Sweet sibling revelry

If passion could be scooped, it would taste sweet. It would take a form of a cake for everyone to enjoy.

For siblings Dennis and Yvette Hipolito, both pastry chefs, there’s no better bonding than mixing confectionery in their kitchen and creating some of the best cakes in this side of the world. Their home-based bakeshop Joconde, the happy playground of their sugary imaginings, is 15 years old. And the brother-sister tandem continues to make sweet and delightful dreams. (Joconde is a French almond cake in thin wafers. These thin wafers are then layered in between the chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream to make an Opera cake, a favorite of Dennis.)

Dennis, the eldest of three, is a dentist who has a sweet tooth. He abandoned his dental chair, so to speak, and to The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in New York he found himself pursuing his passion for pastries. His parents wanted a doctor in their family after the passing of an uncle who was a physician but Dennis was more inclined on molding sweet paste than dental amalgam. Up to the time he was boarding the plane to New York, his parents were half-wishing that Dennis would instead enter a post-graduate dental program. “But I followed my heart — because food is still the best!” he says.

“I come from a family who loves to eat,” he says. He adds that his maternal grandfather, Maximo Duque, used to make the best galantina in Valenzuela, Bulacan, apart of course from the yummy dishes he made for his catering business. His father Pacito from Bocaue also loves to feed people; and mother Evangeline is also a foodie.

Joconde is famous for its cakes, among them the Carrot Cake, Taisan and Chocolate Decadence Cake.

Yvette, the youngest, finished Food Technology at the University of Santo Tomas. Because her Kuya Dennis is her idol, she followed his footsteps and studied at the Center for Culinary Arts in Quezon City.

“My Kuya told me, while I was at the culinary school, not to take baking classes anymore because he would be the one to teach me,” Yvette recalls. (Their brother Kendrick has his own rice mill business.)

“The best part about working with Kuya Dennis is we enjoy our childhood dream of baking together. We get to know each other deeper, better as we bake our cakes,” says Yvette.

Through time — and constant, diligent experimentation — they have perfected their pastry recipes. Many of their cakes are award-winning creations.

In their kitchen in Meycuayan, Bulacan, especially when Dennis is home for a vacation from his work as culinary innovator for Yum! in Singapore for nine years now, (he’s culinary head of Pizza Hut Asia Pacific, and was previously part of the R&D team of KFC and Taco Bell), the siblings have a field day creating sweet delights. With heavenly sweetness all over them, Dennis and Yvette always find time to nurture their found passion. 

Yvette remembers that the first baptism of fire for her and Dennis was when their father asked them to make 5,000 macaroons a day, for several days, to be given away as Christmas gifts for their father’s clients in his fishpond business in 1992. The siblings rose to the occasion and the back-breaking task was turned into a joyful experience.

Before the start of the new millennium, Dennis’ very good friend and achi Penk Ching, of the famed Pastry Bin, pushed him to start baking a cake. So, armed with his knowledge gained at CIA (from 1997 to 1999) and his love affair with desserts, he developed a good chocolate cake. Penk taste tested it until “it got her approval.” And the result was a Chocolate Decadence Cake, a heavenly creation of chocolate cake layers, filled with coffee cream and enriched with a light chocolate ganache glaze. Caution: it’s habit-forming, addicting. This chocolate cake is a slice of heaven. It hits the spot and puts you in a good mood. Well, that’s as far as my experience allows me to describe the cake. (Penk and Dennis have a food business venture called Eat My SPUDS, which is a gourmet line of potato chips.)

Dennis and Yvette also put their magic potion in Taisan, a soft and fluffy Taiwan cake brushed with whipped butter and sprinkled with dayap sugar. Taisan simply melts in the mouth.

Their carrot cake is an heirloom family recipe made with coarsely grated carrots and nuts, in a light cinnamon cake base, topped with whipped cream cheese frosting. 

And their salted egg yema cake is divine! It’s sweet and salty and you drool when you pop a bite in your mouth.  

Dennis once taught at the Lifestyle/Cooking school of Maur Lichauco. He was given his own spot called “Gourmet Classes with Dennis Hipolito.” Some of his students now own their restaurants. When he left for Singapore, it was Yvette who continued conducting the classes.

Sweet dreams are made up of two siblings who enjoy their relationship as brother and sister in the kitchen. Their heavenly creations are their clients’ sweet surrender. *

(For inquiries, Joconde can be reached at 0917-8486656.)

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(E-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. Im also on IG @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)