Tita Thess Home Made Delicacies

Posted on October 9, 2018 by rence chan

Tita Thess or Aunt Thess Felix is not your typical house wife, She started her online business at home about 3 years ago selling tibok-tibok, sapin-sapin and other well-loved delicacies thru Facebook and via word of mouth.

tita-thess-5

Tita Thess pours freshly made tibok-tibok in plastic containers

She was born in the province of Pampanga and learned the art of making delicious rice based delicacies.

tita-thess-signage1

stylish wooden frame greets visitors

Her loyal band of customers would keep Tita Thess busy for much of the day and sometimes through the night. The group had a privilege to be able to visit her home and see a demonstration of her famous “tibok-tibok” and “sapin-sapin”. But these two “kakanins” are not the only native delicacies that her loyal clients keep coming back for. Aside from these mouthwatering delicacies, she also makes “pichi-pichi”, “palitaw”, “puto flan” (rice cake) with custard, “pansit” (noodles), “kalamay”, “biko”, “maja blanca”, fish “lumpia”. As the holiday season nears, she only accepts an advance order. generous with the quantity and quality of the ingredients, her products are truly worth a repeat order.

tita-thess-tibo-and-sapinsapin-sa-bilao

tibok-tibok and sapin-sapin

Customers can also pre-order- her well known tibok-tibok and sapin-sapin in 1 bilao. One can also request that 1 bilao have 50% tibok-tibok and 50% sapin-sapin.

Some of the orders are from the parents and teachers at the nearby school and government offices.

tibok-tibok

tibok-tibok

“Tibok-tibok” is also called carabao milk pudding which originated from Pampanga. It is the Kampampangan’s version of “maja blanca”.

tibok-tibok-making

preparation of tibok-tibok

“Tibok” refers to the heartbeat and as Tita Thess demonstrated to us, we can tell the “tibok-tibok” is cooked when the little bubbles on top start to pulsate slowly and makes little sounds like the beating of the heart.

tita-thess1

Tita Thess showed the group on how she put latik over the tibok-tibok

She purchases about 20 to 30 bottles of fresh carabao milk in the market in the morning to fulfill her orders for the day.

latik

latik

She would also order 30 to 35 coconuts (niyog ) in order to make toasted coconut meat, toasting the gata as early as 4:00 am and would take about 2 hours to made it reduce consistency called “latik”.

tita-thess-making-sapin-sapin

Tita Thess pours glutinous rice mixture

She uses commercially available glutinous rice powder mixed with non-glutinous in a fix proportion.

tita-thess-3

sapin-sapin in steamer

sapin-sapin

sapin-sapin with jackfruit and latik as toppings

“Sapin-sapin” is another native kakanin she demonstrated to us, is a layered glutinous rice ( ube and green) The colors have corresponding taste and Ate Thess’ version has no red because she doesn’t know what flavor to give it. She also does not have a yellow colored layer which is traditionally a jackfruit flavor.

Tita Thess’ white layer is coconut milk, the blue layer is ube, and the green layer is pandan. Unlike “tibok-tibok”, The sapn-sapin is soft and chewy. Her sapin-sapin version is topped with latik and sweetened jackfruit.

tita-thess-and-the-group