G and C Cafe is a small café serving guests of Hotel Cosmopolitan in Baguio. When the pandemic hit the country and quarantine measures were put to place in March, the hotel was, unfortunately, one of the establishments that had to close down.
Fast forward to Sep. 21. The hotel reopens and so does the café. But during that half a year break, G and C Cafe continued its operations albeit only through delivery, serving comfort food and platters for consumption at home.
They did some conceptualizing, too and introduced a few new dishes to its customer base during the pandemic. One of which is their gluten-free mochi donuts that they released in August. Instead of using flour to make their dough, G and C Cafe used rice flour, a staple in Filipino cooking, often used in making kakanin.
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Called mochi donuts, they took their inspiration from the Japanese rice delicacy with flavors like matcha white chocolate, dark chocolate, cashew white chocolate and honey glazed. Only recently did they realize that we have our very own version of a rice dough dessert: kakanin.
From there, they release a new batch of flavors but with the same crispy on the outside and sticky and chewy on the inside donut base.
Now they have six more flavors inspired by Filipino flavors: bibingka galapong, ube halaya (using Good Shepherd ube jam), leche flan, pinipig crunch, kalamansi cream pie and ChocNut.
Earlier this month, we wrote about a Filipino-run online bakery in New York that sells doughnuts flavored with unique Filipino ingredients halo-halo, maja blanca, turon, itlog na pula, sans rival, champorado, calamansi, leche flan and buko pandan. The pastries were such a hit, Kora bakery’s founder and owner Kimberly Camara said they had an 800-person waitlist at the time.
[READ: Halo-halo, maja blanca doughnuts draw 800-person waitlist in NY. How come we don’t have them here?]In the same story, we asked, why is it that we don’t have the same ingenious donut flavors here in the country where said ingredients are arguably more accessible.
To this G and C Cafe replied through an Instagram direct message saying, “We came across your article about the Kora doughnuts in New York. It’s very timely that you mentioned why we donut have them here in the Philippines.”
Recognizing that gap in the local market, they have since offered their kakanin donuts for dine-in at Hotel Cosmopolitan and for delivery in Baguio. A box with all six flavors is priced at P250, a dozen at P470.
“I want children nowadays to learn and appreciate how good and yummy Filipino desserts are. We all know children love doughnuts but not all of them are willing to try kakanin.”
We’ve never missed Baguio more.
Photos courtesy of G and C Cafe
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Writer: CHRISTIAN SAN JOSE
