Christmas in cones: Puto Bumbong, Bibingka, Palitaw as ice cream flavors

MANILA, Philippines — It’s Christmas, and it’s time to enjoy all your favorite Pinoy kakanins (rice cakes), especially the two kakanins that are closely associated with the holiday season — Puto Bumbong and Bibingka.

Stalls selling these two native delicacies are popping up in the neighborhood, and the aroma simply lures food lovers to queue and order for a taste of the familiar festive treats.

This Christmas season, Puto Bumbong and Bibingka are also available in the form of, yes, ice cream, with the release of the Christmas 2023 limited-edition flavors of artisanal ice cream brand Sebastian’s.

The brand’s Ian Carandang has brought back his Puto Bumbong ice cream, a hit from last year, which is made of real malagkit rice, muscovado and margarine and is served with freshly grated coconut and muscovado sugar per scoop at its flagship store in The Podium. It is also sold per pint online at sebastiansicecream.com.

Accompanying this are three new interesting Pinoy ice cream flavors — Palitaw (made with malagkit rice and macapuno strings and served with freshly grated coconut and toasted sesame seeds); Itlog na Maalat (salted egg white ice cream with salted egg yolk bits); and Crema de Fruta (pound cake ice cream with spheres of Peach, Pineapple and Maraschino Cherry sorbets).

Carandang also brought back two popular seasonal ice cream cakes: Puto Bumbong Deluxe (alternate layers of Puto Bumbong cake and Puto Bumbong ice cream, topped with grated coconut and muscovado toffee crisps) and Bibingka Espesyal (layers of rice cake, Queso de Bola ice cream, Itlog na Maalat ice cream, topped with salted egg and grated cheese). Both were also big hits during Christmas 2022.

New ice cream cake creations included in the limited-edition collection are Queso de Bola King (alternate layers of Queso de Bola cake and Queso de Bola ice cream, topped with Queso de Bola cheese crisps) and Siete Leche (like Leche Flan but more, with alternate layers of Tres Leches Cake, Dulce de Leche ice cream, Pastillas de Leche ice cream, and Leche Flan, topped with condensed milk crumble, for a total of seven types of milk).

Also part of the limited-dition Christmas offerings are four flavors