Soulful Creations

This is my first DB challenge and for various reasons, I decided to go vegan on this one. This month we had to make a Dobos Torte, the absolutely divine sponge cake layers divided by chocolate buttercream and filled with nuts. The origin of this torte is also quite interesting, you can read all about it here . The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella . They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague . For my version, I used an eggless sponge cake recipe from the lovely Sunita's blog Sponge cake Ingredients 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour 3/4 cup of brown sugar 2 tsp baking powder 6 tbsp of canola oil 1tsp vanilla essence 1 cup of water a pinch of salt Method Preheat the oven to 350F. I cut out two parchment sheets each about 8 inches diameter and laid them out

This Ganesh Chaturthi , I celebrated with some home-made rava modak. I love the original steamed kozhukattais made with rice flour, but I have seen my mom make it and have seen the amount of stirring that goes into it. So I chickened out- and instead made these fried rava modaks filled with jaggery- coconut filling. The recipe comes from my mom, Ingredients 1 1/2 cups Sooji/Rava 2-3 tbsp ghee Warm milk for kneading Mix the ghee in the rava. Add milk little by little- knead it till it forms a dough (like for chappatis). Let it rest for about 2hrs. For the filling, 1 cup Jaggery (depends on how sweet you want the filling to be) 1 cup coconut (the amount should be so much as to absorb all the liquid) small amount of பச்சை கற்பூரம் ( green camphor is what that means but it is camphor that is edible) 2-3 pods of elaichi/cardamom pods, crushed Melt the jaggery in a pan on medium heat, mix in the camphor and elaichi. Stir in the coconut. Heat it until all the liquid is absorbed with occasion

...and an asparagus soup. Yeah, the recipe for the soup is from Ganga's blog and the melon dessert is my own and therefore only alright. In my defense- it was 90F with the oven on at 375F and no AC. I had it today folks..it was a good work-out, I must say (LOL). For the soup, I followed the recipe closely from her blog, except for a few differences I have pointed out below Ingredients one packet of frozen small green asparagus a gentle herb – chervil if you can get it. I can’t so I used some lemon verbena and a tip of lemongrass (I also used lemon verbena (from my own garden) . 1.5 Tblspn extra virgin olive oil 1 Tblspn arrowroot (did not add this) 1 cup milk salt and freshly ground pepper large pinch of nutmeg 3 Tblspns thick crème fraîche or thick cream For how to cook this soup, you can check Ganga's blog. I also added some roasted asparagus for garnish. This goes to Yasmeen who is hosting this month's Tried and tasted event featuring Ganga's blog. The event w

I made this recently for a friend, turned out ok! That is a cutsy bear pendant, when I first got it though I had no idea what I was gonna do with it...but hey all is well that ends well, innit...

Yes, I can... Finally I managed to bake some bread and a bread that has wild rice in it (do not please ask me why I am so enamored with wild rice). The only thing is wild rice is freaking expensive people. Yeah that is the most costly ingredient in this bread but it is all worth it in the end, innit?! So here goes, my own adaptation of this recipe here 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast 1 1/4 teaspoons salt 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup almond milk 2 tbsp butter, cubed 1 tbsp honey 1 tbsp maple syrup 1 cup cooked wild rice Method 1. In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, yeast and salt. In a small saucepan, heat the water, milk, butter and honey to 120°-130° (I used my judgement here as I do not own a thermometer). Add to dry ingredients; beat until smooth. Stir in the wild rice and enough all-purpose flour to form a stiff dough (I would have used about half a cup m ore flour and I think I acciden