Gajar ka Halwa (A Dessert Made With Carrots)

These days, we have gajar ka halwa made every other day at our home. The recipe that ma is using is actually my grandmother's. I'm going to post it here. It might not be clear enough because it's a housewife's-own-precision kinda recipe. Plus, I asked my ma to tell me and have loosely translated how she and grandmother would explain it. Like, I asked ma to tell me the ingredients first but she said, "No, you just note them as they come." =D

Basically you will need 1 kg of carrots, 1 cup of sugar, about a cup of malai (cream), almonds and raisins and some ghee (clarified butter)

Peel the top most skin of the carrots and wash them. Cut them into small cubes. Grind the carrots in a chopper until it is almost paste-like. Then add the cup of sugar. Preheat your oven and keep this mixture in the heat for about 15-20 minutes. (The temperature should be just enough to heat it well)

Now, place the mixture on the stove and add the cup of malai (cream) Stir it well till you see ghee rising on the surface. (Apparently this ghee is from the malai)

Fry sliced almonds and rainsins in ghee (clarified butter) and use them for garnishing. And you're done! A delicious dessert is ready! I'm gonna go have some now! 

Marble Cupcakes Adventure

I am still in the process in learning how to bake and cook and I consider myself as a beginner. I, therefore, find it simpler to bake from ready made cake mixes. But once in a while, I like to try out making something from scratch. On my good friend Mehwish's blog, I found a recipe of marbled cupcakes. Cupcakes are just my favorite things to bake and I vowed I would give these a try. When I read the recipe aloud to my sister, my first question was, what kind of measurement is "oz". She found it very funny for some reason. Anyway, I learnt it's actually an ounce. (You see why I call myself a beginner now?)
I was just waiting to buy some butter and get started. The impatient person I am, as soon as I got butter, I wanted to make them. My friend was asleep at the time. I looked up her recipe and I started converting ounces to cups/tablespoons. I knew that sugar, flour and butter weigh differently. So I did the math and wrote on a paper what I'd be needing. Didn't have self rising flour so googled that too. And then I began. As I got the flour out and mixed it with baking powder, I somehow felt that the quantity of flour looked way too much. I asked Ammi and she told me to google it again. So after discussion with Ammi I realized just in time that I had over 4 cups of flour when I needed actually just one and a bit more. =D
I messed up the kitchen and I wasn't sure how the cupcakes would turn out because of my clumsiness in measuring BUT thanks to Mehwish's accurate instructions, they turned out just perfect. \(^.^)/

Cup Cakes!

Cupcakes I discovered are just cake batter poured into little paper cups! But somehow they're cuter than a cake. People design such wonderful things with cupcakes. So I got hold of a Betty Crocker French Vanilla Cake mix and tried them out!
The french vanilla smell was so awesome while they baked.

Made some icing with fresh cream.....

 and sprinkled the colored bits!

   

Sewing and Cooking!

I sewed my first felt toy yesterday. :i It's a doll. I stuffed the body with cotton and used blanket stitch all around.

Deciding the hair for Betty was tricky since I didn't have any yarn. The first hairstyle I had for her made her look like a nun. =P So finally I came up with this:

Sewing the little dress for her was delightful! :d

I came across my barbie's furniture and Betty cooked herself a meal.....

.....and then she took a nap! ;)

Doll pattern used is from here.

I also tried a little cooking today and made spicy deep fried chicken. It turned out to be awesome. :e All thanks to Tehniat's recipe here. :)

This is my first attempt at cooking probably and I'm going to try more things soon! Keep checking back! :) :r

Cake it!

My sister made me day dream of her baked items and then she simply decided not to bake. =P

So I had to do something about it and so I decided to give baking a try myself. Of course, I needed help and my sister eventually got excited herself.

And it was a hit. Because I suppose no one basically expects me to do these kind of things. =P

But baking is exciting. And yummy. =D

The cake fresh out of the oven...
and then we added icing...


and sprinkle some colorful things....
And it was READY to eat! =D

This is how we do it in our family. We graduate...and then we bake. =P

So I guess you can expect more, coming soon. ;)