Baking Escapade # 13 - For Easter - Yoghurt Honey Muffins

It has been pouring here in Hyderabad…all through the weekend….and though I love the rains, I know it must have played spoilsport for all those who had major plans for the long weekend…. But with my better half working the most odd hours, I have so much time on my hands that sometimes it drives me insane….( I am not a TV watcher)…. That leaves me with enough time for my experiments in the kitchen…..

Hot on the heels of my earlier post on hot cross buns, come the cupcakes I made to celebrate Easter…. I saw Deeba’s little chocolate cupcakes….and I had to try my hand at icing….I’ve never done it before…and am very wary of the butter and cream and sugar it involves….but what the heck!! It was for Easter….browsed around (as has become mandatory before entering the kitchen these days) and got loads of ideas from many websites with special cupcakes for Easter….. Check out this site for some fabulous ideas to decorate cupcakes and this one too…..

I’ve made cupcakes a couple of times and they’ve all been enjoyed…. But I wanted to try another recipe….after all the browsing I did, I settled for what looked like a really interesting recipe from a lovely book simply called The Cookie book (it has some cup cake and brownie recipes too). I have previously baked the date and fig ravioli and the chocolate pinwheels from this book….it has more than 300 recipes and they look very simple with easily available ingredients….. I chose to make honey and yoghurt cupcakes. Flavoured with nutmeg, and sweetened with honey, I made them using whole wheat flour and they turned out excellent. The flavor of the nutmeg is wonderful and the honey is so subtle…..this isn’t one of those cloyingly sweet recipes but the flavours are all very subtle…. I was in a great dilemma about icing them….. they deserved to be eaten on their own….but I started off wanting to decorate them…so I did….and they were good iced too…. I added the least amount of sugar possible…so as to not overpower the flavor of nutmeg….and it worked….the icing is buttery and mildly sweet…and the flavor or nutmeg is what remains long after you’ve gobbled it all up!!

I spent about half an hour with the icing all 12 cupcakes….I figure I will get better with time…..from whipping the butter to the final product…..I got hassled because I couldn’t figure out how to get the icing nozzles into the icing cone (I used butter paper) since I have only one icing bag and I needed more for the colours that I was going to use….. I restricted the colours to just two…pink and yellow (not my favourites) to signify spring (k was so appalled with the colours!!) and to ensure I didn’t go insane with all the icing bags!! All in all, it was fabulously fun!! It was to me what playing with paint for the first time is to a child!! I was upset when I ran out of cupcakes!! I will do this again am sure….it’s just too much fun!! Of course I agonized over the pictures online, because of the many thousands of sprinkles and sugars and what not that is available abroad….. So after I finished, I sat down and made a list of things I am going to ask a friend to bring for me on her trip to Hyderabad from America ….. There’s a lot that can be done with whatever is on hand….but still I would love the indulgence of excesses!!

Baking Escapade #12 - Whole Wheat Hot Cross Buns

Festivals make me so home sick…brings back memories and I crave for all the halla gulla of yesteryears…..Lent however is a period of penitence and reflection, meditation and abstinence….it is also mostly bang in the middle of financial years….and spread over 40 days which makes travelling to the other city to be with the family not a viable option….as a family we aren’t very ritualistic, however there are some things that we do follow….but being on my own, many things do get diluted….i try to keep the spirit as true as I can, giving the symbols and rituals a miss…..

To signify the 3 hours from 12 pm to 3 pm that Christ was hanging on the cross, worship and meditation services are held at that time….as kids, it was such a challenge for amma and peddi to prepare us kids to sit in church (quietly) all that time….they would arm themselves with colouring books, biscuits and a bottle of water to keep us occupied when we were really little, and later a strict warning and a stare would suffice to fix us….of course once we got involved in what was happening around you, this treatment was suspended…..one constant of the good Friday service, was the promise of Hot Cross Buns from a very famous bakery next door…..infact such was the demand for these HCBs that people would sneak off mid service to get their booty and avoid disappointment later…with about 5 large congregational churches within a 2 kms radius, this baker knew when he’d be in full demand…. After the intial enthusiasm, I began wondering what the big deal was all about the HCB….to begin with, they were’nt very different from the buns we got all year through…the cross that was marked on it, usually was so leathery, you’d have to gulp water to help swallow it….(obviously I developed a critical eye very early!!)….but traditions being what they are, we simply continued them…..this year however, it was different ……….On one day, two posts from two fabulously talented bloggers with cult following (i meant her…and her)…that’s what assaulted me a few days before Good Friday…. I did my usual internet research and decided; homemade was the way to go this year!! With K working like there is no tomorrow, and work being a little less than usual, I had enough time on my hands…..Thursday was spent reading and re-reading the recipes…and mentally planning the course of action…..i fear baking…all last year, and whatever posts you see on my blog, are the results of a very nervous person…I don’t trust myself to do well…for me baking is something that is still not my best buddy…….add yeast to it and you have a proper nervous wreck on your hands….. While I can mask this very well with people around….i prefer to indulge in my madness when I am on my own….. each project therefore is a test of nerves….successes are a delightful surprise …. I spend lots of time at blogs with fabulous bakers…hoping to draw courage from them….

