Saturday, September 20, 2008 Chewy happiness By Jenara Regis Newman
HAPPILY Ever After is the whimsical name that Jojo and Joan Danao finally decided for their line of chewy, yummy brownies, cupcakes, super delicious silvanas and other pastries and made-to-order cakes.
The two were with the cabin crew of Philippine Airlines (PAL) when they were retrenched in 1998. That was when they decided to settle in Cebu, where Joan spent some of her growing up years (including the years she took up MassCom in UP Cebu).
They started to make what Joan loves to do — bake — which Jojo easily learned, too.
He specialized in brownies, which turned out to be a hit, especially for corporate gifts at Christmas time.
After a year, Jojo went back to fly with PAL and Joan also went back to work, first with Mom’s Radio and eventually with Cebu City Marriott Hotel. But she continued to receive orders for her brownies and cakes for special occasions, like weddings and birthdays.
When Jojo retired last year, it was to take care of his mom. When she passed away, the couple went back to the baking business, with Jojo working on it full time.
He specializes in brownies and in silvanas, the final recipe for which took them months to perfect: these are cylindrical in shape (silvanas are traditionally oval or egg-shaped); and it has lots of butter (French butter, not local), and not cloyingly sweet.
Jojo does his baking in the morning, when it is cooler. Aside from the brownies and silvanas, he also experiments with other goodies, like a cookie he still has no name for.
Nights, he teaches English to Koreans—online. Joan, on the other hand, does the cakes ordered for special occasions. She has a base of chocolate, chiffon, butter, carrot, prune, orange-rum cake or whatever the client wants.
She learned to bake when she was still in high school, so her baking has been self-taught, though she did take up cake decoration at Caro and Marie.
Joan is very particular about brownies: they must be chewy and chocolaty, which is what Happily Ever After offers. She is ever on the lookout to make this particular product even better.
Both Jojo and Joan, who met somewhere up in the air, have no regrets about being grounded now. They have found that with baking, they can always live “happily ever after”!
