Cake Decorating Basics

I love baking cakes, more so, decorating them. Learning cake decorating has been in my Bucket List for so long :) I have tried my hand on cake decorating, including fondant/gum paste decorating. Below are some pics of my previous cakes.

But I wanted them to look more professional. So, finally, now that I have some time to spare for personal interests, I signed up for these classes at local Michaels store. I thought it would be a vigorous course, but they teach you basics and give you an instruction book, rest of it is your imagination and practice. Our instructor was awesome. Though I missed the first class she taught all the basics from that class sparing extra time for me. Here is what I created in this course. Still not professional looking, but now I know how to pipe rosettes, shaggy mums, roses and much more.

We also decorated some Cupcakes and another cake, which I will update in this post later. Decorating part was really fun, but cleanup is tedious. Buttercream, with vegetable shortening (CRISCO) is very greasy. I don't like the taste of the frosting with Crisco anyway. I tried with butter, but it is too heavy for my palette and my whole family's. I tried making a whipped frosting with heavy whipping cream, but it doesn't hold shape very much. I am still in search of the prefect whipped cream frosting recipe. You know, the one used in Indian pastries, like the pastries you get in Hot Breads (yum!). If any of you have this recipe or one that you have tried and liked, please share.

A Comeback

Its been years I posted in my blog. Lot of things have happened in life, putting blog behind. But I am back now and plan on posting actively in the new year. Just to jump start it, I am here posting about my bold choice of nail color. I love getting mani pedis. They are expensive and kind of unnecessary, I agree, but once in a while it feels good looking at your perfectly trimmed and painted nails (as long it lasts, for me about 3-5 days). It had been 5 months I had one. With a newborn, it seems like I have no time to wash my hair, let alone getting nails done. Having no secondary income didn't help either. But with Holiday season around with happiness everywhere, I needed to feel good about myself. With a December special of $15 mani pedi at a local salon, it seemed like a little splurge I could use. As I said I needed it. I don't get all the extras, just basic manicure pedicure with a nice color. I usually play it safe with nail color and choose a shade of red or pink which kind of complement my complexion, but I have been wanting to try a bold color for so long. Finally I decided to go for it this time. A shiny Turquoise. I know, too bold for someone like me. But I did.

I keep staring at my nails from time to time to understand if I love it or hate it. I don't absolutely crazily love it, I don't hate it either. Kind of getting used to it. Everytime I look at it, I feel proud, don't know why, may be because I was brave in choosing such a color (a lady at the salon said 'WOW look at the color she chose'. Was it a complement:? I would like to think so, even if it is otherwise). It would have looked even better if I added some design in black on one of the nails but I saved that for another time.

So thats how I plan on starting the new year. Bold, Brave and with Go For It attitude. I am putting together a list of things to do in 2012, actively posting on this blog being one of them. I will post it here soon so I can be accountable.

Have a Merry Christmas all you readers, if there are any, at this point.

Panna Cotta

The Dessert lover that I am, I might try and post more dessert recipes than any other type of food. Here is the first - PANNA COTTA

Panna cotta means "cooked cream". It is an Italian dessert made by simmering together cream, milk and sugar, mixing this with gelatin, and letting it cool until set.
It can be served with berries, caramel, or chocolate sauce.

The name and recipe looks tidious, but this is by far the easiest "made from scratch" dessert.

What you need:

1 envelope of unflavored gelatin (approx. 2 teaspoons)
1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup fresh berries, gently washed and drained
6 sprigs fresh mint

6 ramikens
1 small bowl, 1 large bowl
1 cooking pot


*Half & half or whole milk may be substituted for part of the cream if you like it to be lighter.


How you do:

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over 1/2 cup milk and let stand until the gelatin is softened, about 5 minutes.

In a large saucepan, combine heavy cream and sugar.

Add vanilla extract or if using a vanilla bean, slice the bean lengthwise and scrape out seeds into cream (add whole bean as well to cream for additional flavor).

Bring cream just to a simmer (do not boil), whisking occasionally until sugar has completely dissolved.

Add the softened gelatin mixture and whisk to completely dissolve the gelatin.

Strain hot cream mixture into a large bowlto remove any bits of undissolved gelatin and vanilla pod.

