Red Velvet Comparison

Mostly, I am a student making do with a student flat. But sometimes, I am a daughter luxuriating in the comforts of Home.

Here, I have a photo comparison of two Red Velvet Cakes. The recipe comes, as ever, from about.com and the only things I changed were to, again - as ever, halve the amount of sugar and change the "shortening" for butter.

This first one I made at my flat, last year... I baked it for a dessert party I didn't quite make it to... I even bought the buttermilk especially for it! (I made yummy pancakes with the leftover buttermilk!) It was moist, chocolatey, red and delicious. The icing, guiltily from a can (it was on special...) has put me off ever purchasing the trans-saturated goop ever again, but hey! On top is melted chocolate and jelly crystals.

So although the cake itself was yummy enough to convince me that I definitely wanted to make it again - I wanted a slightly more chocolatey effect and definitely wanted to do my own icing...

Enter the Indian Red Velvet Frisbee - where I experimented with a different recipe... And ended up with a practically deep fried disc - which our hostess gamely tried to revive by serving it in a banoffee-type trifle, but really it was beyond redemption and I was too disheartened to photograph it.

Upon returning home - I had my 20th Birthday all over again (2.0) and I really wanted a Red Velvet Cake that worked! So, I returned to about.com added a little extra cocoa, halved the sugar and made my own icing... The result? Possibly the best cake I've ever eaten... And here it is!

Moist, sticky, even more chocolately, deep blood red - and that cream cheese with vanilla bean icing? To die for! Yum! Guess what kind of cake I'm having for my 21st...

The biggest difference between flat-cake and home-cake was the affordability of ingredients. And with a whole bottle of red food colouring in it - Red Velvet Cake is never gonna be a budget friendly cake. But as a Birthday blow-out, about.com's Red Velvet Cake recipe is a reliable show stopper.

Stay tuned for flat-friendly cakes to come.... 

Daring Bakers: India-Scented Yeasted-Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.


Now, that's the formalities out of the way... :) I joined the daring bakers - now each month I am challenged to bake a new and exciting recipe!

This month it was a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. Which is a cake to serve with coffee (or in my case masala chai) NOT a coffee flavoured cake. Unless you put coffee in it. Which I didn't.

Aaanyway... This is what mine looked like:

From the outside - it was a wreath-shape!

And from the inside, all swirly and pretty...

One of the hostesses with the mostest(esses...?), Ria, made her coffee-cake with an Indian twist - as I happened to be at home when my parents were planning a Goan feast, I decided that then was as good a time as any to make my coffee cake.

You've seen how it looked, now let me discuss how it tasted. First off - it was yummy enough, but I'm not sure I'll rush to try it again... Here's why:

1) it was kinda dry - I will put this down to the fact that I don't believe my yeast worked... The cake was light, but dry.

2) there wasn't enough meringue. When I halved the dough recipe, I also halved the meringue part. Mistake. I couldn't tell it was there at all!

3) I didn't distinguish between sweet and savoury garam masala... My fault, I know! The effect was... interesting.

Otherwise it was a very simple dessert to make, and it looked stunning!

Perhaps, with my previous errors in mind, I should try it again...?

Watch this space!

A Little Taste of India

The delicious, cold, sweet, rose pink falooda...

While in India I enjoyed many new experiences, both culinary and cultural. When it came to India drinks; I, of course, new all about lassi and beer and I'd heard of the Goan spirit - feni... but the term "falooda" was new to me.

Falooda, according to wikipedia (and we all know how reliable the wiki is...) falooda originated in Persia and was brought to India by the Moguls to the Mahrastra district - where it was adopted with great enthusiasm. Traditionally is also contains barely cooked vermicelli - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that... My falooda consists of milk, ground almonds and pistachios, rose syrup, ice-cream and the unusual looking, frog spawn like basil seeds.

It's a deadly sweet, but entirely refreshing drink. And, any left overs can be frozen into a delicious "faloodle" ice-cream - totally authentic, I'm sure!

"Faloodle" Ice-Cream - I wasn't able to grind the nuts fine enough, and couldn't bare to lose them, so I froze them!

I'm not entirely sure that basil seeds or "sabza" can be found in NZ, but I'll give you the recipe all the same!

>>>

Cupcake EsCUPades

So, no recipes today... But an example of experimentation... As we all know, cup cakes are awesome! (Except when enterprising persons unknow turn them into Cup Cake Cakes) Recently I've been trying to create new and exciting Cup Cake flavours...



