DAY 36 :ALPHA AND OMEGA SINS IN A ROLL

Woke up this morning with mixed feelings , this week has been great fun, I walked the ramp for the very 1st time on the 20th Sept 2010 at the Lakme Fashion week for Payal Singhal my stylist from way back when i was with MTV, we'll a lot lot lot has changed since then.......

And then today was the last day of my Spanish class, at Instituto Hispania Mumbai, no i did not learn to speak Spanish like i hoped to, but that is entirely my fault, but i met a bunch of varied and wonderful guys and girls and this is the most fun class i have done ever, i never ever wanted to miss class because it was full on entertainment, every body with all the enthusiasm to learn this beautiful language "Spanish", and every morning each would bring to class their unique brand of humour and their quirkiness, and in the middle of this Babylonian chaos, we had sweet soft spoken Tarana our "professor" who i think was going mad....but she managed to teach us all more than we expected....Vamos Vamos being the hot" favorita" expression for our unruly crazy fun bunch of "estudiantes "

And the cast of the class

Debanshu and Sukanya , the brother and sister duo who were always bickering sweetly, Debanshu of course shares his birthday with my little boy Zeke , so i was always observing him with much interest...and Sukanya who was great with the language...and was ready to eat the stuff i took to class with much enthusiasm...

Ranjini, the ever helpful one,who also paid for my coffee many times, thanks a ton...
(I do not drink coffee at all , but having coffee in class with everyone was just too much fun and a ritual that i wanted to be part of)

Kanika, the one who was the most studious amoungst us all and always did her home-work, and always sent me sweet encouraging messages, like a good mum does....

Siddesh, the rock star from Vasai , who was very funny and wrote hilarious conversations, about "what if" kinda situations..

Mansi , the pretty one who also is a chef, think most of the guys had a crush on her...

Anand, i always thought he was quiet, but he was mad funny had a great sense of humour and wanted to dance "en la jardin"

Uttara, the one who looks like "Freida Pinto " and was fabulous with picking up languages...

Maryn, was the voice , the boom , the constant chatter , the last word after we have been told to "shut up", she is adorable and kept the class alive ....

Sujay, the extremely intelligent and well behaved boy and the class topper, with a sweet innocent smile

Megha, i know she may not like this but , she was the baby of the class, still is in school and thankfully cannot do the finals like me ha ha ha , thanks for the company.....and the bad attendance....

Raina, the always in a hurry, just moved to Bombay, harrowed home-keper , but fantastic with her language

And Tarana our proffessor, who is just a doll, thank you so much for all your time and your effort, "eres un sol".....

And now .....MTV was so long time back that most of the stuff i had forgotten, Payal had moved on to New York , gotten married has a little boy and now has her own line called "PS", which is more loved by her husband than his 'PS2",ha ha ha , we lost touch , but thanks to FB , we kinda knew what all of us were upto, so when she sent me a message asking me to be part of her collection , i readily said yes...
"Chinki" as she is lovingly called by her friends , had a real funky sense of style and a sparkle in her eye and a spring in her step and it just made me feel really wonderful that she thought of me after all these years, thanks to Payal , i actually walked onto the Lakme alley of fashion, think she was even more nervous than me...
I loved what she gave me to wear and how normal , non fussy and easy she was to work with...Thank you Payal from the bottom of my heart...

And so this week made the same recipe as the cinnamon buns, but changed the filling...
As a dedication to Payal and her feminine, flowy, sexy, beautiful clothes, i made a filling of strawberry with chocolate , because it is sweet , tangy and very very seductive ....

And for my Spanish class an orange and chocolate filling , for their sense of adventure and fun...

I just used, orange and strawberry jam respectively and broken bits of chocolate, into the filling...

And poured a mix of the ingredients below on it.....
100 gm cream cheese
1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
a pinch of salt
Bring all of the above to a boil and as soon as the buns are out of the oven, pour this mix over them and leave to cool...

Yummy, blissfull, gooey, little rolls of 'Strawberry and Orange sin" only from "Maria's Kitchen"

DAY 35: ZOFF WENT OFF FOR A TOSS

And so i started off by making a zoff that i learned in baking college, but somewhere down the line i got greedy and wanted to add more ingredients, i met my friend Ruchi at little Sairah's birthday , and she was telling me that she looooveees zucchini bread with carrot....

And so mid way while i was making my zoff,i ransacked my fridge and found carrot and pumpkin ,so i very finely grated some carrot and yellow pumpkin and a small portion of cheese , and while i followed the same recipe as my loaf of bread, after it first rises , i beat it down and added my grated vegetables and cheese, i had to add more flour to the dough as it became very sticky with the added water content in the vegetables....

