Tangerine Kitchen’s sweet creations

CAKES, pastries and breads have never seen such a phenomenal growth in Cebu City. I remember in the mid-80s, my trips from Manila back to Cebu were never complete without hand carrying a box of these sweet delights. One of my favorites was Sugarhouse Bakeshop in Makati. Even Dunkin Doughnuts were worth taking home then.  For many years, exquisite cakes and pastries were baked only in Cebu City’s big hotel patisseries and they can be pricey. Some of the scrumptious ones had to be ordered from private homes of enterprising baking enthusiasts. But the cake/dessert landscape has dramatically changed and is now  a part of the evolving culinary scene.

Aside from the influx of cake and pastry bakeshops, commissaries have been supplying baked goodies to established food outlets, restaurants and cafes. “Outsourcing” of baked products has come of age. The practice is cost-efficient and makes for a less stressful business operation. I know of several pastry chefs who are at it  on their own and capitalizing on this lucrative business opportunity.  One of them is

pastry chef Gabriel “Gabby” Garcia who has been blazing a trail of fine cakes, pastries and desserts

for the last 30 years. There seems to be no end to his sweet pursuits. With select business partners, chef Gabby recently gave up an established baking career in the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino to open one of the newest cake, pastry and bread bakeshop/commissary—the Tangerine Kitchen,

located in the International Culinary Arts Academy of Cebu (ICAAC) Building in Guadalupe. It’s a practical setup since Chef Gabby is a pastry chef lecturer in the prestigious culinary school.

A native of Meycauayan, Bulacan, chef Gabby’s simplicity and modesty belie the accomplishments he has acquired in several five-star hotels and the culinary awards he has garnered here and abroad.  He was a working student who did well at work than in school. His success in the kitchen of

The Manila Hotel made him its first Filipino pastry chef where he started as a kitchen steward.

He perfected his baking skills in the

Mandarin Hotel. After 22 successful baking years in Manila, he moved to Cebu in 2001 to join the Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa.

I have known chef Gabby since he joined

Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino in 2005.

And now his signature-baked creations are

available—quite affordably—  at the Tangerine Kitchen. His heavenly cakes and pastries, Bulacan enseimadas, sweet breads, silky mousse cakes, cheesecakes and fancy desserts have found a new home in the Tangerine Kitchen. A kitchen artist,

his cake decors made of gum paste and fondant, which I always mistook for the real things, will

make any baker’s task easier.