Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

I wonder if we have contactless cards here in the Philippines?

Here is an explanation of what a contactless cards are:

A contactless smart card is any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits that can process and store data, and communicate with a terminal via radio waves. There are two broad categories of contactless smart cards. Memory cards contain non-volatile memory storage components, and perhaps some specific security logic. Contactless smart cards do not contain an ordinary read-only RFID, but they do contain a re-writeable smart card microchip that can be transcribed via radio waves.
The first contactless smart card in production use for fare payment was the Octopus card, introduced in Hong Kong in 1997 for the territory’s mass transit system.

I wonder too, if they use these contactless cards in mass transit tickets and in ATM cards. Well if they do, I badly need more information about its local availability.

Any help will be highly appreciated. Thanks!

Mid of 2010 I stopped getting projects from oDesk mainly because I gave birth to Project Happiness Bakehouse and the planning, recipe trials and what-have-you’s in building an online bakehouse. It was tough, believe me and it took me a while to get recognized. The continuous flow of orders came at the start of 2011 already and just when the orders started pouring in, I got pregnant, almost lost the baby blah blah blah

So I really stopped working for people from the foreign land. And here comes 2012, while most people are looking for Orderly Jobs here and abroad, here I am, wishing that I could find a suitable VA job for me in oDesk. The business is doing good, I just need an extra job to sustain my “luho” LOL

It’s worth taking the risk, right?

I have been getting invites from friends to try investing on Vmobile. I am skeptic, yes I am because I’ve heard a lot of not-so-good news about multi-level marketing since I was 14. Having heard of aunts and moms of friends getting lured into believing that they will double and triple their money once they invested on these programs but ended up drowning in debt and some in jail makes me want to cringe. No I won’t make the same mistake. I’ll earn money the hard way, no easy money for me.

Then here comes VMobile. A lot of my friends believe on it, rich and the not-so-rich alike are saying that it’s really true. I want to give it a try and as long as I’d get back my 4K pesos investment, I guess I would be okay with that.

So how true is this? I hope NO ONE replies with links saying that my I will earn 30,000 in a week. That’s BS. It’s only POTENTIAL earning, not a guarantee that I would really earn that much. If that’s the case then I’ll just sit and buy gold bars and be merry for the rest of my life.

So Vmobile, how true are you?

I was calling myself a baker until I met Top Pastry Chef Franck Geuffroy. He was just too good that I felt like a dot compared to him

Chef Franck is the training chef and consultant of Alain Ducasse Formation et Conseil.

This novice baker just got invited to a live pastry demonstration held in Enderun Colleges –  the L’art de la Patisserie (The Art of Pastry). Why would I say no to this once in a lifetime event? of course I said YES immediately Chef Franck demonstrated advanced techniques in making various pastries including the eye-catching all-edible sugar sculpture.

During the demonstration I learned that a Pastry Chef does more than just bake, he is capable of creating masterpieces. Pastries and desserts should not just be delicious, they must also be artistic, creative and pleasing to the eye.

Here are some of the traditional French pastries fusioned with local flavors giving classic pastries a Filipino twist:

Paris-Manila Brest

Paris-Manila Brest is a ring of golden brown pâte à choux pastry that sandwiches praline cream and sliced almonds. It was created in 1891 in honor of the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race.

Kouglof

Kouglof is a brioche-like coffee cake from Alsace—lightly sweet and studded with raisins.

Tropézienne

Tropézienne, from Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera, is a rich orange blossom water scented brioche that oozes buttercream.

St. Honoré

St. Honoré has a base of puff pastry topped with a ring of small, caramel-drenched cream puffs; the center of the cake is filled with clouds of whipped cream.

Citrus Entremet

Citrus Entremet is a confection of coconut mousse, citrus crème, white chocolate brownie and grapefruit.

Intense Raspberry Chocolate Brownie

Intense Raspberry Chocolate Brownie a rich concoction of chocolate brownie and raspberry marmalade.

Enderun Entremet

Enderun Entremet, a playful dessert of buttery shortbread, sour calamansi, intense chocolate biscuit, gingered milk chocolate, and crunchy peanut praline.

As you would notice, Chef Franck has been using various local fruits to flavor his pastries. This is so because this chef just loves our fruits!

“The flavor of calamansi is so strong and so fresh!” he exclaims.  “It is a pure gift from nature.  And the mangos and pineapples here are so flavorful and sweet that they are so much better than what we can find in France.”  He also loves working with coconut paste, saying that the amazing taste of roasted coconut can be used to give classic French pastries a Filipino twist.

L’art de la Patisserie (The Art of Pastry) launches Enderun Colleges’ 3-month Pastry Arts Certificate, which will begin in November 2011. The comprehensive course is ideal for home cooks who want to increase their knowledge in pastry and bread-making, professionals who want to update their knowledge, and anyone considering a career in professional pastry. Students will be given hands-on instruction in basic and advanced techniques to equip them with the skills necessary for mastering French and international pastries, confectioneries, and breads. The program also gives students the opportunity to take further studies at Ecole National Supèrieure de la Pâtisserie, the pastry arts training center of Alain Ducasse Formation.

More importantly, it gives students a chance to discover if they have the passion, creativity, stamina, and skill to be a pastry chef.

