Did you find our blog through Saveur.com? Welcome, welcome! We are honored to be featured on The Daily Fare and hope you find this recipe useful. You can download the PDF recipe for it further down this post. We also have a mocha-flavored sponge cake that is a delicious knockoff of the Philippines’ Goldilocks version. You might also want to check other cakes and baked goods. Quick links to recipe categories are available on the main page. To subscribe to our RSS feed, just go here Thanks for dropping by and please come again!

Before I start talking about food, let me just assure you that you are on the right website. We just got a face lift. I’ve been wanting to have a new design for ever but never found the time until now. You know how the full moon makes you do crazy things? This was mine. Part of the reason I couldn’t blog, aside from training for my first 5K (perhaps I’ll tell you about that some other time) and working too much, I just couldn’t stand the old layout. Let’s just say I could breathe easier now.

We’d love to get some feedback. If you don’t like something, please let me know what and why. If something’s not readable, definitely stop me in my tracks here, via email or on Twitter!

The sideblog of links has been revamped. We now have an FAQs page, which also addresses the missing-in-action monthly newsletter. There’s a link to our OpenSky shop, and I promise we’ll add more to the store after the busy IFBC weekend. What? Yes, you heard me!

Woohoo? WOOHOO!

Can you see me jumping in excitement?

I’m absolutely looking forward to seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and learning from them this weekend. We will be eating well, too. So much fun! See you there in a wink!

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Now that’s out of the way, I’d like you to meet my brother’s Mamon with Coconut Lemon Buttercream birthday cake:

“Mamon” (pronounced as ma-mon’ as if saying c’mon) is a common snack or dessert in the Philippines. It is a soft and moist sponge cake that’s lightly sweetened. They are commonly sold as small cakes, with fluted sides similar to brioche, and come in flavors such as mocha, ube, and pandan. Instead of making small cakes, I created one big cake for my brother’s birthday.

This sponge cake is not as airy as its smaller counterpart; but delicate without falling apart. The toasted coconut adds a taste of the tropics and complements the texture of the silky frosting. It’s light enough to pair with a piña colada or white wine on a hot summer day, or a warm cup of floral tea or dark coffee.

I’ll tell you what else this cake partied with in my belly: I ate it with Caramilk Liqueur. {ducks} {giggles}

It’s no secret that I enjoy putting a Filipino/Asian twist to my cooking and baking, and this one’s no different. This cake tastes like Hawaii meets California on a hot summer day. Surf’s up and let’s eat!

Get the recipe for this Coconut Lemon Frosted Mamon Cake

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We are pleased to announce our partnership with OpenSky to bring you products we enjoy through our very own online store. We will provide you firsthand information on products and recommend only those that we use and find worthy of telling you about. Hope you like it! And thank you for your support, friends!

I know I do! Sure, in some supermarkets in the US selling liquor, they have those wine chillers so you can cool your wine before hitting the checkout counter. However, if you’re home and you already have your room-temperature bottle of wine, it would be a hassle to go out just to buy some wine. And if you’re like me who have impulse cravings for wine that doesn’t leave enough time to chill anything (and don’t own a wine chiller), that puts a damper on saying yes to instant gratification.

That’s where ravi comes in! ravi is an “instant wine refresher”. I prefer to call it my enabler of instant wine gravification. I just have to take out the inner cartridge out of the freezer, assemble the unit in two snaps and place on the mouth of the bottle of my preferred wine and I’m good to go!

ravi looks like the cartridge of a faucet tap water purifier, and is almost the same size. Yes, the liquid passes through it as it’s being cooled down. Instead of cooling the bottle, wine is being cooled as it’s poured. It doesn’t change the flavor in any way.

I put it to the test with a bottle of red wine. The wine’s original temperature is 25°C, as you can see here.

I took out the ravi cartridge out of the freezer and set it up as indicated. The first two glasses I poured registered an almost 10-degree drop in temperature right there. You will see that even after 30 and 60 minutes, ravi was still able to hold the chill and cooled the wine to about 17°C. That’s pretty good, I think. I drank the wine at the “start” and “ravi” temperatures and they difference is noticeable.

I mentioned above that ravi has a valve that you can block with a thumb. This valve controls the flow of liquid through the  cooling tube. The principle is simple: slow down the flow and the liquid stays in longer, thus chilling it longer. Based on experience, I didn’t have to do this for the first 3 glasses. It cooled down quite nicely to a nice 15°C.

The possibilities are endless: you can use ravi for red, white, or rose wines. Just like your ice cream maker bucket, you can place it in the freezer and forget about it until you need it. I put the cartridge in a resealable sandwich bag in the freezer door. Cleanup is a breeze–just rinse and dry the internal tubing with the included pump.

I can definitely see this coming to potlucks (at private residences) for instant wine chilling, and placed in a tiny cooler, or even in those lined keep-frozen bags when traveling. As a self-confessed “girl scout” who brings whatever may be needed, this is another great gadget to have on hand!

We have partnered with OpenSky to bring products that we love to you, our dear readers. We do earn a small portion of each sale made through our store, but we will never recommend products we’ve never tried or don’t believe in. That much we can promise you.

If you like this product, you can purchase it here right now for USD$40. If you order anytime between today and August 16 and use the coupon code FREESHIPPING, you’ll get free shipping!

After several years of skipping out on seeing the Celebration of Light fireworks competition, I revisited this summer spectator crowd sport in Vancouver with my family to watch the pyrotechnic tribute to China, last year’s winner. [Before the Canadian and Chinese national anthems, it was announced that Spain won this year's festival.]

We had an unexpected guest of a massive downpour within 10 minutes of setting up our picnic mats. Not only was I in warm weather running gear, my change of clothes obviously did not anticipate the sudden drop in temperature. Oops. Yeah, I was freezing in my dri-fit clothes.

We were troopers and braved it through the rain, damp grounds, cooler-than-expected ocean breeze, massive crowds and the additional 2 hour trip back because of the slower-than-toirtoise-pace traffic. I didn’t come home empty-handed though. And for all that, I need to show you at least some of the photos I took under the trees, where we ended up staying. Hope you enjoy!!!

Now time for a “nap” before I watch the matinee showing of Inception with a gal pal who’ll watch it for the second time. Yes, I could be the last person who hasn’t seen it!

What are you up to this Sunday? Or what did you do this past weekend (for those of you waking up to Monday already)?

In any case, Happy Sunday and have a fantastic first week of August. Rabbit, Rabbit!