So gallantly I walked into the kitchen….literally had my hands in a knot while the yeast took its own time to rise…. I didn’t set out any of the stuff I needed till the yeast was frothy, because there would be less to clean up if the first step failed….i wasn’t sure if the yeast would rise at all….and when you are standing over the bowl of warm water and yeast pellets, willing for it to froth up already!! Time passes excruciatingly slow…. Rise it did….not as I wanted …all frothy and all…but I figured it will work….i substituted whole wheat flour for APF for the entire recipe….didnt have currants so just added raisins….and prayed that the dough would raise itself and double up….friends B and J (no not the world famous bloggers) called and said they’d come over and spend the night….and I hadn’t seen them in a long time so I wanted to see them too….when they arrived, I had just about set the dough to rest for the first rising…. I wonder if they noticed I was like a cat on a hot tinned roof all the while….till dinner…and later when we sat chatting too….every now and then I would pop into the kitchen to do something of the process….and finally made the buns and put them in the oven…….the smell of freshly baking bread…when it fills the house is indescribable……I think it would make it to the top three on a list of “these are a few of my favourite things” for me……. Its difficult to escape….the aroma mixed with the spices…..it can momentarily calm the most nervous person!! While I accepted the compliments for the aroma that spread through the house, I still didn’t know if I would end up with buns or bricks….. after all that tension!! Buns it was!! They had an angular shape because of spreading out a little on the baking sheet….but other than that, they looked lovely…like tanned beauties….and the texture!! It was crumbly and had a grainy texture…. it wasn’t spongy like APF bread is…but more like a cake….the spices lent just a bit of sweetness to it….tasted fabulous with a light spread of butter…. By the time I came back from church on Friday, the folks at home had eaten more than half of the buns….that is compliment enough for me….i think I will continue this as my own tradition for good Friday….the buns, minus the crosses will be baked again in my kitchen….they make a very filling breakfast…and because they are ever so slightly sweet, don’t need anything in the form of a spread….i was also happy that whole wheat could be successfully used in this….this one is a keeper….by the length of this post you can make out how excited I was!!

Recipe followed is from this wonderful site here with some changes of course… so here is my version…. You can also see nandita’s version here and meeta’s here

onion uttapam for busy mornings

Making breakfast remains one of the most important tasks of the day…..in many ways also the most important meal of the day …. Amma would be irate if I left the house without breakfast and claim I didn’t have the time….rest assured the next day I would get my wakeup call at least half an hour early to pay for my sins of the previous morning…..when I set up my own home, I realized what it takes to set meal upon meal on the table everyday…for as long as it takes…apart from other realizations that it takes the patience of an angel not to clobber the ringer of the doorbell at 7 a.m on a Sunday ……breakfast continued to be a big part of the daily routine….i discovered south indian breakfasts with a vengeance, kept my weekends free for slightly more complicated stuff and learnt to plan ahead, just to make life less miserable…..now my abiding best friend is the wet grinder….and I panic if I am without my weekly stock of batter for idlis and dosas (in its many avatars)……

Uttapam is something that I turn to when I have dosa batter that is a little over 2 days old….and turning a little sour…. An addition of some finely chopped veggies and spices and voila….gourmet breakfast is served in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Crisp around the sides and soft and spongy towards the middle, it is what breakfast dreams are made of….. ….. and on busy mornings, they can be eaten on their own with no other accompaniments

Uttapam that way is very versatile and accommodating….taking under its wing (quite literally) a wide array of vegetables….the only condition i can think of, is for the vegetables to be chopped fine so that they do not stick out from the batter like a different entity…..onions and tomato are the most popular accomplices of uttappam …. But beans, carrot, spinach and cabbage too make worthy counterparts.

