Baking with Merry

Couple of days back, I was going through my recipe diary and found the recipe of this wonderful cake which I had jotted down long back (precisely, 2 yrs back) and completely forgotten!!!So, on Sunday I decided to try it out and wallah it turned out to be sooo delicious *smiles*........ Moreover, it was the most perfect cake I had ever baked *winks*......The cake was soft and sweet, even at the top with no humps; just the way I wanted it!!!*smiles* Ingredients: Recipe Source: Kitchen Mishmash For baking the cake Cake flour - 1 3/4 cups Baking powder - 2 tsp Salt - 1/4 tsp Large egg whites - 3 (room temp) Whole milk - 3/4 cup (room temp) Unsalted butter - 1/2 cup Sugar - 3/4 cup Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp Orange zest - 1 tbsp (not required if you want a plain basic white cake) For moistening-orange syrup Water - 1/4 cup Sugar - 1/4 cup Orange juice - 1 tbsp (I used Tropicana) For filling and frosting Heavy double cream - 2 cups Confectioners sugar - 3 tbsp Oran

Few days back I told JJ about the wheat cake recipe I had found in one of the blogs. He was like “What? A wheat cake?? Oh come on! it would taste like an ada , so pls don’t try it”…. Fine! But I desperately wanted to try out the wheat cake for two reasons-first,it was rich in nutrients since the refined flour (empty calories) was substituted with wheat flour and we use jaggery instead of the normal sugar (which is of course another source of empty calories!!)…..and secondly, I haven't tasted a wheat cake before,so wanted to know how it would taste like!!*smiles* Finally, yesterday when I had some “me time”, I decided to bake the cake and believe me it took hardly 30 minutes for preparing and baking the cake…..The cake was just delicious---a soft cake with a rich taste of jaggery (I like the taste of jaggery) *smiles*..... And guess what?? even JJ liked it!!!*winks* (according to him, the jaggery had balanced the wheat flour taste). Ingredients: Recipe Source: Spicy Chilly Wh

We both carve for something sweet after our lunch and dinner, anything sweet, even a small bar of chocolate would do! Normally, we buy them and stock. But now-a-days, we don't like the ones bought from the shops. So, I decided to make a 'home-made' sweet for a change....*smiles*....I searched the blogs I have bookmarked and found a relatively easy-to-make recipe on SpicyTasty. Milk Fudge/Doodh Peda is so simple yet a tasty sweet!!Normally, these are made from paal kova but here we use condensed milk and milk powder. Believe me this is one of the easiest sweet which you can make at home as it takes less than half an hour to make it. Ingredients: Recipe Source: Spicy & Tasty Milk Powder - 2 cups Condensed Milk - 1 tin Butter (unsalted) - 1 stick Nuts - 1/4 cup (I used almonds and raisins) Cardamom - 6 (grind only the seeds) Saffron - a pinch Method: Microwave the butter stick in a wide bowl for a minute. Now add the milk powder and condensed milk and ju

I never knew you could make pudding out of biscuits, until I came across the recipe for a biscuit pudding on Divya's Easycooking blog.....*smiles*. The pudding was so easy to make and it was quite tasty too. I would tag this pudding as a 'kid-friendly recipe', because the kids would love it. You would find most of the recipes I had tried out is from Divya's Easycooking blog. Thats because as her blog title suggests, her recipes are easy to follow and require less effort!! *smiles* Ingredients: Recipe Source: Divya's EasyCooking Marie biscuits - 1 packet Milk - 1 packet (500ml) Sugar - 5 tbsps Cornflour - 3 tbsps Cocoa powder - 3 tbsps Coffee decotion* - 4-5 tbsps diluted with 2-3 tbsps of water Nuts - to garnish (I used cashewnuts, almond and pista) Method: Dip the marie biscuits in the coffee decotion (both sides) and layer them in a serving bowl. In a pan, boil milk and add sugar. In a bowl, mix cocoa powder and cornflour. Make a paste usi

Finally, I did it. I baked a better Black Forrest cake. In Malayalam there is a saying "If you fail once, then it takes thrice to win" (onnil pezhachaal moonu). The saying has become true in this case. This was my third attempt and was quite determined to bake a better one. As usual, I got the recipe from Divya's Easycooking. This time I was lucky enough to get the whipping cream at the store. When using the whipping cream for decoration, be generous. I would suggest using atleast 400ml of whipping cream to get a creamy black forrest cake. My whipped cream was not enough to decorate the whole cake, but somehow I managed.....*smiles* Ingredients Recipe Source: Divya's Easycooking For the Cake Condensed milk-Milkmaid - 400gms (1can) Butter - 125 gms Maida/Flour - 225 gms Cocoa powder - 3-4 tbsps Baking powder - 1 tsp Baking soda - 1 tsp Aerated cola - 200ml (I used Coco-Cola) For the Sugar Syrup Sugar - 1/2 cup Water - 1/2 cup For the Cream Fresh