boyfrand cookies [ and abhinandan shortbread!]

my boyfriend loves biscuits. i've baked for him before, but i don't think those cookies were too nice. i'm going to see him this weekend and i wanted to do something nice for him, so i thought i'd bake him a box of cookies and pray to humanity that he likes them and abhinandan loves shortbread, like me! and he's going through some stuff, so i'm going to parcel him a batch of these in a desperate attempt to cheer him up.
also, i used to hate HATE baking cookies, until i discovered this brilliant recipe.

this makes about 12 average sized cookies.
fucking easy. fucking yum.

2 cups maida
1/2 cup sugar
1 slab + a little more [ depending on the consistency of your dough] melted butter
1 tsp vanilla.

preheat oven to 180.

mix sugar and butter till nice and creamy. add vanilla and maida. mix.
then make into a nice ball with your hands.
cover this ball with cling film.
put in freezer for 10 mins.
take out.
roll out the ball with a rolling pin. if your dough is flaky, worry not, shortbread is supposed to be. if it's too flaky and you don't like how it looks, add more butter. problem solved.
cut out cookies in any shape that you want. [ i like gingerbread men and circles]
put on butter paper [ if you don't have butter paper, you know the paper that the butter is wrapped in when you buy it? just use that. works the same!]

bake for 10 minutes. take out. if it's soft, don't panic. keep them out for 5 minutes, they should harden by then. if they haven't, then put them back in the oven at about 100 for 5 minutes. that should do it.
and listen. don't be sad if the edges of your cookies are brown, it doesn't matter just as long as they taste good :)

PS -if you're baking for your boyfriend like me, and your cookies fail, then taking your shirt off is a good alternative.

Strawberry Cheesecake [ not really, just cheesecake with strawberries on top]

I've tried about 7 different cheesecake recipes. And after a lot of trial and error [ emphasis on the error], I have come up with a recipe that works brilliantly.

So let's tackle this step by step. The first step is to not be scared or intimidated. It's a fucking cheesecake. It's simple. And fancy. But not the kind of fancy which is a pain in the ass. You fuck it up, and it's still edible. Cream cheese is yum. So don't worry. Nothing to worry about.

The best part of any cheesecake is the crust. Which is as easy as 1-2-3. Literally 3 steps to it.
Take a box of digestive biscuits, put them in a plastic bag, take a rolling pin and take out all your frustration on the plastic bag, with the pin. This will cause the biscuits to become biscuit crumbs.
Melt butter. Add butter to the crumbs and mix. There. Done. How much butter you add is up to you. But the butter and the crumbs need to stick together in order to form a nice solid crust.

Line the base of your tin with this mixture and that's your crust. See, normally, I'm not too particular about what tin I use. But this recipe calls for an 8 inch REMOVABLE BOTTOM tin. Believe me, normal tins are a pain when baking a cheesecake. You need a tin where the bottom is detachable. If you don't have it, then just line the inside of a normal tin with clingfilm so that you can take out the cake in one go.


The cheese bit of the cheesecake - fucking simple this is also.

1 pack of Philadelphia Cream Cheese [ weighs roughly about 225 gm] [ you can use Britannia, I'm just too fancy sometimes]
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
One tsp Vanilla essence.

Mix all these ingredients till it forms a nice LIQUID mixture. Should be smooth with no lumps. If you're too lazy to get rid of the lumps, just strain the entire thing and that should do it.

Add this to the tin with the base.

Bake at 180 for about 45 minutes.
The cake should be wobbly when you take it out. It should not be stiff. And the top should be completely white. No brown heat spots, nothing. Ideally.
But hey. That's where the strawberries come in.

If you have brown ugly spots on your cheesecake, cover it. Simple.
With anything you want. Strawberries, chocolate, gems, sprinkles. Literally anything you want, depending on how weird your taste buds are.

Refrigerate for an hour. This allows the cake to settle and become cut-able.

And if you've done everything right, your cheesecake is going to end up looking like this.

brownie + frosting + strawberry.

what it looked like

what i used to make it 

for the cake

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup maida [ flour]
1 egg
1 tbs + 1 tsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp baking powder [ don't worry too much about precise measurement]
1/2 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt

for the frosting 

3 tbs butter
3 tbs cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp + 1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla

for making it look pretty

a box of strawberries chopped up really finely.

how i made it 

1. preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius
2. you start off by melting the butter in a saucepan. then turn the heat off and stir in the sugar and keep stirring till the butter and sugar have mixed to form a satiny yellow mixture. then beat in the egg to this. [ i used an electric hand beater, but if you don't have that, a fork will work just fine also].
in another bowl, mix cocoa + flour + salt + baking powder. now add this mix, and beat it into the egg mixture. SLOWLY. One spoon full at a time.
3. add this mixture to a greased 8 inch square tin. bake for 20-25 minutes.

now, the frosting.
 if you don't have an electric beater at home, i would personally advice you to use melted butter, as this makes the mixing waaay easier

mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and keep beating it till it reaches the consistency you want it to be. if it's too thick, add a little bit of water and keep mixing. if it's too runny, add sugar + cocoa in equal amounts and mix

take the brownies out of the oven and wait for them to cool before you frost them. what happens when you don't do this, is that the heat from the brownies causes the frosting to melt and become runny.

and finally, after you're done frosting, take the strawberries and place them on top of the frosting. however you want. i'm really messy, but i know people who do a lot of pretty patterns and stuff.

refrigerate. or not.
your brownies, you decide.

wohooo

my friend has always wanted me to do this, so following in her footsteps, this is my food blog!
i really am not patient or organized enough to click pictures of every step along the way, you have the internet to guide you, but i promise to put up recipes and take pictures of the end result.
for me, if a recipe doesn't have a picture with it, i'm not going to use it. so i'm hoping there are a lot of people who follow the same principle.