For more information about this 3-month Pastry Arts Certificate, please contact:

Enderun Colleges
1100 Campus Avenue
McKinley Hill, Fort Bonifacio
Taguig City 1634 Philippines
Telephone: (632) 856 5000
Facsimile:   (632) 856 4656
www.enderuncolleges.com

I could not express how much online banking has helped me save time and effort in paying our household utility bills and purchasing tickets. Everything is easy as 1-2-3 though I could say that it has its own disadvantages, too! hihi

Monitoring the “ins” and “outs” of our funds has never been so easy. I only maintain one account making it easier for me to monitor payments from clients and to merchants. Like ach payments which are simply electronic transfers from one account to another, online banking helps save a lot of time and resources in both the individual and the merchant. Unlike before when people use to send checks (which often get lost in the mail) or fall in a long line for payments, nowadays, people can do it with a few mouse clicks.

Life’s easier these days but why do I feel that it’s the other way around? Hmm…

I don’t know why everyone has suddenly got the interest to bake. Yesterday was weird because 4 of my Facebook contacts either texted, PMed and commented, expressing their interest in baking. Weird.

You see, baking is fun and therapeutic though I don’t think cleaning up afterwards is still fun hehe but making a business out of this hobby is certainly no joke. We’ve been in the business for like a year and yet we’re still learning the ropes. It’s hard. Harder than we’ve ever imagined. I did not imagine myself being in the food service industry but I guess this is where our destiny’s leading us. It’s tiring but very fulfilling once you get “thank you’s” from clients. I’ve had my share of not-so-good feedback but it’s part of the business. I acknowledged my mistake, apologized, learn from it and move on.

Anyway, will share with you some of the creations we made yesterday. All of them were mini cakes + 50 sugar cookies (photos to follow) that we started making last Thursday.

Disney Pixar Cars cake for Andre

Hello Kitty cake for Caine

Spa cake for Miles

Aside from these, I also baked an 8″ strawberry shortcake for my dear Tita (photos to follow). It was a first so my cake looks soooo ___________ but it was delicious! It would look like a wreck if compared to cakes in berries.com (have you checked out the Berries.com coupon code lately? you should!).

Anyhoo, to all those interested in baking, go! Who knows that might be your way to great riches

My all-time best seller are my super moist chocolate cake and cupcakes. I don’t know if it does really taste good or my clients are just so used in associating chocolate with cake. Given this, I can now prepare my cake batter with my eyes closed.

This weekend I gathered enough courage and purchased baking and sugarcraft books for inspiration. Crazy because books about baking are uber expensive but I have to buy it. It’s like I owe it to myself and to my clients. I have to improve my craft. I don’t have a culinary background nor the natural talent so it’s just right to read and learn right?

So there, this month I am planning to try out different recipes of cupcakes, not the out-of-this-world type but just something that I am not so used in making. Wish me goodluck! With the help of my newly purchased books, online tutorials and free PDFs (thank God for pdf page counters!) I know that every cupcake trial will be successful. I’ll be posting my trial photos on my food blog Project Happiness by Iris. Hope you’ll visit me there!

And uhm, by the way, if you want me to try out a recipe, please leave it here and I’ll be glad to link back

Ciao!

Receiving orders brings so much pleasure to a baker’s heart (and pocket!). It keeps our business growing and help us to do better. But receiving orders from celebrities is another story haha, especially if the celebrity herself/himself placed the order! Para siyang pi-nump yung dugo ko when I received this message a few days ago:

Yessss, it’s no less than the Quickfire 1-minute Wonder Chef, Ms. Rosebud Benitez!

It’s not everyday that a celebrity orders from someone, especially to nobody bakers like me. Honestly, this is the first time that a celebrity ordered from my humble bakehouse.

So the order pushed through no matter how hectic our schedule that week was hahahaha! Hubby was like “talagang isisingit mo ah” of course naman no??? LOL

So there, she ordered 20pcs of Angry Birds cupcake for her birthday =)

Click to see more photos of Angry Birds cupcakes

And the birthday girl with our cupcakes:

She sent me a message afterwards: “I love the cupcakes! Thank you! “

*tumbling Mommy Iris, tumbling!*

Photos grabbed from Chef Rosebud’s Facebook account

The renovation is almost done and what do you expect, the entire house is in chaos! The 2-week TAT given by the contractor lasted for what, more than 4 weeks? and we’re not even done yet! The most painful part of the whole thing is, we’ve paid them long ago, halfway through the entire contract time so I don’t know why they’d keep on delaying their work.

We asked for a 2-week turn around time because we knew that we already scheduled orders for July. It’s so hard to work in a disorganized area! But so far we’ve done it, we’ve been getting orders since July 1st ^_^

Here are some of our creations, to see more of our customized cakes and cupcakes, please visit http://www.facebook.com/phbakehouse?sk=photos :)

Anyhoo, we planned to do some cleaning today, another general one and I even planned to hold a garage sale BUT it’s been raining so hard kaya linis na lang. Who needs fat burners when you’re a baker, a nanny, a wife, a businesswoman and a internet slave at the same time? LOL How I wish it’s that easy to lose weight ^_^

I finally got the chance to check my DD’s cabinets and found out that she still has TONS of clothes in it after giving almost half of it to her cousin Lorraine.

So I sorted it out into branded and non-branded and posted the former on eBay! I need some moolah to buy her new ones, you know LOL

Lot of 8 Guess Gingersnaps Next Moose Girl 1T-2T Girls

• Baby Guess embroidered shorts – 24M
• Gingersnaps mini skirt – 12M
  
• Gingersnaps twirl skirt with nappy cover – 18M
  
• Moose Girl micro mini skirt – S
  
• Starting Out twirl skirt – 9M
  
• NEXT shirt 9-12M pink
  
• NEXT shirt 9-12M gray 

If you want to join the auction, please feel free to visit my eBay.ph page