Lime and coconut crinkle cookies

Its been a while since I posted a cookie recipe on the blog. Well, that's because I rarely make cookies and other than biting into them fresh out of the oven, I kinda don't like them that much. Of course its a different story for Ro, who claims he buys Oreo cookies just because I don't make any at home.

So last week I was heading over to G's place for a fun afternoon dress-up session (more about that later) and I had to take something for her lil boy who is so so adorable. I was on a tight schedule and had to figure something that could be easily made, with available ingredients and of course tastes good. I scouted around my bookmarked recipes and found this recipe, and I strangely had a couple of limes lying around in the fridge.

 

I've developed this new found love for lime (well, I always liked it in a margarita), mostly after tasting the awesome lime filling my boss makes for the macarons. It's perhaps one of my fav fillings, closely followed by passion fruit. I was a bit sceptical about whether kids would like lime and coconut as a flavour, as its somehow very adult-y, but then I had to give it a shot to see if it was worth it. I for one, loved it. G told me she and her nanny loved it, but I didn't get around to asking if lil S liked it. I served the leftover few to my niece and nephew the next day and they loved it, so I'm thinking even kids may actually have a thing for that flavour.

To be honest its very lime-y and coconutty. If you don't like these two flavours that much, then don't even bother scrolling down. If you like the lime flavour, but the coconut not so much, then do as the original recipe calls for where you roll the dough in granulated sugar and not coconut. The 15gms of coconut in the cookie doesn't really bring out too much of its flavour. I wanted it to be coconutty and hence rolled it it coconut.

Recipe adapted from here (makes around 36 to 38 cookies)

Unsalted butter- 80 gms, at room temperature

Caster sugar- 100 gms

Egg- 1, small

Lime zest- from 1 lime

Lime juice- 2 tbsp

Dessicated coconut- 15 gms + enough to roll the cookies

Plain flour- 220 gms

Baking powder- 2 tsp

Icing sugar- to roll the cookies (around 2 tbsp)

Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl, till light and fluffy. I used a silicone spatula for this as my butter was of a nice easy-to-handle consistency. Use the paddle attachment of your stand mixer to make the creaming easier.

Into the mix add the egg, lime zest and juice and dessicated coconut.

Mix till you get a smooth mix. I switched to a wooden spoon to make this job easier. You can use the same spatula, or even a whisk if that's easier for you.

Sieve together the plain flour and baking powder and add it to the butter mix, bit by bit, mixing after each addition. Use a fork to do the mixing.

One the mixture has come together, cover with a cling film and refrigerate for about 1/2 an hour.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Into a large plate add the icing sugar on one side and the dessicated coconut on the other. 

Keep a cup with water ready by the side because you'd need to keep wetting your hands to roll the dough.

Make small balls with the dough, first roll it in the dessicated coconut, followed by a generous roll in the icing sugar and place on the baking tray about an inch apart.

Continue till you finish the entire dough.

Bake for about 10 minutes and 12 if its a bit on the bigger side but not longer.

Cool on wire racks and enjoy them immediately or store in air tight containers and use up in 2 to 3 days (if you can stay away from it that long) :)

Notes: The mix curdled quite a bit when i started mixing and of course I panicked but once you add the flour, it becomes alright

The original recipe used granulated sugar for the first coat, but i thought coconut was a better option. Feel free to replace it with granulated sugar.

The cookies are really lime-y, so reduce it to 1 tbsp if you don't want it too strong.

Read more »

Macarons for grown ups- Cosmopolitan and Mojito macarons

OK! I'm super duper excited about these macaron flavours and even more about the photographs, that turned out exactly the way i imagined. It was a crazy week of baking for us at Bobo Macarons. More than 1000 macarons baked, printed, filled and packed for a wedding and I was beyond exhausted. I did not want to do any baking for a really long time, or so I thought, until this fabulous idea for flavours developed in my head. I HAD to make it immediately. And so I did.

