Inspired by ‘The Little Prince’, I did this set of sketches in charcoal as a birthday present for DH.
Black and white is another fave combo.
Soothing Blue and Green Cake …my canvas!!
” Happy and successful cooking doesn’t rely only on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life. “ …. Georges Blanc, Ma Cuisine des Saisons
Here’s one I did for my Dad’s birthday. I ran out of ideas, was just browsing around, and saw this design on some linen. My love for the blue-green combo reflects in this cake. The basic cake is from the Hershey’s Chocolate Cake recipe from their website, and the icing is of whipped cream with vanilla essence and sugar.
Tailor Birds in our yard…Bird watching in Gurgaon
‘Creamless in Gurgaon’…and sans baking chocolate too!
This is almost like ‘Sleepless in Seattle’. What agony is this? With the flooding in Gujarat a few months ago, and a blazing hot summer in North India prior to that, cream has all but disappeared from the market. To make matters worse, baking chocolate has done the number too. We used to get decent tetrapaks of cream from Vijaya and Amul, and I found ways and means of reaching my end product even though the cream had a low fat content (20-30%). Cadbury’s used to do baking chocolate slabs in 500gm lots ,which I had got and stacked up. Sadly, I have exhausted my supply. Nestle’s dark baking chocolate has always been hard to come by, but the few times I got it by bribing a friend, I guarded it like gold. It has great taste, and good cocoa content, but is nowhere to be found now. Guess its down to substituting again…good old cocoa plus butter!! Tried the Armenian Nut Cake yesterday due to the paucity of cream and chocolate. DH loved it, but the kids weren’t too impressed as it wasn’t sweet enough for their spoilt tastebuds! Oh well….one day, we shall overcome!!
My daughter’s 9th birthday cake
One of my absolute favourites. This is the cake I did for my daughter’s 9th birthday. I made marzipan with almonds that I ground, and then the kids and me made the bits and bobs that topped the cake. The butterflies and flowers I cut out of cookie cutters. The kids did the tiny roses patiently after I taught them what I had learnt in scool. We used to make them out of crepe paper back then!!! Marzipan is such a fantastic and rewarding medium to work with. As you can see, we did the number 9 with different coloured ropes of marzipan that we combined. The ‘OOOOOOOOOHS’ and ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAHS’ took ages to die down, only to be replaced by a battle for the butterflies and flowers once the cake was cut! Phew…what an experience!!
Painting Cookies
I love to paint cookies, as you can see. They give me hours of endless pleasure when I am home with nothing better to do. The kids love ’em, and line up for them the minute they are served. Always a big hit at birthday parties, and on Diwali and Christmas I customise them. On Diwali I do diyas (oil lamps) and candles with silver dragees on cookies. When Christmas comes, its bells, stars, xmas trees, wreaths, gingerbreadmen,candy canes, snowflakes etc and etc. I even do hanging ones for the tree on Christmas. We put ribbon through holes on top to hang them…and its really worth the hard work and toil once they go up on the tree!