The batter needs to be slightly thicker than normal dosa batter, and after ladling onto a hot griddle / tawa spreading with the back of a rounded spoon should be kept to a minimum so that the uttapam is nice and thick and spongy too……there are two ways of making uttapams, one is to cook the uttapam and sprinkle the top with the veggies before you flip it over…..and the second is to mix the veggies into the batter and make the uttapams….i prefer the second method on weekdays…because it is fuss free and reserve the first versions for weekends or when I am making it for guests…. Served with chutney or and sambhar, it will keep you going till way past lunchtime…….this is going off to WBB# 20….the fabulous event started by Nandita at Saffron Trail, and this month hosted by Mansi of Fun and Food…..Also to the mela of dosas which is being hosted by Srivalli

Am back……from maldives!!

the pathway to the jetty

Back from vacation….i don’t think I can put words to describe the last week…..lets just say that it was the best time we’d had in a while and that is saying a lot…… its been four days that I’ve been back…but haven’t recovered from the hangover…. So be warned….this is going to be a really long post…….. J

Cochin was the first part of our trip…. We had to leave later in the day than planned and that set us back by some hours because K had to catch up on work….anyways by dusk we reached kochi and the one remarkable change in the landscape is that the billboards advertising real estate have far outnumbered the one with gold and jeweler…that’s quite some change!! Evening was spent with my college friend D and family….next morning we were back again for a fabulous spread of typical Mallu breakfast…..i was almost dizzy with excitement…so pardon the fact that I didn’t take any pictures….plus the family isn’t really used to rowdy food blogger picture taking mania…and I wasn’t about to give them a crash course, so I abstained….but I will tell you what we had (from what I can remember)……..puttu, payar, carmelised pazham (banana), sambhar-vada, egg roast and chakka Kozhukatta ……….we didn’t need lunch till 3.30 p.m…that says a lot!!

I met up with A and her lovely family and a passing remark a few days earlier that “our respective better halves share the same name and come from the same region so we may be related for all you know!!” turned out bizzarely true!! Not only do they hail from the same ancestral village, and have the same family name….we’re some 5-6^th removed cousins!! we had such a ball talking about all of this… and with all of us (A has a delightful young daughter and 5 people in the room!!) we hardly spoke about food blogging…..i received a very gracious and totally smacking gift of home made chocolate brownie muffins…what we couldn’t polish off after they left were quickly demolished in Maldives…..

We flew to trivandrum on Sunday night and could hardly sleep…whatever sleep I managed were filled with aquamarine dreams of Maldives…that’s the exotic destination K booked for us as a belated valentine celebration for us…..the plane trip takes about an hour from Trivandrum and thanks to an ancient Air india aircraft with foggy windows, I couldn’t see much of the blue waters when we landed…..maldives is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean….it is a very popular tourist destination and has some of the best coral reefs around it….for more on Maldives, look here.

The first thing that strikes you when you come out of the airport is the heat!! It was 2.00 p.m and really hot…tropical island after all!! It was a minute’s walk to the boat jetty and a speed boat ride of about 40 mins took us to our island resort…..you hardly notice the time….and I was amazed at what I saw….water in three shades of blue…everywhere you turn…..brilliant aquamarine, a little darker than aqua and inky blue…..and every now and then we passed other island resorts……we reached eriyadu, checked in and got our breath back from the Maldivian assault of beauty….the island we stayed on is a really small one…you can walk around circling it in about 20 mins….there were beach bungalows all around the island…small little chalet type of ones, with a pretty comfortably furnished room……pretty….the bathrooms were cute…a tub with a shower, sink, toilet and another open air shower place….another door leading directly out from the bathroom and outside to the side a thoughtfully provided tap with a wash area so you can rinse your feet and gear without spreading sand in the room….

every time you turn you want to take a picture

We walked up to the jetty and watched the crystal clear waters…..i can’t believe there were fish in water as shallow as 6 inches!! We met a couple from Singapore and struck up a friendship with them….watched them snorkel and looked on in wonder….I’ve never swum in anything other than a pool…..K doesn’t swim and is water phobic…..all our beach vacations are to indulge me….. with more than a little encouragement from this couple, we picked up snorkeling gear and decided to try it out in the shallower waters near our bungalow…..

these feet belong to K…..

