Bread...

 I've been meaning to put this recipe down for quite some time, it's been more than two months!!

Guess Im not yet done getting over my habit of procrastination....but I guess better late ....

Anyway, so I've always struggled with bread, never really got down to making awesome bread except for the pizza bread variety....so I decided to give it one more try with a lot of trepidation...But the bread gods did decide to finally smile upon me and the results(and recipe) are below...
 
 

 

Ingredients:

All purpose flour 1.5 cups

Wheat flour 1 cup

Warm water 1/4 cup

Milk(warm) 1/2 cup

Yeast 1.5-2 tbsp(crumbled)

Sugar 1.5 tbsp

Olive oil 2 tbsp

Pinch of salt

In a mixing bowl add the flours ,crumbled yeast, sugar and salt. Make a well and add the oil, and milk and start kneading , adding water as required. Knead for about 8-10 minutes until dough is warm. Leave covered with a damp thin cloth in a warm corner(I normally put mine on top of the fridge) for an hour, until dough rises to almost 2ce its size.

Punch the air out of the dough and lightly knead into the shape required(I put mine in the loaf tin), and leave covered for half an hour. Brush the top with milk/whisked egg and bake at 175 deg C for half an hour(or until base of the pan sounds hollows to tapping), in a preheated oven.

 

 

An attempt at making fondant..

I had been meaning to try making fondant for quite some time now, but due to a moody oven, and different websites telling me fondant doesn't taste good I had kept putting it off for quite some time.
However, a couple of weeks back I finally picked up a bag of marshmallows, and decided to give it a try...

To cut the taste of the fondant, I decided to make a slightly bitter cake, by adapting my "Tiramisu cupcake" recipe that was featured on "Savour the senses" here

However, in this recipe Ive added a bit of Cocoa.
(Note: I don't remember all the recipes exactly, I just generally dump stuff and end up forgetting exact measures. The following recipes are an approximation)

Back to baking....

It's been a difficult few months, to put it mildly...I am struggling with a lot of things, and at this point of time, I cant say if the stress is going to get better, or if the struggle is going to cease any time soon...

But with every such phase in life, I become stronger, and understand myself better, and I believe thats a good life's lesson learnt :)

But let's not get all deep and serious, not when there's a weekend where I finally decide to reward myself with a happy break, and indulge in my favorite activity...baking.

I made Baklawa this weekend, which was to my surprise, quite a simple thing to do! The only part I didn't really care for was the cleaning up afterwards!!

Steps for making Baklawa:

Almond cake with orange caramel...

I'm having oven troubles....it's really depressing. Our oven has been in this world for almost 30 years, and in oven years, I'm sure that's very very old. It trips the fuse after every 10-15 minutes, and my heart stops because an oven that suddenly gives up, can do nasty things to a cake gently wanting to rise up and stay there...

Thankfully, today, despite of all the oven troubles and a hovering nagging depressing thought that I might not be able to bake for quite some time now, my cake persevered

I took the recipe for the orange caramel from "Cakes and Bakes" cookbook from the Food Lovers series, while the cake is something I threw together, because I didn't have poppy seeds, and in any case they are prohibitively expensive here. I also think that almond and orange is a combination that is not exploited enough.

Espresso cookies...

I made cookies with white chocolate and coffee. "joy the baker " made these, and I just had to try these(Click highlighted link for recipe).

The only thing I would change in these almost perfect cookies is I'll use powdered sugar next time.

Please make these, you won't regret it.

When it rains...

....it's absolutely essential to do two things

Go for a long run in the rain....it's exhilarating...

(Make sure you run carefully, slipping is NOT fun, and make sure you wear a windcheater to keep the torso warm so that you dont end up getting pneumonia)

Throw together a hot apple crumble...

A bit o' spice and everything nice...

Making a cake for my dad is tough. He doesnot like gimmicky cakes, frosting or other frills. He likes his cake straight out of the oven, or if not, then the cake should have a rustic character and flavor that makes up for not being warm.
He also likes his coffee, which doesnot seem relevant at this point, but trust me, it is...

