Nutella & Peanut Butter Palmiers for Me and You

Do you fancy something sweet? Then do you crave for something salty? Sweet again? Salty?

That is the kind of craving I go through certain days of the week.  For starters, I begin with something  like an apple or pear and then reach for some salted peanuts. Then I have a handful of raisins and then some salad with good drizzle of tangy dressing and so on.  This irritates my hubby no end. He would beg and plead to me to have a proper meal so that I don’t go yo-yo-ing on my diet like that.  Regardless, I carry on.

Peanut Butter for my better half and Nutella for me

My hubby on the other hand, is very disciplined about his food habits. He eats a set portion of food every day and at a set time. He prefers eating home cooked meals over having to eat out. He is not a fan of fried stuff or anything that is synthetic tasting or remotely snack-able.

He is a night person and I, the early morning sort.

He has a fantastic sense of direction and I find it difficult to find my way around the locality wherein I have lived for years.

He is a skeptic and I am a believer.

He adapts and I resist.

He is water and I am earth.

I love nutella and he peanut butter.

I hate peanut butter and he hates nutella.

That is why we are made for each other.

That is why I made these Nutella and Peanut butter Palmiers

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting ( Birthday Post-1)

It was my birthday a few days ago and it was wonderful. I can go ahead and claim that it was the best birthday that I would have had in a decade. Unexpected and infinitely fun, this birthday goes down in my birthday history books of records at the very top until ofcourse another more fantabulous one comes along.

Birthdays and me, don’t really have a thing going as long as I remember. I was never the one to look forward to one, more so after I crossed the “30″ milestone. Its been a week now that my birthday’s gone, but the good taste and feeling still remains, lingering in the air somewhere. I catch a whiff of it sometime and you can see me smiling for no reason at all. It was that wonderful. You may also know that I enjoy doing a lot of analysis. I have to know why something was good, or bad, or why it happened or what was the best way of going about it etc.

There are few straightforward reasons as to why this birthday was so much more amazing than the other ones:

1. The biggest reason is my parents are in town. How can a birthday be anything less than wonderful when your parents are with you. They lavished all their attention and love on me (for a change) otherwise everybody has eyes and ears only for Mimi.

2. My husband promised to bake a cake for me ( rest of the story follows later in the post)

3.  My daughter, Mimi can say Happy Birthday to you now and can sing it even better

4. I got plenty of gifts which include a much sought after cake stand, a gold ring, shopping vouchers, flowers, delicious home baked  chocolate cakes, a lovely bag and dinner at one of the best restaurants in town. It cannot get any better than this. I profusely thank my husband, Amit, my parents, my friends Namit, Anamika, Ashish, Gayathri and Pooja for making it so memorable.

5. I think the most deciding of all factors was that I was expecting nothing. Zilch.

A few days before my birthday I noticed that people at work brought cakes to office on their birthdays, so I thought that I should join in on that trend and push some of my bakes on my co workers. I turned to one of my least used baking books – Nigella Lawson’s ” How to be a Domestic Goddess” and flipped open to the Chocolate Cherry cupcake recipe. What caught my eye was the morello cherry jam that was used so generously in the recipe. I love the taste of Morello  cherry Jam and instantly knew that it was going to be a great recipe to try. But I didn’t fancy the chocolate ganache frosting and starting thinking of other ideas for frosting the chocolate cherry cupcakes.

Do you see the lovely photo of the cupcakes and the one with has the recipe written in it? Its the work of my friend Namit. He comes up with the most glorious ideas that help make my blog look a whole lot better. All these photographs were shot by him since I had no time to take pictures and was sure that there was no post coming out of this one. But he made sure that not a single bake was missed. Hearty thanks to you Namit.

Now to my story where my hubby promised me that he would bake a cake for my birthday. Well, he must have had a few sleepless nights after he made this promise to me during a rush of emotions. I was quietly enjoying  him getting anxious and uneasy as my birthday approached. For everybody’s information, he can’t cook AT ALL. He can make his tea and instant noodles and his culinary expertise ends there. Finally on the day before my birthday he came home with an envelope and handed it over to me. On opening the envelope I saw shopping vouchers. He apologized about not being able to make a cake for me and instead pleaded me to make do with these shopping vouchers. I stared hard at him for sometime while my brain did some quick analysis and soon came to the conclusion that these shopping vouchers would definitely make a better gift considering the latest collection that I had an eye on at Zara and Mango. I quickly accepted his gift with a lot of gusto! When I think back I realized he bribed me and I accepted it without a thought. That is what 7 years of marriage does to you, I suppose.

Shopping vouchers Vs Hubby baked cake —> Shopping vouchers win hands down!!

Look at the cake stand. Lovely isn’t it?

The cupcakes came out moreish and were appreciated all round. My co workers came back for second or third helpings and I was sold out by the end of the day. I think that is a good indicator to how wonderful these were. You could distinctly taste the fabulous flavour of Morello cherry jam which made it so enchanting. The white chocolate frosting idea was completely mine. I used Lindt white chocolate with sour cream and icing sugar to create a confectionery sort of sweet icing. I wished I had a piping bag, it would have made the frosting even more appealing. The crumb of the cupcake was soft and cake like. I would highly recommend making these on special occasions and guarantee that they would be a huge hit. In case you have some kirsch then it is even better since the flavour of kirsch provides a well rounded smooth cherry flavour.

I have another post lined up which will entail the Party details. Cheers until then!

Classic “Compensatory” Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies command three things – you cannot stop at just one and you can never get tired of them and they beg to be made again and again; especially if they are Dorie Greenspan’s best Chocolate Chip cookies ever!!

If you are wondering why I have called them ‘ Compensatory’ then you ought to read this post.

Mimi loves chocolate chip cookies and I have made these many times before but they vanish before I can photograph them. So this time I planned  my baking such that I had some time to photograph before they got devoured.

 

I clicked a few pictures while they were baking their way to the chocolate spotted golden discs. It is so wonderful to see each scoop of dough spread out into a beautiful cookie. Each one unique and gorgeous in its own unique way. That is the most beautiful part of having home-baked goods.

 

This recipe is a Dorie Greenspan recipe and like all her recipes they tend to be butter and sugar heavy. Since I have already made these couple of times, I have tweaked the butter and the sugar according to the way we like it. Mimi doesn’t like it if it’s too sweet. She enjoys the dull sweetness from the bits of chocolate scattered intermittently in the cookie. She is my official tester of my cookie dough. If she licks it off the ladle and doesn’t spit it out, it means it really is very, very good.

Recipe for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 25-27 large cookies

Ingredients

All Purpose flour – 2 cups

Salt- 1 tsp

Baking soda – 3/4 tsp

Butter – 225 gms but I used 200 gms, which works perfectly well

Caster Sugar – 3/4 cup ( original called for 1 cup)

Light brown sugar – 1/2 cup ( original called for 2/3)

Vanilla essence – 2 tsps

Eggs – 2, large

chocolate chips ( bittersweet) – 2 cups ( I had run out of these and used actual bitter sweet chunks of chocolate)

Toasted walnuts – 1 cup, finely chopped

Preparation

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 F/190C/ gas mark 5. Line the baking sheet with a parchment paper

2. Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda

3. Working with a stand mixer, beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute, until smooth.

4. Add sugars and beat for another 2 minutes or so., until well blended

5. Beat in the vanilla

6. Add eggs one at a time, beating well for a minute or so before adding the other egg and doing the same.

7. Reduce the speed of the stand mixer and add the dry mixture in 3 lots and then add the chocolate and nuts

8. Spoon the dough on the parchment paper keep enough distance between two such scoops so that there is enough space for them to spread out and shine.

9. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time and rotating the sheet at the mid way point for 10 to 12 minutes or until they are brown at the edges and golden at the center. They may be soft in the middle but that is alright. When they cool down they harden sufficiently giving it the right kind of bite.

