Indian style fresh Cucumber chaat

Summer is quickly, far too quickly coming to an end I feel.  Our summer has been filled with settling down and enjoying our new home, road trips,  biking  and walking around our neighborhood,  visiting friends, gardening (for my dad basically) and eating a lot of my mom's yummy meals and I don't want it to end and looking forward to more fun. But then comes something I’m least looking forward to #1) My parents returning back to India and #2) Sending lil’Appu back to daycare. I don’t even want to discuss these 2 topics at the moment… *sigh* :-(

Today, I’m not really sharing any recipe as such but a very simple and totally nostalgic Indian snack with fresh Cucumbers. Most of you know by now about my dad’s beautiful veggie garden that’s treating us with its bounty full of ripened veggies and we are literally feasting on them lately. This weekend we decided to pick up several of the ripened cucumbers. It was a hot sunny day and almost time for evening Tea and the minute we saw the juicy, ripe and beautiful cucumbers we wanted to have it instantly and forgot all about Tea :-)

Lil'Appu enjoys helping with plucking the veggies and carrying them back to the kitchen. Well, sometimes he thinks we gave him a new toy :-) And he really loves eating cucumber. We plucked 4 large cucumbers btw....

So I started washing, peeling and slicing them up into quarters and my mom grabbed some and stared munching immediately. That’s when I remembered a certain street food that I have really enjoyed while I lived in India, Bangalore to be precise. 

It’s such a common scene there to see chaatwaalas pushing their carts around laden with veggies like cucumbers, raw mangoes, fresh limes etc and fruits like pineapple , papaya, watermelon, oranges etc and ofcourse other types of chaat and they serve these veggies/fruits by simply sprinkling on some salt and red chilly powder  or some chaat masala and may I say, its broadens the taste of these fruits and veggies to a different level? Yes, it does!! (The red chilly powder is mostly for the veggies)

So after a memory flash-wave, I decided to do the same for these homegrown, juicy and ripe cucumbers. All you need are fresh cucumbers, salt and red chilli powder. First rub your finger on the open face of the sliced cucumber to moisten your fingertip and press into the salt and red chilli powder and lightly rub them onto the cucumber slice and the take a big bite and feel your tastebuds flow…seriously, you must try it. You can moderate the amount of red chili powder as per your taste.

I tried the same with Salt and Black Pepper powder and I must say it did not taste all that great as how it does with red chilli powder. If you aren’t very keen on using red chilli powder, try with Paprika. It might tone down the spice but seal in all the flavors for this simple, lipsmacking and must I say ‘Healthy’ snack.  Or else another option would be to use Chaat masala.

I din't know what exactly this was called so I'm just calling it an Indian style cucumber chaat!

Indian Style fresh Cucumber chaat

You’ll need

Fresh Cucumbers – 3 or 4 or more

Salt – to taste

Red Chilli powder/Paprika – 1 tsp (use as needed)

Chaat masala (optional)

Directions

1.  Wash, peel and cut up the cucumbers into halves first and then each half into quarters.

2.  Moisten your fingertip slightly (just rub your fingertip over the cucumber slices) and mildly press into some salt and red chilli powder (or one at a time) and rub them over the cucumber slices. Enjoy!

3.  Substitute red chilli powder with Chaat masala powder if the spice level doesn’t suit you.

I even had this for my morning breakfast today, ya I’m just that crazy about it. We have several more Cucumbers left and I already know what’s in future for them. So, do you want to try some and get your tastebuds flowing? :-)

 Have a lovely Summer everyone! 

-Manju

Grilled Salmon Kebabs with basil pesto marinade

We’ve been grilling a lot this summer. I know I haven't shared much of the recipes here. Well, let just say grilled food are to be enjoyed hot and straight out of the grill and my family has no patience to wait for my photography session to be over when they are on their toes with hunger. It wasn't easy to get a good snap of these outrageously yummy Salmon kebabs either and I had to quickly take few snaps while my family waited at the table, all ready for dinner :-)

What started out as a small garden in our small backyard has grown into a large veggie patch with tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, broccolli, red and yellow onions, cabbage, eggplant, french beans, yard long beans, lady's finger, thai chillies, red spinach, lettuce and herbs like Mint, Cilantro, Basil and Rosemary growing in full swing. There are also some beautiful Marigolds, Petunia, Dahlia and garden Lily's and some perennials for some color and vibrance. 
All of this is my dad's hard work, labor, love and care for these plants. Every single spare minute he gets, is spent tending to the garden and they have started giving out their fruits for us to enjoy now. I want to do a full post specially dedicated to the garden one day, but I'm waiting for all the veggies to grow before jinxing it ;-) Here's a sneek-peak!

