Bibingka Cook-Off at SM Hypermarket

SM Hypermarket heralds the holiday season with a bibingka cook-off

          Bibingka has always been a Cebu pride. It may not have been the staple food to the Cebuanos but it is very famous not only in the province but also in the country. No true Cebuano doesn't know this food. Mandaue City, being the home of bibingka's best, had developed its tourism with it. With SM Hypermarket's Bibingka Super Sized Cook Off, it gave way on promoting the delicacy to the whole country as well as in the world.

          There are many ways of making the bibingka unique and delicious. Few of these are having it with grated keso de bola on top, others with a layer of salted egg, and still others with a generous heaping of grated coconut and muscovado sugar. But one thing stays the same - all Mandaue bibingka are cooked with classic "inurno" style. The batter is made of rice flour, coconut milk, yeast, and sugar. The mixture is then baked to perfection in a terra cotta container. Red-hot coals placed above and below heat the batter through until it is fluffy, moist, and delicious, with a dark brown crust on top. It is this unique method of cooking , and the smoke from the coals, that gives bibingka its distinctive flavor. 

One kind of Bibingka

          To kick off the holidays in Cebu, SM Hypermarket held a festival for bibingka makers and lover of the treat. Its supersized competition payed tribute to the many variants of the basic recipe and challenges chefs from all over the province to create the tastiest bibingka, and to serve up as many plates of it as they can. There are 15 groups who joined the competition:

 

          The above groups had served a minimum of 50 plates.

           At the end of the day, two groups had been announced as winners. The Best Tasting and Most Number of Plates Served Category winners earned P25,000 worth of SM gift certificates and a plaque of recognition from SM Hypermarket.

          This is the final round of the SM Hypermarket's Supersized Challenges. The previous ones were Ilo-ilo's Batchoy Challenge, which produced 1,862 servings of the beloved noodle dish; Batangas' Bulalo Challenge which came up with 522 cups of the beefy broth, and Pampanga's Sisig Challenge, which produced 1,775 plates of the spicy pulutan favorite. 

         I'm glad that we have surpassed the other challenges from the different part of the country that our bibingka had more that 1,900 servings all in all. 

   

 

          Thanks to the judges who made the competition fair and possible. 

          That was a fun filled event that was witnessed by many Cebuanos. The different style of cooking the bibingka as well as the unique tastes of it will always be part of the Cebuano culture. To sum up the event, here are the videoes of the proclamation of the winners.