Candied Ginger Cookies

My vegetable lady brought this beautiful young ginger that had our name written all over it. Originally we set out to make ginger syrup for making ginger ale, however I left them to cook a wee bit longer and it turned into candied ginger. No problem, it can be put to good use. If you want a good recipe for candied ginger then try this one by David Lebovitz.
This recipe yields 4 dozen cookies. 

Ingredients -

1 cup unsalted butter (room temp)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped candied ginger
1/2 tspn dry ginger powder
1/4 tspn salt
2 cups flour

Procedure -

Cream the butter and sugar till pale and creamy. Add candied ginger, ginger powder, salt. Mix well. Add the flour gradually incorporating it completely. This will form a soft cookie dough. Put this dough between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll it out to 1/4 inch thickness. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 170 C and prepare cookie sheets. Cut out the cookies and bake for 18 mins or till edges are golden. If dough is remaining then roll it out again and refrigerate for next batch. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 mins before transferring to a wire rack. 
Decorate with melted chocolate and let it cool to harden.

Enjoy!

Onstage Tutu Skirt

Did I tell you I love Oliver+S !? It's my favourite sewing pattern website. Now you know where to get me gift cards from (wink wink!).
This skirt pattern came out for this holiday season. It's adorable and even for a beginner like me, this was really really quick and easy. They even have a sew along blog - day1 and day2. The instructions are super easy and so neat. The finish is awesomely professional. Did I mention I love them! :)

I decided to make one for my toddler in black. Well, I am not really sure we get tulle in India, so I actually used a net fabric. I am going to try another one of these skirts using organza in a very Indian print.

Also I have intentionally made this a little longer so that it fits my doll for at least a year more.

     

I faced real difficulty to get her to pose this time around! I hope with the next skirt she is more cooperative!

Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Orange Cookies

I wish you could taste these! I wish you could smell these! I wish you could smell my house when these were baking! Little drops of heaven!
These are by far the best flavour of cookies I have tried baking yet.

The recipe is from this blog. Turned out to be beautiful crisp biscuits with oodles of orange flavour. Last time around I had made 2 dozens and fell short ;) so this time I made 6 dozens! Yes, you read that right - 72 cookies!

Ingredients -

2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbspn sugar
zest of 2 small oranges
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tspn vanilla extract
juice of 1/2 small orange

Procedure -

Mix flour, cocoa powder and salt and keep these dry ingredients aside.
Zest the oranges and mix well with sugar. Incorporate the zest well, this would release the orange essential oil into the sugar and results in a beautiful orange sugar (by itself this can be used on top of desserts and other goodies).
Add butter and whisk well till pale and fluffy. Work hard here! Ensure the mix is really smooth. Add vanilla extract and mix the orange juice.
Add the dry ingredients in two batches, each time slowly incorporating it thoroughly. This mixture would now form a soft cookie dough.
Shape the dough into a rectangle between two parchment sheets or wax paper. Flatten with a rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness.
Place the dough in a refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 170C. Line the baking trays. Cut the rolled out dough into cookies using cutters and bake for 18 to 20 mins or till edges are crisp. Remove from the oven and let it cool on the baking tray for 5 mins. Move to a wire rack to cool completely.

Adrika pondering on deep questions whilst devouring cookies. My dainty princess(read - really fussy eater) immediately ate 5 of these out of the oven!

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Cookies

After making the cranberry lemon muffins, I really wanted to try the combination with oranges. Here is an attempt at cranberry orange cookies based on the same recipe as described in http://tworedbowls.com/2013/12/15/cranberry-orange-shortbread-cookies/.

These turned out so darn scrumptious that we managed to finish the full batch of two dozen cookies in one night! Yes, we ate all the 24 cookies in one go! I have been asked to lay off baking for a while, else our weights are heading north steadily!

Ingredients -
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/4 cup + 2 tbspn sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/4 tspn almond extract
1/2 tbspn freshly zested orange
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 cup flour
1/8 tspn baking powder
pinch of salt

Procedure -

Cream the butter and sugar till pale and smooth. Add the vanilla extract, almond extract and orange zest. Beat well. Add the cranberries and incorporate. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix till a dough starts to form.
Shape this dough into a long log of about 1.5 inches diameter, wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Cut the cookie dough log into discs of 1/4 inch thickness. Space these biscuits on the cookie sheet about 1 inches apart. These will not spread much. Bake till pale golden for 12 mins. Cool on the baking tray for 5 mins and remove to wire rack for further cooling.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Lemon Muffins

The inspiration for these muffins is from http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/11/06/cranberry-orange-muffins/. This is one of my favourite sites for baking stuff.
Also, I didn’t have any oranges. So I decided to experiment with lemons. These are organic lemons from my mother-in-law's lemon tree!

