There is something about lemon

There are summer desserts (the ones with berries) and there are winter desserts (lots of chocolate and alcohol mixed in with spices). Also in between are the fall desserts (everything pumpkin). In India, fruits and vegetables aren't as seasonal in nature as in the West. But still, I understand the lure of the sweet tartness provided by berries in summer and the warmth of spices in winter.

If there is one type of dessert I refuse to sort is anything made of Lemon. It provides the required freshness and tartness desired in summers and also to me provides the comfort of tang in the winters. I see myself tucked into a quilt digging into a warm lemon pudding. It reminds of the summer to come.

Which is why I think I baked this lemon pudding cake twice, once in April for the boy who was moving to start a new job in a different city, and once again in Feb, just because.

Look at that above picture. Don't you want to grab a spoon, gather around the cake tin and just dig your way through it? Which is exactly what the boy did (single-handedly) in April, and what my roommates and I did recently.

This is kind of cake you would bond over, fall in love over.

This is also the kind of cake that will stand out in a fancy dinner party, just bake it in individual ramekins.

Go on, head over here for the recipe.

Flaming Chocolate Whiskey Cake with a Meringue Icing

I have been living by myself for about eight months now (not including my stay on campus during my PG), I have never really felt lonely or missed my family all that much. Except when festivals come around.

When festivals come around, I feel this need to replicate the customs of home. Obviously in my case customs mean food, so I am usually on the phone with my mother jotting down recipes as I try to re-create home. Ganesh Chaturthi had me making modaks (kozhyakottai) and Diwali saw me make coconut and almond barfi. 

Chirstmas isn't celebrated at home, but is a festival I love, because it gives me an excuse to listen to carols and to bake a cake. This time though, I decided to be a bit gimmicky. We threw a big Christmas lunch (16 people is a big deal for 4 girls who are used to cooking for no more than 4-5 people), and went all out with the decorations, so obviously the cake had to be at par. 

Presenting the FLAMING CHOCOLATE WHISKEY CAKE WITH MERINGUE ICING. 

I used the New York Times recipe for the cake. I would suggest baking the cake a day earlier than when you need it, resting makes it incredibly moist and beautiful.

Browned tops of the meringue icing

 For the meringue I looked up a bunch of recipes on the net and just whipped up 8 egg whites till they formed soft peaks and added a cup of sugar, and beat it till the peaks were stiff. No cream of tartar, because I don't know where in India would I have gotten it. 

The cake on fire

The cake was set alight by a cup of brandy which I heated on the gas till it became unstable and caught fire by itself. Once it is burning just pour it on the golden meringue. 

It looks really fancy, but it is one of the easiest cakes I have made. Do give it a try!

Feta Love, Cupcakes and Hairbands!

Who has a new obsession?

Me! Yes. Me! (JD reference).

Obsession #1: Feta
Have you ever eaten something that just exploded in your mouth, smooth and flavourful?
It happened with me and Feta at the Kala Ghoda Café. I ordered a salad with feta in it. And since then greek salad is the only kind I have ordered. I have even saved it up after finishing the salad to add to my pizzas.

So when J and I went to Yellow Tree Café, which is the sunshine-iest of places I have been to, I had to order it. And it didn't disappoint me. Though I would have liked my salad with cherry tomatoes and not big chunks of tomatoes.

The cafe has big windows and happy yellow walls with happy coloured stuff on it

The lovely salad with the out of place large tomatoes

We also ordered sun-dried tomato pesto chicken sandwich and cilantro chicken sandwiches that came with curly fries. The sandwiches come with a garlicky tomato sauce and mustard sauce. Both these sauces complimented the sandwiches really well. Just added that extra bit of zing.

The sundried tomato pesto chicken

The curly fries look more dominating than the cilantro chicken sandwich, no?

The yum sauces

We then went to find Lulu's cupcakes. If you subscribe to BPB (if you don't you should) then you would know who she is. She turned out to be close by at an exhibition and we got to have her chocolate cupcake and red velvet cupcake. The chocolate was soft and the frosting smooth and rich. The red velvet has an amazing cream cheese frosting.

