Easy, Moist and Soft Lemon Cupcakes

Christmas season is around the corner, I can see many blogs filled with yummilicious cakes.Sometimes my little one sits along with me and goes through all the sites which I am checking and she started asking for cakes or cupcakes for school. I was in no mood to bake after all the baking last week. But since it was a rare request from my little one, I started again.

I wanted to bake something which I never did and so I ended up picking these tangy lemon cupcakes. These cupcakes I had made for Diwali mela in school and they were a big hit !!

Thinking about them, I baked again. This would have been better with lemon glaze but since for home baking, I won’t use much sugar, I ended up decorating the cupcakes with sprinkles, which were looking very cute and attractive.

These cupcakes are truly lighter and a perfect “melt in your mouth” type.

Ingredients:

1. Maida- 1 ¼ Cup
2. Baking Powder- 1 tsp
3. Sugar- ¾ Cup
4. Butter- ½ Cup
5. Eggs- 2 nos
6. Vanilla Essence- 1 tsp
7. Lemon Juice- 2 nos
8. Lemon Zest- 1 no
9. Milk- ¼ Cup
10. Sprinkles- Few

Method:

1. Sieve maida and baking powder thrice and keep it aside.
2. Beat the eggs and vanilla essence till creamy and fluffy. Cream the butter and sugar to light pale colour. In this add the egg mixture and beat well.
3. Add the lemon juice and zest and stir well.
4. Fold the flour and milk to the butter mixture alternately, till everything is well incorporated.
5. Line baking tray with cupcake liners, pour the batter in each cupcake liner and decorate with some sprinkles on top. Bake for about 20 minutes and enjoy these tangilicious cupcakes.

Cabbage Potato Masala

After all the baking I am back with a simple and a delicious side dish for chapatis and rotis. This is an easy, yet flavorful dish which can be made within minutes.

If you are not a cabbage fan, just try this out and you will love cabbage from then on. Vegetables are an important part of our diet. I have realized that mixing two to three vegetables will make an amazing dish. Just try this interesting preparation with cabbage and potatoes and I am sure that you all will love this.

Ingredients:

1. Cabbage (sliced)- 1 cup
2. Potato (boiled & cubed)- 2 cups
3. Onions- 1 no
4. Ginger garlic paste- 1 tbsp
5. Turmeric Paste- 1 tsp
6. Red Chilli Powder- 2 tsp
7. Garam Masala Powder- ½ tsp
8. Salt- as per taste
9. Oil- 1 tsp
10. Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
11. Curry Leaves- few

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Splutter mustard seeds and curry leaves.
2. Add the sliced onions, when they turn light brown in colour add the ginger garlic paste.
3. When the raw smell disappears, add the turmeric powder, red chilli powder and garam masala powder.
4. Add the sliced cabbage and salt. Stir and close with a lid.
5. When it is cooked well, add the boiled potatoes and mix. Close and cook for about 2 min. Serve hot with rotis.

Chicken Pickle

At last I have managed to take some snaps of this chicken pickle before it vanished from the bottle. When I made this pickle, my husband who is a big fan of pickles (especially when it is made  of chicken) said that it would finish off within 2 days and so it happened.

From the time I made this pickle, he was consuming it with almost everything from upma, dosa, rice and even idli !!. So now as it is much in demand, I manage to prepare this often before it gets finished off.

I love to make pickles as this was like a big challenge for me to prepare and store it without getting spoiled. This pickle I never stored in refrigerator. It would stay perfect outside.

From so long I was thinking of preparing this pickle but whenever I fried the chicken pieces, it would be vanished within seconds... But this time I managed to make this when I was alone at home. I googled for many recipes and atlast I finalised with this recipe. I made changes according to my specifications.

Non veg pickles are famous in Kerala. My mom is an expert in fish pickle and my MIL is an expert in Prawn pickle. Here is the recipe of yummy and delicious chicken pickle…

Ingredients:

1. Boneless Chicken- 250 gms
2. Turmeric powder- 1tsp
3. Red Chilli Powder- 2 tbsps
4. Garam Masala powder- 1 tbsp
5. Ginger and Garlic paste- 1 tbsp
6. For the gravy:
7. Oil- ¼ cup
8. Mustard Seeds- 2 tbsp
9. Red Chillies- 8-10 nos
10. Curry leaves- few
11. Green Chillies- 4-5 nos
12. Ginger( grated)- 2 tbsp
13. Garlic- 10- 15 pods
14. Asafoetida- 1 tbsp
15. Red Chilli Powder- 3 tbsp
16. Salt- as required
17. Vinegar- 3- 4 tbsp

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken pieces with red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala powder,ginger and garlic paste and salt. Keep this aside for about 1hr..
2. Heat oil in a kadai and fry the marinated chicken pieces till golden brown in colour. Drain and keep this in a paper towel.
3. In a pan heat oil, add mustard seeds, when they splutter add red chillies, curry leaves and stir well.
4. Add the grated ginger and garlic pods.When they turn golden brown add asafoetida powder and red chilli powder, mix and add the fried chicken pieces and at last add salt and mix well.
5. Switch off the flame and when it gets cooled add vinegar and enjoy this delicious pickle.

