I grew up smelling the sweet aroma of freshly baked cakes and bread as early as 9 years old. I practically grew up baking. My mom started a bakeshop when I was around 8 years old. She named it Sally’s Home Bake Shop after her nickname.

Her inspiration came after watching a movie. She noticed that a lot of moviegoers bought “kutsinta” or “puto”. She started with two product lines only. Then one day as a nine year old girl, I find myself being asked to help around the bakeshop.

I will share a few of her baking recipes. Take note that some of these recipes are quite old-fashioned,dating back to the early sixties. Who knows you might want to try out a few?

Here is a recipe for Sylvannas for the experienced baker. This is not the short-cut method of making sylvannas that one sees online. The recipe is made up of 2 parts: the Cookie and the butter-cream icing.

The Cookie Ingredients

2 cups eggwhites
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup cashew nuts or walnuts
1 cup cake flour
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
Grease Cookie sheet and sprinkle with flour.

To make the sylvannas Cookie

1. Beat egg whites until stiff.

2. Add sugar a little at a time until smooth.

3. Add the cream of tartar.

4. Fold in the cashew nuts.

To arrange the cookie mixture on the cookie sheet

1. Get a tablespoonful scoop of the eggwhite mixture. Try to make them uniform in sizes with an oval shape. Set around 2 inches apart from each other.

2. Bake at 375 degrees until light brown. Cool.

Yields: 150 pcs

Sylvannas Butter-cream Icing

1. Boil into a syrup by mixing 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cups water. Let’s call this Mix A. Set aside.

2. Beat 7 egg yolks. Set Aside.

3. Soften a bar of refrigerated margarine and 1/2 bar of Butter (Anchor). Cream them together.

4. Add Mix A from number 1 then add the eggyolks one by one until smooth. Set Aside.

To assemble

2 cups of Crushed Lady Fingers or
Butter-cream Icing

1. Spread cream mixture on a piece of cookie.

2. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and top with another piece of sylvannas.

3. Cover the entire surface of the sylvannas with more butter-cream mixture.

4. Roll the surface area with crushed Lady Fingers.

5. Chill for 30 minutes.