So we are trying to make the best use of our garden produce. That's how I made some Basil pesto from few leaves of the rather overgrown Basil plant we have. We've been eating the basil raw in our salads daily for dinner, but mummy and me are personally not a fan of raw basil. So the pesto was a very good way to enjoy this superb herb.

At our local Costco store, we got some really fresh and fleshy Salmon and I instantly decided to grill them and used the basil pesto as a marinade. To add some color and and to enable cooking space for the salmon I added some colorful veggies in between the salmon. 

The kebabs were juicy and so flavorful. The rather fishy smell and flavor of Salmon subsided with the pesto marinade and it added a very fresh taste to the fish kebabs. It tasted so good , even my lil'Appu ate several pieces of the Salmon. I'm positive now that Basil pesto as a marinade would taste great on veggie and other non-veg kebabs as well. 
By the time I was done with marinating and then grilling these kebabs it was almost 8pm, so the snaps aren't as pretty as I'd like them to be, but I wanted to share it with you, and here it is.

My family felt the Salmon kebabs weren't as spicy as they would have liked, because my Pesto wasn't spicy enough, so I have accordingly updated the pesto recipe if you prefer a spicier version. But my Appu loved it due to the mild spice level and to me that's all that mattered ;-) We had the kebab's with some Naan, seasoned raita and salad...yumm!

Grilled Salmon Kebabs with basil pesto marinade

You’ll need

Salmon (skinless) – 1½ pounds  ( Cut into square shaped cubes)

Fresh Basil pesto – ½ cup or more, as needed

Red Onions/Bell peppers/Mushrooms etc – as preferred
Lemon juice – 2 tblsp

Salt and Pepper – to taste

Metal  or wooden skewers

Directions

1.  Prepare the Basil pesto.  Cut up the Salmon into cubes.

2.  Apply the Basil pesto all over the salmon cubes and marinate for atleast 3 hrs. Overnight is best.

3. Chop up preferred veggies into equal sized cubes and marinate it with 2 tblsp lemon juice, salt and pepper for ½ hour.

4. Skewer the salmon and veggies alternately. (If using wooden skewers, soak them in water for ½ hour before using)

5. Heat up your grill and make sure the grill grates are well oiled or use a tray covered with aluminium foil and sprayed with oil and place the salmon kebab skewers on it and cook well on one side (for about 8-10 mins) and slowly turn it to other side and cook the other side.

6. If preferred you can squeeze on some more lemon juice onto the kebabs immediately as it comes out of the grill (My dad’s suggestion)

Suggestions:

1. Please make sure the grill grates or the tray you use are well oiled. Mine wasn’t and some of the salmon cubes got stuck and flaked apart while I tried to turn them over  *bad luck*

2. Fish is very soft and flaky , so be very gentle while turning them, unless you want 'scrambled' salmon…which is great for making fish tacos btw!

3. I wanted the veggies to look bright and colorful on the kebabs, but if you want pesto marinated on the veggies, go for it.

4. Grill on a low to medium-low flame for the fish to cook slowly and nicely, else it may char too fast but not get cooked inside (speaking from experience)!

So folks, I do hope you will try out this really healthy, colorful and absolutely delicious Salmon Kebabs. You can find my Basil Pesto recipe here.  Do try out both the recipes and I hope you will like them and don't forget to share your feedback with me.  See you all again soon :-) 

-Manju

Fresh Basil Pesto

A pesto is nothing but a sort of Italian chutney. Basil Pesto is authentically prepared by crushing some basil leaves, little garlic, pine nuts and some freshly grated parmesan cheese in a mortal pestle drizzled with some Olive oil until a smooth (chutney like) paste is obtained.

When we started our small backyard garden, we bought a tiny basil plant and planted it along with some Mint leaves in a herb grower pot and can you imagine, the Mint took over and killed my basil plant…hmph! So we bought another plant of Italian Basil and grew in the garden along with our tomatoes and carrots and other veggies and they all grew together happily like brothers and sisters and I now have more Basil than I want! And I'm trying out all kinds of recipes to make use of every single Basil leaf from this lovely plant.

Basil often called 'The King of Herbs' is a very nutritious and flavorful herb. Fresh basil  can be eaten raw in salads, made into a pesto to be used as a marinade or sandwich spread, used as a fresh herb on pizza's, breads, curries and can even be used in dessert preparations.

I've always wanted to try making Basil pesto at home and now the chance had come to try it out :-) Pesto can be used for various preparations like a sandwich spread, dipping sauce, pasta sauce, pizza sauce, veg/n0n-veg marinade, on omelettes  etc
Originally recipes for pesto uses pine nuts, but I didn't have any, so used walnuts instead. Some recipes call for toasting the nuts, but I didn't toast mine.

I have found several variations to pesto recipes that's made with spinach leaves, mint leaves, cilantro etc where the main ingredients are fresh greens leaves, garlic, nuts, cheese and olive oil. So its quite versatile and can be made with any green leaves, good quality nuts, cheese of choice and ofcourse Extra virgin Olive oil.

If you do not want to pound on a mortar pestle, make it easy by using a food processor or mixer grinder to combine everything. I added some crushed black pepper for some spice, but my family felt the spice was less, so you can add some green chilies to suit your spice level.

I made this pesto to my family's liking, by moderating the amount of oil, cheese and nuts used and it still came out really good, so I'm sharing the same with you all. 

Fresh Basil Pesto

Yields 1 cup of pesto

You’ll need

Fresh Basil Leaves – 3 cups , packed

Fresh Garlic cloves – 2 or 3

Pine nuts or Walnuts – 2-3 tblsp (almost ¼ cup)

Parmesan Cheese (grated or powdered) – 2 heaped tblsp  (can add upto ½ cup if preferred)

Extra virgin Olive Oil – ½ cup
Lemon Juice - 2 tblsp

Salt and freshly crushed black Pepper corns – to taste

Green Chilies – 2 or 3 (purely optional - if you prefer more spice)

Directions

1. Add all the above ingredients (except salt) into a food processor or mixer-grinder and blend it well until a smooth pesto is obtained.  (Add green chillies for a spicier version)

2. Season with salt, do a taste test and enjoy using as a marinade or pasta sauce or sandwich spread or as a dipping sauce, however you like!

Suggestions and changes I made:

1. Some recipes suggest toasting the nuts to release the oil and flavor in the nuts. Be sure the nuts are cooled to room temp, before grinding them.

2. I personally did not want to add ½ cup oil, so I added ¼ cup olive oil + ¼ cup water to make my pesto. Tasted great nevertheless.

3. My family felt the pesto I made wasn’t too spicy as I had not added green chillies, hence I’ve included them in the recipe above incase you prefer a spicier version. Or else add more crushed pepper.

My mom really loved the basil pesto. She hates the taste of raw basil in salads but this version was much more appealing to her and everyone else at home enjoyed it too. Its tasty and healthy and can be made so easily with no cooking required :-) Try it out and see for yourself.

The first thing I did with this pesto was to marinate it on some Salmon to make grilled Salmon kebabs and it was simply superb. Here's a pic of the kebabs (ready to be grilled) that I shared on my Instagram page. Coming up next here...so come back soon.

-Manju

We Knead to Bake # 6: Baked Yeasted Doughnuts (Eggless)

Hello there folks. Hope you are all doing well. July just got over so fast and apparently all my time , energy and subsequent blog posts were dedicated to the one little birthday party that we held for our bubbly toddler who turned 2 on July11th. And due to my slack I’m far behind at posting some of my monthly bread baking extravaganzas.

As many of you may know I’m part of a group called ‘We Knead To Bake’ where we bake up some baked (yeasted) bread every month. The month of June was also celebrated as the Month of Doughnuts in the US, which was actually the first friday of June which was June 1st this year, and Aparna's brilliant brain came up with Baked Doughnuts for the group to bake and enjoy!

So see I’m laaaagggging behind in sharing this post :-), but better late then never right?!!

Doughnuts or Donuts, no matter how they are pronounced or written, they are just delicious!! 

Have you ever met a person who has never eaten these? Now how many of you din't know that this goody with a hole in the middle are actually 'deep fried' before being coated in some sugary glaze? I for one din't know until recently and my parents din't know until I made this baked version...its never too late to learn something new now, is it? ;-) But I'm so glad we did a Baked version and that too eggless and they tasted just as good!

