Nature's colour treat

Autumn is my favourite season. It's that time of the year when nature exhibits the most beautiful colours. Shades of red, orange, brown, maroon, yellow and green. Truly a visual treat in all its glory! That time of the year is back again. I guess it is nature's way of compensating for the sun's guest-like appearance and the gloom created by the haze, dark clouds and dropping temperatures and eventually naked branches.

I had gone for a walk recently when I picked up some leaves of different colours to decorate MIRAKEL, our home. Since I chose yellow and orange as the colour theme for this years autumn home decor, this collage suits perfectly. I'm simply following nature's law of compensation inside our home.

Pizza party

I love to cook! I love to eat! AND I love to feed! Quite a deadly combination in the kitchen I'd say :D And the result of that could sometimes be as deadlicious as this!

My husband and I invited one of our newly married friends home for dinner, drinks and sleep over. I wanted to keep away from the traditional rice, roti and curry combination. Since our friends are vegetarian and we wanted to keep the TGIF mood, I said a Pizza party is what we deserve!

I had baked a Pizza a couple of weeks ago but there was still something not so perfect in the bread. I looked up a couple more recipes online and then settled for this one. (I used butter instead of olive oil.) It turned out to be the perfect choice.

After you've left the dough to rise for at least 2 hours, roll it out on your baking pan and again leave it to rise for another 2 hours.

For the Pizza sauce with an indian touch you need:
1 tablespoon oil or butter
1.5 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 x medium sized onions chopped
1 x 400 gram tomato puree
3 green chillies slit
pepper and salt to taste
half teaspoon each of dried oregano, basil and parsley

Ideas for topping: For best results marinate overnight
1. Paneer (I used homemade paneer with 2 litres of milk), red capsicum (cut into rings) and onion: Marinate the two with 1 tablespoon curd, and salt, pepper, chilly powder, garam masala powder, coriander powder, jeera powder, turmeric. Also sprinkle some fresh chopped coriander.
2. Pineapple, mushrooms and capsicum: Marinate the mushrooms with chinese red chilly sauce and garam masala.

Assemble the pizza by spreading the sauce, then the topping and some Pizza cheese. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.
You'll refuse to order from a Pizza place again....!!!

Chocolate Truffle Cake

The truffle cake has been my all time favourite. I remember every birthday celebration at home meant a rich, moist, googy chocolate treat that we enjoyed with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some potato chips. I decided to recreate that old time magic in my own kitchen and boy... I couldn't have been happy with the results!

We celebrated one year of moving into our own home MIRAKEL on the 28th of April and we treated ourselves to this piece of magic!

First get the following ingredients ready for the half kg sponge cake. Bake in a 6 inch baking tin at 190 C for 35-45 minutes depending on your oven. Let the cake cool on a wire rack.
Flour - 100 grams
Powder sugar - 115 grams
Egg - 2
Margarine - 90 grams
Baking powder - 1/4 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp
Milk - 1/3 cup
Cocoa powder - 15 grams

While the cake is baking prepare the icing and the decor.
You could use either black or white chocolate icing. The icing is known by different names, most commonly chocolate ganache, but also as chocolate fudge icing and chocolate truffle. Most recipes I found on the internet suggest more or less equal quantity of chocolate and whipping cream. I experimented with the following which gave me the perfect taste, shine and texture I was hoping for.
235 grams of dark/milk chocolate (I had a lot of chocolate bunnies and eggs from Easter, so I used that too)
200 ml cream
30 grams of butter
In a microwave proof glass bowl melt chocolate and cream for 2-3 minutes. Mix well till you get a homogenous mixture. Now add the butter and mix well. The icing will still be very thin. Leave it aside to cool. It will thicken gradually. You could also put it in the fridge.

Cut the cake horizontally into two parts. To moisten it further prepare a sugar syrup and sprinkle it over the cake that forms the base. You could also flavour the syrup with rum or orange essence. Once the ganache reaches a spreading consistency, layer it between the cakes. Sprinkle some more syrup on the top of the cake. Now pour the ganache over the top and sides and decorate as per your taste.

You might be curious to know more about the dolphin and hearts on the cake. Its simply melted white chocolate spread as shown in the picture on butter paper. The shape is guided by cookie or marzipan cutters.

For the dolphins I actually used coffee top decorators.

Ol turns new!

I love recycling things... And if that makes old stuff look like something new and different it should be good not just for the environment but also for the wardrobe! ;)

Last week my ol' pair of jeans were reincarnated into..... a trendy handbag!

For a video tutorial check here.

Cut the pair of jeans and stitch as shown in the video. I then used a belt from an old shirt and tied it to a loop to look like a bow. Using fabric paints I then painted a red and yellow flower on one of the pockets. In my sewing kit I had a few colourful cloth flowers which I hand-stitched on the rim of another pocket.
If you like you could use velcro, a zip or buttons to close your bag.

pingu key chain

A non-working day plus public transport strike results in this cute Pingu keychain.

All you will need is black felt cutout as body, yellow or orange felt for the beak and feet, white for the tummy and loop. These will look like this...

I had saved an old keychain ring for this project. Get two little beads to look like eyes.

Once I had cut the felt, I stitched the white piece of felt for the loop on the back side top end of the body. The eyes, beak, feet and stomach were stuck using craft glue. 

This took approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Date and Walnut cake with Marzipan Xmas icing

I wanted to get into the mood of the Christmas season and I thought what better way to start than a Christmasy looking cake. I decided to try this recipe. I used cranberries instead of raisins. It tasted delicious. But there was way too much fruit and I couldn't enjoy the cake as much. I would recommend that you follow the original recipe with the following changes...

80 grams walnuts

30 grams raisins/cranberries

For the decor I used white marzipan* and green and red food colours. Roll out the green marzipan and cut out the leaves. Make small balls from the red marzipan for cherries. Roll out the white marzipan to make two circular sheets with even edges. Place over the cake loaf as shown in the picture. Arrange the leaves and cherries. Just one more step...... EAT THE CAKE! :D

*Marzipan recipe in my next blog.

'Mock' Ragda pattice (serves 4)

So the story of the mock ragda starts here. I was craving to eat some chaat and wanted to treat my husband to something he hadn't tasted before. Now since I didn't have white peas at home, which is the main ingredient in the original ragda I came up with this quick-match-the-original version! I loved the result!!!

For the pattice: (Makes 12)

4 large boiled and mashed potatoes

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp chilly powder

1 teaspoon crushed coriander seeds

11/2 teaspoon chaat masala

1 teaspoon lime juice

salt to taste

handful freshly chopped coriander leaves

handful freshly chopped mint leaves

2 tbsp oil

Add all ingredients to the potatoes and mix well. Divide the dough into 12 equal balls and flatten each to form a patty. Shallow fry in oil. Keep aside.

For the 'mock' ragda:

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp jeera seeds

chopped garlic

pinch of asafoetida/ hing

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp onion powder (optional)

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp jeera powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 large bowl green peas

half cup boiled yellow moong dal

2 tbsp besan/ gram flour

For the sweet chutney:

1 handful of tamarind deseeded

50 grms dates deseeded

100 grms jaggery

1 tsp fennel seeds/ saunf

4 cups water

Boil all the ingredients for about 10 minutes or until all the ingredients have melted to form a smooth paste. Remember to stir occasionally. You might need to strain the pulp of any fibre from the tamarind.

For the garnish:

1 large chopped onion

chopped coriander

nylon sev

'sev puri' puris

Place the pattice on a plate. Pour radga over it. Pour some sweet chutney. Sprinkle some chopped onions, sev and crushed puris. And its time to treat the tummy...