All my answers in Orange Lemon Sugarfree Panna cotta

“Orange is the happiest color.” says Frank Sinatra

After making Pannacotta for the February Daring Baker Challenge, with what else could I wish Babaji Happy birthday.... Making Parshad is always such a delight... :)

The Orange, Lemon Sugarfree panacotta is a winner all the way... why?
This is the single answer to so many dietary restrictions... Diabetic (Sugarfree), Egg Allergy(No Egg), Migraine(No Chocolate, No Coffee).

The song 'IF TODAY WAS YOUR LAST DAY' is ringing in my head..... Birthday's are the start of a new year.. a new you and what all would we really like to do....
Just can't get this song from the album Dark Horse by Nickelback out of my head.....

IF TODAY WAS YOUR LAST DAY LYRICS by Nickelback

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

If Today Was Your Last Day
and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday'
Would you live each moment like your last'
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have'
If today was your last day

Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the prize is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you'll never live it twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life

If today was your last day
and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday'
Would you live each moment like your last'
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have'
Would you call old friends you never see'
Reminisce of memories
Would you forgive your enemies'
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of'
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day

If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart'
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars
Regardless of who you are
So do whatever it takes
'Cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
Let nothin' stand in your way
Cause the hands of time are never on your side

If today was your last day
and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday'

Would you live each moment like your last'
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have'
Would you call old friends you never see'
Reminisce of memories
Would you forgive your enemies'
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of'
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day

Special Birthday Party & Trip for Mom ~ Hyderabad Here We Come

A WONDERFUL MOTHER.

GOD made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He molded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks, fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.
~Pat O'Reilly~

We went to Hyderabad to naniji n nanaji's [my maternal grandparent's] place in Hyderabad to celebrate my mom's birthday. Naniji had made a special pudding to be cut at midnight for mom, Chocolate, Bread, Hung Curd, Low Fat, No added Sugar, Walnuts & SUPER SPECIAL LOVE...... does it get better......

Birthday's are always special and should be celebrated with special people......

This is exactly what we did... We got my dadaji[my paternal grandfather] to travel after a gap of 25 odd years especially to celebrate mom's birthday with naniji n nanaji.... He was amazed at how much Hyderabad has changed over these years[more in the next post]. Pl do check out the similar scarves I got for both nanaji n dadaji to wear at the party[Did I want rivalry on who got the better one if I selected different ones... nah :)]... aren't they looking cute * Super big :) *


The joy of sharing this special evening with friends was a completely exhilarating :)

That's the bunch of really close friends.... nah... family.... Ashok Uncle, Naniji, Nanaji, Parveez aunty, Mom, Savita aunty, dadaji and Nalladaru uncle......
Ps: Nivritti and Chetan, you were missed a lot.....
These are the only pictures I could manage as taking pictures wasn't allowed at the Sailing Club.

This is what Nani n I made for mom..... Strawberry jelly served with fresh Oranges, Chocolate Orange Sugarfree Brownies and Chocolate fudge from a friend[which we shared with all the guests as party favours :), I loved the christmasy packing we did :)] along with the Midnight Chocolate Pudding....... now.. now... ain't that quite a spread.....

My mum ♥ has made me laugh :))).....Wiped my tears .....Hugged me tight.....Watched me succeed.....Seen me fall.....Cheered me on.....Kept me going strong.....And.....Drove me a *little* crazy at times .....But mums are a promise from God that you will have a friend forever! I love u mom for all this and MORE.....

Gunjan n Anuraag's Birthday Cookies n Chocolate Cake ~ Eating Your Words 2010

Happy Birthday Gunjan and Anuraag.....

They are both born on 1st of March... Different years ofcourse..... ;-)

Both of them work in the tech team of 99acres.com at Infoedge with me.....

We had a small cake cutting party in the lunch room.... [much after everyone left.... they just didn't want to share this cake....] so what did they do??????????????? They had got another cake from Nirula's which was used for smearing on their faces..... :-)

That's Sahil... Gunjan's hubby, who joined in for the celebrations... and got smeared along with them. He's very sweet and came all the way last year aswell ..... isn't that adorable... :-)

Bhaskar is our perpetual camera man... finally captured in front of the camera.... and Puneet also our photographer got smeared......