Onion in curd coconut mixture / Ulli Pachadi

When I went to my Aunt’s house for lunch, there was this amazing dish which was white in colour. She is an amazing cook and I know that there will be something special each time we go for lunch. When I asked her about this, she told me that it is made of onions and the taste was truly delicious. I never knew that with just onions and curd, we could make something simple and tasty dish.

Normally in Kerala we make pachadis i.e vegetables in curd gravy, with almost all the veggies, like bitter gourd, ladies finger, cucumber, pineapple or ginger. But it was the first time I tasted pachadi with onions. This dish is a bit sweet because of the onions.

Aunty explained me how to prepare this dish and now this has become a regular side dish along with rice.

Ingredients:

1. Onions- 2nos / Shallots- 1 cup (chopped)
2. Grated Coconut- ½ Cup
3. Curd- 1 Cup
4. Mustard Seeds- 1 tsp
5. Curry Leaves- few
6. Salt- as per taste
7. Oil- 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Take oil in a kadai and splutter the mustard seeds and curry leaves.
2. In this fry the chopped onions till translucent.
3. Grind coconut using little curd and mix in the fried onion, add the remaining curd and mix well.
4. Adjust the salt according to the taste. Serve with hot steaming rice.

Orange Milkshake- A fantastic cooler...

Now you all might be thinking how can we combine milk and oranges together, as the citrus in the fruit will tend to curdle the milk? But trust me the combination is absolutely delicious when we are using cold milk or ice cubes. I have used ice cubes so I took the milk which was at room temperature.

The oranges which I used are called Mandarins, which doesn't have seeds. If using a normal orange then deseed and separate the carpels then blend well and serve immediately. Otherwise it will curdle up.

This milkshake I had at my SIL’s house and it tasted amazing. I never thought that milk and orange could make such a wonderful combination.

Ingredients:

1. Oranges- 3 nos
2. Milk- 1 ½ Cup
3. Sugar- as required
4. Ice cubes- few (optional)

Method:

1. Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend till smooth. Sieve and serve immediately.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Coffee Cake with grated chocolate topping

Celebrating the 3rd anniversary of my dear little space ...

Time flies by so quickly and I didn’t realise that its been 3 years since I started my blog. In these years I have learnt a lot about blogging, about different cuisines, found lot of friends and  more than that improved skills in baking and have become a crazy baker… :)

I am really thankful to my husband for supporting me with this blog. He encouraged me to write up the content and to upload food pics of whatever I made and the most important thing is that whatever I made it was experimented on him first. In fact, he wanted to name this blog “My experiments with husband” instead of “My experiments with food”... :)

So to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of my blog, I baked a coffee cake which is one of my favorites. I love the coffee flavor blended with the cake. When the cake was being baked the aroma of the cake along with coffee, filled the house and couldn’t resist tasting a bit while it was cooling down. I just topped the cake with grated white chocolate as we didn’t like the butter cream frosting. This is a simple and easy cake to bake for a party or any occasion.

Ingredients:

1. Maida- 100 gms
2. Baking powder
3. Butter- 100 gms
4. Eggs- 2 nos
5. Sugar- 100gms
6. Coffee- 2 tbsp
7. Hot water- 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Dissolve coffee in hot water. Mix and keep this aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar well, till it turns light and  fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the maida gradually and mix till all are well blended.
3. In the above mixture add the coffee water and mix well.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Pour the cake batter in a greased cake pan and bake for about 25- 30 minutes.
5. Grate white chocolate and top it on warm coffee cake and serve.

Arabian Pulpy Grape Juice

In Bangalore juice junctions this Arabian pulpy grape juice is a common sight. I got attracted to the purple colour of the juice and tried it once and was incredibly tasty.

My kid is a die hard fan of black grapes. Whenever we go to buy vegetables, she is the one who will take out a cover and load with loads of black grapes. Then I got the idea of making the pulpy juice at home and so you can see the result.This one is so easy to make with very less ingredients (I know that it is not easier than the normal juice, but it is worth the effort).

After cooking grapes in water you can see the skin floating on top, the pulp in the middle and the seeds at the bottom. So it is very easy to separate the pulp, skin and the seeds. As the grapes are cooked, this can be stored in refrigerator for many days,

Ingredients:

1. Black Grapes- 250 gms
2. Sugar- ¼ Cup
3. Water- 1 Cup

Method:

1. Wash grapes and boil in 1 cup of water till the grapes float on top. Remove from heat and let it cool.
2. Separate the skin of grapes from the pulp and seeds. Lightly squeeze the grapes to separate the pulp from the skin.
3. Blend the separated skin of grapes along with required amount of sugar and strain this into the grape pulp.
4. Serve this chilled.