New food blog… for my love of food!

Hey! M just starting a new food blog on WordPress with my sis in law. Do visit and do give me your suggestions! its at http://thecinnamonprincess.wordpress.com/

Do check it out!

Cupcake time!

Yeah I ve been really procrastinating recently. Afterall I have this amazing trip to talk about… full of colourful and exciting stuff. But wait… about that later. Today I will share with you the joys of baking that I re-discovered. Re-discovered why? Because I had a six-year jinx to my cake making skills. Seriously. Six years. Anything I baked… turned out screwed up. Since the time me and KT baked a cake for AP’s birthday and it went kaput. After that was like a huge bake-jinx. But I have broken it and here is the proof!

So I was in the mood for baking… by the way.. if you ever wonder where to catch hold of cake related or food related stuff… say like cupcake’s paper cups, baking stuff, icing guns etc etc etc… head off to Chandan’s on Main Street, Camp. You ‘ll get anything there. Its one of the oldest stores in Pune to import speciality goods like cheeses and sauces and other items. And upstairs you get all kitchen related goods. Do visit. Looks pretty simple and staid on the outside but I like it more than Dorabjee’s. And the staff is efficient and they will help you out. Not to mention the owner who is one of the most pleasant people around.

So here is one of my culinary adventures. After four hours of work starting from scratch… I look at these and feel pink inside just like the pink cake! Looking forward to more adventures in the kitchen…  Till then, you too enjoy baking!

Back!

Phew… now that was long or what..! A months hiatus and people are already forgetting me. Heh. Not that I ll let them though. So just as I declared my freedom from all things significant and mundane, me and a friend intended to celebrate it with a nice dessert. Hmm…. dessert Or cake. Either of those. So it led us to the question.. Where do you get the best cake or the best dessert in Pune?

   Interesting question that. Any food lover will tell you the significance of a good dessert at the end of any meal. Or at any time for that matter. So my friend here… she is the person we  turn to for all our cake requirements on birthdays. She probably knows the yummiest of cakes in town. I ll share my own little experiences…  they aren’t much but I loved some.

  One of the best contenders will be Sweet Chariot Cafe’s Tiramisu cake. Now the original tiramisu is a dessert but the world over people also love the cake. Instead of the lady fingers, you have a sponge with the mascarpone cheese.(I tried the original tiramisu at home once and well…. disastrous to say the least!) So ya… their cake was amazing… melted the moment you put it in your mouth. Wonderful!

Then there was this one orange mousse I had once… I don’t remember the name exactly… it was so inconspicuously situated at one end of Mhatre bridge… Cakes and Creams…. or Cremes and Crusts…. dunno. That was good too. Orange is something I don’t really associate with dessert.. But that one worked.

Then there’s the Pineapple Cream cake at Pastry corner, Law college road. Simple but with the exact amount of sweetness and fresh pineapple taste.

This one’s heavy… at Mocha’s, Law college road… you get this thing called Chocolate Avalanche. I had the ‘Junior’ chocolate avalanche once. Nothing ‘junior’ about it at all! You simply get a big bowl filled to the brim with chocolate ice cream, chocolate fudge, chocolate pudding, a little vanilla ice cream, bitter chocolate sprinkled in between and a dark chocolate mini slab right on the top! Dude… that can be your mood food, guilt food, sad food, happy food, craving food… any damn reason will do!

There’s this one place I love.. Barbeque Nation. Though it specializes in barbeques (obviously!) I go there not for that but the desserts. Vanilla ice cream with gulab jamuns.. (weird, but works..!), ice cream and brownies, tiramisu (original italian kind..), orange mousse, mango mousse, strawberry cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake. You get the drift.

Me and my friend have the general cake haunt… Copper chocs! They have a branch near her place and mine too! Chocolate eclair or a chocolate pastry works!

And now to what I thought was best… We went to Yana’s today. My friend ordered lychee dessert, I ordered the chocolate mousse. And the moment I tasted it for the first time… I could hear a hallelujah and a voice inside my head telling me to keep it coming. I mean, the lychee was amazing… it was a bowl full of nice juicy lychees and ice cream. But the mousse folks… sigh. Heavenly! I don’t know why they get addicted to smoking and drugs and all other crap when you  have something as good as that chocolate mousse!

Foolproof pan fried chicken for dummies.

The

thats the only one pic I had... I served it with iceberg lettuce n orange salad and tomato soup...

re are somethings that make me feel all warm inside. Like shopping for shiny green peppers. Isn’t it just absolutely lovely! Not to forget peppers come in yellow and red too now a days. Shiny clean healthy peppers. And tomatoes!  heh. No m not gonna talk about how to shop for veggies.

Today m gonna share my foolproof french recipe of PFC for dummies whose cooking skills end at boiling water. Heh. There’s nothing called  ‘PFC’… it’s just what my bro calls it as he thinks it’s better than KFC. I ve tried it hundreds of times and its so easy. Know how stuff goes wrong when your mood isn’t right? That doesn’t happen here. It’s always perfect.Even when you are in a foul mood! 😛

So what is it? It’s a french recipe of a simple pan-fried chicken dish which is juicy, nice and very snacky… just don’t complain about the butter… the french believe in butter like you believe in god!

Here’s what you need… for serving one…

2 chicken breasts, flour, 1 egg, oil to fry, a dollop of butter, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs.

1.Take the chicken and rub in a little salt and pepper. Keep aside for like five mins. (if u have italian dried herbs you can put in a little of that too for a change.)

2.Take three plates. Put the sifted flour in the first plate. Whisk the egg a little in the second. The breadcrumbs go in the third. Place them in this order to make it easy.

3.Heat a thick bottomed pan. Add oil. Heat a little. Then add the butter. One spoon will do.

4. Now take the chicken. first coat it with the maida. Shake off the extra maida. Then coat it nicely with the egg. Then coat it with the breadcrumbs… and off it goes into the pan to shallow fry.

5. Turn the heat to medium. If u sliced the chicken into thinner strips then it’ll cook faster. I like to make even 2 cm thick pieces. cook for 3-4  mins on each side.

Make it golden brown on each side… and VOILA! done!

I ll try put up a snap… you can throw in a little salad tossed in some olive oil-honey-pepper dressing (i might give you that recipe too later) and maybe some simple tomato soup and you get a fab meal. Do try and let me know!