Here is my version of cranberry lemon muffins with a lemon glaze -

This recipe makes 6 muffins.

Ingredients -

1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 egg at room temp
1/4 cup yogurt
1 tspn vanilla extract
Zest of 2 lemons
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 tspn baking soda
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1/4 tspn cinnamon powder
1 tbspn lemon juice
1 tbspn milk
3/4 cup dried cranberries

For Lemon Glaze -
3/4 cup finely powdered sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Procedure -

Preheat oven to 220C.
Beat the butter till soft and creamy. Add the sugars and whisk well. Add egg, yogurt and vanilla extract and whisk well. The yogurt gives these muffins a really moist quality. Add the lemon zest and incorporate well.
Mix all the dry ingredients and add them to the wet stuff. Mix well. Add the lemon juice and milk. Add the cranberries and fold them in the batter.
Bake in the oven for 5 mins at 220C. Without taking the cupcakes out, lower the temperature of the oven to 180C and bake further for 20 mins or so. Check to see if done with a clean toothpick test.
While the muffins cool, whisk all the glaze ingredients and pour over the glaze on the warm muffins. Allow to cool before eating.

Happy seventh anniversary honey!

Enjoy!

Chappati Cozy

Ajay takes a lunch box to college. It is healthier and tastes better than the food at their canteen. So chappati is a regular feature in the lunch box and I have been thinking of ways to ensure that it stays kind of warm and soft. Yes, yes,  I know I can just use foil or something, but that just seems so wasteful. In our efforts to be an environmentally conscious family we ditch anything that cant be reused. We don't even own aluminium foil!

So here is the tortilla warmer aka. chappati warmer that fits the bill!

This project used up some of my previous project scraps so I get bonus points!

What is it ?? There are two round pieces of quilted and batted fabric(8 inch diameter) with an inner muslin lining. These are then pieced together at the halfway mark to make a half open envelope using a similar coloured binding.
The original tutorial is here - http://leafytreetopspot.blogspot.in/2010/07/tortilla-cozy-tutorial.html
This can be used straight away in a microwave and washed for reuse!
Reuse - Reduce - Recycle!


He likes it and says its really professionally done and that I could sell these! Made my day. :)

Enjoy.

Cross-Stitch Family Portrait

This is the day and age of obsessive "selfies". They are everywhere. The social network is teeming with them. And here I am in my own anachronistic world peering at those tiny square of an Aida fabric trying to embroider a cross-stitch family portrait. It took more effort than I thought. So here is the end result.

The last time I attempted a cross-stitch was in the 5th grade! This time around I wanted to do stuff much more professionally and extremely neatly.

The inspiration for this project came of this place -
http://www.marthastewart.com/857131/cross-stitch-family-portrait

Now counting cross-stitch is not as easy as it looks. There is the whole matter of getting everything properly accurate once you start embroidering. Also I wanted to make slightly bigger figures so I had to put in some math to scale up my picture.

Here is the original plan all put on a graph paper -

Once I had a general idea of the portrait, I spent a fair amount of time learning all about colour blocking. I wanted to use colours that go well together yet look really vibrant and coordinated. After spending quite a few hours, I kind of decided on the colour scheme and started shopping.

The major stumbling block was acquiring the right Aida fabric. I wanted a count 14 or higher. Finally found it on the pony craft store - http://www.ponycraftstore.com/product/viewdetail/aida-fabric-white-42-x-48cm-70402

Also more hours watching videos and learning to cross-stitch properly, I think I managed to do a decent job with this piece. Look at the back side of my embroidery to get a gauge of the quality. There is not a single knot anywhere. All the crosses cross over the same way and I have all these beautiful parallel lines on the back. So I finally did something right! And what a lesson in patience!

Now all that is left is to carefully wash this up, add some interfacing to stiffen the backside and frame it up. This one goes up on my craft station at the new house!

Enjoy.