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Almond cake with Almond Sweet Icing (Happy Bday my dear Hubby!!)

23 Nov

Almond Cake with Coffee Butter cream Frosting & Almond Sweet Icing.

Yet again, a special day in our Family. Its Birthday time !!! We celebrated Kesav’s  Birthday yesterday with this Gorgeous Almond Cake. This time too I want to make a special cake for my hubby dear, something completely different from what I have done before. Really, baking a cake and icing it, is an experience in itself.  I wanted to tryout something unique this time..something of my own… so I tried this almond cake with home made almond icing and butter cream frosting. Well, the name icing and frosting is often used interchangbely, there is not much difference. Ok…If you wonder if this is  Operah Cake?. Though this one also has almond as a main ingredient, the method and frosting for an Operah Cake is different. I will try out the Operah cake some othertime.

I would like to call my customized Almond icing on top of cake as Indian flavored Marzipan. It has less stability in making intricate designs, but tastes so much better. The traditional Marzipan is made of Almond flour and raw Egg whites. It has very good stability in making figurines. But we liked the Indian style a bit better.

Ingredients:

For Almond Cake

  1. Whole Almonds – 200gms
  2. Milk – 2 cups
  3. White Flour – 1 1/2 cup
  4. Butter – 200gms
  5. Sugar – 2 cups
  6. Egg – 6
  7. Baking Powder – 2 1/2 tsp
  8. Vanilla Essence – few drops

Almond Sweet

The recipe for Almond Sweet is here .  Instead of Rose essence, I have added  powdered Cardamom 1/2 tsp to the almond dough.

Coffee Butter Cream Icing

  1. Coffee – 2 Tbs
  2. Sugar – 100gms
  3. Butter – 50 gms

Method:

For Almond Cake

1. Blanch Almonds in hot water for 15 min and remove the skin.

2. Add the blanched almonds in milk in a blender and grind it to a smooth paste.( this yields 2 cups)

3. Add Butter and Sugar in a bowl and beat it with hand mixer.

4. Beat the egg in another bowl and the essence.  Now add the rest of the ingredients slowly one by one by beating it with hand mixer.

5. Preheat the oven to 180 C and bake it for 25 mins at 180 C.

For Butter Cream Icing

1. Add Butter in a bowl and cream it with mixer.

2. Add Sugar to it and mix it well.

3. Add 1 Tbs of hot water to instant coffee and  let it cool.

4. Add this with Sugar and Butter mixture.

Layering the Cake

1. Cut the cake horizontally in to two layers.

2. Fill Coffee butter cream icing in between the layer.

3. Roll the almond sweet dough in to a thin layer with Rolling pin and cover the cake. (Add your favorite colors as you like)

4. Add sugar decorative on top to be more attractive.

 
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Posted in Cake, others

 

Sweet September…

29 Sep

Sunflower from our garden. I was curious to capture a honey bee with the flower. To my surprise there was a bee which visits this flower every day.(not sure though was it a same bee)


September month hosts two important anniversaries in our family. One is our Wedding Anniversary and the next is Riya’s Birthday.  We decided to go to Paris to celebrate this occasion.  A busy capital city filled with full of history, tradition, modern,Fashion and what not. One place which we want to visit every time we are in Paris is the mangificient Eiffel Tower. We made it to the tower on our wedding anniversary. It was amazing to see the whole city view from top of Eiffel Tower.

A Chiffon cake with butter cream icing specially made for Riya and her KG friends.

On Riya’s Birthday, we visited Disneyland Paris. Not only for the children, even for parents it is a great place to spend a day or two. Some of the attractions Riya liked very much were Sleeping Beauty Castle, Big thunder Mountain, Little World and the Parade. The best part is whatever ride was interesting for us we did couple of times, though Riya insisted to go for more time. As the time was running,  we finished with the Parade. For children, how much fun it would be looking at their favorite cartoons dressed up beautifully and to see them in real. Mickey,Minimouse, Winnepooh and team, Disney princesses, Lion King, Mermaid and more. Riya was screaming looking at the characters and indeed was very exited to see them all. At the end of the day she doesnt want to go back home. Hope, it was a great Birthday gift  memorable for years to come.

The cake for feeding 60 people in Riya’s Bday party. Homemade sugar candy’s were turned in to garden and waiting for the final touches. Riya helped me in every layer of  cake.

This time she chose party theme as Tom & Jerry and it  is her recent most favorite Cartoon. The roses where made up of Almond sweets and Marzipan. The characters where made from Butter cream icing.

As usual, this time too Riya had celebrated  three Bdays. One with KG friends, next in Disneyland and the last one with all our friends. This September was a milestone as she turned 6 years old. she left KG and joined Primary school. In Germany it is a  tradition to send children to school with school cones, which is followed for long years. Parents has to fill up the cones with all the favorite things of  child. For Riya ,it was some chocolates,fruits, books, CD’s, toys(:-) it is a big cone). It was great to watch her and her friends carrying the school cones on the first day of school. It is already second week in school and good to see her enjoy this new world too.

Last but not least, the blog writer has been awarded a full time fun. I will very soon start to work in a popular German software company. Lot of good things in this September. Thanks to all your wishes.

 
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Kartoffelbrei turns into Dessert & (Charles Bridge – Prague Attractions)

18 Jul

I don’t know whether to call this a Fusion, a remake, a Czech recipe, or an experiment transforming into different yummy recipe…Today, I made Kartoffelbrei(Mashed potatoes)  for our dinner. My daughter’s one of the most favorite dish in German cuisine. But after tasting a bit, she said it is not the one she used to enjoy in her KG and refused to finish the remaining. Reason, I made the mashed potatoes in low calorie version using low fat milk without adding butter and cream.

