Football is an incredible game... So make Football Cake for MAN-U Fan, Karan

Hey!!!! Karan.... Happy birthday....... 2 parties.... what fun.... :-)

“Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable.” Tom Landry.

Karan is crazy about football and as you would have guessed by now, his favorite team is Manchester United..... His cake had to have a Football on it.....

The cake is the same one these guys had earlier at Tarini's[Karan's sister] birthday... posted here . Karan's friends wiped out the cake really quick....

This cake was humongous effort cause..... I spent the entire night making this cake, started working on the cake at 10pm and finished at 2:35am.... and went to work after sleeping for 5 hours only....

This cake had me weeping over a failed cake for the first time..... Had made a cake the night before and thought will be organised n prepared..... Things don't always go as planned.... after i put the cake in to bake.... the oven stopped heating midway...... 2 such ovens went Kaput the same nite..... I was in tears to see my cake fail for the first time in so long....... Thank god I had a day's extra time at hand.....

Had to inform Vibha at midnight, that I would be able to make only 1 cake instead of 2...... Made me feel really bad..... Just had to make the cake cause Karan was very excited about a football cake......couldn't disappoint him.....

Finally all turned out well..... the cake was a smashing hit..... :-)

SMS from Karan's mom, "Hey Nachi! V late response, but have just wound up the party. The cake as always was amazing! took a few pictures, but not enough cause it got polished off in a jiffy! You surpassed yourself as usual... :-) Thanks a zillion. Can't get over your humongous effort! "

Chocolate... Will you be my Valentine?

It's that time of the year when love is in the air.... well... quite literally....... can see baloons flying everywhere.... so how can my baking be far behind.....

My friends showed me some love.... n for the first time... I was gonna be baking cakes to order, for Valentine's... so what is it that they want?

CHOCOLATE..... Pat came the reply....

Ok then, Hearts n Chocolate you will get... :-)

Bhaskar flying out to meet Onu.... 1 flight pack, heart shape cake coming up.....

Gunjan n Sahil fly out for a trip to Goa.... Another flight pack coming up... [even though i couldn't make it, atleast my cake went to Goa...]

Valentine's morning.... Anuj n Amit arive to pick up their cakes...

Anuj wanted to surprise his wife Sheetal.... Cup cakes for them and their 2 lovely girls....

Amit picked up the cake topped with Nutella for Amrita....

Are you in love yet... Nutella is the perfect answer.....

Nikhil's parents celebrated their anniversary a day later with a surprise cake......

My sister's birthday is on the 15th... some valentine love for her and the kids.....

The kids wanted to blow the candles n eat the cake before we could say C-A-K-E.

After all that cake, we had to peel the kids off the wall with all that sugar in them... they were bouncing off the walls... :-)

That's little kanaav with his mommy, masi n big sisters...

Off this post goes to a Valentine’s Day Special event, by Nina of Confessions of a Bake-a-holic!. The recipe for the 'Chocolate Black out Cake' I made for Valentine's is here....

Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) in Star Trek(The Next Generation) echoes me, when she said 'I never met a chocolate I didn't like.'

Update: nina's round up of 'Bake-a-Cake Event' is posted on her blog.

Chocolate Blackout Cake ~ Happy Birthday Tarini

Happy Birthday Tarini....


Celebrating at home...

Special 'Chocolatey' and 'Anything Full of Chocolate' cake for the naughty imp....

Sharing with Vibha[her mum], Vivekji,[her dad] along with nani n dadi.

Her brief was.....'Chocolatey' and 'Anything Full of Chocolate' cake.... so there you go girl... Chocolate Blackout Cake.... with Rum soaked raisins, Cocoa-Creme center and Chocolate Ganache icing......
The basic cake recipe here.

The verdict:
They loved it..... have been getting ping after ping..... am so glad they liked it.... The B'day girl n her mom loved it..... :-)

Kaanav's Zero(th) Birthday!!!

It started with my status message on facebook " Sounds preposterous n assumptious yet it's true....... The Mud Cake at Big Chill needs serious help.... am so so so disappointed with the cake.
The Liberation Party with Chocolate Blackout Cake was much better ~ http://thevariable-nachiketa.blogspot.com/2009/08/liberation-party-with-chocolate.html"

In reply Shruti wrote "really.... tats so depressing! coz tat's my fav...."

To which I said "Shruti: u want some cake? are you allowed chocolate cake? I know I can swing the clubs in my favour instead of big chill in this case :-)"

(That's the Mummy n Daddy-to-be)

I made her the Chocolate Blackout Cake at nite and went to see her in the morning before getting to work. This was the day before my nephew 'Kanaav' was born... Hence the post is titled "Kanaav's Zero(th) Birthday", he ate his cake even before he was born... ;-)
His Masi 'Esha' and Tai 'Geetayani' had made lovely posters to welcome him home.....
He's just so adorable n cute... :-)

The Proud Parents - Shruti & Rohit

She's gonna get a repeat dose around New Year's Eve..... :-)

Liberation Party with Chocolate Blackout Cake

12th August was Shalvika's B'day and she decided to have a party on 15th August [India's Independence day] and gave it a theme of Liberation....

We planned the menu, decor, guest list and lots of other nitty gritty for the party. I offered to do the cake and dip as it was a holiday and how could a 'Foodus Bloggerus'.[ Click here to know what a 'Foodus Bloggerus' is.] like me let this pass.....

Happy Birthday Shalvika.......



The brief was chocolatey chocholate cake.........Hmmmm set my brains ticking........ Thought of the 'Chocolate Blackout Cake'.... warm moist n awesomely chocolatey.....

I had found this treasure at sundaynitedinner.com and just loved it. This time I made it without the pudding.

Had a really good time making the cake. Have made it once before for Babaji and then for Surbhi n Mohit in Hyderabad. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Just that I've not posted cake before. It has a story of it's own...... Will do a separate post on that and how Deeba[yet again :-)] came to my rescue the first time I had done this cake.

Since I was baking for a party of 20 people, did 2 cakes.

Am glad to report, the cake was a hit. I loved it too. I can generally not eat what I cook on that day. I eat the dishes/cakes cook/bake, the next day. This cake was different, i stuffed myself on it after a couple of shots :-)




Chocolate Blackout Cake Recipe

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa (preferable Dutch processed)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup brewed coffee, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 dozen chocolate wafer cookies

Directions To make the cake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Lightly butter 2 (8-inch) cake pans and line with parchment. Butter the parchment and flour pans, shaking out the excess.
• Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Reserve.
• In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon-colored. Beat in vegetable oil.
• Alternately add dry ingredients with buttermilk, scraping the bowl once or twice.
• Add the coffee and vanilla to form a thin batter.
• Divide between prepared cake pans.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto cooling racks, peel off paper and cool completely.

I didn't follow the next teps for the cake this time. I used chocolate glaze instead.

• When cool, split each cake in half with a serrated slicing knife.
• Spread bottom layer with 1/4 of the reserved chocolate pudding.
• Repeat with remaining layers, ending with pudding on top.
• In a food processor, pulse the cookies into crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the cake.

Makes 12 servings
[Adapted from Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts]