5, so head to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® at One Archer’s Place now.

The Umami Masters of the Ajinomoto 3rd Umami Culinary Challenge

January 20, 2012 will be etched as one of the greatest events in the culinary history of our country.  Thousand of visitors went to SMX Convention Center to witness hundreds of aspiring Filipino chefs showcase their culinary talents in the Ajinomoto 3rd Umami Culinary Challenge: Battle for the Umami Bowl.  It was truly a “malinamnam success”!

After an entire day of competition and cooking demonstrations, the event was capped off with an Awarding Ceremony hosted by Suzi Abrera.  Before the main awards were given,  Ajinomoto Executives presented an award to Ms. Nora Daza for her significant contributions in the food industry.  The ceremony was also graced by Sarah Geronimo who wowed the crowd with her stellar performance.

The Umami Bowl Award went to Miriam College which garnered the highest average score in major competition categories.  They also won the Umami Feature Writing Contest: Dr. Ikeda Award.  Apart from the prestigious award, they were also granted an Elba Kitchen Showcase and other prizes.

The “Pan-Seared Salmon with Veggie Rolls and Micro Green Salad in Spicy Coconut Sauce”  was such a sumptuous dish that the judges deemed Mr. John Paul Ventura of Jose Rizal University the Umami Master of the 3rd UCC.

Other schools also showed outstanding skills in various categories:

• Lyceum of the Philippines Manila topped the Umami Bento and Mystery Umami Ingredient categories.
• Centro Escolar University got the first place in the Amazing AJI-GINISA Race and the Umami Buzz Jeopardy Challenge.
• Trinity University of Asia came out first in the Prep, Shake and TakTakTak competition.
• De La Salle Araneta University won the Plate-My-Dish competition and Appetite Magazine’s Capture Umami Challenge (Food Photography Contest).
• College of the Holy Spirit received the special award “Media’s Choice for Best Plated Umami Bento”.
• The top three (3) culinary schools that competed for the 5-Ingredient-Umami-Healthy Dish competition were: Global City Innovative College, American Hospitality Academy and MOST Institute Culinary School.

Ajinomoto, Elba, Whirlpool/Fujidenso, PR Gaz, Meat and Livestock Australia, Masflex and Appetite Magazine generously sponsored cash prizes, medals and various cooking implements for all winners in the Ajinomoto 3^rd Umami Culinary Challenge.   Other event partners were GMA 7, Philippine Daily Inquirer and PR Moms Network.