Lulu's cupcakes

Obsession #2: Hairbands
At the exhibition the first stall I encountered was selling hairbands. I couldn't stop myself and was bought two of them. One very classy and the other bright. This obsession, according to some of my friends marks my transition from a tomboy to a girl. I don't know about that, but I do plan on adding to my tiny collection.

Tell me about your recent obsessions!

Starry Starry Cupcakes!

So what do you do when a friend invites you over for a nice Kashmiri lunch with 13 other starving PG kids interning in Mumbai?
You gang up with another one of the invitees and spend a fun afternoon baking and frosting cupcakes.

What recipe did we use? This one. We just subbed the chocolate chips with grated dark chocolate. Also made vanilla ones subbing the cocoa for more flour.

Pictures? Here: 

The starry sparkles

Green Being mixed in

Pink colour being mixed in 

Yellow being mixed in

We had lots of fun with the starry sprinklers

This is my friend Pooja, icing the cupcakes. She is unbelievably thin for someone who loves food so much and eats as much too! 

Buttercupp Bakery

Ahmedabad is a nice city. Great infrastructure, nice places to eat, shop but it has one deficiency (apart from the lack of alcohol), this place doesn't have a nice cupcake place.

Forget a dedicated cupcake shop, not even one bakery that did cupcakes. Coming from Bombay with the convenience of Theobroma, Candies, 210's and Butterfly; this Gujju land was devoid of any cupcake happiness.

Till about two weeks ago.

Buttercupp: A Cupcake Shoppe was started by Amar and his wife. They flew down from the US to start this place. Not professional bakers, them, the wife (sorry, I didn't get her name) has done a baking course here and there but is an engineer by profession.

So, we (J and I) entered this place at 5 pm, and saw this:

Empty shelves, but you can see the Banana cupcake, can't you? Say hi!

empty shelves. 

Panicked we ordered 1 each of everything we saw; red velvet, oreo and banana bread. On enquiry we found that lemon cupcakes were on their way out and there was one last double chocolate dip. We ordered those as well. 

Lemony Love

So here goes,

Red velvet: the cake tastes nice. Though it could have been a nit more moist for me. The icing was nice, but it could have tasted more of cream cheese. 

Oreo: No one can ever go wrong with oreo. 

Banana Bread: Aah! These stole the show. Gorgeously moist, with the slight banana flavoured icing and the caramelised banana on top. *Sigh!* We had two of these. (It is nice how much J indulges me when it comes to food). 

Double Chocolate Dip: Oh so moist! our teeth go right through. With a light chocolate butter cream frosting, this on was chocolate heaven. 

Lemon: J and I love lemon. And it is so easy to go wrong with it. But this one was perfect. Not overtly sweet or lemony. 

The empty wrappers. Phone calls went unattended as we sat in silence for a minute savouring the  last crumbs. 

We ate six cupcakes while we were there. Took ten back to campus. Apparently, if you eat as much as we do, they throw in a lemon cupcake and also give u a discount.

So dear Ahmedawadis. Go there. Please! Go early. Call before you go, Amar will save some for you.

The cupcakes here vanish before you can say, "Wow!". Around 20 people would have walked in the 30 minutes we were there. They were met with empty shelves, but wait, no one goes back empty handed (or stomached). They make sure you get to have something or the other.

Here they are on Facebook show them some love. 

Happy! Happy!

Yesterday was a fun day! I was to go for my farewell lunch organised by some friends. See the cake below? That was for me! It was a chocolate fudge cake. It was divine and not too sweet, as sometimes fudge cakes can be. It was soft and moist and gorgeous. 

My friend had borrowed my recipe book for it (i know!) and this was the first cake I had ever baked. I trust this book and all it's recipes with all my heart and I am glad it didn't let her down. 

The top view of the cake. The prettyness courtesy, my arty friend. 

There was also paneer chilli and stir fried noodles. Both were amazing. the noodles was simple and mildly garlicky. The paneer was great, soft and spicy.

Another reason for yesterday being a good day was my friend who was vacationing in the US, came back and with her came my new laptop (Nemo. yes we name inanimate objects) and her gift for me, the gorgeous recipe book you see below.

