love bytes?? I don't think so!

So much for all the candy, hearts and romance! Its been a slow boring month with only a few goodies made by me.. Surprising how I cant eat my own things. Which is a good thing as none of them are flattering for the waistline!

So here goes:

Chocolate walnut tarts

The person I really enjoy cooking for is "K" he'll eat anything and come back for seconds. SO I try to make something new each time i know he is coming home! But on the downside i do not get true feedback!!

Experimental cake

Coral reef inspired cake!

A the same cake on the inside:

Half gone!!

As you can see I'm not in the mood to write tonight so more later!!

Memories

Last night in the midst of a cookie baking frenzy my mum remembered some brandy snaps that she had made when she in college..
They seemed ridiculously easy to make with hardly any ingredients so I convinced her to let me have a go.. Armed with a youtube video and a easy recipe we feverishly measured out the butter and sugar and grated the ginger.

FYI: Brandy snaps are a common dessert food in the UK , Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. They are edible, tubular, brittle, sweet, baked casings that are typically 10 cm long and 2 cm in diameter. They are usually served filled with whipped cream.

They are made from a mixture of golden syrup, flour, ginger, cream, sugar and butter and are baked briefly as a flat disc that is then rolled while still hot and soft.

Sounds so simple right?? But NOO they were not!!

Our first attempt was a disaster, in our state of excitement we tried rolling them when they were still hot which resulted in a gooey, buttery mess which was stuck to the baking parchment!

Then after watching a Gujrathi chef make the snaps we tried again and cooked them for longer till the bubbled up beautifully and formed the lattice.Upon cooling we tried to roll them, but the most we could manage was a taco shell look alike!

And the next morning they had softened into mulchy piles of butter..

Sniff!! If only my mother had the original recipe!!

Baking madness to combat the weekend blues..

I'm back!!
Been caught up with work and classes and Grey's. So on saturday since i was finally at home for a long span i wanted to bake.. and bake a lot!! to make up for all the days i'v been caught up with sitting in front of the computer! So maybe it was just pure laziness that kept me away..

Had five things that i wanted to bake but after making the spiced wine i decided to stop and keep q few recipes for an actual occasion. Right now there is no one at home to eat these decadent goodies.. so S, my lucky friend gets to sample them all!

The cookies turned out surprisingly good and did not dry out too much. Hardly ten mins in the oven and they were all ready! Nice chewy centers and a crunchy sugar crust!

Peppermint Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

 The brownies looked a bit cracked and sad but just a sprinkling of icing sugar with some forks placed on them really made them pretty.

Cocoa Brownies

   

Kasutera:Japanese Honey Cake
The Honey cake did not have any vanilla in it so it came out smelling very eggy. But after it cooled you could get a rich honey aroma and the cake itself was light and fluffy..

All in all a very successful and satisfying day.My cousins polished off the brownies and my aunt even ordered a batch! Life is good again!! 

A chocolate brownie is a flat, baked square or bar introduced in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century and popularized in both the U.S. and Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. The brownie is sliced from a type of dense, rich chocolate cake, which is, in texture, like a cross between a cake and a cookie.^[1] Brownies come in a variety of forms. They are either fudgy or cakey, depending on their density, and they may include nuts, frosting,whipped cream, chocolate chips, or other ingredients. A variation that is made with brown sugar and no chocolate is called a blondie.

Happy Holidays!!

A week back i got my first ever order to make 40 muffins which seemed quite daunting at first but i just had to do two batches and voila!!!

Ganache icing!

40 beautiful muffins all packed away into boxes!

 The left over icing was used to dip fresh strawberries and peanut butter!!

Kick- boxing treats!

I had been asked to make something for my Kickboxing class so i made muffins as a pre- Christmas treat! But as you can see the crazy patterns on the muffins are due to the fact that I do have some problems with presentation........

The piping bag which I have is ancient and all the butter from the icing was leaking out of it and creating a sticky mess on my hands!

Here is one of the best ones of the batch! anyway after that awesome workout no one regretted eating one of these!!

Wanted urgently: an icing gun and  piping skills!!!!!!!

"A party without cake is really just a meeting"

- Julia Child

Confused cake- presentation problems!

For my friend's half birthday lunch I wanted to make the most fantastic and decadent cake..... BUT.........

The sponge cake came out lovely with all the layers...
BUT.. the chocolate ganache was a holy mess!! turns out amul packs cream and milk in a tetra pack which looks the SAME!!!!
So the icing was too watery cos of the milk and I did not mange to cover the sides of the cake!

But people said they liked it! Or maybe they were being polite ;)