Minion on a Cake!

This cake was for a real sweet tooth! Honestly I have never seen someone gobble up so much sweet and still look the way he looks. We were invited for dinner at this friend's place just two days after his birthday(which was a weekday) and the amazing chocolate cake which his wife baked was only available in a picture! He licked the plate clean minus a couple of slices. So when we were to go for dinner he mentioned if I have baked any cake recently so that he could enjoy the leftovers, bless him for enjoying my baking. H and I couldn't think of what to decorate the cake with and we didn't really have much time to make something elaborate. "Minion it is" I said, they are sweet adorable and oh so yellow which would look nice on a chocolate cake.

Minion was a star on the evening with the birthday boy's son and E eyeing the yellow bald headed toy on the cake with very greedy eyes. Let me add here that none of the children got their hands on the minion in the end. It was a chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting and fondant decorations. 

DIY bow hair ties for little ones

If there is one thing that I absolutely love about having a daughter then it is dress ups and hair do! Well besides the fact that daughter's are so vey adorable and gentle that they just melt your heart. E has lovely curls and I hate to even trim them so I am guilty of not giving her a hair cut still but maybe I will have to soon as  it's a really hot summer here. I have a good selection of hair clips for E which she usually ends up pulling out of her hair and loosing them. She is not allowed to wear hair clips in child care due to choking hazard so only hair ties are allowed. I didn't want the beaded hair ties or the so very plain ones available for little girls so I thought of making my own. I love the idea of bows in E's hair but she just wouldn't wear a hair band or let me tie a nice bow on her head just yet so here is my version, a bow hair tie!

These are so simple to make that I didn't stop at one. Just use any fabric strips or pieces you have left over from previous sewing projects and make bows out of them. I made very simple bows by folding the fabric at either ends and pinching in the centre so that there are no raw edges. You can tie a bow and then stitch it on the hair ties. I found these small multicoloured hair ties at a kids store and I like the play of different patterns with these solid colours.

Just hand sew the bow on the hair tie securely. It really is that simple and these are washable which is the best part when making them for kids.

I didn't add any beads or ribbons to these bows so that I don't compromise the strength of the bows with tiny hands pulling on them but I guess some buttons or beads in the centre would look very neat too! Enjoy making these simple hair accessories x

Simple Appliqué Baby Tees

My all time favourite activity is appliqué, they are simple, easy and you get to see the end result so very soon! I feel like making very gender-neutral motifs for E but end up making all the girly things she likes. Butterflies and cats are her new favourite as she can spend hours just looking at them move around. She wakes up pointing towards the backyard saying "cat" and I just hope that the neighbour's cat is visiting us! Surprisingly she was able to identify the cat on her tee although it is very vague and made from a printed fabric, I was very pleased.

As I am going back to work after maternity leave, e will be now going to child care. This is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do and have spent many a sleepless nights sulking over it. It is true that the earlier you leave your child the easier it is for them to adjust to the new routine and place. Luckily she enjoys playing and interacting with other kids so I feel she might ease into the new routine. There is no pleasing a mum when it is about her child, when we are at home I feel that there are not enough activities for E and when there will be many more activities for e at child care I won't be there to watch her play!

Well enough about my feelings as I can go one forever, here are the four motifs I chose for E's tees. An apple, butterfly, cat and a circle with a flower print in the centre. I used some embroidery to add highlights and added sequin body for the butterfly. Any motif would look good in a printed fabric on a plain tee or with a plain fabric on a printed tee! These are so simple to make and if you don't want to appliqué then fuse the fabric and embroider around 

it or add some sequins or buttons, so many variations to get creative!

Wooden Platters

H and I are a very creative couple and believe it or not the only time we don't argue is when we are doing crafts together. Every party we have ever organised together has been just amazing, we would be up late at night making decorations and then it would all come together, especially Elina's Pinwheel B'day Party. H is a great craftsman and he enjoys woodworking as a hobby, so much so that gift for any occasion must be a power tool! For christmas this year I wanted to get some wooden platters which Jamie Oliver uses in his TV show. All I had to do was ask and H got straight into making these gorgeous platters, can be used for serving breads or as a tray for serving dishes like Jamie does.

I took some pictures to show the process. H laminated the board first to the size I wanted and then he gave it a handle and curved edges, finally sanding the surface he handed them over to me. Sounds easy but it did take time as lamination must never be rushed. I then started painting the boards, I mainly used dry brush technique to paint the boards to give them the distressed look which I wanted. You can sand the paint as well randomly to give it this look.

We were so happy with our boards that H decided to make them as gifts for our friends on Christmas xx

Green Banana Kebabs

This is one of my favourite snacks that my mum made. I am not sure if this is my mum's recipe or her mum's but I have had the taste for these since I was a little girl. We used to have a banana tree in our backyard and mum used to wait for it to fruit. I have tried to achieve the same taste with the "not so ripe" banana's that I found at farmer's market here. These bananas are green in colour but not as raw in taste as the ones in India. However, they do the trick anyways. These have been much loved by everyone who has tasted them and I have been asked for the recipe every time.  Yu can call them cutlets or tikkis as you like but mum used to call them Kele ke Kebabs and I love the name. Here is how you can make these delicious savoury snacks yourself.


What you will need to make 15 kebabs:

4 raw bananas
1 cup chana daal soaked for 1/2 hour
one medium onion finely chopped
1 inch ginger finely chopped or grated
1-2 green chillies finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala
Black pepper
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

How to make them:

Boil bananas and chana daal in around half cup water for 10-15 minutes. If you are using a pressure cooker give 1-2 whistles. The chana daal should not get mushy when cooked. Drain the excess water and mash bananas with chana daal. Add remaining ingredients. Divide the dough into small ball shaped kebabs and flatten them from the top like shown in the picture above. Deep Fry the kebabs in oil or shallow fry them on a Tava or griddle.

Serve hot with chutney of your choice.

Tips: If required add some bread crumbs to the dough.

Here is to our loving mothers, amazing cooks in the eye of every child! (well almost every)

Adieu 2013!

Time just flies and this hits home at new year's eve every year!  try to remember what did I do on the first day of the new year but most of the time I fail to remember unless I was on holidays. I have learnt through experience that holiday season is not the best time to travel as it is too crowded and the traffic on the highways is unbelievable. Probably this is why we love the silence of the Australian outback any time of the year.That said we have enjoyed every holiday we took during christmas and new year. 

However this year we decided to stay at home with E and enjoy a picnic everyday during the holidays. On new year's eve E was a bit scared of the fireworks, more so of the bangs than the sparks itself. H and I along with one of our dear friend enjoyed the delicious comfort foods and watched the fireworks just outside our main door. Food extravaganza started with home made papri chaat, followed by aloo chaat and finally a big contrast to he indian street food, home made pizzas as well as bread and butter pudding for dessert!

 H is great at making coriander chutney (blend coriander leaves, green chilly, tomato and cumin seeds. add salt to taste). 

Caramelised onions and potato pizza with mixed dried herbs and buffalo mozzarella cheese. I used just tomato puree for the sauce over the base and caramelised the onions in salted butter. I don't like grating my cheese instead just drop some blobs randomly and let it melt.

Ricotta, goat's cheese, spinach and tomato pizza with salt and pepper. I added some corns for E's pizza they did taste delicious with some cheddar cheese grated on top. The combination of three cheeses was yum! I didn't take the photos for bread and butter pudding, maybe will post it next time I make another one.

On the morning of the very first day of the new year I made Poha with Jalebis. I have linked the recipes for these delicacies, however I like adding some veggies to my poha like capsicum, carrots and green peas. Here is a link to my friend's take on poha recipe.

I wanted to start this year with delicious food and an organised house(which is not my forte) in the hope that I would be just like this for the rest of the year! Happy New Year 2014!

Butter Cake with Orange Butter Cream Frosting and Caramel Toffee

Cakes and New Year's eve go a long way back to my childhood for me. Mum and Dad would sleep on time and we three kids would be up till midnight pretending to be asleep. we would go out in the evening buy a cake and snacks, enjoy the laughter and cheers coming from roof tops, filling up our street. We would tune in to FM, describing the crazy Delhi parties especially the ones on Connaught Place which was barricaded with no entry for vehicles, the people partying would cheer into FM microphones. Me and my brother used to be determined not to fall asleep as we really wanted that cake so we would wait up and at midnight wake our sister up and enjoy the most delicious scrumptious cakes ever!

I didn't get a chance to bake a cake for new year's eve like I had planned but I did bake one later. The best butter cake ever and it was Martha Stewart 's recipe just right amount of everything, sweet and moist.

I've used butter cream frosting for this cake and added orange jam, which a friend of mine made, to the frosting. Make your butter cream frosting like you normally would and at the end fold in your favourite jam (preferably a chunky texture) into the frosting. My orange jam had orange rind and that just gave it the right amount of bitterness. The caramel toffee shards on the top of the cake are burnt sugar which i had spread out like a sheet on a greased surface and once it was almost dry I broke it irregularly pieces and just arranged it asymmetrically on top of the cake.I love the translucency of caramel toffee over butter cream and it gives a little crunch with every bite you take.

It is easy to pull some strands from your toffee when it is hot, just dip a fork into the caramel and pull out the strands and leave them on a separate plate after breaking them free from the fork. I didn't use any cream in the caramel, just pour sugar in a pan and allow it to burn if you like add a pinch of salt to it and stir a bit while the sugar is melting to caramelise it evenly.

I enjoy taking photos of all the cakes I make as it makes me love them again and again long after they are gone!