Sausage open puffs

I always get surprised how kids gets attracted to sausages. My son loves them. I have to have to keep a pack of sausages in my freezer all the time. Sausages are sometimes substituted with frankfurters too. Even we go to choose and pay bakeries, it's the sausage bun or croissant which finds a place on the tray. Here is a wonderful and simple recipe that I have for Sausage open puffs. Super simple and super delicious!

Ingredients:-

- 110 g plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 2 whole eggs
- 300 ml milk
- 10 g butter, melted
- oil for greasing tins
- 6 pork/chicken sausages

This is how you make them:

- Sieve flour and salt into a bowl, make a well in the drop in the eggs.
- Using a whisk, stir in drawing the flour to the centre. Add the milk and keep whisking, then add the butter. Put aside for 1 hour.
An optional step: You can lightly fry your sausages, you don't have to cook them all the way through, as they'll be cooking in the oven later.
- Grease generously a 9 or 12 hole, deep muffin tin, put half a sausage in each hole and place the tray in preheated to 200 C oven.
- Bake for about 3 minutes until the grease is hot.
- Take quickly out of the oven and fill to two-thirds full with the batter. Put back to the oven straight away and bake for about 20 minutes or until well risen and golden brown. Serve warm.

My new interest in Suprise Inside cakes - Daring Baker's July Challenge

For the July Daring Baker’s Challenge, Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to bake a cake. But not just any cake; she asked us to add in a special surprise for our eyes as well as our taste buds!


July is full of birthdays and my dad's falls on the 4th. What could be a better occasion than this to bake a cake which I haven't baked ever before. Ruth's challenge this month got me super excited because I had never thought of baking a surprise inside cake. So, I decided to make a 3 layered pink shaded rose cake. The recipes have been tried from Iambaker.net and I have to agree the cake turned out really nice and sweet. Probably a little more sweet than required;-)

The icing is a simple butter cream frosting and the cake has layering of kiwi fruit jam, sugar syrup soaking and icing. To reduce the sweetness, you could avoid the jam spread and just go for a simple sugar soak. 

Here is what I used:-

Ingredients for the cake:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups milk

1/8 cup vegetable oil

1 stick butter, softened

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs

For the butter cream icing:            

           

7-8 cups of powdered sugar (if you want less sweet, take less sugar)

1 cup shortening 

2 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 cup - 3/4 cup milk

This is how I made it:

- Take all the dry ingredients and sift them into a bowl using a sifter

- Place the softened butter into a stand mixer and beat it for a few minutes 

- Add the dry ingredients and beat them with the butter for another couple of minutes

- Add the milk, oil, vanilla and eggs and mix them high mode for a minute

- Pour batter into prepared pans and Bake at 350 till fork or needle comes out clean

For the frosting, 

- Beat the shortening and vanilla in a mixer for 5mins. Add powder sugar 1 cup at a time along with 1 Tbsp of milk. This is for a creamy consistency.

Take one layer of cake at a time, brush with the sugar syrup, add the icing and jam and then add another layer. Cover up with the remaining butter cream and then make the roses with a piping tool. 

A butter free, oil free and care free Sponge Cake to begin with

Today afternoon I attended a baking class where we baked with summer fruits like plums, cherries and mangoes. We learnt how to make lemon curd and plum preserve apart from interesting desserts like Mango Trifle cake, Cherry Clafoutis, and also a scottish shortbread. What stuck with me was a simple Sponge cake that was made to make the Mango Trifle cake. It was delicious, soft and airy and completely oil/butter free. Till I saw and ate it (a huge portion), I couldn't believe that there could be a Sponge cake so delicate and delicious and that too, without butter. So, I thought why not begin this blog with this amazing find.

A butter free, oil free and care free Sponge Cake

6 Ingredients needed:

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 lemon’s juice

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degs. Grease and flour a 9” tin.  A baking parchment can also be used

Beat the eggs and sugar with a whipping tool till it is thick and pale

Add the lemon juice and vanilla essence

Sift the flour and baking powder and fold into the mixture

Gently stir it with a Spatula so that you don’t loose the air. Don’t whip the mixture.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25-35 minutes, till golden and cooked in the center

For a printable version A butter free, oil free and care free Sponge Cake

Introducing Chiclet and Poppin's Bakehouse!

I grew up eating Chiclets and Poppins. Chiclets was chewy with no possibility of popping like a bubble gum as much you tried, yet with distinct fruity flavor and taste. Poppins was rainbow in a roll. So beautiful to look at, translucent, round and the sweetest candy that one could have ever had. As I would pop either of them in my mouth and stroll inside the house, my feet would vehemently take me to the kitchen where my mother stood and cooked. As much as my mother would want me to help her out in the kitchen, I would make some excuse and wander around her. Not to mention a few taunts of how my future looks bleak when I get married or go to my inlaw's and her embarrassment when they come to know about my non-existing culinary skills. As for my mother, she could cook anything from a murg mussalam to a cheesy,baked vegetables in bechemel sauce to a tender, juicy bread crumbed fish fry and that too for an army load of guests and family members, invited and uninvited. She would cook and I (and my brother) would eat. All absolutely heavenly, incomparably delicious fare, each day.

Apparently, all the wandering with Chiclets and Poppins didn't go waste. Over the years (including my marriage to a carnivorous two legged specie) it seems that the wandering really helped. It definitely made me a cook! Apart from the aromas of each dish that my mother cooked, I absorbed their distinct tastes and their recipes unknowingly. My passion for cooking moved a level up and I started delving in baking. What triggered this was again Chiclets and Poppins. Not the candies, but my two gorgeous kids - a 3 year boy (Poppins) and a two month old girl (Chiclet)- who make everything around me sweet, colorful, distinct and fruity. So, this blog is for the Chiclet and Poppins in my life and all the baking that's done in their personal bakehouse.