Which child does not like M&Ms ( Gems )? I loved these as a kid and still love them – although, I cannot stand the ones with peanut butter!. Ishaan became a fan when both set of grandparents pampered him with Gems, he continued his love for these chocolaty goodness after coming back. My parents sent some more with my brother last week. He gets some after his swimming class these days.
I have been thinking about this cake for a long time. I thought kids would love it. I did not want the cake to be too chocolaty. So I chose a basic yellow cake recipe which my family loves. The cake became a huge hit. Since many of you who saw the cake on FB asked for the recipe, here it is.
I wanted to make a chocolaty filling/icing to cover the cake. A simple chocolate frosting would have done the job, but buttercream gives such a nice finishing. So I prepared the following chocolate buttercream, it was not as sweet as buttercream because of the amount of cocoa used.
Ingredients for chocolate buttercream : 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter 3 cups confectioner’s sugar 1 cup unsweetened cocoa 1 tea spn vanilla extract 1/2 cup (approx) milk
Method: Keep the butter at room temperature for few hours, so it becomes soft(not melted). Mix butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla extract. Keep adding milk in small quantities until you get required consistency.
How to put all together Bake the cake . Cut it horizontally. Spread a thick layer of chocolate buttercream. Then spread some chocolate chips – just for some added crunch. Keep the other layer. Cover the cake with chocolate buttercream and decorate as needed. Spread the M&Ms on top.
Few days ago, we had some friends visiting us. One friend suggested I make ragda pattis for them, I wanted to make something else for starters. Most of these friends are chicken lovers, so I thought of making chicken kababs. There is something very interesting about chicken on skewers – my family is not a big fan of skewers, but I love the look of them. Just to make them more interesting, I added some capsicum (green bellpeppers) and pineapple to them.
These were so easy to make – the time consuming thing was to put them on skewers and then grilling them. I did skewering while watching IPL match – Ohh, I am a big Rahul Dravid fan and loved watching him bat!. I would have baked them, but I had enough time left before my friends arrived. So I went ahead with grilling them on my cast iron grill pan. They went very well with green chutney that I prepared for ragda pattis. They were all gone in minutes. I wish I had prepared more!.
Ingredients: 1 lb(approx 0.45kg) boneless chicken 1 capsicum (green pepper) 10-12 pineapple pieces 2 tea spns ginger garlic paste 1Â tea spn cumin powder 1 tea spn coriander powder 2 tbl spns thick yogurt(curd) 1 tea spn chilli powder Salt
Method: Mix together yogurt, ginger garlic paste, cumin powder, coriander powder, chili powder, salt in a bowl. Add about 3/4 th of the marinade paste to chicken pieces and keep aside for 4-5hrs. Add remaining marinade to pineapple and capsicum pieces, mix well. Skewer chicken and vegetables. Heat a grill pan and grill them till chicken is done. Serve hot.
