DAY 45 : TIME-TRAVEL TRUE BLUE SNICKER MUFFINS.....

And yesterday was a weird day, it's funny how life completely changes ..
Bryan Adam's was in the city and was doing a concert and i was not part of it in the real sense of the word..
I still remember the last time he came to Mumbai on tour and MTV was hosting the gig and i was hosting the concert...
it was buzzing the whole atmosphere at the Goregoan grounds...there were throngs of young faces that stormed through the gates when they opened...i remember losing my crew and getting pushed through the crowd into the audience area and had to jump over the barricade in my black skirt with slits on either side and my favorite glitter horns in my hair...
The whole week prior to that ..i just listened to Bryan..Bryan..Bryan...
It was fantastic talking to the audience, i don't even remember if there was an opening act ..I'm sure there was..but we all just wanted him to come on stage and sing to us in that smoky voice of his and then...

As the sun was setting and I got on stage again and said ....

Mumbai...are u ready
the whole crowd ROARED .....
breathe ...breathe my heart was pounding....
"This is it...the one we have all been waiting for the one the only ...BRYAN ADAMS"....and I walked out ....
Bryan Adam's walked in ..wearing white..nothing fancy ..no bling ...just him his guitar and his band...
I walked down and joined all my MTV Vj friends in the front of the stage....
and then he strummed his guitar ...to the roar of the entire crowd and mesmerised us with his wonderful voice....we were so close to stage that we could see the sweat beads on his fore-head...the sound from the speakers became one with our heart beats...we screamed ..sang along...cried ...danced and also behaved like silly goats...
and then he came to the edge of the stage and gave me the pick from his guitar...
ha ha ha "thought I'd died and gone to heaven" just like the song....
oh my God...this was one concert that I'm never ever going to forget ..not because of the "pick" but because of the sheer magic of his voice .....

Today that felt like another lifetime....
Bryan Adam's was again in my city dong a concert and i was sitting with Zeke my little boy explaining to him why i could not come with him to one of his favorite brother's (friend) birthday ..while baking snicker bar muffins for the lovely beach party that his mom Radhika had put together, actually i forgot that it was the day of the concert and then later bailed out...

Yup and so i spent the afternoon making these lovely muffins for little Dhruv who was turning 6 and was just reliving the last time in my head...
And so I went through my Nigella Lawsons "how to be a domestic goddess" and the snicker and peanut butter muffin recipe sounded perfect and really yummy...and easy ha ha ha ....

250 g plain flour
85g Castor sugar
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
6 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
60 g unsalted butter
1 large egg
175 ml milk
3 bars of 65g each..snicker bars

So i stirred the flour, sugar , baking powder and a pinch of salt together..
added the peanut butter and mixed it all together till it was a bowl of course crumbs...
oh ! i also put in half a jar of nutella ..because i love it...
beat the eggs and melted butter together and then added it to the milk and then gently added it into the bowl of dry ingredients ......used 2 eggs as our eggs are smaller..
cut up the snicker bars into tiny bits and also ate up the extra bar...ha ha ha
I then scooped them into tiny bite size muffin trays and baked them for 25 minutes....

Have to say that the melting snicker bars with the caramel oozing into the muffin mix drives u a little mad if you are inhaling that aroma in your kitchen while thinking of Bryan Adam's crooning "if you love a woman" ...lethal i say....
170 degrees and 25 minutes down these lovely nutty chocolaty beautiful muffins were out of my oven...and as i toppled them on to my counter table ...i was thinking i have just enough time to go get a blow dry and come back in time to do a frosting for these babies and send them with Zeke and Zene to Dhruv's 6th beach birthday party...
So 45 minutes later with my beautiful blow dry in place ...I get down and dirty again with the cutest blue colour frosting which i made with

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup nutralite
4 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp milk
wilton blue colour

i loved the bright blue and finished all my muffins ...
They really looked cute ..but not half as cute as the birthday boy having fun with his friends.....
so armed with presents and muffins and scones ...Zeke and Zene left for Dhruv's birthday party...
meanwhile...i hurriedly got into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and , Arshad and me sped of ...err i mean crawled our way in the Mumbai traffic to the concert..
Reached exactly 15 minutes before Bryan hit the stage..

We were in the VVIP enclosure...very very sweet of Sunil and Mana Shetty to invite us..
But seriously we were sooooo far away from the stage ..that it just did not feel right and i felt like crying...
He was soooooo far away and the speakers were just not making my heart thump....I was sooo upset ...this is no way to watch a concert..i wanted to be in the middle of that crowd hanging on that security railing..screaming..singing...and just merging with the music...but that never happened .......

I left the concert cribbing about how this is not right and how we should have been closer to stage and blah blah blah...and realised .....

Oh my God i have hosted live concerts with Bryan Adams, Boy Zone, Ricky Martin, Peter Andre ub40, Boney.M, Lou Bega, Stephan Gately(bless his soul), Code Red , Enrique Iglesias , MC Hammer , Air Supply and the MTV Video Music Awards in the year 2000 from the radio-city music hall...and mostly all of our fantastic Indian musicians and singers......and some artists I have forgotten..... I think , because its been soooo long back...

And i just thanked God for giving me this fantastic life and for giving me these fantastic opportunities..
Also said a little prayer for Natasha Malhotra my boss at MTV...who i thought made my life crazy...but all she did was push me to do better than i thought i could do...
(She is now with Disney and gave Mini and my kids the best time ever when we all went to the Hongkong Disney Land)

We'll what can i say...these are nostalgic muffins and i time -travelled with them ...so not only are they yummy ,but also very very special because they were made for one of Zeke's best buddy's 6th birthday...

I don't know if Zeke or Dhruv will ever remember this day or the muffins ..but i sure will...
'TIME-TRAVEL TRUE- BLUE SNICKER MUFFINS" made with lotsa love only from "Maria's Kitchen"