Pour into ramekins or custard cups and Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.
NOTE: Don't let the cream mixture cool before straining

Once set, you can serve it in ramikens by adding the berries/ other fresh fruit of your choice and mint.

For a better presentation, unmold and serve by carefully dipping the bottom of each ramekin in a pan of hot water briefly.
Run a thin knife around edge of each ramekin to loosen it from the inside of the bowl.
Wipe the outside of the mold dry and place on individual chilled serving plate (topside down).
Invert the custard onto the plate and carefully lift off ramekin (shake gently to release).
Garnish with berries or other fresh fruit.

I just left it in the ramekin.

This is a fancy dessert and since it is easy to make and can be made ahead of time you can even serveso you can serve it in parties.

You can vary the flavor of Panna Cotta by adding the extract of your choice instead of vanilla and any food color, but I personally like White-Vanilla falvored Panna Cotta.
You can set this dessert in individual ramekins, plates, martini glasses or even in plastic cups. Simple Dessert, One Recipe, Infinite Possibilities.

My Happy Weightloss Experience

As many Indian ladies(any woman for that matter), I have completely neglected my appearance soon after I was married one and a half years ago. Say it relief from fear of missing the perfect person because of your appearance :) or added responsibilities after wedding, women often tend to loose interest in looking good and taking care of themselves as time passes after marriage. I followed the same path and gained 10 lbs in the first 1 year.I haven't noticed it even while shopping for larger size clothes, until tried a dress that I liked so much and wanted to buy.

I have headed to a fitness center in the same week with my husband and signed up for few sessions of personal training as I knew I wouldn't do it on regular basis unless I have a reason. Not just the money I paid for the sessions ( I have been a member of the same fitness center for 9 months paying monthly fee but have hardly been there for less than 5 times), it is the accountability (as the fitness professionals would call) on someone who you can depend on for making you work for your end result. I see it as a tutor helping you achieve good acedemic standing. I followed everything (almost) my personal trainier advised. She was the wonderful lady I have ever met.

Finally after little less than 3 months I am back to my usual weight with lesser body fat than I used to have. How hard is it? Well, the answer depends on what you measure it with.

Time wise - Faster than gaining weight. It took 12 months for me to put on 10 lbs and took less than 12 weeks to loose it.
Money wise - Fairly expensive, but much better than paying medical bills if you had a health complication because of obesity.Here comes the important one.
Personality wise - Very hard.

Reason for the last measure being so hard is we are so used to the routines that we have build ourselves and stuck to them. Pulling us out of those routines and changing them for a good cause is very hard.Let me explain this further.Many people are under different misconceptions and misunderstandings about health and weight loss. I have read and implemented many(except for the medical procedures:) ). But without understanding the basic structure and function of our body it is very rude on our part to use our body as a testing substance to all available methods. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to post my experience on this blog.

My Reasons for gaining 10 lbs:

• Eating Quiznos Regular size Veggie sandwich for lunch 5 days a week, Adding Warm chocolate chip cookie occasionally(once in one or 2 weeks).
• Eating out for dinner 3-4 times a week, mostly sticking to salads- No Snacking - Starving between meals- Cooking large quantities of delicious, rich, traditional culinary recipes for entertaining.
• Desserts - MY BIGGEST WEAKNESS - Ice cream, Tiramisu, Donuts, Pastries, Chocolates you name it. But not more than one type of dessert a day.
• Working out atleast 2 days a week.
  

Now let me explain how each of these have contributed to my wealth in pounds.

EATING OUT - Lunchs & Dinners:

Quiznos Veggie sandwich - all it has is Wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, Onions, Cheese, Guacamole and Italian dressing. Do you think you can eat healthier sandwich than that? I didn't. But have you ever looked at its nutritional chart? Have you seen the nutritional information on any food you ate for that matter? 960 calories! Yes, a plain veggie sandwich can have 960 calories and 47 gms of fat calories.What makes up those calories? Bread, Cheese, guacamole pretty much everything it has. But it didn't keep me full for longer time. Similarly, even though I ate out 3-4 times a week for dinner, I sticked to what I thought were lighter foods like salads, soups, sauted vegetables. But salads could have more calories than a burger because of the dressings and toppings. Can you believe some of dinner sized salads can have more than 1000 calories??? I was shocked to know that. Next time you go to an eatary, pay attention to how Sauted veggies are made if possible. No doubt they are steamed, but they are sauted in oil/ butter at the very least. 1 tbsp of oil has 110 calories (may be not so bad) and 14 gms of fat (Veryyyy Bad!!) So by choosing a side of sauted veggies you might add a couple of hundred calories than with a side of steamed veggies.

