Varun's not quite Red Velvet.

So! My " friend " Varun is in town for the summer for a bit, and he wanted to eat my Red Velvet Cupcakes. I mean, not my cupcakes, the ones I bake :p People who know both him and me would be able to understand why it was important to clarify.

Anyway, so disaster happened. And I realized that the bottle of red food coloring I thought I had wasn't actually food coloring but strawberry essence. WHICH btw, is my latest discovery.

So this is my not quite Red Velvet cupcakes ka recipe

1 cup maida
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 TBS strawberry essence
1 and a half tsp vinegar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp coffee powder
1/2 cup butter milk ] [1/2 cup milk + 1 tbs vinegar]
LOTS of cocoa powder to fix the damage done.

Okay very simple. Cream the butter and sugar first. And then add everything else.
Mix mix mix.
Grease a cupcake tray. Put in cupcake paper. Fill them half way through.
Bake in an oven, at 170C for 25 mins :)

Better than Biryani Mutton.

I'm calling this what I'm calling it because this was an impromptu decision. [ In no way am I implying that this mutton is better than Biryani, it will be a sin to even compare] I was all set to make Biryani, and then, my door bell rang and it was a delivery man delivering a parcel to me. That parcel contained something I'm going to cherish for a VERY long time. My first ever cook book! I've bought cook books before, but I haven't ever been gifted one. The book's called " Oh! Calcutta Cookbook" , and as the name suggests, the book's full of bengali food recipes. [ Oh! Calcutta is a Bengali restaurant, my dad's favorite]

A bengali loves mutton. Actually, anyone with taste buds loves mutton. Bengalis just love their mutton more than usual.

Making mutton is easier than I thought! It's a little tricky, because you have to constantly pay attention and you can't let yourself distracted [ the mutton will end up burning if you do], and temperature is a big deal and so are the measurements. But hey, I hadn't made mutton before, and I was determined to do it without any external help, so paying attention to detail was something I had to do.

The recipe
Again, like most meat recipes, it has 2 parts.

Note : I used 500 gm of mutton!

The marinade-
Very simple.

One chota cup of dahi [ I used a 100gm mother dairy thing]
20 gm ginger paste
15 gm garlic paste
[ if you don't have ready made paste at home, you can use the powdered ones that they sell in the market. Or just make your own paste, like I did. Very very simple. Ginger + 1 tsp water + mixie for 15 seconds and done! Same thing with garlic]
1/2 tsp garam masala
A pinch of nutmeg

Mix all of this together and put it in a box [ which has a lid] and put the mutton in [ after you have cleaned and washed it] and make sure all the pieces are nicely coated with the marinade.

Put the lid on. Put inside the fridge.

Now the recipe says marinade for an hour, I chose to marinade for 3 and a half.


The curry

Put 100 ml of mustard oil in a kadhai and heat. Wait for 2 mins and add about 500 gm chopped onions to it and fry till they're nice and brown. Add marinated mutton to this along with 5 gm of whole garam masala + 10 gm garlic paste + 1 tsp ginger paste. And cook for 15 minutes. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T BURN THE MUTTON. IF IT STARTS TO BURN, DON'T PANIC. IT'S OKAY. Move on to the next step as and when this happens.

After 15 minutes, add a chota bottle of coke worth of water to this and constantly keep stirring on medium heat..

TASTE. [ the gravy] The recipe books don't ask you to taste, and I think that's what fundamentally wrong with cookbooks. You can't blindly follow a recipe. Taste, every step along the way. Do what you think you should. If you want to make adjustments, DO SO. Without thinking about what the book says.

I didn't like how it tasted, so I decided to add 4 teaspoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, a little bit of nutmeg, and one table spoon of red chili powder.

I also added potatoes cut in quarters that I par boiled in the microwave for 7 minutes.

Once you're happy with how it tastes, let the mutton simmer for about 25 minutes [ depending on how soft you want it] and tadaaaaa, done! [ 25 minutes is how long it takes for mutton to be thoroughly cooked. if you want it softer, cook for longer]

Another pointer is the gravy. Add more water if you like your mutton with a lot of gravy. Let it reduce if you don't. I chose to reduce it. In Bangla, mutton without gravy is called Kosha Mangsho...which is what this dish was originally called.

I served this with rice.

I used Basmati rice, that I boiled in salt water, along with some tej patta [ bay leaves?] and cloves. And then once it's cooked, add ghee to it and it will taste and smell beautiful.

DONE!

I guarantee that this will look and taste and smell amazing. It will blow your mind. It definitely blew mine.
And I'm hoping it blows my boyfriend's mind also when I make it for him. He's a bengali, so we take mutton very seriously.