I decided to go with two of my favourite cocktails- Mojito and Cosmopolitan. I make these at home quite often and I'm soooo in love with the flavours, it HAD to work in a macaron. I must admit though, it wasn't easy. I wasn't sure how to make the flavours pop and if adding liquid to the filling was a good idea, but I had to give it a go to see if it was feasible...and well, here they are...spot on with the cocktail flavours. Next on the list is margarita and sangria and maybe even a pink champagne one ;)

I have a basic macaron recipe that I fall back on and it fetches me perfect results. I halved the batter and added hot pink to one set and kiwi green to the other. I got 12 macarons in each colour. For the mojito macarons, I grated some lime zest and sprinkled over the shells about 10 minutes after I piped them out. This totally made a difference.

Mojito Macarons

The mojito ones- lime, mint and rum being the main ingredients, were easy to put together. I mean I decided to do a white chocolate ganache filling and incorporate these flavours into it, keeping the base simple. I would however increase the alcohol a bit more the next time, as the lime was overpowering (in a good way, of course) with this batch. I'm so kicked about how the styling for this came through and its one of my favourite shoots till date.

Double cream- 45ml + 1/4 to 1/3rd cup to whip

White chocolate- 2 oz, roughly chopped

White rum- 1 tbsp

Lime juice- 3 tbsp

Lime zest- of one lime

Mint leaves- 2 to 3, finely chopped

Gently heat the double cream, either in a sauce pan, or in the microwave and pour over the chopped up white chocolate. Keep aside for a couple of minutes.

Gently stir, without incorporating air into it, till you get a smooth mix. Keep aside to cool.

Add the rum, lime juice, lime zest and chopped up mint leaves and mix it in well.

Keep refrigerated till ready to use.

When ready to pipe, whip the ganache with 1/4 to 1/3rd cup of double cream with a hand held blender or in a free standing mixes with whisk attachment, till stiff peaks form. Make sure you don't over do this, or you'll end up with split cream.

Transfer into piping bags and pipe on to macarons and sandwich them.

Keep refrigerated in an air tight container till ready to use.

Cosmopolitan Macarons

These - taste wise- were spot on but I did have a bit of trouble getting the right consistency. I used a butter cream filling for the macs and the amount of liquid that went into it, made it a lot difficult. I know that vodka is an important component in a cosmo, but i shied away from it because of the Cointreau and cran juice that was already making it quite fluid. I had to keep adding icing sugar to reach the desired consistency, which meant, the filling was a bit too sweet for my liking. I will find a way to work around that, but for now here's the recipe. 

Unsalted butter- 55 gms, at room temperature

Icing sugar- 6 tbsp

Cointreau- 1 tbsp

Cranberry juice- 1 tbsp

Orange zest- 1/4 tsp (optional)

Beat together the butter and icing sugar till light and fluffy.

Add all the liquid ingredients plus zest and continue beating till they all come together.

If the mix looks like its curdled, add some more icing sugar to bring it back to desired consistency.

Read more »

Sponsored review: Twinings Moroccan mint tea mojito

 

Both Ro and I enjoy a good cuppa tea every once in a while. Mostly weekends, we try making all these different types of tea and enjoy it with some biscuits and such. I particularly love experimenting with it..like making a macaron flavour with it, different flavours of iced tea's with it, the occasional masala chai and our favourite the mint tea.

I received a couple of boxes of Twinings tea to review and after enjoying some with our biscuits and cakes, I decided to try something new. I had never made a cocktail with tea, and my love for everything cocktail made me try this Moroccan inspired mojito. Its such a cool recipe..i mean it combines my favourite mint tea with rum and really, what's not to like about that?

 

I also absolutely love the whole Afternoon Tea idea. I find it incredibly romantic, to dress up and go to a fancy hotel for some tea. I have been wanting to throw a tea party at mine for a long time, but haven't had the time to do it. But I did whip up some macarons for an afternoon tea-ish session with friends beginning of summer. I served them with Twinings Earl Grey (my favourite), English Breakfast and Assam tea- all great tea's. The English breakfast makes a mean mint tea as well. But be careful to not let it steep too much, or else your mint tea is gonna taste bitter. I have wasted waaay too much tea with that mistake.

