Customers are assured that the made-to-order cakes they’re getting from her are as good as the ones she serves her family. For nothing comes out of Valerie’s home kitchen without having passed her loved ones’ discriminating standards.
By ALEX Y. VERGARA
Photography by Miguel Sotto
Sweets will always be part of the Filipino Christmas table. In good times and perhaps especially in bad, Pinoys will always have a need to satisfy their sugar fix.
So, what kind of cake will grace a loved one’s upcoming birthday party or your holiday table this December? Whatever scrumptious treat you decide on, whether it’s her strawberry or mango cake, red velvet, or her version of the classic decadent chocolate cake, chilled sans rival or her bestselling rum cake, rest assured that the made-to-order dessert you’re buying from Valerie’s Kitchen is the very same cake that baker and entrepreneur Valerie Sotto has been serving her family for years.
No cake, she says, comes out of her thriving home kitchen without having passed the discriminating standards of her husband and their two young adult children. Apart from her taste buds, which have been honed through decades of cooking, baking and constant research, starting as early as high school at the Assumption convent, Valerie considers members of her immediate family as her number one critics, sounding board and support group.
Nothing is good enough — from a cake’s taste and texture, down to its consistency and appearance — until it gets their coveted seal of approval. Aside from the aforementioned cakes, Valerie and her lean-and-mean staff of two women also offer chocolate and butter silvanas and food for the gods.
Valerie’s “Cheat Day” cake, which earned its name thanks to the sinful layers of ingredients consisting of salted caramel, chocolate ganache and coco powder sitting on top a moist chocolate cake, has also gained a loyal following. The same goes for her streusel-topped apple pie and cinnamon rolls.
But it’s her food for the gods that started it all in the late 1990s, years before Valerie and daughter Trish formalized the business in 2017 by calling it Valerie’s Kitchen and registering it.
Every purchase of her food for the gods, which follows the same recipe Valerie herself formulated then, now comes in a box with its own ribbon and gift card every December, making it an ideal Christmas gift or corporate giveaway. It, too, carries her family’s seal of approval.
“That’s why I don’t bake light, chiffon-y cakes,” Valerie shares with PeopleAsia over the phone. “My family prefers heavier, more dense and buttery pound cakes.”
The frosting she uses on top may vary from, say, sweetened whipped cream and slices of strawberries to creamy chocolate and butter icing, but the base of Valerie’s cakes will always remain heavy, rich and full to the bite.
“And when I research on what cake to offer next, I really study and analyze its ingredients,” she adds. Valerie isn’t afraid to think outside the box by, say, replacing a cake’s established ingredient with a better alternative, or completely doing away with something if the end result doesn’t suit her and her family’s palate.
Just recently, Valerie started working on her version of another classic — the lemon meringue pie. To make sure that she got the taste right, she made Trish try it. Her verdict? She found her mother’s take on it “too eggy.”
“Now, I have to come up with the right mix that would give my lemon meringue pie some structure without the need for me to use too much eggs,” she says.
In general, Valerie thinks highly of the competition consisting of small- to medium-scale entrepreneurs like herself, whose numbers have dramatically increased since the start of the pandemic. But at the same time, she’s pretty confident that her offerings can stand out and hold their own with the best of them.
When she and Trish, for instance, learn that someone new is selling, say, strawberry cake online, Valerie merely looks at her competitor’s version to see who decorated it better.
“I don’t scrimp on ingredients. I’m confident when it comes to how my cakes taste. Honestly, I don’t know how they can get any better,” she declares.
It isn’t an empty boast, but more of a belief in the originality and uniqueness of her offerings, which allows Valerie to carry on and do what she does best. And perhaps such confidence can also be traced to her belief that the market has room enough for many players.
Soon after the lockdown, for instance, Valerie thought that they’d be able to get a much-needed break after having attended to a rather huge holiday and post-holiday demand. Well, the exact opposite happened, as demand for her cakes nearly doubled on certain days since March. It’s a good problem, really, she says.
“Filipinos love a good dessert, especially with the onset of this pandemic,” Valerie, who made and sold a record number of 35 cakes last Father’s Day, adds. “There’s something about sweets that gives us comfort.”
Not a few of her loyal patrons also want their cakes a tad saucy. Valerie’s well-loved rum cakes, for instance, is already slathered generously with salted caramel syrup on top. Still, certain clients insist on buying extra containers of the delightful glaze to further add to their rum cakes at home.
Like most home-grown businesses, Valerie, then a full-time homemaker fueled by her passion for baking (she comes from a family of good cooks and bakers), started small doing a limited number of products in her then modest kitchen.
“Before I knew it, the business slowly grew over the years through word of mouth,” she says. Her first batch of suki (loyal patrons) were naturally her sisters and their respective families. Soon enough, her sisters’ friends started buying from her, as well. A good number of neighbors also order from her regularly, especially during weekends.
She has also been supplying a number of Shell stations with mini versions of her bestselling cakes for sometime now. But before she could get Shell’s accreditation, Valerie had to expand her kitchen and invest on more refrigerators, freezers and industrial-grade ovens. Shell also required her staff to undergo food safety training.
Although she has no time to sample each and every cake the competition bakes, Valerie, during her most recent birthday last August, had one request to her family: “Please don’t let me bake my own birthday cake.”
Well, she got her wish, as they later ordered Valerie’s birthday cake all the way from Valle Verde in Pasig. Since they opted for a creme brûlée cake, something she doesn’t make, there was still no way for her to compare any of her cakes with that of the Valle Verde supplier. Her cakes, as far as she and her growing number of satisfied customers are concerned, are unique in and of themselves.
For inquiries and orders, text or call 0917-8902255; DM at (IG) valerieskitchen; (FB) Valerie’s Kitchen