After a lot of thought, I decided to make a rum n' raisin cake. Now the next hurdle I faced was finding a good recipe which didnot use buttermilk, or too many eggs, or applesauce. I've realised that buttermilk lends a certain shiny bubble dry texture to the cake, which I was sure my dad wouldn't really like.

So I finally decided to stop wasting time, and made my own recipe, going along with whatever felt right while making it.

It turned out really well, moist, full of flavor and my Dad went for a second helping, which means he loved it!!!!

Now, while I was throwing ingredients together, my mom decided we'd have an unconventional cake cutting, and offer small cups of freshly brewed coffee infused with saffron and nutmeg!!! That combination was stupendous!!!

And then there was cake.....

I had the most fabulous b'day this year...it including me time, gifts from M.A.C, pampering, time with my mom and sis, good food.....and ofcourse, cake.
I was barred from baking anything for myself. And nothing seemed to be happening till the day before, of my bday.
I kept dropping hints, noone took them, or so I thought....

On the actual day, my mom got up really early, and turned out this special thing for me...

IT's a cherry cake, she'd put in real cherries in it. Have I ever mentioned that my mom is an excellent baker....I have a long way to go before I reach her instinctive baking...
The taste is incomparable, she's put in ingredients without measuring, so I unfortunately dont have the recipe :(
But it was one happy birthday :D

I havent been able to capture it quite right, but the cake was slightly pink with surprisingly juicy cherries, and pink buttercream.
Did I say I had an awesome b'day?

cookies..

I recently combined two different methods, and various kinds of flours to create a cookie that tastes like shortbread, and is full of iron and calcium!! So while it looks very weird, it is extremely addictive and has a nice rustic flavor to it.

Recipe:

Millionaire's Shortbread

I have no idea why these bars have such a weird name...but I made them anyways...
I found conflicting recipes, but my layers have shortbread, dulce de leche(that I nuked in the microwave) and dark chocolate. I didnt bother adding any corn/golden syrup or honey to the dulce de leche.

The recipe is easily available anywhere and super easy, so I'm just putting up the pics.
(To see how to make Dulce de leche, check this post)

A cake for vegetarians

So I finally baked a cake today, after almost a month!

My dear friend V shared this vegetarian cake recipe with me sometime back and Ive been dying to try it, just because it adds baking soda right at the start, while most recipes Ive worked with, add it as the last ingredient along with flour just so the bubbles dont break by mixing.

The original recipe is here . I wasnt at all disappointed with the outcome. The cake is flavorful and moist, and inspite of the oil, you dont miss the flavor of butter. The cake actually does rise, though I do want to see what happens if I add the baking soda along with the flour.

I did make a few changes though :

More cakes.....

Coffee & chocolate chip cupcake



Whole wheat banana&blueberry muffins



Strawberry and Vanilla Marble Cake



Pineapple Delight



Puff Away!!

When I started on the quest of making puff pastry I pretty much met an internet stonewall, with grim waggling fingers and heads shaking with pity and reprimand. Dont make it they said, just buy it. You wont be able to do it. ITS NOT EASY.

Well for one, I cant just go to a store and buy puff pastry shells, because we dont get them here. And I love it when someone says it can't be done, it revvs me up, and there is nothing better than looking the challenge in its eye and saying HA! and accompanying it with a small jig...

So I started out by trying to find the proportions....

I finally used these for the dough:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp of lemon juice in 1/2 - 1 cup water
1 tsp butter

Bring on the summer!!!

Well not really.....all that bringing on has brought me a throat that feels like a prickly cactus is breeding super fast there...

But well, it's summer, and I got a free tinned can of pineapple, and I spied cream cheese.....and one thing led to another, and that's how life began...(er....wellll...)

Anyway so I scouted the web for a good cupcake recipe, but I got distracted by some really yummy things and pics, so, when I started in the kitchen with the can of fruit, I was still without any particular recipe or direction(The story has a happy ending.....really...)

