All his favourites in one, Birthday Cake.

My lil one turned 2 today and I am in denial. Its seems strange that me, who still cannot believe that she is married and a mum, has a toddler in his twos. Wow! Anyways, this post is not about my denials but about him  my superstar, lil Z. So like any other toddler, Z has a couple of things he loves. Wake him up in middle of the night and he will happy to devour them. His favourite foods and my guilty food cause I usually turn to them only when a) he is not eating anything else and b) because its all the "wrong foods" for him. Anyways, since this being a momentous occasion and all, after all you only turn 2 once, I decided to bake him a cake with all his favourites. So, what are his favourites you ask? Lemme list it for you.

1. Fruit loops
2. Cream cheese frosting
3. Chocolate chips
4. Sprinkles
5. Crayons ( Dont ask, I have crayons with bite marks on them all over the house)
6. Cupcakes

So then, I thought and thought and thought as to how I could incorporate all his favourites into one and voila..'All his favourite birthday Day' aka Rainbow cake with cream cheese frosting, decorated with fruit loops, sprinkles and liberally strewn with chocolate chips. 'I left the waxy crayons out and drew inspiration form their lovely colours. Needless to say, I think it was his best birthday yet. :)

Here is what you need,

• One packet white cake mix. Any box cake will do. I used a Pillsbury white cake mix
• Food colouring

For the frosting,

• 8 oz of cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 stick of butter also at room temperature
• 2 cups of icing sugar
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence

For extra garnish,

• 1 small box of Ferraro Rocher
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• Rainbow sprinkles
• Handful of fruit loops

Method:

1. Prepare the cake batter as per the instructions on the box.
2. Now divide them into 7 equal parts and add the food colouring of your choice and mix well.
3. Now, proceed to put on colour in to the baking tray and as it spreads in the tray, put the next colour on top. Keep putting all the colours in concentric circles ( the cake tray will resemble a dart board at this point) untill all the batter is in the tray.
4. Now bake it according to the instructions on the box.
5. While it is baking, cream together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.
6. Then add the icing sugar and continue to mix it using an electric whisk.
7. Now add the vanilla essence and whisk until fluffy.
8. Refrigerate the frosting to set a bit.
9. Once the cake is baked and cooled, proceed to frost the cake.
10. Then decorate it using any of the garnishes mentioned above or just about anything of your choice.

Breakfast bread pizza

Ok..So this is not a new recipe but there is something about standard classic dishes that is so romantic. Its brings about a wave of nostalgia, its surprisingly filling and its quick and simple to make. I can't think off a better example than Bread Pizza to point this out. If you have not tried it yet, go go go..try it and for those who have, let do it again.

Here is what you need,

• Few slices of bread
• Grated cheese, preferably Mozzarella
• Pizza sauce
• 3-4 Sliced mushroom
• 1 diced bell pepper.
• A pinch of pepper
• Butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.
2. While the oven is preheating, spread the butter lightly on the bread.
3. Then spread the pizza sauce over it ( If you don't have pizza sauce then, either use garlic butter/spread instead of butter and then apply ketchup over it or heat a pan and saute a little bit of garlic paste very lightly, then quickly add ketchup to it. Mix well)
4. Now arrange a few slices of mushroom and diced pepper on top of it. (Actually, anything you like can be added on it, including thinly sliced sausages)
5. Now liberally spread grated Mozzarella on top
6. Bake for about 6-8 minutes or until the cheese is all melted.
7. Dig in!

See, it really cannot get more simpler than this now, does it. 

I know I have not been around a lot, but I surely hope this is gonna be my comeback post. 

Vanilla cupcakes with choco surprise and smarties

Every so often my little niece gets bitten by the baker bug and then she puts on her cute little Miley Cyrus apron, dusts a little bit of flour on her hair (apparently this makes her look professional or so she seems to think) and then pesters me to help around in the kitchen (read..do the actual baking) while she walks around shouting instructions (I have a feeling she has been watching Hell's Kitchen on the sly) and looking harried and busy! So, today she started pulling me to the kitchen, I decided to take the easy route and make cupcakes. The extremely simple vanilla cupcakes with choco surprise and a smattering of smarties on top. The smattering of smarties, courtesy the niece. This is absolutely simple for all that is required to make them is to drop all the ingredients into the food processor and blitz until smooth and then bake em. Very simple yet very very satisfying to eat. Here are the things you need,

