Spiderman Cake Pops - 1

School reopened for my preschooler in August. With that, all the invitations for birthday parties also started. So the child was pretty upset that his birthday is not coming soon enough. April is way too far and he had some meltdowns when I said he has to wait for 6 more months. When he started repeating the same question again and again, I told him I will make him something special for his 4 and 1/2 birthday. So he started counting down days for that. He wanted a big party, so to set the expectations, I told him he will get spiderman cake pops for the special day. (A friend had sent me this Spiderman Candy Apples link , I know he wouldn’t care for candy apples, so I thought of cake pops instead). He gladly agreed. He told me, “I will taste one, if I like, I will take to school and share them with my friends!!”. Lets just say I was really glad that day his school was closed, so I didn’t have to make some 20+ cake pops.

Most of the cake pops I have seen are prepared with crumbling a cake, adding some buttercream to it and then forming balls. I did not want to make that this time since I felt buttercream makes the pops very sweet. My child is not too much into sweets. He eats cakes once in a while, but not too much. He loves chocolates though. So after a lot of googling, I found out about cake pop pans which I got at Target .

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I used eggless chocolate cake recipe for my pops. I used half the quantity which was perfect for the pan. The cake pop pan is greased with butter and sprinkled with flour. Unlike a muffin pan, each pop mold is filled completely (only one half of the pan) and then the other half is kept on it and locked. So when the cake bakes, it fills up the other half to get perfect rounds. I baked it for 15mins. The I let it rest till it was cooled completely and then removed the pops from pan. Then with a sharp knife, removed any round rings on the pops that were caused by oozed out cake batter.

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In a cup, I melted some white chocolate chips. Each pop stick was then dipped into chocolate and inserted into pops. Then chilled in fridge till the chocolate is completely set.

Here is where the problems started!. I melted some chocolate and then colored it red. I kept mixing it and it all became mushy. Then I remembered something that I had read somewhere. Do not mix white chocolate too much!. So next batch I was lot more careful. Once the chocolate was melted, I dipped each pop into the colored chocolate. I had to be really careful here since they started falling apart, so I had to move quickly and carefully. Then I refrigerated them back till the chocolate was set.

Then I drew eyes with white buttercream and webs with black buttercream.

Spiderman Cake Pops - 18 Chicken Curry with Black Cardamom - 19

Last December when I was pregnant with Ayaan, I had invited few of my friends and their parents (who were visiting them) to dinner. I told aunty that I love chicken and she told me she will make something for me. She had only 1-2 weeks until she returned to India. She was very sweet to take out time in the busy schedule to cook and send a big batch of chicken curry.

If there is one spice that is commonly used in Indian cooking that I cannot stand, it is black cardamom. I have tried it in different ways and somehow I never liked the aroma of it. But that cardamom did something magical to this chicken curry. It reminded me the chicken curry that I used to love eating in restaurants back home. I won’t lie, I did not want to share it with V or Ishaan. Yes, I was very mean. Comeon, I was 7 months pregnant and someone had sent me something that I really loved. I must have given them just few spoons of curry and I pretty much finished everything else. Then I asked aunty for the recipe and she was very kind to share it with me.

I have tried this couple of times. I did not want to buy black cardamom for this one dish, so I prepared it without that few times. But it never came out like aunty’s. Then I bought a small pack of black cardamom and tried again and it made such a huge difference to the curry.

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Pictorial: Half cook the chicken in spices. Heat oil and fry whole spices, ginger-garlic paste. Add the powders, fry for few minutes. Add chicken and cook.

Spiderman Cake Pops - 32

Chicken Curry with Black Cardamom

Ingredients

  • 1 kg Chicken
  • 1 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 cup roughly chopped onion this will go into paste
  • 1 cup of dry coconut
  • 2 tbl spn poppy seeds khuskhus
  • 1 tbl spn sesame seeds til
  • 2 tbl spn ginger garlic paste
  • A pinch turmeric
  • 2 tbl spn coriander powder
  • 1 tbl spn red chili powder
  • 1 tbl spn spn garam masala
  • 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
  • Salt

Whole spices :

  • 2 " cinnamon
  • 2-3 cloves
  • 3-4 black cardamom masala velchi/moti elaichi
  • 3-4 peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves

Instructions

  • Dry roast poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dry coconut, cool them and grind to powder.
  • In a pan, heat oil and fry the roughly chopped onion till they are golden brown and grind to a paste.
  • Heat oil and add finely chopped onion, 1 tbl spn ginger garlic paste.
  • Fry till the onions are translucent.
  • Add turmeric, coriander powder, red chilli powder, fry for a minute.
  • Add the chicken, salt and cook till chicken is halfway cooked.
  • In a separate pan, heat oil and add whole spices.
  • Add remaining ginger-garlic paste, ground coconut, poppy seeds, sesame seed powders, onion paste, cardamom powder, garam masala.
  • Fry for few minutes and then add the half cooked chicken.
  • Add water to bring it to required consistancy. Adjust salt.
  • Serve hot.