NO SNACKING :

Isn't it a good, not munching extra calories? Absolutely not. It is bad to make yourself feel hungry for longer time. This reduces your metabolism, the rate at which your body burns calories.So when you eat after few hours, you would burn the calories at much lower rate than you would if you had a snack between meals. But it is also important what you snack on. Potato chips are not the ideal snack :)Its always nice to entertain, prepare nice dishes for guests and get complements from them for being a great host. But what happens afterwards? We are left with lots of left overs, which will be used as lunches and dinners and more often desserts during the week. Instead I could opt for simple, less strenious meals that are healthy and light for my family and guests. Making and serving such foods won't make you a bad host. You will still talk, entertain and show your love and concern towards your guests. One or two rich foods in the menu don't hurt. Another option is to pack some of that delicious food for your guests to take home.

DESSERTS.......

I told you right, they are my biggest WEAKNESS!! But I realized what buying and eating fancy desserts could do to me. So I have limited my cravings to low calorie versions.

WORKING OUT:

How in the world does working out add up to gaining pounds? This is what you are thinking, aren't you? Well its not the Working out part, but the number of times per week that contributes to the lbs wealth. Yes, I worked out 2 days per week, but how long? 30 minutes. How many calories did I burn? 200 may be. Eating more than 2000 calories per day and burning 400-500 calories per week does not help at all. Every 3500 unburnt calories add to 1 lb of your weight. Sure we burn calories by everything we do, walking, cooking, cleaning, sitting, even sleeping. But the rate at which we burn calories differ with what we do and how long we do. If you measure how many calories you ate in a day and compare to how many calories you might have burnt with the activities you did that day, you'll know what I am talking about.You can get approximate calculators for day to day activities if you search online. Here are a couple
ONE TWO

Healthy Eating

&

Burn atleast 500 more calories a day than you eat

That's all I did with a little help from professionals to get me started and a lot of support from my sweet husband. NOW HERE I AM BACK TO MY ORIGINAL WEIGHT and maintaining it from past 3 months.

I do occasionally splurge with fancy treats, but stay focussed to compensate them with healthy meals in the following days.

Planning to cut down few more pounds in coming months :)

I wanted to share my experience with as many people as possible hoping they get the right knowledge from my experience. That is the whole intension of this post.

What COLLECTORS are called...

Do you have a hobby of collecting something? Do you know what you are called?

• The name for a teddy bear collector is archtophilist or arctophile.
• Collectors of dolls are called plangonologists.
• A collector of paper money, coins, tokens, and related objects is called a numismatist.
• A collector of paper money is called a notaphilist.
• A labeorphilist is a collector of beer bottles.
• A collector of butterflies is called a lepidopterist.
• Conchologists collect animal shells.
• A collector of matchbooks and matchbook covers is a phillumenist.
• A collector of antiques is an antiquarian.
• If you collect obsidian and syenite you are called a rock hound.
• A scripophilist collects old stocks and bonds.
• A stamp collector is called a philatelist.
• A pernalogist is a collector of pearls.
• Cinephiles are film collectors.
• A bibiophilist collects books.
• A copoclephilist collects key rings.
• A deltiologist collects post cards.
• A collector of hi-fi equipment is called an audiophile
• Spermologist collect seeds.
• A spermologer is one who collects Trivia (this from the original Trivial Pursuit game).
• A Heortologist collects religious calenders.
• A Collector of walking sticks is a rabdophilist.
• Signopaginophile is a collector of bookmarks - but note this is a french word - not sure if it is commonly used in english
• Collector of bookmarks is a signopaginophile or signetophile
• Chartasignopaginophile (also french) is a collector of bookmarks made of paper

Chocolate Cake - Cake decorating with Fondant

Cooking and baking is one of my passions I could say, but only when it is less stressful. That's why I use semi hommade techniques when it comes to baking.
I bake cakes all the time using ready made mixes available in nearly any grocery stores. It is way too simple if you have few tools(to be honest, all u need is a baking pan, baking spray and oven) and you get lots of complements as added bonus from guests, especially kids.