Left: Afghan Cup Cakes, Top Right: ChocoCaramel, Bottom Right: Lemon, Honey, Nutmeg.

I have yet to create a perfect result, which is why I'm not posting a recipe today, but I think it's important to document the process!

The cake part of both the ChocoCaramel and L, H, N cupcakes turned out well. As always, I've dramatically decreased the sugar (not that you'd notice...) and slightly decreased the butter. However, with cupcakes, when you decrease the butter you've gotta increase the milk by a tablespoon or two so as not to let the mixture get too dry. The icing on both these cup cakes, though was a FAIL. Well, not so much in the case of the ChocoCaramels - it tasted good and looks Okaaay... But I personally perfer my cupcakes with buttercream, and because this icing is prepared hot that fluffy texture just isn't possible. Also, those puppies were sweet! The L, H, N cupcakes, on the other hand, tasted Okay, but looked DISGUSTING - in an effort to get an extreme lemon hit in I overdid the juice and the icing separated! Not too sweet was a plus though!

The most recent, Afghan cupcakes, were me trying to improve on the famous cookies (heresay, I know...). However, as I feared the cornflakes, without the dryness of cookie batter went a little soggy. I think that the answer to this one would be to put the walnuts IN the cupcake and the cornflakes ON the cup cakes to retain that all-important CRUNCH, as you can see from the photo (and I'm rather proud of that one...) we didn't have any walnuts, so I'm already testing out the cornflake on top theory!

And that's it for today, my lovelies... Has anyone else experimented with cupcake and wanting to share? You should invite yourself over and we can have a cupcake party!

:)

Delicious, Sustaining Protien Pancakes

Delicious AND Nutritious! (Sorry... I couldn't resist...)

Right, now that my interwebs are up and running... I hope to be back with a vengence! This is a recipe I've wanted to put up for y'all for a while now, and it's the second to last one from last year's flat ever to be posted!

Protien-Packed Pancakes. These are pretty neat because they're filling, sustaining, essentially sugar-free (before tinned peaches and maple syrup, at least...) and PANCAKES! My second favourite food after spinach and before ice-cream...

It is, I believe, the addition of protien-rich cottage cheese which makes this delicious breakfast so sustaining. The oats add fibre, and the addition of fruit sweetness and flavour. One batch will feed my boyfriend and me for 2-3 breakfasts depending on how hungry we are!

With the traditional maple syrup and tinned peach combo...

Recipe follows >>>

OMG! INTERWEBS!!!

Dear Blog,

I missed you.

Love from Kat.

XO



So - the new flat AKA "Shirley Temple" or "Hogwarts on Shirley" depending on who you're asking is finally, finally connected to the interwebs! Thank you Vodafone! *glares at Telstra Clear*

As such, I'm baaack! And looking forward to getting back into my blogging shenanigans, I've taken loads of photos and have heaps to show y'all so keep checking back to see if there's anything new in StudyFoodLand..

<3

Taste & Create: Bad Girl's Moosewood Brownies

So... I joined up for Taste & Create in November (for December) totally forgetting (don't ask me how I managed this one) that I was gonna be in India for the entire month. Yeah. I'm cool like that... BUT! And this is the fantastic bit - it turns out that over the Silly Season the girls at Taste & Create give you TWO months to check out your partner's blog - Yay them!!!

"What is Taste & Create?" you're asking... Well, it's the first ever blogging event that I've signed up to and basically what you do is register your name, blog and e-mail and the T&C ladies set you up with a blogging partner. Your mission then, is to read your partner's blog and chose a recipe that you then try out for yourself, blog about and review.

This month I was pared with Min of The Bad Girl's Kitchen who has a HUUUGE long blog full of really interesting looking recipes! But what really caught my eye was her post about Molly Katzen's Moosewood Fudge Brownies and as such, this is the recipe I've chose for my first even T&C event!

The Moosewood cook book is a fantastic vegetarian cookbook that everybody, EVERBODY should own. Says my mother. Who has two copies, I think. And will lend me neither!

Any how, this is how my brownies turned out:



Marbled "fudgy brownies" with Red Food Colouring for  Added ZING!

And this is the recipe I followed which is slightly modified from both Min and Moosewoods version (mine has less butter/sugar)...