My sister and I made a pact this year to shake it up and prepare Filipino treats for a friend’s annual holiday cookie exchange instead of adding to the usual fare of macaroons & ginger snaps. She was to make budbud (sweetened rice wrapped in banana leaves) and I attempted a street food favorite called Carioca. Not being the most resourceful in the kitchen (and having a Filipino mom who’s sweets cooking repertoire only went as far as melting chocolate into sweet rice), I turned my shrugging baking mitts to the internet. I was lucky to stumble on a fun blog by a gent in Cali cooking his way through his culture called Burnt Lumpia – a site I will definitely be visiting again for inspiration. I tried both the blog’s recipe where he calls the treat Cascarone (another problem with trying to hunt down the recipe for a food with common ingredients – every region has a different name for it) and a recipe on yahoo that sounded more rich because of the use of milk instead of water. Both were excellent (hey, fried dough covered in sugar!), but according to my sister’s ‘buds the yahoo recipe was the closest to what she remembers…but not quite there. So, I may have to make a few of my own adaptions on the next go around.
