The fabulous baker girls

One of the finest films produced by Hollywood in 1989 was The Fabulous Baker Boys, starring real-life brothers Jeff and Beau Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer.

This piece below I’d like to call The Fabulous Baker Girls as my tribute to the women in show business who are fabulous bakers and whose confections have been known to be delectable. These ladies are famous not only for their artistry on screen, but also for their kitchen wizardry and I’m writing about them because there are so many sweetmeats going around this holiday season. I type this with a slice of cake beside me and I say: Here’s to them!

When the great Charito Solis was still alive, co-workers on the set always looked forward to her bangus sardines. People swore by her cooking. Remarkably, she was good both at cooking and baking (usually, somebody who is good at cooking is dismal when it comes to baking or it could be the other way around). But in Ms. Solis’ own words, when she made her first chocolate cake: “Aba, perfect agad!”

Another big-name in show business who bakes well is Sharon Cuneta, who could make yummy butter cakes. I’m not sure if she still has time to tinker with the oven, but if she wants to bake, she surely has the talent for it.

In the case of Dr. Vicki Belo, she may not be an actress, but she is now so immersed in show business and its intrigues. Dr. Belo — so I eventually found out — does not only excel at sculpting faces and bodies, but is also a talented baker. In her early years of marriage (while still plowing through med school), she decided to bake cakes and accepted orders. She was famous for her chocolate cakes and it surprised her clients that these treats were delivered in a flashy luxury car by Vicki’s now ex-husband, Atom Henares.

Daughter Cristalle Henares obviously inherited her mother’s baking skills. Cristalle now makes the moistest chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted in my life. Of course, she could still work on uniformity because the sizes of her cookies aren’t all the same when she makes them. But that is not really a problem with me because she doesn’t sell these anyway and are just given to friends who can never say no to her cookies because these taste heavenly.

What is so wonderful about Cristalle’s chocolate chip cookies is that you can enjoy these calorie traps now and her mother, Dr. Belo, can take care of the repercussions later. What a great mother-daughter team they make.

Now not exactly an on-cam talent is Susan Aquino, head stylist of Celeste Tuviera’s Symmetria salon in San Juan (17 M. Paterno St.). Susan, however, is an old hand in showbiz — having handled the likes of Melanie Marquez, Bessie Badilla and Mencu Menchaca during the good old days of Hyatt. Today, she styles the likes of KC Concepcion, Regine Velasquez, Jomari Yllana at Symmetria.

Aside from being a great stylist, she makes the most delicious and unique fruitcakes. In these difficult times when imported glazed fruits traditionally used for fruitcakes are so expensive, Susan went practical and substituted some ingredients with champoy, dikiam and dried papaya. Weird tasting? No, ask Lucy Torres (Susan gave her one), who even brought the fruitcake with her to Ormoc.

Susan’s revised recipe was so innovative, but yielded good results: The saltiness of the champoy and dikiam cancelled out the usually saccharine taste of most fruitcakes. When you bite into it, it is still your usual fruitcake — with sherry brandy, walnuts, cashew and some glazed fruits — but with a delicious, different twist.

Also showbiz-connected is Cristy Marasigan, who is known to all celebrity clients of Gold’s Gym where she manages the branch in Wilson, Greenhills (she used to be with Gold’s Galleria where she handled Sam Milby). Cristy makes the healthiest baked siopao (with chicken or mung beans) that I have sent out to Lorna Tolentino, Caridad Sanchez, Gloria Romero and Sen. Jinggoy and Precy Estrada and they said they all ate it without having guilt feelings. Cristy also makes the healthiest muffins and sugar-free banana cakes that I once gave Lolit Solis because she is diabetic (my mission in 2010 is to make a healthier diet plan for that woman).

But if you want to really indulge, try Janice de Belen’s molten lava cake, which is most sinful and therefore extremely delicious. I first tried her lava cake when I came out as guest in her Net 25 show, Spoon, and she prepared the dessert for me.

She makes those in little round molds the size of a cupcake. In the middle is molten chocolate that is held firmly by its sturdy cake edges. How did she do that? Physics, she quickly answered. Janice is so deep into her culinary studies that she must now be the best baker in all of show business.

I forgot to ask Janice if she made lava cake for me as a symbol of our first meeting — during relief operations in Albay for the victims of Mayon Volcano decades ago.

And now as I write this, Mayon is once more restive. What a coincidence.