BATMAN COOKIES HELL YES!

I always told my boyfriend I'd make these for him. He has a strange obsession with Batman, which has been passed on to me.
We might not be together anymore, but this is something I wanted to do. For him.
A batch of Batman cookies :)

I have been trying for FOREVER to perfect these. I even went to the Metallurgy department of my college and made myself a Batman stencil, to make life easier.
[ Didn't work, but that's a different story]

And finally. After 2 failed and very disappointing attempts, that almost got tears in my eyes, the cookies have been perfected.

Thank fucking god.


3 parts to this.
The cookie - A plain round sugar cookie.
The yellow bit - Yellow colored royal icing.
The batman cut out - Gum paste painted black.

Let's tackle this one by one.

The cookie. [ makes a small batch of 6, a big batch of 12-15, depending on the size of the cutter you're using. I used a steel bowl, had nothing else]

1 egg
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup + 1/4 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt

Mix all the ingredients to form a nice and soft dough. Roll out the dough on a surface that has been coated with flour.
Cut out in any shape that you want.
Bake in an oven for 8 minutes [ exact] at 200 degrees.

The icing - It's very basic and simple. Also, very quick. I used Nigella's recipe for Royal icing that can be found HERE.
I didn't make the entire thing, I halved the proportions. And once it was made, I beat in about a teaspoon of yellow food coloring and it was done.

The Batman cut out.
This is the most tricky part of this whole thing and I'm not going to lie, for someone who lacks even an ounce of patience, this was like climbing The Everest.
I used a paper stencil as reference, you can print the Batman logo out and cut it out and use it on top of your gum paste to shape it.

Here's how you make gumpaste
2 cups sugar
1/2 of 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tbs gelatin powder
1/2 tbs honey.



This is a little tricky, but if I could do it, I'm sure anyone can.

Put the gelatin and water in a saucepan and let the gelatin soak till it becomes foamy.
Put this saucepan over LOW heat and add the honey and keep stirring till all of it has dissolved and the mixture is clear. [ I added a teaspoon of homemade black food coloring to this, to get the Batman black. Black food coloring is equal parts of red, yellow, and blue food coloring. Google taught me that]

Take this off the heat and add the sugar in it and keep mixing until you can't mix anymore.
Then, take the dough out and keep kneading [ on a surface that has been sprinkled with sugar] till it stops sticking to your hands.
And a lot of kneading later, your gumpaste is ready.

Roll this out, and get it to be as thin as you possibly can get it to be. Use a rolling pin or press down with a flat plate or something. Just get it to be thin. The thinner the gum paste, the easier it is to carve.
Then put the stencil over it and use a knife to carve it out.
VERY CAREFULLY place the cut outs on a plate.

Ice the cookies and put the cut out on top of the yellow icing.
Refrigerate.

And if you're as amazing as I am at this whole baking shindig, your cookies will look something like this.

Valentines' Day Choc Coffee Fudge Cake

This cake was introduced to me by a classmate of mine, back in the day. She hated me, I hated her, but together, we shared the love for baked goods.
So as a farewell present to me, in class 10, she handed me the recipe.
This cake went on to become the reason Aarushi and Rudraksh would come over. This was also Shibangi's 17th birthday cake, and her dad's birthday cake too. This is what I used to cheer my friends up, and everytime Suhina was sad, she'd ask for this.
It's delicious to say the least, and surprisingly easy.

I bake several versions of this cake, but those versions I will keep for later. This is a cake I'm proud to say that I have perfected. It's brilliant and no fail. No amount of screwing up will screw this cake up. It's like the boyfriend you never had but always wanted. The kind of boyfriend who forgives you even if you fuck up and treats you well, you know? It's really sad that I have to equate food to people, but that's what it's come to so what to do.

The recipe [ makes 2 8 inch cakes] [ half the recipe, if needed, that's what i usually do]
2 cups maida
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp coffee powder
a pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 cup water
3/4 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs

The process is simple and routine. Dry ingredients in one bowl. Wet in another. Mix both. And voilaaa, there you have it. Yum cake batter.
Grease and flour the tin, add batter to tin.
Bake at 150 for 30 mins.

And whooop.

I had cream cheese frosting left over from yesterday, so I was very generous with it today and smeared it all over this beautiful cake. And because I have a bottle of sprinkles, I was generous with that too :D I still can't get over how good it tastes. PAT ON YOUR BACK DISHARI!

Valentines' Day Red Velvet!

Valentines' Day is just around the corner. Can't have Valentines' without Red Velvet. I'm not in Delhi anymore, so I can't cajole somebody to take me to Elma's and buy me a slice of their signature Red Velvet, so I decided to make one of my own and settle for a homemade version instead.
And I wasn't disappointed, not one bit.

