Rose Cake - Pretty Icing

I saw this cake one day while trawling the food blog sites and I HAD to try it out. It looked absolutely beautiful and the author of the blog  promised that it was the easiest thing to do. I have not iced a cake for the longest time. I have almost forgotten most of the techniques. But looking at this particular cake spurred me on to try my hand once more at it. Immediately requested sister in law to please locate and send me the Wilton 1M icing tip. Got it and then started planning on what flavor of cake I should make. The idea of the usual suspect chocolate was discarded much to the dismay of my chocoholic son. I wanted an icing that looked pretty and light coloured. So made a coffee cake recipe of which will follow.

Then decided I wanted to make cupcakes rather than a regular round cake. So went and bought a new muffin pan. Preheated the smaller oven as my bigger oven was out of action, made the batter, got the cupcake liners out and then poured it into the  muffin pan. Went to put the pan into the oven and.... THE DAMN THING WOULD NOT FIT. What an epic fail. Then very messily poured the batter back, got an older 6 muffin pan which would fit into the small oven. Baked the cupcakes and made a smaller cake.
Went ahead with the butter cream icing and iced both the cupcakes and the cake (few mishaps with the icing, but that is a story for another day). I guess I managed to get both done and was happy with the results (please note I did not say very or ecstatically happy - just happy).

Now you tell me what you think. Looks good?  You are not allowed to compare it to the original one. For precise instructions on exactly how to do this, check out the link above.


BUTTER CREAM ICING RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

100 grams Butter
3-4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 tablespoons Milk
Flavoring ( I used 2 teaspoons of instant coffee powder)


METHOD:

Soften the butter to room temperature.
Sieve the icing sugar along with the coffee powder and pour it into the the softened butter.
Mix well. Add the milk a little at a time till a soft consistency is obtained.
Now for icing the cake ( i.e covering ) you need a little softer icing.
For floral and other decorative icing, make sure it is a little stiffer so that the shape will hold.
Ice the cake.
Serve.
ENJOY!!!!!!

Shrikhand - Half Empty Nest Syndrome

My older son has just gone off to study some more ( much against his wishes at first). But now he is thrilled to go and make his own life. No more nagging from mom for a long time. But he did not bargain for a tech savvy  mom who can buzz him on Whatsapp every now and then and ending up being a real pain in the ass caring mom.  People keep asking me how I am feeling now that my nest is half empty. I feel quite guilty to say I am fine and very happy for him. I guess with technology the way it is today, he is just one ping away. So it has really not been that hard. And I always have my second one to keep me on my toes and not have enough time to miss Vish.

My older one is very partial to Shrikhand. This is his most favorite dessert and he can eat it by the bowlfuls.  So this post is for him. Hopefully he will soon learn how to make it on his own using greek yoghurt which does not need draining out the whey.

Simply put, Shrikhand is thick yoghurt drained of every last drop of moisture sweetened with sugar and flavoured with cardamom powder and saffron and garnished with almonds.
Usually, you make curd with full fat milk and tie it in a cheesecloth overnight to strain all the whey out. But this makes it a bit sour thanks to the Indian weather. So our way out is to make the curd and tie it and leave it to drain the refrigerator overnight. By the morning we have this nice thick and creamy yogurt left ready to be made into shrikhand which is not sour.

INGREDIENTS:

2 liters + 2 teaspoons Full Cream Milk

1/4 teaspoon Saffron

1 cup Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Cardamom Powdered

50 grams Almonds 

METHOD:

Make the milk into curd. Tie in a cheesecloth or muslin cloth and hang till all the whey has drained out. Remove hung curd into a bowl.

Heat the 2 teaspoons of milk and add saffron to it. Rub well till the milk gets an orange hue.

Mix into the hung curd. Add the sugar and cardamom powder and mix well. Check for sweetness. Add more sugar if required.

Blanch the almonds in a little hot water. Peel and dice the almonds into small bits.

Add to the Shrikhand. 

Serve cold.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!