We were given the choice of glaze to coat the doughnuts and whether baked or fried I'm a fan of the Chocolate glazed doughnuts ( no sprinkles n' all)  So I made a quick Chocolate ganache glaze making sure it was smooth and dipped my perfectly baked doughnuts in them, tapped off any excess and voila! I made some perfectly glazed chocolate doughnuts - all homemade!!

As for the Doughnut holes, I brushed them with some butter and generously rolled them in the Cinnamon Sugar that I made. 

These doughnut holes and mini doughnuts turned out to be good mid-day snacks for Manish and me at office for few days :-)

I made 6 large doughnuts, 7 mini doughnuts and 12 doughnuts holes (round and star shaped). Some were glazed with chocolate ganache and the rest with cinnamon sugar. I wanted to do some Jam filled doughnuts as well, but no one at home wanted any, so I din't make any. 

These baked doughnuts were soft and spongy and I for one ate them without much guilt :-) Manish and my dad felt they were a bit dry when compared to the fried ones we get at bakeries, but with the yummy glaze and cinnamon sugar on them, they tasted just perfect to me. These are best eaten the day they are made. 

Baked Doughnuts

(Adapted from Lara Ferroni’s Doughnuts)

You'll need:

1/4 cup superfine sugar

1 cup warm milk (45C/115F)

3/4 tbsp instant yeast (or 1 tbsp active dry yeast)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups cake flour (or all-purpose flour) , plus more for kneading

100gm butter, cut into 1 inch cubes

For the topping:

75 to 100gm butter, melted

1 cup superfine sugar + 2 tablespoons cinnamon (more or less, depending on your taste), mixed together

OR

Glazes of your choice ( I made a thin Chocolate ganache)

OR

Jam to fill your doughnuts

Directions:

1. Using a processor to knead helps but you can do this by hand. Put the sugar, milk, yeast, salt and vanilla in the processor bowl and pulse to mix well. Add the cake flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour and process, adding a little more of the flour as necessary till the dough is thick and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Now add the butter pieces one at a time and process till there no large chunks of butter are left in the bottom of the bowl. Now add a little more flour until your have a soft, pliable and elastic dough that is most but not overly sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased large mixing bowl., turning it to coat well. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise till double in volume. This should take about an hour.

2. Punch down the dough and roll out to a thickness of 1/2" thickness. Cut out doughnuts using a doughnut cutter or whatever you have on hand to cut out 3” diameter with 1” diameter holes. If you’re making doughnuts to fill with jam, then do not cut out the holes. Place the doughnuts and the holes on parchment lined or lightly greased baking sheets, leaving at least 1” space between them.

Re-roll the scraps and cut out more doughnuts. I used the last left over scraps of dough by pinching of bits, rolling them into balls and baking them too.

3. Let them rise for about 20 minutes or till almost double in size and then bake them at 200C (400F) for about 5 to 10 minutes till they’re done and golden brown. Do not over bake them.

4. Take them out of the oven and immediately brush them with the melted butter and then dip them into the cinnamon sugar mixture. If filling the doughnuts with jam, let them cool.

(Ideally this recipe makes about 12 to 14 doughnuts and holes )

(The slightly browned one is how the bottom portion of the baked doughnut looks like)

If glazing the doughnuts:

If glazing your doughnuts, let them cool completely and then dip one side of the doughnut in the glaze of your choice and let it set.

( I made a small quantity of chocolate glaze by heating quarter cup of 2% milk and adding it to 3 tblsp semi-sweet chocolate chips + 3 tblsp powdered sugar until everything was melted and smooth )

If glazing with flavored sugar (like Cinnamon Sugar)

If glazing your doughnuts with flavored sugar, let them cool completely and then lightly brush them with melted butter and roll the doughnuts in the sugar until coated.

(I made a small quantity by adding 2 tsp cinnamon to 3 tblsp of sugar and mixing it together)

If making jam filled doughnuts:

Put the jam into a piping bag with a writing nozzle/ tip and press into the doughnut from the side and gently press out the jam into the doughnut till it starts oozing out. Jam doughnuts do not need too much jam to fill them.

You must try baking doughnuts at home sometime and who knows, you might just love them so much that you might never buy a store bought one again! Have a great day ahead you guys and enjoy some doughnuts today :-)


-Manju

Chocolate Cake Pops and Cake Truffles

Cake Pops or Cake Truffles or Cake balls or Cakesicles  – whatever you call these beauties, I'll tell you they are extremely delicious, totally melts in your mouth and is a super fun way to eat cake! 
Cake pops are nothing but cake balls (made by mixing cake with frosting) and served on lollipop sticks. They can be decorated and made quite as fancy as a regular cake and the ideas are endless.