Bahut dino ke baad haath aaye ho.... holi bhi nahin kheli thi.... to lo phir.... cookie khao..... ;-)

My sister in the US came visiting and got me a load of goodies.... icing colours came calling when Gunjan asked me to make her cake COLOURFUL......... where i really got stuck was.... this was a common cake for a guy and girl.... what should I do?

After a lot of craziness in my head... decided that balloons are for celebrations irrespective of the gender...... took out my cookie cutter and baked away.....

The cake was a Chocolate Black out Cake, soaked with lots of rum and fabulously Chocolatey Ganache on top.....

This Post is off to Eating Your Words... 'Write, spell or draw’ using food or drink. A fun challenge hosted by Savor The Thyme and Tangled Noodle. Their Round up [Eating Your Words Roundup, Part I || Eating Your Words Roundup, Part II] for the last event was really fun....

So here's my entry for it... Cookies which spell the names of the Birthday gal and guy..... ANURAAG & GUNJAN....

Happy Birthday to both of you... :-)

Update: Eating Your Words... 'Write, spell or draw’ using food or drink, round up has been published by Savor The Thyme at Eating your Words 2010 Round Up and Tangled Noodle at Eating your Words 2010 Round Up

Chocolate Tiramisu ~ Amrita's Birthday

Happy Birthday Amrita..... Sisters certainly fall in the A-List of people who I bake for.....

The bon fire gave the evening such warmth.... The girls had a blast..... No chocolate facials this time....
Happy Birthday....

Army of cousins Tushar, Abhimanyu, Nivritti, Amrita and me... Chetan and Akshita... U were missed a lot.... Daksayani sends you her love from the kitchen... Add to this the friend brigade of Bennifer and Sheena...

Me bitten by the Tiramisu bug...... yes.....
Amrita says... but everyone whose coming likes chocolate.....
hmmmm.... adding Chocolate to Tiramisu can't be that tough..... :-)
Chocolate Tiramisu... Here I come..... I added Cocoa to the cream mixture after it reached soft peaks...

Daksayani also wishing Amrita didi while participating in making the Tiramisu..... and naughtily eating up lots of the cake... You can't miss the gleam in her eyes.... :-)
Daksayani polishing away the cake n freaking out at the sight of Cocoa aka Chocolate.... me adding the final touches with cocoa sprinkled on the top....
Find the entire recipe of the Tiramisu here...You Know.... It's For YOU, Tiramisu...
The Verdict:

Have a great time Amrita... Happy Birthday :-)

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..... :-)

Happy Birthday Vivek ~ Pineapple Upside Down Cake LOADED with RUM :-)

Happy Birthday, Vivek..... :-)

He's one of the pillars at Infoedge and one of my earliest mentors at Infoedge..... He's old wine that's been aging on the rack for over 10 years.....3rd March 1999 is when he joined Infoedge....

Isn't that ancient in an era where people change jobs at the drop of a hat.... Well am headed in a similar direction cause I've known Vivek for the last 7 years that we've been at Infoedge. He's one of the hardest and smartest working people I've ever known and learnt so much from and he is now the Business head of Jeevansathi.com after having worked his way up the techie ladder all the way to the top. Read more about his achievements here....

Readers, Long posts are boring... long posts are not read by most people..... So on n So forth...... But this is not a commercial website... This is my blog and I write about people n stuff I like..... This guy I like and revere a lot.... Brace yourself for a long post cause Vivek deserves this and a lot more......
His birthday deserved something special... He requested for 'Pineapple Upside Down Cake' and that's exactly what he got.... the bonus being LOADED with rum... :-)

That's his family.... Pushpanjali [did a Banofee Pie for her] and their darling princess...... n we all know who he adores more.... ;-)

That's Vivek with his favorite muse Pushpanjali in a 'Jab-We-Met' moment... They make such a lovely couple....

Vivek has this patent pose where he hides behind Pushpanjali...... like... alllllllllll the time....

