Blueberry Cake

The story of blueberry cake started a year ago when I began to have dessert lunch. Dessert lunch? Yes lunch. My department's cafeteria serves "all-you-can-eat" dessert buffet every Wednesday for just 1.70 Euros. Myself, Somjai and Liping (office colleagues and very good friends) visited every Wednesday sincerely to get indulged. Usually two varieties of cake, mousse, ice cream, pancakes with strawberry jam and apple crisp were served. Most of the time, blueberry cakes with vanilla sauce used to be in the buffet menu. Every time I relished, wanted to bake the cake by myself. 

I searched for various recipes, gathered ideas and combined to one recipe. Though I couldn't share/eat with Liping and Somjai (both the ladies were out of country) I happily ate with Vinoo. She is my baking/cooking partner, a  person who loves dessert/food, makes ultimate pasta and has best eye for wine. We invariably enjoy cooking and "eating together" as it is considered healthy. I baked this cake during late winter, but now it's all green and bit warmer. These pretty blue flowers were first street flowers during early spring.

                                                                                 Roadside Romeo

                                                                           Blueberriesssssssssssss

                                                                        All you need for the cake

                                                                                Egg white peaks!

                                                                                     Gentle folding

                                                                           Coated blueberries

 

                                                      On to the cake batter and ready to be baked

                                                              I love  with excess of vanilla sauce 

 

For Recipe read more >>

Spring through Ananda's Lens

A Week before Spring was finally in Finland. I enjoyed the day, walking in woods and around my apartment. It was great fun, few flowers smelled good, some didn't,  the closer I went to take few shots the faster I started to sneeze :) Ended the day eating a gorgeous, strawberry and chocolate ice cream. Here are few pictures I clicked. For more check my fickr account  Ananda Rajashekar-A pinch of love.

                                               This white beauty brought fragrance to the city!

                                                                          Early stages of wild blue berry

 

                  Red :)

                                                                                   Growing moon!

                                                                  Loved the texture, design and color

                                                                      We unite as we grow

                                           I never thought pink and yellow will look good together

                                                                                       Blue darlings!

                                                        
                                                                                               Beauty!

                                                                                                  Fern

                                     

                     Yet to reach the sky!

                       
                                         

                                                                                                  Lovely....

                           
                                                                                                  Yum!

Baked - Shredded Chicken Gravy

Am sure many of us miss mum's food, especially when we are far from home. No wonder why mum's food is delicious, because they cook with total devotion and love for their  children. During last Christmas holidays, when I was in India, I was busy with my new camera taking pictures in and around my home. Mum was making many varieties of food for me, particularly with the veggies and  country chicken  that I don't get in Finland.  I still remember the taste of country chicken gravy! Ohhh yum!

To expect something similar from modern broilers is out of question. But to be happy with what we get is considered wise. So I came up with baked chicken gravy. This gravy tasted best with Finnish dry bread. It goes very well with any bread or rice.

                                                          Full moon hidden between the clouds

                                        Mum organizes fresh flowers in water filled earthen pot

                                                                                    Ingredients

                                                    Chicken - Baked, shredded and the broth

                              

                                                                             Ready to be served 

                                                                                  Glorious full moon

For Recipe read more >>

Apricot White Chocolate Pulla

Am excited to express that Google has started to recognize my blog "happy dance". I celebrated by doing some shopping (ofcourse, indeed) at an antique shop (to be honest it was more or less an old market). I managed to pick those cutie little stuffs :)

Have decided to introduce names of my friends or people I encounter in my day to day life instead of me saying, my "this" and "that" friend. As a bond between me and novel world has started to form through my blog. So why not?

Today's recipe, yes the color says it all, it's basically Easter bread. I relished this extra soft "moist" pulla at Marjut (my department's office secretary,  very warm and friendly person) house during Easter. Fell in love with white chocolate apricot combination. Immediately got the recipe from her, but it took more than a year for me to bake. Soon you will see many white chocolate based desserts, yes lately am drifting towards white chocolates.

Pulla is basically a sweet/dessert bread/bun. There are many different varieties of pulla. One that anyone would drool on is cinnamon pulla. I do have the recipe, hopefully it doesn't take another one year for me to bake :)

I binged on couple of slices soon after photo session, when it was still warm. It tastes great with milk. Tea and coffee can be other options. Hope you all will enjoy the wonderful combination of apricot and white chocolate, don't forget to mix a pinch of love.

                                          These are the one I picked from so called antique shop

                                                             Very famous gifts for Easter!

                                                                   Ingredient and dough procedure

                                                
                                                                                   For fillings

                                                            White chocolate in to cheese curd

                                                
                                                                                        Diced apricot

                                                                               Ready to be rolled

                                                                         Perfect for Easter gift!

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White Chocolate Raspberry Macadamia Cake

This is truly a special cake. When cakes come with challenges, am at my upper maxima. I love challenges. It required lot of patience, had to be slow and go step by step. But efforts paid when everyone enjoyed it. I made it for girls "dessert" evening it was perfect combo with some tea and coffee.

Raspberry with chocolate will make world's best yum couple. Macadamia brought an interesting twist in couple. Not too hard, nor too heavy but subtle and crunchy was enough to take me straight to heaven. I brought organic macadamia nut and roasted larger quantity than required for cakes, they were quite irresistible.

I can go endless singing glories about this special cake. Original recipe is form fine cooking, but used it only for preparing the cake with macadamia nut. Rest made my own raspberry rum filling and white chocolate ganache.

                                                                          Frozen Raspberries

                                                                          The Chocolate Leaves

                                                                                Raspberry fillings

                                                           Cake ingredients and cake procedures 

                                                             Baked cake and assembling cake layers

                                             Preparing chocolate ganche and coating it on cake

For Recipe read more >>