I have made these before and had shared them with friends and they all loved it and had asked me to share the recipe and technique, but I never got a chance. I made them again for lil'Appu's 2^nd Birthday Party, mainly to match with the bubble theme. Everyone, specially the kids loved it and I must say except for a few, all my cake pops got over at the party. I took the remaining ones to my office the next day and all my colleagues raved about it and wanted me to share the recipe.

What you need to get started with making these cake pops/cake truffles are - a good cake recipe and desired frosting of choice.

I decided to go for a Chocolate cake for the cake pops as the birthday cake was a White Cake. I used Ree’s Chocolate Cake recipe and it was fabulous. The cake was moist, flavorful and just perfect!  And I made my favorite eggless Chocolate Buttercream frosting. (Click the links to get the recipes)

With this cake recipe I was able to make around 45-50 cake balls (approx.) I made around 25 cake pops, 15 cake truffles and left the remaining just as plain cake balls coated with a bit of colored sugar on top.  Whichever way it’s made, these things just melt in your mouth and are just heavenly.  (Ahem, pls don't mind the teeth impressions, I just wanted to show how fudgy they look inside :-P )

Here’s a few that I made a while ago using a boxed Chocolate cake mix (my first trial) . I used homemade Chocolate Ganache coating and went quite wild with the toppings :-) I rolled some in crushed roasted hazelnuts, few in dry coconut flakes, some in sprinkles and left few plain. My friends just loved these, me too! :-) Though the cake balls were the same flavor the toppings added a different zing and huge flavor to each cake pop!!

How to make Cake Pops
Cake balls propped on a lollipop stick, can there be a better and fun way to eat cake?

You’ll need

For cake pops

1 Chocolate Cake or Boxed Cake mix (9x13" or 9x2")
2-3 cups of frosting (can use canned frosting of choice too)
Lollipop sticks – as needed
For coating:
Candy melts – 1 or 2 packs (as needed) 
or
Chocolate Ganache -  2 cups 

Directions
1. Once your cake has cooled down to room temp (or refrigerated) , crumble it. Yes, break down your gorgeous cake into itsy bitsy pieces. Some people suggest using a food processor to crumble it, I just used my favorite tools - my hands!!

(You can see my lil’Appu is everywhere, nosing around to see what I’m upto !)
       

2.  To the crumbled cake bits, add desired frosting a little at a time and mix until it forms a smooth dough. It shouldn't be overly sticky but enough to hold well and not crumble apart when pinched together.

3. Roll them into equal sized balls (using an icecream scoop or spoon) and place them on a large baking tray or plate lined with wax paper.  Refrigerate until really cold covered with plastic wrap. Your cake balls are ready.

4. If using candy melts, melt the candy in a double boiler until its melted and smooth. Take a lollipop stick, dip it a little bit in the melted candy and slowly insert the stick, dipped end first, into the cake ball (this helps the cake ball to stick to the lollipop stick) 
Slowly dip the entire cake pop into the candy coating and tap off the excess coating from the cake pop and let it stand upright by resting it on a Styrofoam block or place it upside down until hardened. Decorate with desired toppings before the coating hardens. 

Note: The candy melts can harden fast , so keep them warm on a double boiler on low heat or microwave every 7-10 mins.

5. Repeat the same step # 4 if using Chocolate Ganache coating as well. Make sure the ganache isn't too thin but smooth and thick and tap off any excess.

What I did:  As I was a bit impatient, instead of dipping the cake pops into the candy melts, I just scooped out the melted candy and rolled it around the cake pops, giving it sort of a swirly pattern. You can do that as well ;-) 

                                                    ***************************

How to Make Cake Truffles
You make melt-in-your-mouth Cake truffles that taste just as great as their Cake Pop counterparts + you can save on the lollipop sticks ;-)

1.  Get the Cake balls ready.
2.  Melt the candy melts or prepare chocolate ganache. Dip and roll the cake balls in it using a slotted spoon or fork, drip off any excess coating and place them on candy wrappers or decorative mini cupcake liners and decorate as desired.

                                                    ***************************

Need another idea? 

