Tish Boyle’s Luxe Pound Cake

I think I’m still a kid and no I do not mean the “young-at-heart” kind of way (though I wish I did). But, in the way that I need my mommy (no, that’s not what I call her) whenever things just seem a little too difficult to handle.

Well, uhm… kid would be putting it mildly. Baby would be the correct (although harsher) term, but let’s just be kind and think of me as a kid.

So the other day, my ankle (the very ankle that had gotten sprained months back) started swelling again, making working in the kitchen kind of difficult.

If that was not enough, I get a huge bump on my head thanks to me hitting it against a real sharp edged table. How did that happen? Let’s just say that I am really clumsy.

Apple Pie Tartlets/ Mini Apple Pies

This post has been lying in my drafts for two weeks now. With all the pictures placed, but no words.

I don’t know but whenever I begin to write this post I experience what you call a writer’s block (although in no way I consider myself a writer- a blogger block would be a better term. Blogger block- bet you cant say that ten times quickly! I digress.)

So instead of posting the recipe, each time I decided to leave it for later. Instead the nutella mug post got published. Surprisingly there was no block for that. I tried again to write this post and instead the follow-up to the most dangerous cake got published.

Not that this recipe isn’t great. Oh it’s plenty great but I just don’t know how to introduce it.

I generally have some story of mine to add to my posts or some memory that recipe brings up. But I have not grown up on apple pies. I am Indian. Nor has anything exciting happened to me over the past few weeks. In other words, nothing exciting worth telling. Hence the blogger block.

Pumpkin Pull Apart Muffins

The “pull-apart-bread” bug has finally bitten me.

In fact, it bit me long back- when Joy the baker had made her pull apart bread.

Since then it had been on my to-do list (an ever growing to-do list)!

Then, Kitchen corners did a pull-apart bread- a blueberry pull apart bread.

I looked at it and wanted to make it but did not!

And then came this pull-apart bread on Willow Bird Baking.

In between there were many other pull apart breads . But the pumpkin one did the trick.

Celebrating First Blogiversary with tartlets & a Giveaway!

Celebrating 100 posts with Avocado & Lemon cupcakes!

Hurrah!

Why, you ask?

Well, just because!

I haven’t used this word in ages and felt like using it today. I feel that “Hurrah” has been replaced by the shorter “Yay” or “hooray” (at least in my dictionary) and I hardly hear people saying “Hurrah!” like how Hurrah should be said! I feel bad for the word! So, I thought I would use it today.

Hmmm..

Ok, I am not that random!

Really! I am not.

Well, ok, sometimes I am. But not this time.

This time I actually have a reason to shout out Hurrah- because I am celebrating!

Celebrating what, you ask?

Well, I’m glad you asked!

(If you didn’t, I’ll just continue talking to myself and assume you are listening.)

I am celebrating three things!

Cherry Clafoutis

So today V and I got locked out of our house. I hate these automatic locks. You have to be so careful when you step out of the house for even a second. And, when you are not careful, then you are stuck outside, hoping and praying that accidentally some window has been left open. Now our bathroom window was open- yay! or wait no yay!. The window was way up and we tried getting in through that, but couldn’t. We checked for any other window that was unlocked and luckily our bedroom window was open (now yay!). V was able to get in through that and once he was in, he let me in. Never thought I would be breaking in my own house. Like I said, I hate these automatic locks.

Now, for the last two weeks Foodgawker and TasteSpotting have been full of people posting about cherry clafoutis: a classic french country dessert. I have never eaten clafoutis before, but after seeing so many pictures and people raving about it, I wanted to give it a try. I also wanted to get rid off the cherries in the fridge. So for Office Thursdays I decided to make it.

The verdict: Its quite an easy dessert to make, if you already have pitted cherries. I did not, so the pitting took a little effort, though traditionally, the french leave the pits in, saying that they impart an almond flavor when baked within the custard, something no authentic clafoutis should be deprived of. But, I did not want people at V’s office accidentally breaking a tooth biting into the pits, so I pitted the cherries. As for the baked dessert- I did not care too much for it. I should have known that I would not like it even before making it because everyone said it tastes like custard and well, I am not a big fan of custard- in fact I do not like custard at all.

For an unbiased opinion I turned to V and asked what he thought of it and he liked it since he likes custard as well. But then his opinion isn’t completely unbiased. He never says he doesn’t like anything I make, which makes it really difficult to know what tastes good and what doesn’t. Anyway, it was polished off by his colleagues in office, so I am assuming it wasn’t that bad after all. But, as for making it again- I do not think I will be baking this until I try the real thing to know how it actually tastes and how close I was to the original thing.