I cannot even describe what it is like….firstly, the waters are so clear you can see almost the whole ocean underwater….fish come into water as shallow as 6 inches….. and eriyadu is supposed to have the best house reef in all of Maldives….which means that if you were to stand about 3 feet of water, there are live corals all around and hundreds of fish……all you need to do is float on the water and breath through the pipe that you put in your mouth which is attached to your snorkeling mask…..pretty simple….but scary….for me who needs to know that I can touch the bottom of the pool…wearing flippers and standing in the ocean was very intimidating….i was scared out of my wits….plus the bad part of having a house reef in such shallow waters means that theres hardly anywhere you can stand without seriously injuring yourself on those “very pretty to look at, but will royally cut you” corals……..it took a while to get rid of that fear, by which time it was sunset and you cant see much in the waters with no light…..

the diving centre at sunset

The next morning, our friends from Singapore decided to give me moral support and said they’d snorkel alongside me….near enough for me to grab them if I needed help…..i will be forever indebted to S and V for this…..it is a whole different world under the water….i swam over corals of so many colours, white, pink, orange….some of them have tips that are almost fluorescent….imagine a white coral with purple tips that glow…..different sizes and shapes….and spread all over the bottom of the ocean….and nestled between these corals…were fish of more colours, shapes and sizes than I had ever imagined…..i saw about a gazillion fish …………triangular zebra striped fish, yellow with purple, yellow with blue stripes, sword fish in white, black and some shades of brown…their swords longer than their bodies, clown fish that looked like nemo, orange coloured fish, round ones, flat ones, long ones, sting rays, blues, greys, purples, greens…there was one called a parrot fish which was parrot green and its mouth, fins and tail were crimson!! I can go on and on….but I wont….because I simply wont be able to describe what I saw, and will bore you with my mindlessly exciting memories….lets just say that when I was snorkeling, I forgot that I was actually looking under the water…..its a different world, with as many shapes and colours and flora and fauna as the one above the earth…..it makes you lust to see more and before I knew it I was in water that was about 20 metres deep!! It’s like you calmly float in shallow water and suddenly the temperature of the water changes to really cool….and you are looking down an underwater valley of about 20-30 metres of steep drop…….I had to really will myself to keep calm…and tell myself that I can float back to the shore…..it just doesn’t let you have enough…..so each morning before and after breakfast for a couple of hours and then late afternoon till sunset, K and I would snorkel…sometimes on our own and sometimes with S and V….. every day you see something different…..on the second day, V and I went very close to a beautiful fish we saw at the bottom of the ocean….we were in waters about 4-5 meters deep…it was so beautiful….we noticed another snorkeler violently gesticulating at us…..we came to the surface and she warned us that it was an extremely dangerous fish…we’d just been about 4 feet away from a Scorpion fish.

While all the fish in the ocean are beautiful…the smaller fish are in schools of a few thousands….some of them look like fish curtains….and if you hold out bread (which we did to make them come closer) they’ll even allow you to touch them in a flash….. two most remarkable things that I saw were a sea turtle ambling along…..and an oyster opening and shutting…… it was a white scalloped one about the size of my palm with some furry trimming on the edges.…..

Our four day vacation was over too soon!! The food was pretty good….a mix of continental and Maldivian….good spread for both vegetarians and meat eaters…..we met some pretty amazing people…..there’s a diving school run on the resort which is run by an Ex- german mariner (hot looking guy with naturally streaked hair!! 22 years on the beach….)…we met enthusiasts who have been coming to the Maldives and this island in particular for between 5-18 years!! people who have done scuba diving about a few thousand times…..oh the stories they can tell and the pictures they can show you…..one guy captured shots of a manta ray (a really huge ray fish) on the second day we were there……..there was a nice beach bar with good food, cocktails and music where we’d relax after sundown and before dinner……

We got back to Hyderabad via Trivandrum, spending one night there to catch up with some friends of mine and I managed to do some shopping for traditional Kerala lamps. Whats a vacation without shopping for a girl??

As I sit here typing this out…..i am thinking two things……what a fabulous experience it has been….K and I want to definitely go back….and what a long post this is!! If you are still here…thanks for reading through!!

taking a break…..

what could be more exciting for a girl……..

• much coveted weight loss
• meeting a dear friend
• meeting with a fellow food blogger for the first time
• surprise vacation to an exotic tropical land with the love of her life??
• all of the above??

yes people….am so giddy headed that i just hope to be able to finish my packing and get to the airport in one piece!! i’m off today and will be back on the 8th…..so for then i will be away from what gives me my daily dose of kicks…. the blogging world….i dont post that often, but am always catching up with all of you on a daily basis…..for once, my highs will have to come from somewhere else!! when i am back, i hope you will bear with the aftermath of the excitement!! in the meanwhile i leave you with the recipe of a simple yet completely fulfilling indian dessert…the ubiquitous Firni……