Baking with Merry

I have noticed that my son follows a cycle when it comes to drinking milk.....He would gulp down his milk with no fuss for few days; next few days with a litle fuss but still would manage with cornflakes or chocos along with it and finally he would totally refuse it!!! This is when milkshakes come to rescue....I had few home-grown chikkoos with me, which I had brought down when I had gone for holidays.....So, this time the chikkos saved me.....   Moreover, chikko milkshake reminds me of a famous restaurant in Bangalore...I think it was known as Kebab Corner. They were famous for their shawarmas and chikko milkshakes. They had a shop in Jaynagar, which was quite close to our college. We used to go there once in a while to have dinner....They used to serve ice-cold chikko milkshake and it was quite filling tooo!! Ohhhh...how I miss those days....   Ingredients: Recipe Source: My own Chikku/sapota - 2 nos Milk - 2 cups Sugar - 2-3 tsp Method: Combine all the ...

Well, well, well......2013 is here and its almost a month since the New Year......hmmm.... and still I haven't blogged anything!!! Not that I have got bored of baking...but as a part of my New Year resolution I decided to stay away (not completely though)  from blogs and facebook so that I could spend some time with my kids.......Moreover, I need to catch up with my reading (another resolution) as I feel so lost for words these days....So to begin with, I have picked up Kiran Desai's Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard....So far good.....   Meanwhile, I did find time to make some of these Cake Pops out of the marble cake I had brought from home.....Well, not quite impressive but kids would surely enjoy it.......     Ingredients: Recipe Adpted from Rachel Allen's Cake   Dark/White Chocolate - 175 gm Marble Cake or any sponge cake - 350gm   For the chocolate coating Dark chocolate - 400 gm   Lol...

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...

Finally, the Red Wine Chocolate Cake.....This cake recipe was in my mind for sooo long and I wanted to bake it the very next minute I got the recipe, but somehow it got delayed due to some or other reasons....."Better late than never" and I am glad I baked it....I would say this was the best cake that I had ever baked and taste-wise--it was the best!! *smiles*... I had a bottle of homemade wine which my Papa had given me for last Christmas (to soak the fruits for the Christmas cake) ….The wine was a bit sweeter and so I used it for this cake…..The wine gave a rich flavour to the chocolate cake…In short, the cake was too delicious and it got even more better the next day, when all the flavors of the cake matured…. Ingredients: Recipe Source: The Pastry Affair Butter - 1/2 cup (softened) Light brown sugar - 3/4 cup Granulated sugar - 1/3 cup Egg, large - 1 Red wine - 1 cup Vanilla essence - 1 tsp All-purpose flour - 1 1/4 cups Cornstarch - 3 tbsp Cocoa ...

I wanted to bake a banana cake badly the other day, and so searched for one and found out this recipe from Nigella’s site.....What I liked about the recipe was it used rum instead of milk and essence....And I love cakes made of liquor; be it brandy or rum or even wine.....Well, stories apart.....On to the recipe....I have made few alterations to the original recipe......     Ingredients: Recipe Adapted from: Nigella Lawson   Butter - 100gm Castor sugar - 175 gm Salt- 1/4 tsp Eggs - 2 (at room temp) Lemon zest -1 (grated) Rum - 3-4 tbsp Ripe bananas - 3 (mashed) Lemon juice - 1 tbsp Flour - 250 gm Baking powder - 2 tsp   Method: Sift flour and baking powder together and keep aside. Butter a baking tin and it line with a parchment paper. Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the eggs and beat until the mixture become light and fluffy. Add the grated lemon zest and rum. Next, add the mashed banan...