Her choice was great because all the ingredients are easily and cheaply accessible in India. They even suggest substitutes that can be used, which I find very useful because some books can be pretty obstinate that way. 

Oh the pictures in tho book! AAH! They are so pretty and look so delicate with tea china. I have a secret obsession with tea china since we did a cultural paper on Jane Austen and had to display things from her era. My mother produced this gorgeous tea set from the depths of her kitchen attic complete with miniature victorian paintings on it! (In case you are nit picking, I know Jane Austen didn't write about the Victorian Era, but the tea set looked very English). Also one of our favourite professors who looks as delicate as the tea set herself, fell in love with it. 

What keeps you happy these days?

P.S It is my sister's birthday in a week and I will get to try the new book!

List of places to eat in Bombay: Part I

A couple of days ago I started to work on my list of places to eat in Mumbai before I leave for Ahmedabad. Though what I had in mind for the day didn't work out, I went to a couple of places on my friend's lists. 

The first one was Vini's favourite frankie guy. Aga Brother's at Colaba. You know a joint is right for you when you see this sign in their shop. It definitely goes in line with my philosophy of : Eat Hard, Workout Harder. 

It is a nice cozy Parsi joint which serves chaat and other usuals. 

 Do not be fooled by the Tibbs ka stall outside, because this frankie is definitely fatter than the Tibbs ones, which look like they have been dieting. The veg one was nice and tangy with the right amount of masala in it.

We next went over New Kulfi Centre at Chowpatty at bhavna's insistence. Apparently you have not had Kulfi if you haven't had it there.

i managed to get Bhavna and Naqqiya in the frame. 

The have a long menu which had me thoroughly excited. Long menus are bittersweet in my opinion. You have a long list which excites you and then you have to choose one dish and then left to wonder what the others would be like.

We all chose 4 different kulfis, so we got a decent idea as to what was on offer.

Clockwise from top left: mango Kulfi, malai Kulfi, Lychee Kulfi and the NCC special or the dry fruit Kulfi. 

The mango one was nice, but typical mango kulfi like, tasted of alphoso mangoes. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it was in season and there can never be too much of mango.

The Malai one was nice and creamy. the dry fruit was the malai kulfi with well dry fruit in it. the anjeer parts tasted excellent, so the next time you go there do have the anjeer one.

The show stealer was the Lychee Kulfi. Many desserts with lychee in them tend to taste artificially sweet. But this beauty used real and fresh lychees. There were pieces of the actualy fruit in it and it did not overpower your senses. It was subtle and brilliant.

So on the list:
Frankie at Aga Brothers
Lychee Kulfi at Kulfi Centre.

21 cupcakes

I love Birthdays and parties. I am the unofficial party planner in my group of friends and also the unofficial baker. A friend of mine recently turned 21 and we celebrate all 21st's as surprises.

I surprised her with 21 cupcakes!

I know I am pretty awesome :p.

I decided to bake marble cupcakes for her using this recipe.

I love the swirly pattern that you can make with this cake.

Usually a marble cake is used as a tea cake and can be quite dry. You can use brown sugar instead of white sugar to add more moistness or just add some tablespoons of maple syrup to the batter to make it soft and moist.

The cake is covered with a chocolate ganache icing.

I find ganache very easy to make. I heated 600 ml of Amul Fresh cream on low heat till it started bubbling on the edges and turned off the heat. Then I added about 400 grams of chopped dark chocolate. I used a mixture of Cadbury Bournville (which is pretty decent) and Trader Joe's dark chocolate. You can vary the proportion of the cream to the chocolate depending on your resources.

the 21 cupcakes

There is also a picture of me with the cupcakes on my About Me Page.

What have you done for your friends on their birthdays?

Mother's Day Special: Oreo Pie

Kraft buying Cadbury has to be a good thing. It has made Oreo cheap and widely available in India and I hope that they start producing other range of craft products here too.

My sister and I were obsessing over Oreo's since their recent launch. We would find just about any occasion to buy them. While thinking about making an Oreo inspired dessert, I thought of cheesecake, and while looking for recipes I found this by the Purple Foodie.

The recipe calls for Philadelphia cream cheese which is available in India (supermarkets like Hypercity) but costs a bomb (Rs.400 for 8 ounces). So I decided to make it for the big lunch I made for my friends and also thought it would be fit for mother's day.

Why Mother's Day? Well because after tasting it, my mother who was in a migraine induced half sleep stage, got up and came to me all bright eyed to tell me how awesome it was.

INGREDIENTS: 
Oreos: 45 (I ate 3-4 while preparing the dessert)
8 ounces/ 226gms Cream Cheese
200ml whipping cream
1/4cup melted butter
1/2 cup caster sugar

METHOD

• Crush around 28 cookies.( Make sure there aren't any big pieces left. Use a mixer is necessary.) Mix with butter and line the dish. 
• Beat the cream cheese with the sugar till it is fluffy
• Whip the whipping cream and add it
• Mix in the rest of the crushed cookies
• Pour in the dish and let it set for about 4-5 hours

Make sure you use Philly cream cheese as it gives a slight sour taste to the pie, which is just heavenly. 

Eat, serve and enjoy. Also, you will love the compliments which will come your way.

how we celebrate the end of exams.

The exams are over! I am almost a graduate now, with only a marksheet between me and my degree.

We girls went slightly mad post exams. And what do we do when we go mad? We eat.

Here is what I ate the last two days.

clockwise from left top: Sprouts and green salad with feta cheese at KGC; Homemade Pizza; Penne Pesto; Oreo Pie

The salad was at Kala Ghoda Cafe, which was brilliant! I loved the Feta cheese. 

The rest three I made at home for my girlfriends. Recipes to follow!  

Celebration: Devil's Food cakcupcakes with an Oreo icing

After an year of studying for and dreaming about my post-graduation I have finally managed to secure admission to MICA! I was am still ecstatic and can't believe I will be moving out in around 2 months.

I knew I had to celebrate, even though I am supposed to be studying for my exams. Celebration is equivalent to baking for me, and my new muffin tray was calling out to me to be used. Also the fact that Oreos are now cheaply available here, and have caught my recent fancy, meant that I just had to bake cupcakes with something Oreo.

I decided to bake a Devil's Food cake cupcake with a Butter Cream Oreo icing.

For my cupcakes I used my trusty-never-fail-go-to-guy, Sanjeev Kapoor. Here's the recipe from his site.

The baking time for cupcakes was around 20 minutes. It really depends on your oven. They were the softest cakes i have ever had/baked. they felt like cotton when I took them out. 

A good thing about them is that, post refrigeration they get your slightly dense cupcakes consistency. Also, I think if the cakes are so soft you can go ahead and add hidden surprises in the cupcakes, like mini-oreos, chocolates, chocolate chips without altering the recipe at all. 

I made the Butter Cream Oreo Icing myself. 

As you all can see I suck at icing. I couldn't find my piping bag and any ziplock bags, so had to be content with smearing icing onto them with a spatula. 

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients: 

7 oreos (or 1 small packet)

100 grams salted or unsalted butter (I used salted)

4 tbsps of icing sugar (I am sure normal powdered sugar will do just as well)

Method: 

• Cream the butter and sugar till they are creamy and light
• powder oreos in your mixer/food processor/beat them by hand to desired crumbliness
• Mix Oreo and butter mix 

TADA! 

It really is that simple. This icing is really rich. If you want a lighter one you can add egg whites to it. 

My family and friends gobbled them up in no time. 

I also got a big envelope (they couldn't find a bag) full of assorted chocolates from my friends. I guess they know what exams do to me. 

I can't wait for the farewell parties to begin. ;)

So, what are your recent food obsessions?

P.S: A shoutout to Siddhartha for the header. I will send a lot of cupcake love your way. 

I got Featured!!

Simple Indian Food : An Easy Cooking Blog has been around for years now.

EC is a stalwart in the tasty world of Food Bloggers. Check out her blog here. 

She has an ongoing feature called "Budding Bloggers" where she features upcoming bloggers. So it is like a society debut. 

And I got featured today! Check out the link here. 

And pardon the title of this post. I am just so very excited!