My cakes were simple, just bake and eat. No fancy stuff on top. Occasionally I used to add nuts and chocolate chips, but that was it.
I sometimes frosted the cakes using store brought frosting but it looked no where near to professional. Recently I have been reading about fondant, a sugar paste that gives professional look to cakes and gives lot of flexibility in decorating. So I thought I should try. Last weekend we had a birthday pary to go to. It was my husband's neice's birthday. She was turning 8 and I thought it would be the perfect occasion to try out my new fondant frosting cake. Well if it didn't turn out well, kids don't mind, they just eat it as long as it is chocolate. So I did a lot of internet reading and picture browsing. I bought the following items and started my cake. I don't have many pictures during the process, but I 'll try to get them next time.

From Regular grocery store:

Duncun Hynes Swiss Chocolate cake Mix - 2
Pam Baking Spray
Duncun Hynes fluffy Milk Chocolate Frosting - 2

From Cake Decorationg supply Shop:

Regular white fondant (I couldn't get the chocolate fondant, but it is available in some stores. Mine was out of this kind) - 1.5 lb
Chocolate Brown Fondant Color - 1 small bottle - I had to color it since I got white fondant
Couple of frosting piping heads - Flower tip
Couple shapes of cookie cutters - Flower, round
flat spatula
8inch round cardboard sheet for cake base.

Most of these can be used more than once, except for the fondant, which will just be enough for an 8in round cake. So I think it is worth buying them.

First thing's first, bake the cake according to instructions on the package, I have a 1 1/2 half inch deep 8in cake pan, so I had to make 2 cakes using 2 packages.
Once done, let it cool completely. Remove from the pan and cut off the bumpy top layer to flatten them for frosting. Apply frosting on one of the cakes and put the 2nd cake on top of the first one upside down so that you get a nice even surface on top. If you have baked one thick cake, cut it in the middle for frosting layer.
Or if you don't cake about layers, leave it like that, its easy. But if you are cutting the cake and frosting, it helps to freeze it before cutting/ frosting so that you dont get all the crumbs flaking up. So after layers, frost the cake with butter cream frosting or any flavour you like. Use your spatula to even out the cake for smooth finish.
If you work little carefully, this frosting might be enough for a nice looking cake with a little touchup decorations using icing tubes and tips.

Using Fondant:

If you want to use the fondant, put your frosted cake in freezer and start working with fondant so the frosting hardens up a little. Makes it easy to work with. Don't worry
about cake getting hardened because of freezing, it will be fresh.

I colored small part of the fondant lighter than the rest, so I could have 2 colors in my decorations. Rest of the fondant was colored to match with my chocolate frosting.
Its just putting the color on fondant and kneeding, but it takes lots of elbow greese. I recommend using gloves, just not get your hands messy with color. You can wash it off though.

Once the color is evenly merged into fondant, roll it out like a tortilla with a rolling pin into 1/4th - 1/8th inch thick. This should cover you cake on top and all around. A little extra is better, so you can cut it off for even look. Place the rolled fondant carefully without tearing it on to the cake and press gently with your palms to remove any air and make sure the fondant glues to the frosting on the cake. Start on the top and carefully proceed to the sides. Cut of the extra fondant around the cake.

From the extra fondant remaining and the lighter colored fondant, I cut out some flowers and rounds using cookie cutters, placed them on a damp towel for couple of seconds and attached them on top of the cake. Finally, take a ziplock bag, cut off at the edge to insert piping tips, insert flower tip(your choice) and fill the bag with frosting.
Pipe the frosting in the design you want to hide the seams at the edge of the cake.

Here is what I got. I was very happy to get the look of professional bakery cake (not quite, but good enough for a beginer). And the Birthday Girl! She was so happy that she wanted to cut and eat it right away though she had 2 more store bought professional cakes. Worth the whole process :)

What is Inflation???

As we all know inflation has made economy go significantly bad in United States, how many of us really know what is inflation and how is it caused? I thought I knew until I read this article. Read on, you might feel the same.