So I did what I do best, dumped a stick of butter in sugar, and let my cupcake monster personality take over. I even have a crazy laugh....well it sounds like "wheeeeeeeeeeee", and I maintain it has nothing to do with the sugar rush...!!!

Here's how it went...
(Recipe for 12 cupcakes)
Half a cup of sugar needs half a cup of butter to tango....

An egg, a tablespoon of pureed pineapple, a drop of vanilla essence(that's all that I had left), and 1/2  teaspoon pineapple essence ...

Bakes and stuff...

Found pics of a cheesecake I made on my mom's bday this year - Thats a layered New York cheesecake....with white chocolate on top. yummm....took a lot of hardwork though!!

Made this today from scratch....home made pizzas taste awesome, but the preparation time is a lot....The pics arent great quality(phone cam)

My experiments with .....cake!!!

Somebody forgot to tell me that challenges are called challenges....coz that's what they are....
You don't mess with them, and you don't take them if you can help it!!
Well, like I said, nobody told me...though they did hint that it wouldn't be easy, when I said I'd provide the cake for K's b'day party...(she turned 3)

The rest of the story in bullet points(cant help it, it's the MBA in me..)
1. A week to decide on the shape
2. 3 days to decide on the perfect recipe, that would yield the perfect firm cake, with no crust, and that would be easy to shape, but still spongy enough to hold any syrups i subjected it too, and be good enough to eat
3. 45 minutes of crazy whipping of butter and sugar and eggs and all things good and fattening
Before:

4. 15 minutes for the cake to bake!!!(I'm still in shock that it took only 15 minutes!!!!)

5. 3 and a half hrs of frosting to get a passable blue elephant!!!!

Nothing quite elevates...

...like Chocolate, especially the dark, melt in your mouth and transport you to enlightened places variety.

So obviously, for my mom's b'day, it had to be chocolate, and rich and sinful at that...

It then took me a week, to get to the exact recipe I wanted(at this point its wise not to mention that I changed it entirely at the last moment and didn't use most of the ingredients I had shopped for)
I dont remember which recipe I finally modified, but I did end up making something a little different, and surprisingly the cake turned out really moist and dense, though ofcourse it might have something to do with the entire bar of dark chocolate I forced the batter to consume!!

The layers are stuck together with apricot puree( idea blatantly stolen from sacher torte)....so in effect, it looked beatiful, tasted really quirky(and heavenly) and I'm still boasting about my skills ;)


Here goes -


[I have the modified recipe written down for anyone crazy enough to want to make it....but since it isn't a food blog; atleast not yet;it doesnt make much sense to put it up]

Baking Mania continues...

.....with carrot cake!!

Again, pulled the recipe from Pinch My Salt

Though I did cheat a bit in the frosting, by substituting hung curd and cream instead of cream cheese; as its not easily available, and is kinda expensive. Turned out beatiful and crumbly , and enough to feed an army!!!

beautiful caramel

Im suddenly damn kicked about baking, one of my newer whims which started after me nd my sis baked two beautiful cakes for my jeej and niece, complete with icing.
My next experiment was with cheesecake, for which i used ridiculously expensive mascarpone, and made sour cream at home. Turned out a tad bit heavy, but very very creamy, with a perfect base, and perfect color.

So I decided to get away from the usual yellow and chocolate cakes this time, for my sister's b'day.
After a lot of thought, a friend suggested a site which had a recipe for Caramel Cake. One look at the pics and I was totally sold out!!!

With a little help from my mom(I am v scared of hot molten sugar), we threw the cake in the oven. It took almost an hour to bake but the result was mind blowing. I never thought a cake could take in so much liquid!!!!

I got bored with the icing though, so I didnt bother to whip the cream a lot, just added a little icing sugar, gave it a swirl and poured it on the cake, and mom swirled the remaining caramel on it, and added thin almond wafers.

Not bad, eh?( thats the last piece I managed to capture before it disappeared)
PS: I have trained my sights on carrot cake this weekend....I'll try taking better pics this time around