Cream puffs with Chocolate Cream and Strawberry Filling

I decided to make Cream Puffs yesterday. Why cream puffs? I don't really know. What I usually do when I get one of these 'I'm-going-to-make-something-I've-never-made-before' thoughts is to look up a bunch of recipes online, check out a couple of youtube videos to see what the procedure and the steps should look like and start. I usually do some minor modifications, take suggestions from a few recipes and use my judgement. I've learned to make sure I write down what I've done differently so when I want to make it again I know I have something to fall back on. More than once I've forgotten.

I started by making the batter. I could have spooned the mixture on the baking tray directly, but I wanted to pipe it out. I dint have a pastry bag so I just kind of dumped the dough into a ziplock bag, snipped the end and piped them on the tray. This was another first for me. Piping. My mehendi skills came into play here, I think. I was able to hold the bag quite steadily and work.





I stuck these in the oven and was getting antsy. I can be REALLY impatient at times and I have to occupy myself suitably if not I just drive myself crazy. I was walking back and forth from the computer to the oven checking to see what was going on.

Ooh, they look good don't they? At this point I was VERY excited. They've puffed up just the way I wanted them to.



So I don't really have a plan. I want to fill then up with chocolate cream. I have some strawberries lying around too. Decide to cut them up, and fill along with the chocolate cream that I just made. The best part was that they baked so well and the puffs were hollow inside so there was ample space for filling.



I don't have a picture of the cream though :-( and I should have made it nice and thick. I was impatient and made a shortcut cream filling. I filled them up...




And then I dusted them with powdered sugar and some chocolate syrup.





If you notice closely, each picture has one puff less than the previous one. This baker likes to sample :D With the husband hovering around, I have learned to share.

Credits to the husband for photography, editing and kitchen cleaning :-) <3



P.S - lurkers - I see you guys! Tell me who you are :P :-)

We have huge lovely windows in our kitchen and the mornings are gorgeous with the sunlight streaming in and everything is just so pretty! It would be criminal not to take advantage of that right? So we decided to paint the kitchen yellow. In preparation, we signed up for a class at home depot on painting interiors. One bright sunny saturday morning, we(I) dragged ourselves out of bed and went to the closest home depot store. It was a short 1 hour introduction to painting type class. We looked at painting accessories and rollers, paint textures and chips, and realized there's more than one type in each shade of paint. Deciding on a shade of yellow took a week. Should it be bright? Sure, but what if its 'too bright' we dint want silk saree bright. It had to be that right color of bold but not lame light grandma yellow. Armed with a can of a nice cheery shade, rollers, plastic sheets, blue tape, and a host of other materials we got home and set to work that afternoon. It was fun! The actual painting part took just about 20 minutes. It was the preparation that took an hour. Other than the wall, our hands, feet, hair, stool, and table were covered with paint. Ever our faces had specks of yellow. We cleaned up, left everything to dry and relaxed with some blue moon.

Result : The strong sunlight and the yellow walls were TOO yellow.

After some deliberation, the husband set out to get another can of lighter yellow. After he got home, we painted one wall light yellow. Which was too light. And then, the genius in me decides to mix the two and paint the insides of the windowsills a medium yellow. So now, we have one wall thats light, one thats bright and the insides that are somewhere in the middle. yeah, sure laugh all you want!

And guess what? The next morning, it all looked absolutely gorgeous! The light and bright shades complemented each other really well. We put up our curtains which are cream and light yellow organdy and set up our white dining table and chairs . The rest of the kitchen is painted white and we have some green vases lying around.

This is our table against the wall




Curtains




lotus candle holder. Isn't it pretty? =)



my Peanuts shower curtain that I just HAD TO HAVE the moment I saw it and our happy sun kissed(read:burned) honeymooning feet =)

I have a feeling I'm going to be having many more of these conversations in the years to come.

Chatting with the husband (I happened to be in an adventurous mood that day, wanting to try something new)

me: shall i make naan or egg paratha?

him : ok

me: hello? u just said ok without even reading??

him : yeah i read
ok make

me(thinking) !!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm back. I'm wondering if I have any readers left. Lurkers maybe? Those of you who don't leave comments but land on my blog by googling " words not to use in front of the Queen." How the heck did that happen? I don't think I ever posted anything about the queen let alone what not to talk in front of them. weird.

In the other news, I went and got married this summer amidst lots of drama. yeah, thats me. =) More on that later. That requires a whole host of posts I think! For now, we're back, and I never thought setting up house would be so much fun. Doubly so because EVERYTHING is new and we all know how much I love shopping and shiny new things right? I've also started noticing things that I would have never given a rat's ass about before. Like rugs. Floor rugs, bathroom mats, kitchen mats, rugs for the bedroom. I've been obsessing about it to the point that we haven't bought any because I haven't found anything(affordable) I love. You know what I mean right? You look at it, love it and HAVE to have it. I've found a couple of $1000 ones that are awesome, but I don't think the husband is leaning anywhere close to splurging on 1000 buck rugs. heh heh. We(when I saw we, its mostly I) want something that goes with our color scheme, that's not too busy, that's muted BUT grabs the attention of people like my former(uninterested) self "wow, where did you get that from? Its so contemporary"

I have a feeling we're going to be walking around in socks for a while.

I was asked this question today... "what excites you about cooking?"

It must have all started sometime around 1991, I think. My cousin and I wanted to bake a lemon sponge cake. I still wonder what possessed my grandmother to allow a 6 and a 13 year old into the kitchen to bake! A messy kitchen, burnt pans, lots of spilt flour and 4 hours later, we had on our hands a cake; the base of which was a nice thick yellow rubber like consistency and the top was as hard as stone. One of our cousins happened to drop in at that unfortunate time, and we generously offered him a nice thick slice, our watchful eyes taking in every painful bite he took waiting for compliments. I think we did manage to get one before he decided he would finish it 'later'.

Fast forward 8 years and I experimented with brownies and chocolate sauce. It came out pretty good, and was gone within minutes of taking them out of the oven. I spread a thick layer of chocolate sauce on the brownie cake before cutting it up for that extra gooeyness that the brother and the rest of the family loved. That was when I experienced the first joys of watching people enjoy what I make. Another batch of brownies was whipped up and sent to my aunts place, and since then I've officially become the family 'baker'(for want of a better word).

In the year 2000, my recipe book was born. It started out only for desserts, where I would diligently note down recipes when I would come across them in a book, or from friends and family. When I was in the 11th grade, during an english exam we had a section of process writing where we had to list the process of making tea or something. I decided to talk about my brownie recipe instead. My teacher was quite amused and asked me if it was a real recipe with correct measurements and not something I made up. I said yes, she tried them and they came out pretty fab. She also brought her book to school the next day and shared her chocolate chip cookie recipe that is so good, I use it even today! I experimented with lots of other kinds of desserts as well - fudge, lemon tarts, cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, and a whole bunch of stuff. I graduated to making lasagna and dinner type food after that.

Also, my dad has been a pretty big influence on that side of me. He loves to experiment in the kitchen and many hours were spent hanging around him and chatting while he made pasta and vegetables in white sauce, baked lemon fish, and of course the world's best biryani, among other things! That kind of got me started on cooking from baking.

So what IS it that excites me about cooking? It's the creativity of being able to come up with something new. And being a foodie, I love trying new cuisines and dishes. It's the fun of trying to make something from scratch, from decorating desserts to watching the spices sputter in the oil releasing that heady aroma that is the essence of Indian food. It is the pleasure of being around loved ones, my family and friends and watch them enjoy it. At times like this, I'm not hungry and its ok if the brother doesn't exactly save some for me and finishes it all up =)

Alice In Wonderland

Isn't Alice supposed to be this little 10 year old who is letting her imagination go wild? Why are we watching this 19 year old girl grow and shrink and fight dragons according the prophecy?

That, my friends, is the beauty of this spectacular movie. Tim Burton brings alive the characters from the original book, in this twisted, tongue-in-cheek morbid dark fantasy. A true visual treat. Traditionalists may argue against, saying this is not the original, but this is NOT MEANT to be the original at all.

The references to the book, strike you only if you've read it. That is what failed with respect to the audience. Most people today haven't read the book. They wonder why the caterpillar was blue and keeps accusing Alice of not knowing who she is. In the book, Alice grapples with an identity crisis in her dream and the caterpillar ridicules her and asks her to repeat 'You are old, Father William' which he subsequently dismisses saying it was wrong. Why is the red queen playing croquet with a flamingo and a hedgehog? Or why are the knaves painting the white roses red? Hallucinogenic, sarcastic humor at its best.

The movie starts off with a grown up Alice and her recurring nightmares. She ends up in Wonderland - that's what she calls it when she was young - and meets these curious characters who seem to remember her well and have been waiting for her all this while. The plot does get a bit confusing for someone like me, who hasn't read 'Through the looking Glass' and wonder what exactly they are talking about when they mention the Jabberwocky and where did Tweedle dee and dum feature in this?

Johnny Depp looks every bit the mad character that he portrays. The mad tea party is crazy and dark. You get this weird feeling while watching it, which is what I think Tim Burton was aiming at. It feels like one of those dreams where the characters are crazy and weird and you don't quite know what to do. The only part I felt that was forced is when Alice walks through the woods and says 'curiouser and curiouser'. It was almost like that line HAD to be there to make the movie legitimate. A little more conviction and expression would have made it work. The costumes were outstanding. Alice's couture dresses deserve a mention. Over all, the movie, the acting, make up, costumes, were out of this world - literally. A definite must watch, just make sure you read a bit of the book to really appreciate it.

Raspberry Chocolate Tart

Its official. I'm addicted to chocolate.

I'm at my cousin's place in NJ for a week, and this is what we have been upto. Yes, it tastes as good as it looks :-)