10. Pull the sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, then carefully using a wide spatula transfer them to a separate plate to cool to room temperature.

 

So it is as easy as that and still happens to be a favourite with my family. Do try these and  see yourself reaching for your cookie jar every now and then.

Wooing My Work Place with some Choco Chip Banana Bread

Now that I have started work, I feel like writing about my experiences therein. It has been wonderful going back to work, meeting people, doing seemingly important sounding stuff like conducting meetings, making presentations, reviewing report and so on.

What is more lovely;  the warmth and the support of my colleagues. I feel perfectly comfortable with them and I appreciate how much they support and help me unlearn and relearn everyday stuff. While I take baby steps into this old-new world, I wanted to do something special to thank this amazing bunch of people.  Weekends in this part of the world are Fridays and Saturdays. So on Thursday, I rushed home and scrolled through my recipe books to figure out what I can make. I wasn’t able to put my finger on any of the recipes. I scanned my kitchen and found some ripe bananas and I knew a Banana Bread was in order. I decided to give it a healthy twist by using wholemeal flour ( 1/2 the quantity) and liberally sprinkled chocolate chips to make it as appetizing as possible.

I even added some leftover hazelnut meal to pack in more flavour. All in a bid to show how much their encouragement means to me. The Bread was an instant hit with my little one, grabbing a slice and gobbling it up in no time. That’s a sign, I thought. It will be well received, I was sure now.

So happy and content, I waited for Sunday to come, so that I could take it to office. Sunday is the first day of the week. Seriously. Don’t laugh.

I intentionally kept my bread box outside because has been on the better than pleasant all these days.

Sunday came. Excited, I arranged the slices delicately in  a box and took them to office. I offered it to my lovely colleagues. They praised it to the skies. They said, I shouldn’t be in this office, I should be out there, selling my bakes.

I was so happy and thrilled with the appreciation. I thought this was the best thing I could have done to woo my colleagues. The best idea ever

Post lunch I saw a few crumbs that remained and felt the impulse to taste it. I hadn’t really tasted it. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes I do not even taste whatever I bake.

The moment I put it in my mouth I realized the banana bread had gone stale!!!!!!!

I cursed myself for not keeping it in the refrigerator. Another realization that dawned was that my colleagues had eaten it without a murmur or complaint. In fact they praised my efforts generously. How utterly sweet can they possibly be!!! I wanted the earth to swallow me right then. I apologized to them and asked them why they didn’t tell me that it had gone bad. They said, when they saw it, it looked wonderful and they understood the feeling behind it. They would have it again, if I were to give them a stale banana bread again. Where have these people come from!!

Needless to say, I was touched beyond any measure. Then and there, I made up my mind to compensate and make them something that really tasted good and wasn’t stale. But that is the dope for another post.

For now, here’s the

Recipe for the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup of whole-wheat flour

3 medium very ripe bananas, mashed

2 large eggs

1/3 cup of light olive oil (or any oil)

1/4 cup of milk

1/2 cup hazelnut meal

2 teaspoon Baking Powder

dash of salt

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, dash of fresh nutmeg

3/4 cup  chocolate chips(bittersweet) and or any nuts you like ( handful of roasted nuts)

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of golden syrup (can substitute maple syrup)

Preparation

1. Place the flours, dash of salt, baking powder, spices, hazelnut meal,  and sugar in the bowl and mix well.
2. In a small bowl, combine the eggs, oil, corn syrup or maple syrup, milk and mashed bananas. Add this mixture to the dry mixture and mix well with a balloon whisk. Add the chocolate chips.
3. Pour the batter in a loaf pan, lined with parchment or baking paper. Bake in a preheated 350F (180 C) oven for about 45 to 55 minutes, until a small knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry. Cool, serve.

It feels like I am giving out a recipe of a stale banana bread but you have to trust me it was wonderfully received by my husband and daughter.

I had to share this story about my workplace since it solemnly makes me believe in the goodness of people. Touchwood!

Goofing around after office hours. We are so glad to see each other.