Recipe adapted from here (Makes 2 to 3 glasses)

 

Twinings English Breakfast- 2 bags
Boiling water- 1 1/2 cups
Cardamom pods- 20, crushed
Sugar- 3 tbsp (adjust accordingly)
Mint leaves- 10 to 15
Lemon juice- 3 tbsp
White rum- 3 oz
Ice

 

Into a measuring cup put in the tea bags and bruised cardamom pods.
Pour enough boiling water to make 1 1/2 cups of liquid in total.
Seep for about 2 to 3 minutes, remove the tea bags, but not the cardamom and store in the refrigerator till ready to use.
Meanwhile, muddle the mint and sugar together in a cocktail shaker and keep aside.
When ready to serve, add the tea mix to the cocktail shaker, followed by lemon juice, rum and some ice cubes.
Shake away and then pour into individual glasses, top with a sprig of mint, a lime wedge and some ice and you are good to go.

 

Notes: The drink was not sweet at all, so the second batch i made, I used sugar syrup (1/4 cup) instead of sugar and added it to the tea mix when it was still warm. The mint leaves were muddled on its own.
Add more rum if you want it super boozy :)

With thanks to Twinings for the samples

Read more »

Blueberry cream cheese butter cake

Its been ages since I updated the blog, and even longer since I posted a cake recipe. I have half written posts in my drafts and loads of reviews to be done, but somehow my days have become really busy..ever since I started working part time. I love my job and its opened up a completely new world of baking and cooking and such for me. More on that later.

I am not going to ramble today, yes, time constrained, so I'll go straight to the recipe. Like I said before, I hadn't baked a cake in a looong time and so on a day I felt the need to eat something seriously unhealthy, cake was what came to my mind. My usual Google searches led me to this fab recipe, tried by 3 of my fav bloggers and so I knew it was going to be a winner. 

Loads of butter, loads of sugar and loads of cream cheese is what nice things are made of. So by no means think that this is a low calorie cake...which I think is bull shit any way. There is nothing called low calorie cake. If you want to eat cake then go all out and eat the real thing is my motto! Which is also probably why I need to go on a crazy diet :O

I usually don't like to bake with butter, more so because the whole creaming it with sugar etc etc is messy and time consuming, as opposed to oil which is soo cool, you just pour it into the batter (and also I can be a teeny tiny happy its a bit better than butter). But once in a while I don't mind going all out and, although I cringed at the amount of ingredients needed, that's exactly what I did with this cake! The outcome was delicious. I mean really, really delicious. Its so moist, like melt-in-your-mouth moist, and the blueberries break down the sweetness at intervals. It so versatile, you can definitely make this cake plain or add any other flavouring like orange or lemon and it would be great. TRUST ME!

Recipe adapted from here (makes an 8 inch loaf cake + an 8 inch square cake)

Caster sugar- 1 cup

Butter- 250 gms, softened

Vanilla extract- 1 tsp

Eggs- 3, medium at room temperature

Cream cheese- 250 gms

Milk- 1/3rd cup

Self-raising flour- 2 1/4 cups

Blueberries- 150 gms, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)

I didn't have self raising flour so I made my own by sifting together 3 1/2 tsp of baking powder with 2 1/4 cups of plain flour. The ideal measurement is 2 tsp baking powder to 1 cup plain flour.

Pre heat the oven to 160C and line an 8 inch loaf pan and 8 inch square brownie  pan with baking paper

Beat together the sugar butter and vanilla extract in a free standing mixer, using the paddle attachment, till soft and fluffy. You can use your hand beater as well.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Change to the whisk attachment and add the cream cheese and milk. Whisk till the mix turns lump free and you get a smooth batter.

Add the flour and whisk just until mixed.

Using a spatula, fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter into the lined pans till about 1/4th full and bake for about 50 minutes or till a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. My brownie pan took only 40 minutes to bake.

Once done, cool completely on a wire rack and before eating either dust with some icing sugar or have it plain.

Notes: Original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Even for an ardent sugar lover I thought that was a bit too much, so i reduced it to 1 cup. It was pleasantly sweet.

I changed to whisk attachment half way through because i noticed that the cream cheese was still in lumps and not smoothening out with the paddle attachment. The whisk worked like a charm.

The cake keeps well in the refrigerator for about a week. I cling wrapped it properly and refrigerated it. It also freezes well.

Replace the blueberries with any berry of choice.