The camera is his passion.... his work with it is just amazing... view some here.
This fabulous picture of mine is labeled ....'Vivek ke camere ka kamal'.... this was taken in office to try out his new flash and like WOW!!!!!!! The 2 guys jumping is Puneet M and Puneet C when we had gone to Tunganath.... What a trip it was, read about it here.

On the way to Tunganath we stopped over at a Dhaba outside IIT-Roorkie to have their favorite bread omlette and had quite an encounter with an extremely abusive owner... The hill top posing at Deveria tal was really worth the trek we did.

We have a blast at the parties at Vivek's place..... His favorite sorts of parties are those which have.... Booze and Cards. We've even played with plastic glasses n match sticks as money..... read more about beginners luck here. How hard all of them tried to tech me 3 patti [flash] but no avail.. I just can't deal with this game......

We played at a height of 8500 ft in Bir billing... first thing in the morning...... The view was amazing.

That's Vivek's feet dangling while parasailing in Billing, himachal pradesh at 8500 ft..... Check out more pictures of this awesome trip here. The dedicated guy to work that he is..... all of us are enjoying n Vivek's on the phone with Darshan in office checking sales reports and site performance...... poor Darshan.... ;-)

Camp Fires are his specialty.....
who even collects his own firewood... :-)

He's a deeply grounded guy who loves nature.....
These shots are spread out over Tunnganath, Manali, Leh, Rohtang Pass and Bali.... Yes, he driven to all these places and more..... Driving and Hills are something he's very passionate about....

This is his favorite picture of nature.... clouds rolled in within minutes of a clear sky to create this mystical shot.....

Pictionary is something Vivek n I both love... We've played pictionary in office n had really fun times...... We've even played in the train in the wee hours of the morning when finally the lady next door had to shush us up n break up our party.....

Pushpanjali is a great sport for themed parties and ensure that Vivek's also following the code.... That's us at my Red n White Theme birthday party..... Pl note he's in a red n white check shirt under the black jacket... :-)

His office cabin is right next to the conference room... people keep borrowing chairs for meetings and never return them.... what's the solution... he's got a notice pasted on his cabin door.... 'You can't take chairs from my room'.... and yes we love pulling his leg on it...... all the diwali party presentations feature this very prominently.....

The foodie that he is...... We gathered for the Gastronomical Tour of Chandni Chowk.....

We ate and ate ate and ate ate and ate ate and ate ate and ate ate and ate .......... till we were gonna burst........

Sharing was the only way we would get to taste all that was on offer in Chandni Chowk..... That's Vivek, Pushpanjali, Hitesh and Shalab sharing 1 glass of Nimbu Soda [Lemon Squash]

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Ingredients

For Topping:

1/2 medium pineapple, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and cored

3/4 stick unsalted butter

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

For Batter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 to 3 ground cardamom seeds

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon dark rum [I used 4 caps full, which is why this cake was LOADED with rum :-)]

1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice

2 tablespoons dark rum for sprinkling over cake

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Make Topping:

Cut pineapple crosswise into 3/8-inch-thick pieces.

Arrange pineapple on top of sugar mixture in concentric circles, overlapping pieces slightly. in a dusted cake tin.

Melt butter in a pan.

Add brown sugar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, 4 minutes till the sugar caramelises.

Remove from heat and pour over the arranged pineapples in the dusted tin.

Make Batter:

Sift together flour, cardamom, baking powder, and salt.

Beat butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in granulated sugar.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Beat in vanilla and rum.

Add half of flour mixture and beat on low speed just until blended. [Better still just fold it in]

Beat in pineapple juice, then add remaining flour mixture, beating just until blended. (Batter may appear slightly curdled.) [Better still just fold it in]

Spoon batter over pineapple topping and spread evenly. Bake cake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Let cake stand in the tin 5 minutes. [wait it it's slightly warm and not completely cold else the caramel may stick to the pan and not invert evenly]

Invert a plate over tin and invert cake onto plate (keeping plate and tin firmly pressed together). Replace any pineapple stuck to bottom of skillet.

Sprinkle rum over cake and cool on plate on a rack.

Serve cake just warm or at room temperature.

Verdict: The caramel was awesome and the cake vanished in minutes.....

Happy Birthday, Vivek.