Momos

 I first heard of momos  (dumplings) from my aunt,who I must say is a genius at Maths and you will wonder what it has to do with momos.... Anyways,  apart from being a famous Maths teacher she does a lot of community service at the church and that's where she encountered momos and the beautiful hands (as described by her) of these East Indian ladies, who made a huge quantity of momos for the church fete, I suppose. 

My aunt told me how easy it was to make momos, but it did not make any sense to me as I was not interested then. 

6 months later Cajie, Roy and Shawn went trekking the harsh terrain of Ladakh and beautiful Leh. Check it out. http://cajie.blogspot.com/2012/08/trekking-padum-to-lamayuru-day-2.html?m=1

On their return from their adventurous trek Cajie mentioned to me that Shawn had relished momos in Leh, the other being Maggie noodles while trekking Ladakh. 

Now, all of a sudden the word momos sounded interesting. I looked up the net and there it was. That evening we had momos for dinner. Shawn relished them. The end... 

Momos 2

After nearly two and a half years I felt the need for change to the regular mince meals. We mostly eat it plain with bread or chappatis or sometimes rice. Occasionally I make mince rolls with soft crepes, or simply add the mince  to a bowl of macaroni or pasta. And on special occasions I make stuffed mince buns....(will save the post for sometime later).

Ok, so I go back to the net for the oh so simple recipe of momos.  Here it is http://m.wikihow.com/Make-Momos    

See how easy it is to make momos!! As for the filling, you can very well go with whatever you have available, beef, chicken, pork, veggies, even Yak meat as originally made in Nepal and Tibet. It takes the same amount of time as you would to make chappatis or crepes. 

               A spoonful on a palmful. 

Momos can be steamed as well as fried. We like it steamed. 20 minutes in the steamer and they are done.

 Hmmm, it's awesome!!! And they taste yummy!!!

Momo, I want more....

Delicious No-bake Mango Cheesecake.

It's the season of Indian Alphonso mangoes and while you can make mango shakes, mousses, ice-cream, chutneys, jams, preserves or eat them plain, I preferred to make a no-bake cheesecake for the family. 

Introduced to home bakers guild on Facebook, I stumbled on this tried and tested, liked and commented, bragged about no-bake mango cheesecake. No jokes on the bragging... Once you have eaten it you will brag about it yourself.  

You will find the recipe here :

http://sizzleanddrizzle.com/2013/05/19/no-bake-mango-cheesecake/ 

Now "hung curds" could probably be your concern. You start with taking 700 grams of the curd and place it in a clean white cloth, tie around and hang it for 6-8 hours till all the water is drained out. You will be left with 300 to 320 grams of curds.  You are now good to start with preparing the cheesecake... 

Here's my take on the no-bake mango cheesecake. 

 The smooth, silky, velvety no-bake              Mango Cheesecake. Delicious!!!! 

Couple of things I would adjust. 

1. Melt 100 grams butter (instead of 60 grams) and add to the powdered Digestive biscuits. 

2. Soak / Bloom the gelatine prior to straining the mango purée. (Saves time).

3. Garnish / decorate the cheesecake with thinly sliced mango wedges. 

You can enjoy this desset any time of the day.  We actually had it at tea time. 

A must try.... 

Rabdi

After all that baking and decorating over the past few weeks, I wanted to make something different; a dessert for a change : Rabdi.. 

Thanks to Reena Martins who added me to the group "Chef at Large" on Facebook.  The place is great to share your recipes, food pictures and link to others recipes, like this recipe of Rabdi.    A member on CAL who prepared this recipe was kind enough to share it.

A little about Rabdi...  Rabdi is a delicious Punjabi (North Indian) dessert.  It is made from full fat milk, which is cooked with sugar on a slow flame and allowed to thicken. Cardamom and dry fruits are added half way through the cooking process to add flavour. Traditionally it should take about a little less than 2 hrs or even more to prepare it. But here's a recipe of delicious rabdi that can be made in 30 mins.   Here's the link 

http://www.madhurasrecipe.com/desserts/Rabdi

Yes, this one takes 30 minutes only. 

Great dessert. And must say I enjoyed it. Last I remember eating Rabdi at my  

aunt's friend's wedding, some 25 plus 

years ago. 

Rabdi for dessert, bahut swaadish 

(yummy). Enjoy!!!! 

Fairy Cake

Now, this is an old cake, but I just wanted to share it.

I am quite proud of this cake and I couldn't hold back showing you.

Psych! It's actually Erika but I love this cake and I think my mom did a good job. Round of applause for my mom's creativity!

Small Wedding Cake : White and Gold.

You are not going to believe this . This is the first wedding cake I have made. 

Yes, officially the first wedding cake.  The only other two wedding cakes I made were for my brother's wedding and my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. Well I have made two and three tier cakes for other occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and engagement, so making this one was a piece of cake. 

I was expecting the bride to be like all other brides, having in mind her dream cake for her wedding. This bride had just one thing in mind "gold". I was left clueless. I  gathered information on this gold color theme with regards to the bridal bouquet, bridesmaids dresses, decor and based on that decided on making gold roses. 

I went back to the youtube video made by Erika on how to make roses out of play dough http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6FK44JhxSgE

She was barely 6 years old when she showed us how easy it was to make roses. Won't you agree?

The cake was red velvet,  filled with buttercream and covered with white fondant. I brushed the fondant roses with a dash of gold luster dust. 

The bride loved it...(I was told that a portion of the cake was headed to Goa for family who could not make it to Kuwait for the wedding). 

Done with the first wedding cake, and the very next day I got an order for another wedding cake. That's coming up in June. Stay tuned as I will post my experiences here. 

Till then Mother's day celebrations!!! 

It's not Priscilla!

Hello everyone! This is not really Priscilla but her 10 year old daughter instead. My name is Erika if you don't know. This is me playing a sort of prank on my mom. I'm always telling her to blog, but I get no reply. Every post that she posts I'll get real excited. So I'm blogging for her. Hehehe. Okay, bye!

Red Velvet madness

That was a long wait since my first post. I have been marathon baking since then.. Baking nothing but red velvet cakes and cupcakes. Red velvet madness!!!! It's been the flavour of the month, or should I say, the season. With 144 cupcakes for a 1st Holy Communion party, I lost count of how many cupcakes I had baked, and had to empty my refrigerator to accommodate these beauties. 

Decorating 144 cupcakes was not an easy task. There was buttercream and cupcakes all over the kitchen, covering every inch of counter space. 

A red velvet cupcake with a swirl of sweet yummy buttercream and a fondant disc for the host with a dash of gold and green sugar sprinkles (party theme colors) made a perfect 1st Holy Communion cupcake. 

Transporting the cupcakes was going to be a daunting task, without having to toss the boxes. It was only right to have them packed in big sturdy boxes, making it easy to handle. 

 

3 boxes accommodating 48 cupcakes in each box, well thought. All the cupcakes arrived their destination safe and sound.

Phew!!!!  

Had to treat myself my favorite Pani Puri before heading home. 

Meet Me...

Hello,

At last, here I am blogging. I, Priscilla Barretto, consider myself a cake artist. I have been decorating cakes since 2002. It has been my passion and obsession. Hence my website www.cakeobsessed.com.  Baking and cake decorating leave me with very little time for anything at all, but my 10 year old daughter Erika who has her own blog, www.allabouterikabarretto.blogspot.com, has inspired me to blog. 

Now that I have started blogging you will see more of Priscilla and all that Priscilla makes, until then red velvet cupcakes!!!