I followed the recipe Anmol's put up on her blog.
The recipe can be found - here


Even the frosting is her recipe, but instead of using 2 cups of sugar, I used one cup, and I used a little more butter, about 80 grams. Instead of sprinkling the top with crumbs, I used fancy sprinkles that were given to me yesterday. LOTS of it. If you don't have sprinkles, don't fret. This cake is amazing just by itself without any decoration.

The recipe calls for one 8 inch cake, I baked 2 4 inch square cakes.

If like me, you've overcooked the top and the top is brown. DON'T WORRY. The knife shall come to your rescue. Just scrape the brown bits off to reveal a luscious red and there, your cake shall look perfect.

This cake tastes better when served cold. It tastes really good not cold also, when I think about it.

The frosting tastes brilliant, and goes with absolutely everything. I ate left over frosting with cookies, and put some on bread and then when there was no bread left, i just took big spoonfuls of frosting and stuffed my face. Yum.


This cake reinforces my faith in Red Velvet. It tastes SO GOOD. The cake is moist and yummy, and the frosting compliments it perfectly. The perfect Valentines' Day snack, if you ask me. I wouldn't mind lying in bed all day with my significant other [ haaa!] and eating this. No, really. That sounds like heaven right about now.

Apple Crumble!

Apple Crumble is my favorite dessert from Big Chill. And all the recipes I found online had oats in them. I hate oats. So I used my head and tried to replicate the wonder that Big Chill created.
It tasted pretty okay, I got the nice crumbly brown color on top that I wanted, so that made me pretty happy.

The apples were soft and smelled and tasted slightly of cinnamon. The crumble was doughy from the bottom, and crumbly from the top.




Really simple also, as always.

Ingredients -
2 apples
Cinnamon Powder, lots of it. Or not. Depending on how much you love cinnamon. [ i LOVE cinnamon]
Sugar - 1/2 cup granulated, 1/2 cup castor
2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 cup maida.
1/2 cup butter [ at room temperature]

Peel the apples and slice them as thin as you can. Mix 1/2 cup castor sugar + cinnamon powder + lemon juice to apples. Let it sit for 2 mins.
For the crumble - Mix the granulated sugar, maida and butter with your hands. Till it becomes crumbly. This is not a dough, which is why we use butter at room temperature and not melted butter.

Grease a cake tin. Or any tin. I used a tart tin with a detachable bottom. Line the bottom of the tin with your apples, and then put an even layer of the crumble over the apples.

Pop into the oven at 170 for 20 mins.

When the top starts to brown, turn the temperature down to 100 and cook for another 15 minutes.



Take out.
Serve with fresh cream. Serve hot.

My version of a break up cake.

So, break ups are difficult. And the best thing to do is to distract yourself and eat lots of chocolate and it does wonders. Believe me. I ate half the batter of the cake myself. And I feel so much better now. Chocolate induces happy hormones!

This cake has two components.
The cake + the frosting.
Now, to be honest with you, this is the first time I've tried a cooked frosting and in my opinion, it doesn't go too well with this cake. Although, it tastes great, I think it's more of a cookie icing than a cake icing. I think a simple buttercream icing would go better with this cake. I just wanted to experiment a little today, and I wanted to bake something new, and I wasn't disappointed with the results.

The cake - [ recipe makes two 9 inch cakes]

the cake is ABSOLUTELY delicious. My first time baking it and I was very impressed! It's yummy and moist and chocolaty. Yum.

2 eggs
1 3/4 cup maida
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup buttermilk [ one cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar, left for 5 mins]
1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup coffee [ 1 tbsp instant coffee powder in one cup boiling water]
1 tsp vanilla

mix the dry ingredients in one bowl. and then, add the buttermilk, eggs, butter, vanilla and beat until smooth.
add the coffee. the batter is supposed to be very runny.
grease and flour a cake tin, and pour half the batter.
shove in to the oven at 170, till the knife you insert comes out with a few crumbs stuck to it.
repeat.


frosting- [ enough to ice the entire cake]
the original recipe calls for cream of tartar, and i have no idea what that is, so i looked it up and found that vinegar is a substitute for it.

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp vinegar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla

put sugar, water, and vinegar in a pan, and bring to a boil, stirring continuously till the sugar dissolves.
mix this sugar syrup with 2 unbeaten egg whites and beat for about 7-10 mins till the frosting thickens and begins to form soft peaks.
add in vanilla.

voila.

put one cake. ice the top. and then out the second cake on top of the icing. and then ice the top of the second cake and the sides.
add whatever you want to decorate. i ran out of sprinkles, so i used gems.

very important : always wait for the cakes to cool completely before icing.