Tag: teaparty

Lemon Crinkle Melts

Lemon Crinkle Melts1

A melt in your mouth lemon cookies.. Ooh, how I love thee. I craved them one afternoon so bad that I had to bake them PRONTO! I LOVE lemon even more than chocolate. Please don’t hate me! If there is a choice between chocolate and fruit, I most certainly always choose the latter (umm..yess.. mostly!). Chocolate vs lemon tart? Absolutely lemon tart! Chocolate donuts or strawberry filled donuts? Undoubtedly strawberry! Are we still friends? Okay, great! 🙂

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These cookies were SOOO GOOD that I might have tried eating 4 in a go. Don’t try to picture that! I found this fantastic recipe on White On Rice Couple blog and they looked so gorgeous that I had to make them. I slightly reduced the quantity of butter and sugar mentioned in the recipe to suit our taste and they were perfect for us.

This recipe does not use any lemon extract and if you are worried about the lemon quotient then worry not, my friends. They are plenty lemony. I was blown away by the flavor and texture would be an understatement! If you love lemon cookies and love snickerdoodles like I do, you will find yourself stuffing yourself silly with these lovely cookies. Soft interior with slightly crisp exterior achieved by rolling the dough in confectioners sugar before baking. Delicate and bright! What’s not to love?!

Can you tell I’m obsessed? Yeah, this recipe will be definitely made again & again & again.
Enjoy!

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Lemon Crinkle Melts

Recipe slightly adapted from White On Rice Couple

Yields: Around 24 cookies or more depending on size

Prep time: 10 minutes | Chill time: 30 minutes | Bake time: 9-11 minutes | Total time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
  • 2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg (make it eggfree & use 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce)
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup confectioners sugar

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a couple cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda for at least 20 seconds. Set aside.
  3. In a bowl of your mixer, add lemon zest, brown sugar, white sugar and mix together with hand. Add butter to the bowl and beat butter and zesty sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract, egg and lemon juice until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again to make sure everything is incorporated.
  4. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to get all of the flour. Cover the bowl with cling film and let the dough chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  5. Sift the confectioners sugar onto a large plate. Form the dough into 1 inch sized balls. Roll the balls in the confectioners sugar then place 2 inches apart on the lined cookie sheets.
  6. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies just begin to turn light golden and the tops of the cookies look matte (no longer shiny or wet looking). Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Note: To make these cookies vegan, replace butter with vegan margarine.

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SugarPlum Cinnamon Buttermilk Cake

SugarPlum Cinnamon Buttermilk Cake1

Happy Half New Year Everyone!!

You must be thinking who remembers or celebrates that! Neither do I! But got reminded of it on through WhattsApp messenger. Guys, we are in the middle of the year, we have finished 183 days of the year already! Another 182 days to go! Today is 184th day.. I know I am a day late in wishing you all but if none of you even remembered it then it doesn’t count, right? 😉

I can’t believe how half the year has already passed by and time has engulfed us in its speed that we can barely keep up! I have not even started ticking my to-do list of this year. So I really need to brace myself as soon it will be Christmas even before we know it!

And its finally raining in Bangalore!! Not as much as I would like but hey I am not complaining. Bangalore marked half of the year by gracing us with rain yesterday evening. I was so happy that I had to do a little dance, listen to my fave songs and bake! With cinnamon!!! I love how the aroma of cinnamon fills the house and this smell mixed with the smell of rain is almost heavenly!

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I had bought almost 2 kg of sugarplums from my regular supermarket as it was on sale! Half of them were super-ripe and sweet so it goes without saying that we enjoyed them just like that. Rest of them were quite sour and tart for which hubby & I both have got pretty low tolerance so I decided to use them in a cake.. A topping for a simple cinnamon buttermilk cake! They look like red jewels… So adorable it makes my heart sing! Plus, all the tartness is masked by the sweetness of the cake.

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As it was raining, there was music and I was in a mood to dance while I bake, I decided to whip the batter with hand. It was so therapeutic!!! No mixer is required for this cake and only 2 dirty bowls! Complete win-win.. 🙂

The plums I had were quite firm so slicing slivers from them was not so messy and quite pleasing experience. Be sure to use a sharp knife for this. Each plum will give around 8 slices.

Perfect as a coffee/tea time cake & perfect as a dessert served with vanilla custard or sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream!

Oh, did I mention it is healthy?? 😉

Enjoy!

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SugarPlum Cinnamon Buttermilk Cake

Adapted from Super Natural Every Day – Heidi Swanson

Prep Time: 25 min | Baking time: 30 min | Serves: 12

Ingredients:

  • 2 and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup caster sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 and 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
  • zest of 1 very large lemon
  • 6-8 sugarplums, thinly slivered (ripe yet firm)
  • 3 Tbsp granulated white sugar

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 200 C/400 F. Grease an 11″ tart pan or quiche dish.
  2. Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar and salt in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and lemon zest.
  3. Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until all the flour pockets disappear and the batter is just combined.
  4. Spoon batter into greased pan, tapping the pan over the working station. Smooth the batter with back of your spoon, spreading it out towards the edges. Arrange plums in a circular pattern or just scatter them around. Top with granulated white sugar evenly.
  5. Bake for 30 minutes or till the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar or vanilla custard or sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.
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Fig Cake

Fig Cake2

I have a soft corner for fresh figs. In fact, I adore them… kinda love them…!! My husband on the contrary, detests fresh and dried figs both. How unfortunate for him?! 😛

The other day when I went grocery shopping, I found a box of fresh, ripe figs at my supermarket for just 90 INR/- and so I bought 2 of them! And I enjoyed the first box as is.

Smooth, leathery outside and velvety, succulent insides… Perfect petite size! Plus it’s a effortless, no-fuss, non-messy eating. Just wash and pop them in your mouth. Voila! Explosion of palate-cleansing freshness! Salivating already?! 😉

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I decided to bake with them as an attempt to change my husband’s attitude towards these delicious babies. But I had never baked with fresh figs (apart from using them as my pizza topping… Totally loveee it!!! Nom Nom…). Even though I have baked with dried figs before creating Dried Fig Spice Cake, I wanted to bake something more classy with the bunch of fresh figs. That is how my hunt for a mind-blowing recipe started.

And after browsing through so many blogs, I finally found a recipe which I think will do complete justice to them.

A recipe which suits my own style of baking with simple ingredients and a quick whip!

For the recipe click on the link: http://playfulcooking.com/cakes-cupcakes-muffins/honeyed-fig-cake/

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*The changes I made to the recipe:

  1. Instead of 1/2 cup sugar called for in the recipe I used 3/4 cup sugar.
  2. Replaced all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour.

Apart from that I followed the recipe to the T and the resultant cake was light, soft, moist and juicy! Perfect for the tea party!

So what are you waiting for?! Click on the link above and start baking! 🙂

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