• 1 1/4 cups of flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 125 grams butter
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• small slabs of chocolate (Diary Milk, Lindt..whatever you have in your purse or in the fridge)
• Handful of smarties

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven 200 degree Celsius
2. In a food processor, blitz together all the ingredients except milk until smooth.
3. Then pour in the milk at the end and pulse until it combines well
4. Scoop the batter into your cupcake mould and press in a slab of chocolate in the middle.
5. Bake for 20 minutes until the cupcakes turn slightly golden on top
6. Remove and let it cool.
7. Sprinkle a few smarties on top
8. and then watch as your niece walks around telling everyone how difficult it was to bake the cupcakes but nonetheless how she did it on her OWN.
9. Sit back and smile!

Banana Toffee Pie (Banoffe pie)

When you come across the same dish in 4 different blog, all in a single day, then think no more. Its the great baker in the sky telling you that its time you made that dish. And hey, who am I to question the great baker's plans? and so I made the Banoffe pie, which is simple banana and toffee mashed up together, much like in this dessert. Its decadent, its rich and its most definitely yummy. Its true that you cant eat too many helpings cause it is frankly a sickly sweet recipe and you can get satiated with one slice but thats only a problem, if you are just making this pie for yourself. One the other hand if it is for a dinner party, then you wouldnt know where the dessert disappeared! Here are the things you need,

• 4-5 medium ripe bananas
• 400 mils of double cream
• 1/2 cup sugar and 3tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 tin condensed milk
• 250 grams of digestive biscuits
• 125 gram butter

Method:

1. In a blender/food processor, mix together the digestive biscuits and butter until they form coarse crumbs.
2. Press the biscuit crumbs onto a springform tin to form the base. Remember to press the crumbs on to the sides of the tin. 
3. Refrigerate for 1/2 an hour
4. In the meanwhile, on low heat melt together the sugar and water. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved.
5. Then raise the heat to medium and leave the sugar undisturbed for 5 minutes or until it begins to caremelize.
6. Now quickly add the condensed milk and butter and whisk until the toffee sauce thickens.
7. Then remove the rested pie shell from the fridge and pour half of the sauce all over it, including the sides. 
8. Refrigerate it for a further half an hour.
9. Now chop the bananas into medium sized slices and whip the cream to form still peaks
10. Fold the bananas into the cream
11. Spread the cream evenly over the biscuit and toffee base
12. Pour the remaining toffee sauce over the cream and refrigerate for another 1/2 an hour.
13. Then dig in!

You could omit steps 4,5,6 and make toffee sauce another way. All you need to do is remove the label from the tin of condensed milk and then immerse the tin in a pot water and place that pot on low heat (simmer) for about 2 and half hours and then when you crack open the tin of condensed milk, voila! its toffee sauce! :) While, this is a far easier process it is a lot more time consuming. So, choose your method according to your convenience. The result is just the same though!

Also, one way to reduce the sweetness of the dessert if its a tad too much for you would be to use, just ripe bananas instead of medium or overtly ripe ones. This way, the lack of sweetness in the bananas will help even out the overall sweetness of the dessert.

For the base, try using salted butter instead of unsalted butter, as the saltiness of the biscuit plus the butter forms and interesting clash with the sweetness of the toffee sauce.

 Remember to wear stretch pants ore PJs when you eat the dessert. Why you ask, you will know! This dessert might even make you wish for spandex! :P

Strawberry and Cream Cake

You know how sometime you need a break from things you love just to renew that love and not feel satiated? Well, that feeling hit me recently and I needed to take a break. A break from chocolate that is. I absolutely love chocolate and it would so be among the list of things that I would take with me to a deserted island but lately, I've just been having so much of it that I feel my enthusiasm for it dip a little bit. I no longed seem to be calling dibs on the last slice of chocolate cake or that last bite of absolutely sinful dark chocolate and even worse, I seem to be the one passing on the last bite to someone else. **Gasp** and so, I took a break and decided to do something completely non-chocolatey and what can be more non chocolatey than Strawberries and Cream. Plus, I had agreed to bake something for a friend and so thought this could be my chance for the break from chocolate. I have to admit, I din't really expect this cake to be amazing or anything. Seriously, what chance did poor strawberries have against chockies but they surprised me. They seems very moist, melt in your mouth and very very light. The only downside that I saw to the cake was that it was a tad too sweet for my liking and thats really my fault cause when I bought the cream for the cake, I din't really check to see if the cream was sweetened or not. Well mine was and that I think brought the cake down a couple of notches. So careful with your cream selection. Anyways, here are the things you need.