Save all the extra work of propping up a lollipop stick or candy coating by just serving these Cake Balls just as it is with some simple decoration options!

1.  Sprinkle the top with colored sugar for a festive look...or roll them whole in the sugar.
2.  Roll them into dry coconut flakes or crushed nuts or colorful sprinkles - like how I've done above (sans the ganache coating and lollipop sticks ofcourse)

3.  Ummm.... and my last option - Serve them plain, dusted with powdered sugar on top :-) 

If you have any more ideas do share, would love to hear.

You can also do Fondant decorations for cake pops, but that's upto you!

 Try it out sometime and let me know. It may sound time consuming but its really easy and just takes almost the same time you would need to decorate a whole cake. Again, if you feel you have questions feel free to Contact Me or reach me on my Facebook page where I'm pretty active. See you all soon...

-Manju

Blue ombre White Cake, Gelatin bubbles and Buttercream Shells...

A birthday to me is never complete without a Cake. Maybe because that’s how I grew up celebrating my birthdays and there was always cake.  Last year for my lil’Appu’s b’day I made my first two tier cake with Fondant decorations. As the party was a Rainbow theme I wanted to make the popular seven colored rainbow Cake. But I refused to bake a cake filled with so much artificial color for a baby’s birthday! So finally baked up my most  favorite Chocolate Banana cake with Chocolate buttercream and it was a huge hit!!

But I have always wanted to try a colorful layer cake…so this time with the help and tips from few blogger friends, I decided to go for an Ombre cake – shades from dark tone to lighter tone of the same color. And I convinced myself that it was only a little bit of artificial color in each layer :-) 
Also I decided against doing a Tiered/ Fondant cake this time…Single tier cakes can look just as pretty and elegant and did you know, Buttercream is the new Fondant! :-P

Appu’s Second birthday was a Bubble theme, so I went  for a Blue-White Ombre effect. For the cake flavor I decided to try a White Cake recipe I found at Epicurious. I had initially planned to make Three 10” layers. But I felt for a 10” inch cake, the batter was less to be divided into three, so I double the cake batter recipe and divided them equally into four cake pans - to obtain three shades of blue and one white layer .

The blue colors were obtained by using Wilton’s Royal Blue icing gel mixed with the cake batter in different quantities. The White layer is the actual White cake itself and trust me it definitely does look White…

Now coming to the decoration, this is where I get all excited and a zillion ideas float through my head. A bubble themed party needed a bubble effect on the cake, right!! I had anyway decided to go for buttercream decoration and was still making up my mind on the pattern when I thought it would be nice to make Gelatin bubbles as toppers.

My initial plan was to make few Blue, White and Golden shaded balls in different sizes and keep them all around and on top of the cake (like floating bubbles) , but did I tell you I had cooked the entire dinner for the party myself (with parents to help ofcourse). So after a whole day of cooking, I was terribly exhausted and had almost dropped my plans of making these. But not willing to quit, after everyone went to bed (almost midnight), I decided to try to make a few gelatin balls atleast in one color and made these Blue ones in different sizes - I added a tiny bit of ‘Blue Luster Dust’ to the gelatin-water mix to get the blue balls.

The technique calls for blowing up small balloons (water balloons are best) in different sizes. The balloons are greased and then dipped in slightly bloomed, melted and colored gelatin until it coats the balloon nicely and left overnight to dry. Once hardened, just burst the balloon slowly from the end and you get nice colored gelatin bubbles. Sounds easy? But it was a hell of a task (mayb coz my brain was so dead tired) and I would say I somehow managed to hold my patience together :-)

The original technique called for propping up the gelatin coated balloons on lollipop sticks to dry, but I had cake pops planned for my lollipop sticks ;-), so I just waited for the gelatin to dry up a bit and tied up the balloon end on a string loop and hung them down my kitchen cupboard knobs overnight to harden ;-) !

Here’s a link to theoriginal technique if you ever wanna try. (These almost feel like plastic once hardened and it’s not edible, just so you know)

Next came the buttercream decoration.  I wasn’t sure what to do for a bubble effect and also to impart the ombre effect. I have loved the petal or fish scale like design that you’ll find all over the internet on many cakes. But I wanted it be different. So instead of buying a round tip, I bought a start tip (Wilton Tip# 199) to make the pattern around the cake, and it almost resembled Shells, so I’m calling it Shell pattern!

