Sunday 22 February 2015

Pancakes + Rainbow Cupcakes + Piping in Colour: 14-20 February 2015.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful




This week, I finally figured out how to get chalkboard markers to work (thanks Mum!).

I carried on our current fritter/burger phase with patties made from brown lentils and salmon - separately though.
I have flipped British pancakes on a Sunday morning and then slathered them with lemon and sugar, golden syrup and Nutella - once again, separately.
I have re-discovered my love for a spicy chickpea salad, baked way too many cupcakes and enjoyed a colourful piping session with cousins.
Alhamdulillah.


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 Saturday: That moment when my chalkboard pens finally began to work thanks to my mother.
 Labelling these jars was oddly satisfying.
 One of my go-to meals always involves lentils. This time, brown.
With a cut salad, pickled peppers and olive oil yoghurt dip.
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 Sunday: Pancake batter ready.
Once cooked, they were topped the traditional way.
With a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkling of caster sugar. Yum.
But who can resist a new jar of Nutella?
My pancakes filled with:
Lemon and sugar
Golden syrup
Nutella
Later, I made a batch of Chana Chaat.
A spicy chickpea and potato salad.
The recipe is already on this blog but I tweaked it slightly by adding in sweet potatoes along with regular potatoes. 

Once the salad is mixed, it's time for the extras. In our case, plain yoghurt, chaat masala, fresh poppadums and tamarind sauce.
Grab a bowl and get building.
And, dig in! I really recommend you guys try out the sweet potato (which we steamed btw). They really lend well to that whole sweet, spicy, sour, salty vibe that this salad has going on.
Rice, carrots and tomatoes ready to put into a Saudi dish for dinner that turned out oh so well.
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Monday: Time to bake!
My cake batter obsession continues.
A recipe test made with the simplest ingredients, ready to be baked and my word, was it good!
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Tuesday: Hadith of the day: Part of a person's being a good Muslim is his leaving alone that which does not concern him.
Remember that recipe test from yesterday? Well it didn't even get a chance to get out of the tin.
It was that good.
Lunch was green today. I made a Spring Vegetable Soup since it felt like spring today. The recipe I used is here.
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 Wednesday: Breakfast - porridge swirled with Nutella.
Edible cookie dough in the making.
I never usually buy chocolate chips. Instead I cut up chocolate myself - that way you get large chunks and smaller pieces too. Today, I blitzed the chocolate in the food processor resulting in chocolate sand running through the cookie dough. Epic. You can get my edible cookie dough recipe here.
Dinner was a randomly thrown together quesadilla with bits from the fridge. This time, a spicy chicken mince, peppers, sweetcorn, scrambled eggs and cheese. Delish.
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Thursday: Burning butter on purpose.
If you've never burnt/browned butter on purpose, here is how. I highly recommend it for the smell alone.

And, also because cake batter is made better with it.

Anyway, I was using it to make Cookie Dough Cupcakes and here is the edible cookie dough from yesterday which I froze overnight in a block.

Placed a piece over each cupcake and popped them into bake. The full recipe is here.
Then, I spent an embarassing amount of time trying to figure which cupcake case best matched Maltesers. I settled with this red and white to match the packet.
A simple cake batter spiked with cocoa powder and malted milk powder to give that signature Malteser flavour.

Baked and ready to chill.

Next, I made that awesome toffee sauce used in Banoffee Pie.
And, what's the best part of a banoffee pie?
Why, the biscuit base of course. So I doubled the recipe and made Banoffee Pie Cupcakes.

Mum made salmon burgers today. She mixed blended salmon with spices, seasonings, an egg and fresh coriander.

Blitzed tortilla chips in the food processor.

Shaped the salmon into patties, dunked in beaten egg and then rolled in tortilla chip crumbs.

And, fried till golden brown.

The salmon burgers were inspired by this recipe.
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Friday: All set up for a day of rainbows, sprinkles and plenty of icing.
Ingredients out ready to bake vanilla rainbow cupcakes.
Then, the decorating tray with piping nozzles, piping bags, sprinkles, Maltesers, toffee sauce and malted milk chocolate frosting.
Right to left: cookie dough cupcakes, Malteser cupcakes, banoffee pie cupcakes.
But first, rainbow cupcakes. A simple vanilla batter was made and divided into four. One was coloured ..

.. the most beautiful blue ever.
Second, orange.
Third, lilac.
And fourth, poppy red.
Then, the colours were divided between cupcake cases.
And, baked at 180C for around 20-25 minutes.
Then, they were set aside to cool completely.
Of course we had to take a billion pictures because they were just so pretty!
Next, a batch of vanilla buttercream was whipped up.

Whilst the rainbows cooled, it was time to decorate.
 First, toffee sauce was pumped into the banana sponge with biscuit base for banoffee pie cupcakes.
Next, we whipped double cream to soft peaks with a little icing sugar and vanilla.
And, got to work!
Once all the cream was on, a toffee drizzle was piped on top.

And, the banoffee pie cupcakes were done. Plus we couldn't resist giving them a Malteser each. The full recipe is here.

Next, to decorate the Malteser cupcakes. We stirred crushed Maltesers into vanilla buttercream.

And, spooned the cream onto the cakes.


Before finishing with more Maltesers - both crushed and whole.

The cookie dough cupcakes had vanilla buttercream piped over them and of course, the now obligatory Malteser.
The full recipe is here.
After all that sugar, a savoury break was needed in the form of Chicken Popcorn.
And, chips!
Then, to decorate the rainbow cupcakes, we coloured vanilla buttercream three ways. First, pink.
Second, yellow.
And, third, a grass green.
The icing went into piping bags.
And, the girls got to work.
Whilst I snapped way too many pictures ...
... and couldn't resist slicing into one of the rainbow cupcakes. If you have kids, you must make these with them!
Once all the icing had been piped on ...


.. it was sprinkle time!

I hope our cupcake afternoon inspires you to bake a few of your own. The food colour gels that I used can be found here.

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A few of my favourite links from around the web this week:

1. My kind of weeknight cooking.
2. More cupcakes! This time the red velvet kind.
3. Molten chocolate in a hurry.
4. Fancy making your own chocolate?
5. One of my favourite pies in burger form.
6. The now obligatory doughnut.
7. My favourite ingredient four ways!
8. Soup, glorious soup.
9. That pie again, this time in pan form.
10. OMG. This pasta.
11. The ultimate comfort food. Without a doubt.
12. Fries, glorious fries. 
13. I have no words.
14. School lunches around the world - {via}.


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Have a beautiful week everyone - take chances, bake rainbow cupcakes and smile.

Wasalaam!


Spice Enthusiast
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