Carrot cake Truffles or Life’s lessons from a failed recipe

“I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine,
There’s gotta be a little rain sometimes.”

So I screwed up! Who doesn’t, I say! I think mistakes are important to not only learn but to accidentally tread onto something you might have overlooked. This is my story of how my mistake turned into something really good!

I had planned to make cupcakes for this week’s Office Thursdays.  Since we were out of town on V’s birthday (which was on the 9th), I wasn’t able to bake a birthday cake for him. For the uninitiated V loves carrot cake (carrot cake and my mango kulfi are the only two desserts I have seen him asking me to make). So, I thought I’ll make carrot cake cupcakes – V would also get to eat them plus he can take some for his office!

Now, when I was in India, my mom had made these whole wheat carrot cupcakes. My mom always made an amazing carrot cake but she got this equally good recipe for whole wheat carrot cake from a sweet lady named Sanu. I loved the whole wheat versions- more so because they were whole wheat! So I decided to give this new recipe a try.

I do not know what went wrong- was it too much baking soda, or was it too much oil or did I fill the pans too much- but the cupcakes fell and then they crumbled when I tried taking them out. Some survived, but most didn’t.

Now, I could have sat there- mourned the disaster. I could have wondered, sitting with my cake crumbs and could have analyzed what I did wrong. But I didn’t. Instead, I made these- White and Dark Chocolate Dipped Carrot Cake truffles! And, boy, were they a treat! While making them, this is what I realized and here I am sharing life’s lessons learned from a failed recipe! 🙂

Tres leches Cake: A Cinco De Mayo Treat!

I am back with Office Thursdays. Office Thursdays was something I started to solve the problem of me baking and then having no one to eat it since V is not fond of sweets. As a result, I would end up eating most of what I baked, and you all know what havoc that does to your body. Of course, I could have just not baked at all- but I love baking and I do crave for the occasional freshly baked good- not what you get in stores but what you get fresh from the oven in your house! So some solution had to be found- one that would allow me to bake but not end up with all the calories that go into it. Thus, the idea of Office Thursdays (at that time I could come up with no better name and so it stuck) came up. Every Thursdays, V has a meeting that he conducts, and several of his co-workers attend it. So, V and I decided that I would bake for these meetings and save for two-four pieces (for the two of us), rest would be served at these meetings.

For today’s office Thursday, since it is cinco de mayo (a Mexican holiday celebrated every 5th of May to commemorate Mexican victory over the French forces in Battle of Puebla, 1862) and a lot of people at V’s office are mexican, I thought of making a traditional Mexican dessert- Tres Leches Cake. Of course, it might have been a very wrong decision- they would know how it actually tastes, so I had to turn to the best-Alton Brown. His measurements were in weights and since I do not own a weighing scale (and I call myself a passionate baker!) , I found a recipe I could work with at Brenda’s blog. Brenda has a beautiful blog and an amazing collection of recipes. Do check her out.

Tres Leches Cake: Tres in spanish means three and leche means milk. So the cake roughly translated is three milk cake. The cake is a sponge like cake that is drenched in a glaze of three different kinds of milk- condensed milk, evaporated milk and half & half. Topped with a whipped cream frosting, you can make several variations to the cake by either adding chocolate, or layering some strawberry whipped cream in between or like Brenda, adding cinnamon to the batter. No matter what you do, you will still be licking your fingers away!

This cake also goes out to one of my blogger friends, Abhi and to the girl who introduced me to his blog (one of my best friends, Elgo), both of whom had their birthday in April! I had promised Abhi a cake, so here it is! I would have made a more extravagant cake- firstly, if I knew how to and secondly, had these guys been here to eat it. Now, Abhi, for whatever reason, does not blog regularly but I have seen the pics of his culinary adventures on Facebook and they all look so mouth watering good. I wish he would blog more often so that I get to learn more from him and not just sit and admire his pictures on FB.

Now, typical to all my new baking adventures I erred here too. I had kept the eggs out in the morning so that they would be at room temperature by the time I was ready to bake the cake in the afternoon. But, when I added them, the eggs were cold, solidifying the butter a bit. Arghh!! What do I do now! I took the bowl and hugged it, hoping my body heat would help the eggs and the butter to come back to room temperature. And well it did work! A hug can melt anyone and this just proved it!

The cake is seriously addictive. While photographing I kept on eating piece after piece. Granted I was hungry after the exercise but one piece would have worked, but I just could not resist! I happily packed these for V’s office-  finally there is some one to take these baked goods off my hand!