The New Starbucks Logo

The new logo has been rolled out on March 8, 2011 to mark Starbucks' 40th anniversary. What a nice way to celebrate, huh? ;-)

Actually, it's been months since I first heard about this change but I never really paid much attention until yesterday (6 days after! where have I been?! darn!) when I got my cup of cappuccino that I noticed the new look of the Siren without the words "Starbucks Coffee" around it. Personally, it lacks the appeal of its predecessor and looks weak. If they want to symbolize "freedom" and "flexibility" to think beyond coffee, I guess the new logo failed to project that image. Oh well, this is just my 2 cents worth of opinion and I hope I was wrong.

Anyway, they say life begins at 40. With that said, here's to a good "start", may you be more inspired for the next 40 years... and beyond! :-)

Cheesecake Bars

Cheesecake. Plain. No toppings. Blame it to my epidural, haha! Seriously, wanna know why it's plain? Here goes... we were in Trinoma last Saturday. We (Gie, me, and Icon) were having snacks at Jollibee while Sai was buying some grocery stuff to save time. Knowing how forgetful Sai can get when it comes to buying baking ingredients (yeah, selective amnesia! just kidding, baby *winks*), I told him to go about his shopping and I'll just text him what I needed for my cheesecake. Well, based on the previous cheesecake I baked, I thought of needing some butter, sour cream, and graham crust (in lieu of oreo cookies). I still have cream cheese at home and I'm sure the other ingredients are available in my mom's grocery cabinet. But it never occurred to me that I'd be needing some toppings this time, waaaah! Hence, instead of the strawberry cheesecake that I originally planned to make, with a bit of tweaking and some alibis, I came up with something different and it would be more fitting to call it "cheesecake bars" ;-)

thicker crust + thinner cheesecake = cheesecake bars...

Thanks for the help of my sous chef slash budding photographer, Gie! ;-)

Sweet Serendipity

Last Monday, while I was at Mini Stop to get a bottle of water for lunch, I passed by the ice cream chest freezer and something caught my eye -- Reese's flavored ice cream! One of my favorite chocolates now in ice cream form! Can you imagine my delight upon seeing this? It was serendipity indeed... and a sweet one at that ;-)

I wonder how long this has been in the market. I hope (and I wish) this is not just a limited edition! No, please?! =P

Cheesecake {Take 2}

A couple of weeks ago I baked an oreo cheesecake. I got the recipe from the official website of Nabisco (makers of Oreo!) which got me thinking (hoping, actually) that this must be good. Fortunately, as expected, the taste was awesome but the look was awful!


Hey, this was just my second attempt on {baked} cheesecake so bear with me *winks* Anyway, unlike this oreo cheesecake, the first cheesecake I baked -- the blueberry cheesecake that I never bothered to blog about, looked good but tasted more like an egg pie, haha!

So see, even if my oreo cheesecake was overbaked, it was definitely an improvement c",) 'til my next cheesecake experiment...

Cake Adventure #5

Had it not been due to a request from one of our officemates to get another mango-flavored cake, I wouldn't be able to try this oh-so-yummy mango charlotte from Sweet Bella which I like a LOT better than the mango torte! To think that I enjoyed every bit of the latter, can you just imagine how delicious this one is? ;-)

*Photo "snatched" from Sweet Bella site.

Cookies For Sale

Nah! Just kidding =P

Aside from playing with Icon and eating every now and then, these cookies kept my hands full last Saturday {January 1}. Actually, these are the culprit why I wasn't able to reply right away to all those who greeted me that day, sorry guys!

I've been whipping and beating and baking every chance I got since 10 in the morning. And these are the results...

From upper left quadrant, clockwise: mocha chip cookies, raisin-oats cookies, choco-mint cookies, and chocolate chip cookies.

Cookies, anyone? c",)

apple.convertIntoPie();

Got some leftover "media noche" fruits...

... and turned some of the apples into apple pie! Sadly, the crust I made was too thin and it cracked easily. I never thought making pie crust was that hard, haha!

Anyway, I wanted to bake some banana bread too but got no more time... had to leave for Manila already *sigh*