Our recent visit to Czech Republic  inspired me to learn their cuisine. One of those is Potato flatcakes. This traditional dish is prepared with few ingredients like Potatoes, Flour, Salt and Oil and topped with cream, cheese, youghurt and or fruit sauce.

As basic ingredients are same for Mashesd potatoes and Potato Flatcakes, without any delay I started making this cute little patties. For the toppings, I used low fat yoghurt and Jam. Jam used in this recipe were homemade by our dear friends, who are so nice to share specialties made from their garden.  I would like to thank them for sharing the delicious Jam with us.

Over to Recipe…

Ingredients

  1. Mashed Potatoes  - 1 cup
  2. White flour – 3/4 cup approx
  3. Oil for smearing on the flat cakes – few spoons
  4. Yoghurt – few spoons for topping
  5. Jam – few spoons for topping (Redcurrrant & Blackberry).

Method

1. Add the  mashed potatoes and white flour to make it like a smooth dough until it  is not very sticky.

2. Now roll the dough into small circles. you can also use a cookie cutter to cut in to your favorite shapes.

3. Heat the griddle and place these cakes and cook them on each side for 2 min. Smear few drops of oil on top of them while they are cooking.

4. Now arrange the done flat cakes on the plate and top it with your favorite Jam and yoghurt. Enjoy!!!

Tip: These potato flatcakes can be made little bigger and served with indian curries.

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CHARLES BRIDGE

One of the most famous attractions in Prague city of Czech Republic is Charles Bridge. The bridge tower  is a magnificent building which depicts the typical Gothic architecture. Speciality of this bridge, other than connecting the old city and Prague castle, is the alley of statues running through the bridge.  It was interesting to know that  people who touch  St. John of Nepomuk statue will get good luck and will return to Prague sometime in future. As every statue has a story behind it. You can find more information about each statue here in this links Southside Stautues & Northside Statues .

Tourists visiting Prague city should not miss Charles Bridge. Amazing  place to go for a walk and enjoy the art, music and little souveniour shops on the sides.

Some pictures from Charles Bridge……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Posted in Czech Republic Cuisine, Dessert, others

 

Surprise visit to Praha…

30 Jun

Roasted Duck and Sour White & Red Cabbage in old Bohemian style.

Living in Southern Germany it is very easy to visit  neighbour countries with few hours of travel by car. Last Tuesday was my Birthday. Usually on my Birthday my hubby surprises me with presents. But this time it was a different surprise. Yes, he booked a surprise vacation at Prague. I heard of Prague as a beautiful city and I completely agree with what I have seen.

To have real feel of the city and to interact with people, we decided to use public transport to reach the city from our vacation home. Then we had a long walk around the old city. On our way we were amazed by beautiful ancient buildings all around the old city. Majestic Cathedrals, Charles Bridge with beautiful monuments and it is truely a place with lot of history.  Ok, definitely not the least we wanted to also try the traditional food.  We have ordered for Goulash and Bread Dumpling, Steaks.The food was nicely presented, and it was delicious as it looks.

On Tuesday we visited Prague Castle. I liked the Golden lane among all the attractions inside the castle. After a very nice historical site seeing it was lunch time already. We wanted to go for traditional food again. We found this restaurant 2kms away from the castle which was promising to serve typical food which we were looking for. Our menu was Roasted duck with sour white & red cabbage in old Bohemian Style, Dumplings and Goulash with Potato cakes. I have tried Goulash and sour cabbage several times here in Germany but the bread dumplings was interesting to know.  I also came to know from one of the traditional Czech recipe book that some  recipies are common in German and Czech Cuisine.

At the end of our trip we felt happy and nice. Perhaps two days was short time to know about Prague and decided to visit one more time later.

Some Fresh salad with Balsamic dressing.

Goulash, Bread Dumpling & Potato pancakes.

A delicious Beef Steak….

Goulash with Bread Dumpling.( Hubby dear like Goulash very much and we ordered next day too.)

Pancakes topped with sugar & sour cream, Raspberry sauce.

Walnut cake made with honey and topped with chocolate sauce.

 
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Posted in Prague, others

 

I am turning 7, Whoof Whoof…

31 May

 

Everyone enjoy celebrating Birthday’s. As Pet is also one among the family member, so why not the special day be different and enjoyable.  We celebrated MAX’s Birthday with our family yesterday. Though he can’t realize what it is like, hope he had a feeling that it is not yet another day. He was more pamphered, we wished him and he got  more attention than usual.  Ok!! What would one present to a Birthday baby? definitely the favourite of them. MAX’s most favourite in the world is food. He likes fruits, vegetables, meat, fish. Almost anything which is eatable. Easy for me to make his B’day food. I cooked plain Rice, lentils, and Minced meat curry. One of his favorite veggie is Carrot, so i took some shredded carrots, some scooby snacks and finally, food was arranged in a plate.

We sang Happy Birthday song for him in the evening and he enjoyed his yummy rice cake with meat and veggie.

Today when i was watching TV, I came across a link which was very interesting for those who have pets.  Toutou Bar in Brussels, is a Dog’s restaurant serving food with a excellent presentation accompanied by red dog Beer. What a fun filled luxury place for them to enjoy!!! 

This is the food, specially made for him on his birthday, yesterday.

 
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