For the cake,

• 200 grams of flour
• 25 grams of cornflour
• 3 tsp of baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence/extract
• 225 gram butter (about 2 sticks and little more)
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 2 cups of sugar

For the filling,

• 1 cup of fresh strawberries sliced or a cup of strawberry preserve.
• 400 mils of cream whipped until stiff.

Method,

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree celcius.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
3. Then add the vanilla extract and whisk.
4. Now whisk in the eggs one by one. Add a spoonful of flour in between each addition of egg.
5. Then, fold in the remaining flour, cornflour and baking powder.
6. Once its all folded in together, add the milk and slightly loosen up the batter.
7. Pour it into a baking tin and bake for 35 minutes or until the top of the cake browns and the tester comes out clean.
8. Remove and let it cool completely.
9. Then using a sharp knife, slice the cake into two equal halves. (You could actually save the trouble slicing the cake if you have two identical cake tins, in which case, all you need to do is spoon in the batter equally in to both the tins. Also, remember to lower to baking time to about 25 minutes)
10. Spread the strawberries (fresh or preserved) equally on bottom half of the cake.
11. In a bowl, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks and then spread it generously over the strawberries.
12. Now sandwich together the cakes and voila! its done.
13. Dig in. 

I wish I could have shared the pic of a slice of the cake with you. But like I said, I din't make it for myself and so when I took the cake over to her place and sliced it up, I forgot to take the pic. But take my word for it, it was so pretty. Golden cake with white and pink inside. Pretty as a picture!

Apple Tart

I had never tasted an apple tart. Until yesterday! Yup. Always shied away from it and picked another dessert. It was instinctive. Nothing about an apple tart yells out to me and still all my friends and my family swear by it. They claim, you cannot go wrong with it. Its a safe dessert. And so, yesterday when I found my fruit basket dangerously over stuffed with apples, I thought it was perhaps time to tackle the apple tart monster! Grab it by its horns and devour it to submission. Well, atleast that was the plan but alas, its just not my monster. Know what I mean? I made the tart shell from scratch, lovingly made the fillings, waited to get it baked and the result..it was blah in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, apparently the dessert was delicious. It had to be cause my Mum who always says no to dessert went in for seconds and there is no more tart left but still to me it was blah.

I always feel that a good dessert has to overwhelm you. There should something about it that explodes in your mouth. It could be the flavours, its subtlety, a surprise element, anything but it has to impress you and that's where I felt my apple tart failed. Atleast to me. Well, no more apple tarts for me and like I said, I'll never get around this monster but thats just cause, this is just not my monster. Nonetheless, if you like apple tarts then here are the things you need,

For the shell,

• 250 grams of flour
• 125 grams of cold and cubed butter
• 1 tbsp of water
• a pinch of salt

For the filling,

• 3-4 large apples sliced along the length
• 25 grams of butter + 25 grams of sugar
• 250 mils of cream
• 100 grams of sugar (or more if you like it really sweet)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Mix together the all the ingredients for the tart shell and press them together. Do not knead as it can make the shell a little tough. Press them well, between cling films and refrigerate for atleast 2 hours.
2. Then roll it out to desired thickness and line your tart tray with it. Trim of the excess from the edges.
3. Now, cut the apples lengthwise and line the prepared shell with it.
4. Mix together the butter and sugar and brush all over the apples well. Alternately, you could dip the apples in this mixture first and then line the tart tray with it.
5. Now in an oven preheated to 220 degree Celsius, bake the tart for 10 minutes.
6. Then reduce the temperature to 200 degree Celsius and bake for further 20 minutes.
7. In the meanwhile, whisk together the cream, sugar, egg and vanilla extract.
8. Once the tart has been baked for the required 20 minutes, remove from oven and pour the cream mix all over it until the apples are submerged in it.
9. Now return the tart to oven for another 10 more minutes.
10. Remove and serve while slightly warm.

Sorry about the really really bad photos. Lack of inspiration plus the lack of a good camera can do this to us! :(