The diva of dessert

I  had heard that the Hilary Swank/Gerald Butler movie P.S. I Love You plumbed new depths of awfulness, so naturally I had to see it. I asked my friend Carlo Estagle to join me, only to be told that he was busy. “I’m creating a new cake,” he said. “It’s an experiment.”

I said, “You would decline a potentially hilariously heinous movie in order to bake a cake?”

He said, “Yes.”

This, to me, is the very definition of Seriousness. Some time later, after the cake had been pronounced a success and consumed by appreciative friends, we sat down and discussed his true love.

YOUNG STAR: What is the first thing you ever baked? Were you formally trained in the culinary arts?

CARLO ESTAGLE: The first thing I ever prepared was a small birthday cake for my poodle, Tara. I think I was six or seven years old then. It was a simple layer cake. Of course, I didn’t know how to bake yet, so I used Picnic-brand wafers. In between each layer of wafer was a simple mixture of butter cream made of butter and sugar. And then I covered the “cake” in the same butter cream, and sprinkled the top with different colored Nips. Because of that I think my Tara grew old quite quickly, as I celebrated her birthday every week.

I went to Heny Sison’s boutique school. I was trained by two great divas in pastry and cake decorating, Jill Sandique and Heny Sison.

You gave up a career in advertising to become a baker. How did you reach that decision? Was it a difficult one?

Is that a trick question? That was advertising. This is baking!

What inspires you to create cakes? Where do you get your ideas? I notice you’ve been reading about Madame Gres and Balenciaga — what’s their connection to cake?

The thing with baking is that one is able to create something that addresses all the senses. I mix and match flavors: a certain cake might taste good with a certain filling. But to me it’s not just taste; the appearance of a dessert is also important. This helps me decide which ingredients to use, and what components I need for a cake. Like my Blueberry Cheesecake, for example — I top it with Italian meringue because I don’t want it to look flat. I want the top to have some sort of design.

I get my inspiration from gardens, flowers and clothes. And that’s where Madame Gres and Balenciaga come in.

What are your signature cakes, the ones whose recipes you’ve locked up in a vault with a cyanide pill to swallow in case there’s a break-in?

I have my originals. My Grand Cru Truffle Torte is made with 65 percent Swiss chocolates. It’s not really a cake but a truffle made into a torte. My Immaculate Temptation is also a favorite of diabetic or health conscious chocoholics. It’s sugar-free and low in fat but you don’t notice it. I’ve discovered that taking out the sugar miraculously makes the chocolate flavor come out even more. My latest creation is the Strawberry Mango Dacquoise. It’s like a Sans Rival but not as nakakaumay because my butter cream icing doesn’t have egg yolks. And the sweetness of the mangoes contrasts with the slight sourness of the strawberries.

Is there something in your repertoire that one can feed the objects of her/his affections and turn them into her/his love slaves forever?

My dark chocolate cookies, which I call Juancas (a contraction of Juan Carlo). They have been a source of confusion as I’ve given them as gifts to a lot of people, even those I’ve just met, and when they invite me to hang out with them, they ask me to bring my Juancas. So I’m confused. I don’t know whether it’s me or my Juancas they like.

You’re throwing a dinner for eight, no expense spared. You can invite anyone at all — living, dead, factual, or imaginary. Whom would you invite, where would you have it, and what would you serve?

The first person I would invite would be Jesus Christ so I won’t have to look for really good wine. He’ll make it from water. And with Him there, there’ll be enough food for everyone — He’ll just multiply the cakes. There’ll be so much that I’d have to invite the homeless and the hungry.

Then I’d invite Hungary’s patron saint, Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. I read that when there were a lot of hungry people in Hungary — that’s not why it’s called Hungary, is it? — she escaped the palace with loaves of bread underneath her cloak. But when her mother-in-law, the queen mother, had her followed and checked, all they found hidden in her cloak were roses. And that was in wintertime. I want to fill the place with roses. So I’d have the queen-saint come early so that I could ask her to turn some loaves of bread into roses. I can make bread but I can’t make roses.

I would need someone to oversee the kitchen so I’d invite a very willing helper, Martha of the Mary and Martha sisters. Not Martha Stewart, but the sister of Lazarus. With her in the kitchen, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I’d also want Marie Antoinette of France at the party so that at some point, I could look at her and say, “Now let her eat cake!”

Of course I’d invite you, so someone would write about the party. Now I don’t want my family complaining, but because I can invite only a few, I’d ask the one who can represent all of them, and no one can complain: my 86-year-old grandmother.

I’d need someone for entertainment, but I can’t yet decide whether it’d be Madonna, Robbie Williams, or Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Lastly, I’d want to invite the President because I have to know whether God really told her to run.

Where would I want to have the party? Either Yves Saint Laurent’s garden in Marrakesh or within the halls of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. But if I had to have the party here in Manila, it would be within the halls of the San Sebastian church. I would serve only dessert. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, so allow me to indulge.

Chef is the hot profession right now, and everyone is planning to quit their jobs and become chefs. Does this annoy you? Any warnings before they make that leap?

I’ve spoken to a lot of aspiring chefs, and the nice thing is that these people really want to be cooks and bakers not just for the money or the fame. They really like it. Cooking and baking is like painting, sculpting and designing. If you’re not really into it, at some point fear grips you and you give up on it. Or else you realize you can’t be good at it, and you just get tired of it. Cooks, chefs and bakers are just really glorified kusineros who still do all the dirty work.

Carlo Estagle can be reached at 0920955-CAKE.

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