I then tried to shape it into my zoff...which of course did not happen , but i never give up until i do my best, so after many a wasted effort, i just rounded it up and laid it on my ready tray for a second proving....

It looked beautiful in a bit and quiet double in size, so into the oven it went at 200 degrees and 35 minutes....
Frankly just could not wait to bite into it, so as soon as it came out, i slathered some butter on the crust and waited for 10 minutes and cut a piece.....

On the inside it has an ever so slight tinge of the pumpkin orange and it was just yummy....

I have realised that if you experiment , you always come up with something different and yummy, so go on give it a try get out of your safe zone and take a chance...

The same in life i say, if you obey all the rules you miss all the fun....So as long as you not hurting anyone else ..walk a path less travelled...

As for me. i love bread fresh and hot out of the oven, and my kitchen has this awesome aroma of fresh bread wafting through, hmmmmm.....
Absolutely comforting and wholesome and hot ...hot...hot only from "Maria's Kitchen"

DAY 34 : SAIRAH KABIR AND HER DORA PRINCESS YUMMY CAKE

And so after a mad and crazy holiday with my family and Mini and her family , we finally back in Bombay and getting ready for little Sairah's birthday, we'll after a lot of pulling and tugging I'm baking a Dora doll cake for Sairah who is turning 2..little S looks like a little pixie, little gossamer like hair , brown eyes and a petite structure , but she can pack a punch , bully her brother and yell as loud as Zene , guess that why they both get along.....
Well frankly after Mini got our little Dora doll home, now was the time to bake her skirt and decorate it, so i googled and came up with lotsa help, i loooove google...
Any way , i realised that our little Dora was no little waif like chica, she came from a family that ate wholesome meals like us and so she is well fed and healthy and that's what girls should be like.... well looked after and healthy...So i had to 1st search for a mould for a nice skirt so i put together my beautiful bunt and another dish that i actually bake my chicken in and now it looked right .....
Then bought myself a new bucket and proceeded to make the biggest cake i have ever baked , my help looked at me like ,"she is nuts", but frankly they now used to my funny ways....So here's what i did

Maida: 200 gm
Cocoa : 30 gm
Baking powder :1tsp
Soda bicarbonate : 1/2 tsp
1 Tin nestle condensed milk
Butter: 100 gm
Castor sugar :30 gm
milk or water :3/4 cup
Vanilla essence 1tsp

And so i sieved the dry ingredients twice together, so that you trap some air..
In a bowl beat the butter and the sugar, then add the condensed milk and beat it really well for about 7 minutes,add the milk or water ( i added water so that the sponge gets even lighter) and added 3/4 cup , then added the maida bit by bit , till it all looks like a lovely gooey chocolaty pool , adjust the water if you feel the batter is too stiff..

Of course i made this cake into 5 times the amount in a little blue tub, i then transferred it into my bunt and my huge tray and baked it for 1 hour 10 minutes at 180 degrees...

I then took it out of my oven and left it to cool all night, in the morning as i rushed for my Spanish class , i left it to further chill in my fridge...

After i got back from class i first made my frosting..

1 cup amul butter
1 cup nutralite
8 cups icing sugar
6tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Beat the amul butter and nutralite till it gets light and fluffy, then add the icing sugar bit by bit and also the milk, till it becomes a lovely consistency..
I also melted a kg of dark chocolate..
I then taped my little Dora up, and cello-taped her up so that she does not get spoilt, in fact i made a new dress and sleeves with ribbon , so that Dora does not need a bath , post Sairah's 2nd Birthday party ha ha ha
I cut each cake into 3 layers and put chocolate and frosting, one after the other in succession, so its a 6 layer cake with as much frosting and gooey chocolate...
Dora went into the centre , i then covered her cake evenly with frosting, and but her back in the fridge, felt quite bad as she looked into my big brown eyes with her big brown eyes, as saying "not in the fridge please" ...
Got her out in half an hour , divided my frosting , into white , yellow and mauve and went ahead and made her a pretty skirt....
Then called Mini to take take her home, just could not keep her because Zeke and Zene were constantly trying to pull out frosting with their cute little fingers...
Now if the kids like it, then all the effort is completely worth it.....

We'll the kids loved her and the adults too , so it was time we'll spent , only thing is she was cake enough for 3 more parties, but that's OK , we all love cake , so that's what we living on till she gets over....
So here is my 1st ever attempt at making a "Dora Princess Cake" beautiful and yummy for my little feisty Sairah Kabir , with all my love , straight from Maria's Kitchen.....