Baking with Merry

It's X'mas time again....and I love it......The tree was up in the first week of Dec itself since my kids were toooo excited to decorate it......The crib and the stars are yet to be done and hopefully it would be done before we leave for our holidays on Friday......   This year is special when it comes to baking----baked four plum cakes to gift my family members (I had plans of baking more but the erratic power shutdown in my area spoiled everything, so in the end had to be satisfied with four) ........We even have homemade grape wines this time  (all the credit for that goes to JJ) .....but no plans of gifting those.....*winks*.....( the recipe and snaps of the homemade wine would be up after I come back from my holidays)......     Those are the 4 cakes, specially wrapped and waiting for Santa to collect and deliver to my loved ones back at home.......*smiles*........The detailed photos of the cake would be uploaded later...Until then ...

My first born, my little prince turned 5 today......Like I said before .....kids grow up soooo fast that you don't realise it until their next birthday...*smiles*.......   Few weeks back I asked my son as to what cake he wants for his fifth birthday.....and there he goes with a list of cakes-----car cake, teddy bear cake, mickey mouse cake, giraffe cake, butterfly cake, flower cake, deer cake, blah blah blah (thanks to TLC's cake shows, as he gets all these cake ideas from those) ......Finally, he said he needed a cake with the number 5 and he specifically wanted a chocolate cake with blue icing (blue being his favorite color) !! Now starts my search for a blue color.....But this time I was lucky enough to find it in a departmental store and so grabbed all the bottles of different colors that was there (as these are very rare commodities and you get them once in a blue moon at my place) .......   Now with the color rea...

Well....I had never intended to bake a cupcake....Never at this time of the year when I am soooo busy baking cakes for Christmas.....But had to bake it for my little one *smiles*....She had some activity at her play school where she was supposed to bring cupcakes.....I thought of buying some...but the " baker mummy" in me didn't allow....and so I baked these simple Chocolate Cupcakes for my little one and her friends......         Ingredients: Recipe Adapted from: Chocolate by Parragon Books Unsalted butter, softened - 100 gm Castor sugar - 1/2 cup Eggs, lightly beaten - 2 Milk/water - 2-4 tbsp Chocolate chips - 1/3 cup Self-raising white flour - 1 1/2 cups Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup Method: Preheat the oven to 200 C. Line a muffin pan with paper cases. Sift the flour and cocoa. Reserve. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition...