Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Eggless Cupcakes Recipe

Well after many trials I finally found a recipe which worked for me :D
I finally nailed an egg-less cake (and it was still spongy :D),  so thought will share :)


Ingredients:
  •          Maida - 21/2 cups,
  •          Baking powder - 11/2 tsps
  •          Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
  •          Butter - 3/4 cup, softened (room temperature)
  •          Sugar - 1 2/3 cups of powdered sugar
  •          Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
  •          Milk - 3/4 cup (luke warm)
  •          Yogurt - 1 cup (room temperature)
  •          To prepare Chocolate Ganache:
  •          Fresh cream - 200 ml (I used normal Amul Fresh )
  •          Dark Chocolate - 200 gms, chopped into bits

Procedure:
1   1.       Pre-heat oven to 180 C for 15 mts.
2.       Grease you cupcake cups / muffin pan and keep aside.
3.       Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda twice. Twice coz it will make the batter more smooth, and keep aside
4.       In a bowl, cream the powdered sugar and butter till light and fluffy. (I just did till the sugar n butter were blended properly)
5.       In another bowl, mix milk, yogurt and essence. Whisk well for a minute. Pour this milk mixture into the butter-sugar mixer and whisk till well combined. (Looks like it’s not right but wait till it bakes :D )
6.       Add the flour and fold into the batter. Do not beat (coz the milk will curdle). Just fold till not trace of flour is found.
7.       Pour upto 2/3rd of the batter in each cupcake liner. Bake in pre-heated oven for 18-20 mts. Check from 15 mts onwards. They will not brown too much and will appear white in color after baking. (For me the cupcakes took 16 min; and one lil big cake made with same batter .. that took around 35 min to bake completely)
8.       Place a tooth pick in the center of the cupcake and if it comes out clean, the cupcake is done.
9.       Remove from oven and cool for 10-15 mts. (This is reqd coz otherwise when you pour the ganache over a warm cupcake the chocolate melts n becomes runny :P, made that blunder :P)

Chocolate Ganache:
·         To prepare chocolate ganache, place the fresh cream in a stainless steel bowl and heat it over low flame till bubbles appear around the edge of the pot. It should just scald. It usually takes less than a minute or so. Turn off heat.
·         Immediately pour this cream over the chopped chocolate and cover it. Let is sit for 5 mts. After 5 mts, whisk till smooth and leave aside for half an hour. Frost the cupcake with chocolate ganache.

Note: If you want the chocolate to set soon na once you decorated your cupcake but it off in fridge :D



Leia Mais

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Chumma TP

My Lil Sis (cousin) from Chennai was in town for a vacation and she wanted to draw something for her mom's B'day ...
So we drew this on a handkerchief and then she painted it laters :P
This is the one drawn on Paper :P




Leia Mais

Che Guevara

Hmmm ... My Friend Su's b'day was around the corner and was wondering what to gift him.. Then I realised that he idolized Che Guevara .. So thought I would draw him Che's pic and gift it to him ... ;))

Initial Version:


Framed:
I always had this color combination in mind ... Glad I used it for this pic :P


P.S: Yea I did gift this to him instead of keeping to for myself :P



Leia Mais

Gradient Experiment :P

Hmmm ... I wanted to give a shot at gradients and below was the outcome ... :P
Do drop your comments for improvement.. :)

Listen:

Listen To: Listen To You Heart:






Leia Mais

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

3 Weird Dreams

It was around the 1st week of November, 2009. My aunt had come home and so we (Mom, Aunt n I) thought we'd sleep in my bro's room. This is when I had these bizarre dreams(what's more weird is I had these dreams in a row continuously for 3 days).

Night 1 -> Dream 1:
I was there with a bunch of gals (of all ages - Gals in Tweens, Teens and Below Ten) and we were in this multi storied house. I still remember the house had all pastel colors of peach, creamish yellow, pale blues n stuff like that. We were all playing some game I guess coz we were all running up and down the stairs(and as expected when you find a group of gals together the house was filled with giggles). Just when I was going to the next floor from the ground floor I sensed that there was
someone else there!(I'm sure a few of you'll would remember me telling this dialogue to you'll, "You know, Yesterday at home I had this weird feeling that there was someone else there ...")
I stopped ... looked around ... and dismissed the idea as I dint find anyone. And I continued with the weird game we were playing. (am sure we were playing Hide-n-Seek :P).
After sometime when we came back to ground floor there was a pool of blood and there was the disturbing sight of the littlest (I know there is no such word) gal brutally beaten up ... :(
I just caught a glimpse of a guy wearing a hood and a hook in his hand (like the one in "I Know What You did Last Summer") going running into one of the rooms in the ground floor ...

And ... I got up! :-s

Night 2 -> Dream 2:
The scene was at my dad's mom's place(those who know me would already know that I HATE that place).
The house layout was as follows(this describes only the rooms that appeared in the dream :P):
Its in 1st floor,there is a room, the room leads into the hall which in turn leads to the kitchen. Inbetween the kitchen and hall and the kitchen there is a little passage which leads to the main door. after that there are steps which take you to the ground floor to the parking lot.
Now that you have pictured the location let me get on with the story. This house was apparently my OFFICE! (what a perfect location indeed :P). Anyways, the room is where I work in and I had a computer as well(so I guess I was a software engineer there as well :D). During lunch time I came out of the room (into the hall that is) and lo I find Deepa there :D.
There are just two people in hall. Deepa sitting in front of her computer and another person sitting next to her(sitting in front of a system of course.) I'm not sure if this other person was a he or she.
Anyways all I know is that we were working and Deepa was in the same floor as me.
Now comes the funny/weird details in the dream:
1. Dee and me went back home together (funny or weird because Dee and me stay in the opposite

ends of Bangalore)
2. We generally went home by bus (funny or weird because I have travelled in a bus maybe just 5

times in my life! But acceptable because Dee travels by bus everyday)
3. If it became late then we used to travel by activa (you must be wondering "DUH! what's so

funny/weird about that??"). Once we get down the stairs from "Office" you can see loadsa
vehicles parked. These vehicles are meant to be used by emplpoyees when ever required (yea yea
I know your expression is -> : ). So as I said, if it became late then we would just pick up one of
the bikes from the many available ones and go home.
4. Generally EVERYONE left office by 5.30 PM! (I'm sure ALL of you'll agree its WEIRD). Unless there

was loadsa work and you end up having to use the company's vehicles :P

Anyways, this was our regular routine at office. One day I had loadsa work and so did Dee so we ended up staying beyond 5.30PM.

Okay people enough of fun things are gonna get a little freaky now :-s.

At about 9.00 PM I came out and about to say, "Dee, done with work kya? What time shall we leave?" and I see Dee sitting infront of the computer and DOZING away. I thought of waking her up but she seemed to be in a deep slumber.


Just then I noticed that not only Dee but the person next to Dee was also sleeping. Only difference was that this person was lying on the floor and covered from head to toe with a blanket and .....
AND AND AND there was a HUGE axe lying next to him/her. (if you've watched Wrong Turn 2, remember the 1st sceen where the cannibal slits the gals body into two perfect halves? Well the same kinda axe was there).

AND then (what happened next is TOTALLY beyond my understanding), I took that axe and repeatedly hit that guy/gal who was sleeping next to Dee.


After that I just dropped the axe there itself and went into that passage. Then after 5 min I came into the hall(calmly as though nothing happened) and woke Dee up and whispered, "Dee, its late shall we leave??". She got up with a start and said, "Nish, just gimme 5 min I'll be done." (This dialogue is v familiar because this happens everyday before lunch [in real life I mean]).

So after about half n hour(Dee's 5 min) Dee was done and we went down and took an Activa and were on our way back home.


On the way back home(Twas almost 10.00 PM) we were waiting at a signal when all of a sudden I realised that I LEFT THE AXE NEAR THAT BODY ITSELF!!! AND I DINT EVEN WIPE IT OFF TO REMOVE MY FINGERPRINTS ... (result of watching too much of old detective movies). And I PANICKED!!!!! I thought I'd go back ... but then I thought I HAVE to tell Dee ... I just said, "Dee.." and looked back to face her ... and saw that she was totally troubled ... and before I could say anything ...

Dee said, "Nish, I need to tell you something ..." .. I thought to myself, "WTF!!! She's saying exactly what I was about to say!!!" ...

Nywayz, I said, "Errr .. Ok?". Dee went on, "Nish, you know that person sitting next to me na.. I killed that person today .... There was an axe and I chopped repeatedly and I can still hear the SCREAMS ...."

At this point I did not react! All that came to my mind was, "OMG, yes when I repeatedly hit that person there was NO SCREAM!!!!"

And ... I got up!

Night 3 -> Dream 3:
I'm sure you will find this the funniest but I thought this was was the freakiest dream!
The scene was as follows:
I'm there in this place, surrounded by relatives and ppl i dont know. All of a sudden I spot my dad. And I dunno what he says and all but I get to know that I'm getting married!!! (PLZ STOP LAUGHING)

I have NO CLUE how come and to whom!!! I search for my Mom and Bro or atleast one of my friends and find NO ONE! I am in total panic and the next thing I remember is I'm in this room crying big time (U can laugh .. Even I am LoLin now) and all of a sudden Girish is there and then I tell him,"Hey Girish, I'm getting married itseems and I dont know to who n all and I can't find my mom or bro" and I go on n on ... Then all of a sudden my friend Su called and again i burst into tears and told the same story to him and I believe he said he'd come there and I cut the call and was talking to Girish. After some time Su made his entry and again I started crying and he said, "Hey Dodo, why are you crying now? Stop crying first! We'll do something .. Wait .." and he started talking to Girish ...

And ... I got up! :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So these are 3 of the weirdest dreams I've got till date and that too in a row!!! The 3rd one was the most embarassing one and I dint wanna share it but then when my friends said "BIG DEAL!!Share it..." I thought,"K fine Y not ... :P"
When I told my Mom bout the 3rd dream she said, "Chalo, atleast in your dream you cried!! :)" ...

When I woke up as usual I was trying to analyse as to why I got these disturbing dreams but dint find any particular reason... Till date I aint sure why I got such dreams ... After this I slept in another room for a few days and I dint get any weird dreams .... Now this is DEFINITELY weird! :)


Leia Mais

Saturday, June 13, 2009

New Art Attack

Man ... These days no time for anything ... Just work work n work ... Not that I'm complaining :D ... Coz finally I'm doing what I always wanted to do - "CODE" !!! Though its not a pure development from scratch but still :D ....

Hmmm... Coz of this its been quiet sometime since I drew anything so this Saturday late evening of a sudden I was fully enthufied to draw something ...

Started at about 7 PM and finished the initial drawing at about 8.00... Man it took sooooo long, about half n hour, to get the lips positioned properly ... Serves me right for not scribbling so long :p

Nyways, once I was a lil satisfied I thought I'd take a break and then resumed this at about 11.00 PM and finally completed the pic at about 3.00 AM ... LoLz ... Majority of the time was spent in hunting for all the materials I needed in my 'Pandora Box' :p

P.S: For those who dunno what my 'Pandora Box' is I'll soon be writing a post on how it came into existance :D
Initial Version:
Final Version:
Caption:
"Colorful Vision in a DARK world !" :p

I somehow liked the Initial Version itself ... :(

Leia Mais

Monday, April 6, 2009

Tried my hand at shading .. :p

Hmmm ...
I was totally BORED so forcefully made myself sit and draw something just to wile away time and since I'd never tried shading I thought now was the time to experiment.

Also, this is the 1st pic that I've drawn of a guy ... :p
My friends used to keep complaining that I always draw just girl's ka pic. So FINALLY this time drew a guy.

Its come out just OK. But yea, hopefully will improve.

Do leave your comments/tips ! :)

Leia Mais