Getting the Shell Pattern is really so easy. I have explained it here in the easiest way that I can think of. ( I took random pics while frosting late at night, so the pics may not be the best but understandable nevertheless )

How to obtain Shell Pattern with Buttercream using Wilton Tip # 199

The first and foremost step is to make a good pipeable consistency Buttercream Frosting (neither too thick nor too thin). 

I've used my Vanilla Buttercream recipe and made 3 batches of it  (1 batch for filling and crumb coating the cake, next 2 batches for final shell decoration)

Next important step after filling the layers with frosting and crumb coating the cake is to Refrigerate for 30mins. 

Then decorate as follows -

Step 1 : Add Frosting/Icing of desired color to piping bag(s) and attach the star tip securely. 

Step 2 : Take the piping bag with Icing of desired color and apply gentle pressure to release a drop (of required size) of the icing on the side of the cake.

Step 3 : Using a thin metal spatula or butter knife, gently wipe the frosting horizontally creating a depression in the centre and a tail of buttercream to the right. Clean the butterknife on a papertowel after each shell is made.

Step 4 : Again add a drop of the icing on the tail portion but close to the center depression(as shown in pic at Step 2)  and continue by wiping it horizontally until you finish the entire cake.

(Remember to Clean the butterknife/spatula on a papertowel after each shell is made)

 If using different shades of icing, change the Icing colors as desired for your decoration.

If you feel the buttercream frosting is getting thinner due to heat from our hands, refrigerate for 10 mins and continue.

Yes, it’s a bit time taking, but the end result is fabulous and I guess this cake almost has more than a 100 shells around it, don’t you think? ;-)

Here’s me doing the shell pattern :-) Pic taken by daddy and no matter how tired I am, I always have the patience and presence of mind to decorate a cake…It’s my absolute favorite part of any cake making!!

Before I stop rambling let me tell you, this White Cake recipe is a stunner. The flavor is huge and the texture is just perfect and color is very much WHITE. And I’m glad I decided to give it a try. 
The only things that bothered me was it uses only egg whites, 6 of them (what am I supposed to do with the leftover 6 egg yolks? ) and as I had doubled the cake recipe, I was left with 12 egg yolks *SIGH* !! We finally made scrambled egg yolks the next day to finish them off…Lol!

I was very adamant that everyone should get all the four ombre layers, so instead of cutting into wedges I cut the cake into thin slices so that it wasn’t too big to fill one’s tummy, but enough to enjoy a full slice with all 4 layers ;-)

‘White Cake’ 

Recipe source: Epicurious (taken from Cook’s Illutsrated)

You’ll need

Cake Flour- 2 ¼ cups

Milk (at room temperature) - 1 cup

Egg whites (at room temperature) - 6

Almond extract - 2 tsp  

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Granulated Sugar - 1 ¾  cups

Baking powder -  4 tsp

Unsalted Butter (softened but still cool) - 1½  sticks

Salt - 1 tsp  

Directions

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease with butter and dust with flour two 9-inch cake pans.

2.  Make sure milk and eggs are room temperature.

3.  Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into medium bowl and mix with fork until blended.

4.  Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed.

5.  Cut butter into small cubes and add. Continue beating on low for about 1-2 minutes.

6.  Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat for another 1 minute.

7.  Pour batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans.

8.  Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 23 to 25 minutes.

9.  Allow cake to cool to room temperature and invert to a cooling rack until it reaches room tempertaure.

10.  Frost and decorate as desired

Modifications I made:

1. I used 10-inch cakes pans. I had doubled the cake recipe, and distributed the batter evenly into 4 cake pans.

2. My baking time for each cake layer was reduced to 21-23 minutes.

3. I used 2 tsp vanilla extract + 1 tsp milk (to replace the 2tsp almond extract + 1tsp vanilla extract) - too much vanilla extract will reduce the White color for the cake, so use less or use colorless Vanilla extract.

4. I always add only a pinch of salt in all my cakes – I hate salty cakes, even the slightest hint!

Lil’Appu now thinks any cake in front of him is meant to be cut by singing ‘Happy U uuuuu’ and as you see here, he again cuts his cake slice the next day and ate the whole thing too ;-)

I try to keep my posts short but I have so much to share…Lol!  And I don't know if I've missed out on anything, so if you have any questions feel free to Contact Me or come over to my Facebook page.

Up next on MED will be the gorgeous Cake Pops I made. So come back soon…

-Manju