Read more »

Afternoon tea with Champagne at the Corus Hyde Park

Some time around last week we turned 7 (OK fine, I don't know the exact date, but that's besides the point really). Yes! 7 years since we met each other in a small cafe in Chennai. Me, never wanting to get married, He, enthusiastic about getting married. Poles apart on a lot of things, but on the same page for a few other. Yet! we somehow have managed to make it this far. Its been a rough 7 years with me Ro would say, but I would shrug and say that's marriage. I think Ro's good husband material :)

After so long, we don't even bother wishing each other remembering 'petty' occasions like this. Although, the die hard romantic in me, sometimes do wish it wasn't so. I had been wanting to do an Afternoon Tea session for a long time and when an opportunity came up, I grabbed it thinking we will have a nice afternoon out together. But Ro of course had better things to do than spend an afternoon having 'tea' with me, and so had to change plans. Determined to not dampen my spirits, I grabbed a good ol' girlfriend of mine and headed out into Central London for a fun afternoon out. And boy, am I glad I did, because believe it or not, a day out with a girl friend can sometimes prove to be so much more therapeutic than a romantic afternoon out with the husband :)

Afternoon Tea is such a big deal here its not funny. Some hotels like The Ritz and Inter Continental are soooo known for their Afternoon Tea deals, you have to book a table waaay in advance. Although that was the kind of afternoon tea I had in mind, this deal was good enough for me, and its Groupon that I have to thank for this fabulous offer. From hair cuts to restaurant deals to cooking classes to mini breaks I have done it all. In the initial days after signing up, it used to be a struggle to not pick up the amazing voucher deals.  Now I have a grip on myself and although I scout the website frequently, its only when I absolutely need something do I pick it up. The Afternoon Tea with Champagne for two was too good a deal to pass and I am glad I picked it, because it was so worth it.

 

Corus Hyde Park is located bang opposite the park (as the name suggests) and is a 3 min walk from Lancaster Gate tube station. We headed straight to Olio's Brasserie, just off the reception area, and waited a good 5 minutes for someone to come greet us (not a good start, if you ask me). So I asked at the reception and was politely told someone would be with me soon. No luck again but then I spotted a stewardess at the counter and she guided us to our table. When we were kept waiting, I thought we would be placed somewhere near the stairs or something, but was pleasantly surprised to be seated right next to the huge windows, with good views of the autumn colours of Hyde park (not to mention enough lighting for my pictures, although it was such a gloomy and rainy afternoon, they haven't turned out that great).

We were dutifully given our menu's and asked to pick the tea of choice. There were quite a few interesting options- from the traditional blends like Winchester Breakfast, Darjeeling and Earl Grey to the more contemporary ones like Rooibos orange and eucalyptus, Milk oolong and if that's not fancy enough for you, then try the Lavender hibiscus, a Blooming Tea, which literally does the same in your tea cup. We were not too adventurous with this and so settled for the Winchester breakfast and Classic Chai. Both were brought to the table promptly and we enjoyed the steaming cups of tea while it was pouring cats and gods outside. Oh and we also had to figure out how to handle the two flutes of Baron de Marc Gobillard, Brut Champagne in between sips of tea. Needless to say, the Champagne was happily welcomed, and the tea left to go cold in the tea pots.

 

Then came the exciting bit, the array of tarts, cakes, scones and sandwiches. Arranged in traditional 3-tiered plates, they were a pretty sight. Taste-wise, however, we were a tad bit disappointed. The cupcakes were too dry and the brownie (I think it was a brownie) was anything but moist. The carrot cake was good, but it was not with cream cheese, but more like butter cream. The tartlets were teeny tiny pastry cups filled with something like butter cream with a blackberry perched on one and a raspberry on another. I don't think they can technically be called fruit tarts, but they were pretty cute and we liked it. That said, the scones were to die for and we smothered ours with clotted cream and jam and had a blast getting some extra calories into our bodies. The sandwiches were also pretty good, with the cucumber and cream cheese being my favourite and the ham and cheese a close second. The macarons also did their job of being all good looking with the perfect feet and stuff and the flavours- orange and coffee- were not disappointing either. 

Our tea session stretched on for about 2 hours, because you just cannot stuff everything into your mouth at one go (and also because we weren't shooed out of the restaurant) and its something you really need to enjoy at a slow pace. So the next time you are in London, or anywhere in UK, make sure you treat yourself to a good English Afternoon Tea session. Also, don't forget to check out Groupon for some good deals in your area and trust me, its a decision you wont regret.

Thanks to Groupon for a gift voucher with which I picked up this deal.

Read more »