After years of hankering for food that bears the imprint of commercial kitchens, there really comes a time when one starts looking for home-made flavors. Such is the case for polvoron, one of the Philippines’ most popular sweets. This shortbread is relatively simple to make with the most basic of ingredients being flour, butter, powdered milk and nuts. But consistently getting the taste right is another thing. This is where House of Polvoron (or to be more hip, HOP in short) leverages itself, focusing on just this product and nothing but. We’ve tasted a lot of polvorons before so will this be another one of those commercial-tasting ones? That’s what we’d like to find out.
Ironwulf said: I remember when I was a kid, my mom would occasionally make us polvoron in the kitchen. It was one of my favorite delicacies back then. Mom no longer makes them since our oven got busted. There are lots of Polvorons in the market right now but House of Polvoron has been making them as their specialty for the past 11 years. We got a couple of boxes of 20’s each with assorted flavors. Each box had the polvorons sealed in a foil pack for freshness.
Lagal[og] said: I like the packaging, simple graphics and bold colors standing out on the white background. This makes it so much nicer to bring home or send as pasalubongs. I also appreciate the inclusion of Nutrition Facts on the box plus an expiry date.
Ironwulf said: The assorted box comes with 4 flavors: Pinipig, Pili, Cashew and Cookies and Cream. I tried the Cookies and Cream first and found that I really like the taste. I tasted the other three and found them to be very good as well. I think all four flavor seems to use the same classic polvoron as base and they just add the extra ingredients for a varied flavor and texture, so much so that it can be hard to distinguish at first which is which I’m eating. Among all the commercially available polvorons I tried, I think the ones from House of Polvorons hit much closer to the home-made flavor I was looking for.
Lagal[og] said: There are four flavors in the assorted box and if I eat too fast, I miss out on the subtleties of each variant save for the Pinipig. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all good but I wish the Pili would have more Pili bits, the cashew more kasuy for more texture. But I really like the fact that unlike the polvoron from that popular bakeshop chain, HOP polvorons are not too sweet. They go well with my favorite barako coffee.
House of Polvoron (HOP)
Available in boxes of 20 pieces (individual flavor – P100; assorted – P108), stand-up pouches of 6 pieces (P45) and plastic tubes of 15 pieces for choco flavor (P110) at select supermarkets and kiosks in malls nationwide • check out www.houseofpolvoron.com