Happy 16th Birthday Varsha.....

I have been missing from the scene for sometime....loads of work and plenty to upload.....

My lovely princess turned 16 last.....Happy birthday darling....May God bless you with the best of everything....Love Amma and Appa and also Kirenraj.........

For her birthday she decided to bake own cake and obviously a chocolate one too....She baked one of the same which did for her gathering at home with her friends....It turned out superb.....only she had a go on it without the topping............. Since she likes MnM's very much, I decided to decorate the car with it...so the colorful cake....

The first one she did was rather dark in color although moist and so today we decided to alter here and there.  Lets look at the recipes..............

Recipe courtesy of http://www.resipi.net/  This is one of those recipes that are simple and direct and plus you do not need a cake mixer...Ideal for beginners...

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup of cooking oil ( I used corn oil)
1 cup of castor sugar
1 cup of brown sugar

Ingredient (A)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup of fresh chocolate milk
1/2 cup of water mixed with 2tsb of nescafe

Ingredient (B)
2tsb sodium bicarbonate
1tsb baking powder
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
2 cups of self raising flour

Topping
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1/2 cup of condensed milk
1 tbs of oil

Method

1. Preheat oven at 170C
2. Grease the sides of the bottom and sides of the pan or lined it.
3. Sieve ingredients (B), set aside.
4. Mix all of ingredients (A) and set aside.
5. Whisk egg till it is fluffy.
6. Add sugar and whisk further.
7. Gradually add oil and whisk.
8. Add the dry ingredients (B) little by little alternating with the wet ingredients (A). Mix well
9. Bake for 1 hour or till done.
10. For the topping - add all the ingredients in a non stick pan, cook over slow fire till it looks glossy and ok.  Glaze over the cooled cake.

For the second cake, I omitted the brown sugar and use instead 2 cups of fine sugar, omited the choclate milk and nescafe - used 2 cups of fresh milk.

Divali - A Time to Rejoice.....

Have been busy lately and not able to post many dishes.....have to plan better.

Divali or Deepavali is just a few days away ~ November 5....This is our second time celebrating away from our homeland....

Being away does not means no celebration, as usual what is Divali without the many indian tradional snacks, cookies and cakes.....and more food on the divali day itself.

Wishing all a joyous and prosperous Divali ~ Inniya Deepavali Valzthukal, Divali Mubarak Ho.

I prepared muruku and acchi muruku with my mother's help.  Will share them with you later...I made a few types of cookies ~ Smarties Cookies (I have posted previously), Orange Sesame Cookies, Groundnuts & Almonds Cookies, Sujee Cookies & Honey Cornflakes (another one which I have posted earlier).

Signing off till we meet with the recipe updates/post in a few days - Divali Mubarak Ho...........Looking forward to nice time with friends and family...

p/s: picture greetings is Varsha's photography work....