ELMO cupcakes!

The theme for my friend 'B' 's kid's second birthday party was Elmo-a furry red muppet on the children's television show Sesame Street.The kids in love with this red monster with those big googly eyes and gum ball like nose.so B ordered the entire Sesame Street character cookies as party favours.To brighten things further there were Elmo plates,Elmo cups,Elmo cake,Elmo pinatas...it was fun and ofcourse my first ever cupcake.The idea for Elmo cupcakes was taken from the cupcake blog-http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/

It is fun decorating a cupcake provided you have time and patience ...i tried making the cupcakes from the scratch..the base is chocolate..The red grass on the cake is butter cream icing and used the icing tip #233.The eyes are marshamallows and black jelly beans and nose is an orange candy which resembles gum balls.

For m ore pics visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthwalks/

Breaking the B-R-E-A-K..

Spicy ulli chammanthi(with kappa n fish curry)

shallots-10

green chilly-3

vinegar-1 tablespoon

salt to taste

Crush the shallots and green chillies together and season it with vinegar and salt..

This ones my all time favourite!

Simple decorated sponge cake..

If you are the kind of person who has had many unsucessful attempts on decorating a cake like me...this one should not let you down:-)

Sifting sugar over a template makes a very quick, simple and stunning decoration.we can easliy make a template by drawing a pattern on clean card or wax paper and cutting it out cleanly.Just that you have to be genorous with sugar to give a strong design or colour the sugar with edible powder colours:-)Here's my first successful decorated cake.

Decorating a sponge cake:-

1)Dredge the top of the cake with confectioner's sugar.place any template of your choice(i chose a star) in position,laying them gently over the sugar.Dredge with unsweetened cocoa.

2)Use tweezers to remove the template,taking care not to split cocoa on the sugar.

And for the reason behind making this cake??

My buddy Maria of Maria'sMenu have passed on the rocking blogger award to Godzown!! Thanks to her for inspiring me to blog:-)

“The Rocking Girl Blogger Award” is for blogger’s ,who are girls or women, who blog and who Rock!!

I would like to pass on this award to Mini of Mini's Kitchen who started a blog recently dedicated to the 'Starters' in cooking.For all of us who miss our mothers cooking this blog is the one you are looking for!!!

I dedicate my simple decorated sponge cake to all the Rocking bloggers!!:-))

Cheers

GODZOWN

Fish curry-the bong way!

From what i have read and heard from people Bengal too is land of paddy fields and rivers full of fish just like Kerala.so why not explore their fish curry.The recipe above was adapted from a recipe found on the net.This meen curry should be a welcoming change for all of us who are used to cook fish with the kudampuli.Moreover this is the first time ever that i tasted bay leaves in fish.Myself and my hubby enjoyed this.hope you like this too!

For curry

8 pieces medium King fish

1 tblsp red chilli powder

4 dry red chillies

salt to taste

1 tsp mustard paste

2 green chillies slit

2 tblsp coriander powder

1 tblsp garlic paste

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 bay leaf

2 cup onions chopped

1 tblsp ginger paste

1 tsp turmeric powder

For marination

2 tblsp lemon juice
1 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste

Preparation:-
Marinate the fish with limejuice, turmeric powder and salt.
Keep aside for 30 minutes or else marinate it overnight.
Heat up a pan, mix in 1 tblsp oil, shallow fry marinated fish from both sides until slightly browned.
Take off and keep aside.

Heat up remaining oil, mix in mustard seeds, ,whole dry red chillies and bay leaf, stir fry for a few minutes till seeds crackles, mix in ginger, garlic paste and stir fry again for a moment.
Mix in cut onion and stir fry until slightly brown in colour.
Mix in mustard paste, red chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder, stir fry masala nicely until oil starts separating.
Adjust water and salt, bring to boil and then mix in shallow fried fish, put green chilli slits on top.
Stir fry on a slow flame until fish get cooked and oil starts floating on top of gravy.
Take off from the flame.

Source-Indian food forever