Here is a simple question for you: do wet streets cause rain? Or does rain cause wet streets? Everyone knows that rain causes wet streets and not the other way around. Yet, relating that same example to inflation, do rising prices cause inflation? If the price of oil goes up this month, does that cause inflation? If the price of insurance, or health care, or college tuition goes up, does that cause inflation? Do wet streets cause rain?
Unfortunately, the established media present inflation statistics in such a way that suggests that rising prices do indeed cause inflation. Consumers are led to believe that if the price of oil goes up on international markets, it will create a domino effect across our economy causing the prices of many other things to rise, and thus causing inflation to rise. That is pure folly. Wet streets do not cause rain, nor do rising prices cause inflation. Wet streets and rising prices are both symptoms, but not the source of the cause. Let me explain.
In our economy, there is a finite amount of "money". The definition of money nowadays is more than a little confusing. Even Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified before Congress that it is hard to understand and define what money actually is. The Federal reserve has some definitions. M1 includes just cash, or currency. M2 includes cash, plus cash equivalents, such as deposits in checking accounts that can be readily spent. M3 includes even more, but the Federal Reserve as of March this year stopped publishing M# statistics. Regardless of what definition of money that you use, there is a fixed amount of it in use in our economy.
The basic cause of inflation, at its very root, is the dilution in the value of money. When the value of money goes down, it has the effect of making prices of everything go up. However, prices going up is not inflation itself, but rather the result of true inflation: the dilution in the value of money. If the value of money wasn't diluted in the first place, prices would not respond by going up. Our economic system is very complex, involving literally trillions of individual transactions every year. But the basic principle of inflation is quite simple. When excess money is put into our economy, it dilutes the value of the existing money, and thus we have inflation.
Think of our economy as one big auction. Lots of things for sale, and lots of buyers actually purchasing those things. To keep our example understandable, we'll use round numbers. If there are one million items for sale in our auction, and one million buyers, each with one dollar to spend, the average price per item will be one dollar, assuming everything sells. If an outside source gives each buyer another dollar (thus doubling the total amount of money in the auction) without an increase in the amount of items available to purchase, then the average price per item would be two dollars. The more money that is introduced into this auction, the more prices will go up. Assume that several buyers were allowed to photocopy currency, and could use this to purchase items in the auction. If these people could use the photocopy machine without limit, isn't it easy to see how prices in the auction would rise in the same fashion as a result of all this "money" competing for the same items? By introducing more "money" into the system, the value of existing "money" gets diluted. That is how inflation works.
Now, the population of this country grows each year by about 1.7%. Realistically, there should be 1.7% more cars, houses, offices, etc. If the money supply increases by 1.7%, it would offset the increase in tangibles, and prices would neither fall nor rise, but remain stable. However, if the supply of money increases by 11.7%, there would be an extra 10% that would dilute the value of the existing money that is already in the system. That would be the source of inflation.
History teaches us that governments and other "powers that be" cannot resist the temptation to print paper money recklessly for their own self-interests. Realistically, the temptation is just too great. If you could photocopy money without penalty of law and jail, wouldn't you? If the only penalty of doing so was that it dilutes the value of everybody else's money, how could you resist? Want a fancy sports car? Just go the the photocopy machine. Want a new waterfront estate? Another trip to the photocopier.....

Oh Boy... That was some information for people like me who pay minimum attention to economy issues.

Having said that, here are the top 10 cities in US (posted by Forbes.com) to get the most out of your dollar if you are planning to buy a house or get a new job.

1. Austin, TX
2. San Antonio, TX
3. Indianapolis, IN
4. Houston, TX
5. Charlotte, NC
6. Columbus, OH
7. Dallas, TX
8. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
9. Denver, CO
10. Portland, OR

Here are the Top 10 cities in US that get you the least out of your money if not the worst. Posted by Forbes.com as well.

1. Los Angeles, CA
2. Providence, RI
3. New Orleans, LA
4. Philadelphia, PA
5. Cleveland, OH
6. New York, NY
7. Milwaukee, WI
8. St. Louis, MO
9. Washington, DC
10. Sacramento, CA

These lists were put together with statistics based on affordable housing, gas prices, inflation and job growth. So I guess this is pretty close to being accurate. Too bad we live in Los Angeles :(