Bellissimo       I swear I missed these delicious soft sweet brioche like buns when I went to Rome. I didn’t see them or perhaps my tunnel of vision at that time was just on gelato, all different flavours. But then we were too busy taking in all the sights and hardly had any time to laze around cafes and coffee shops. Gelato, prosecco, pizzas and pasta were the main things I looked out for. The only time I had anything sweet besides gelato was tiramisu. Oh well anyway, baking these soft, sweet, orangey buns was a delight. Obviously the whole house smelt so good and the buns disappeared pretty fast during breakfast. When I baked the maritozzi, I was in Montreal. I had…

lovely combination       For the month of May, the We Knead to Bake group had to bake an orange and cinnamon swirl bread. The combination of orange and cinnamon is absolutely heavenly. While I was baking this bread, the kitchen was filled with wonderful aroma of both the combinations. The original recipe used apricot preserve. I couldn’t find any apricot preserve in the supermarket and we don’t get apricots so I decided to first make orange marmalade and used that as the filling. This recipe finally got me to make marmalade which I had wanted to d for a long time but never seem get down to it. I thought it would be difficult but actually its very easy. I baked an eggless…

Learning   The few cooking groups that I belong to are really educative. I have learnt new techniques, more about world cuisine, a bit more about other countries and its fun to see the photos of fellow bloggers. The same recipe turns out quite different in different hands. If it weren’t for these groups I don’t think I would have tried out different sorts of breads or baked goodies. I would have probably stuck to the more familiar recipes. Sometimes time does not permit me to bake on time but I do finish the challenge before the month ends. A lot of research goes into challenging the groups to a certain recipe.Research by both the one who sets the challenge and also by the ones…

VERY SIMPLE LIFE       Last Sunday our club, Lions Club of Mombasa Bahari went to to a remote village for the opening ceremony of a bore well. This was the 3rd bore well that the Club had constructed with the help of generous donors. As soon as we reached the village, what struck me was how simple life is in these remote villages. No electricity, no water, no complicated or complex buildings… actually nothing except for huts, lots of trees, greenery and cattle. When we have to stay without power for even an hour, we get frustrated and life comes to a standstill when our taps run dry. These villagers live without all this. Women, girls, young children have to track long distances…

Celebration As I mentioned in my previous post, April is full of birthdays and anniversaries. Last weekend we celebrated my hubby’s mama’s 77th birthday. I baked a cake for his birthday. It had to be eggless as mamaji is a total vegetarian, no eggs or meat or fish. I had loads of over ripe bananas and thought of using them up. Hot weather means bananas do not stay good for too long. I though of using butter icing and then changed my mind as I thought a 77 year old man deserves a more classy cake. He wanted to serve ice cream as dessert so mamiji requested for a cake that could be served with ice cream. I decided to drizzle the cake with some…

first time ever!       When Priya challenged the Home Bakers Challenge group to bake scones, I got excited. Excited because I love scones, because I have so many scone recipes in my recipe book but never tried any and because now I had to bake them! My cousin Jayshree is an expert at baking scones. She baked some during my last visit to London and invited my sister in laws and me to her house for early breakfast…. tea or coffee with scones. She served them with some jam, butter and clotted cream. Took one in my plate, finished it with some hot tea, then had another one. She kept on insisting we have more, but the mind was saying no and the…

Caraway is a fruit and not a seed      Our We Knead to bake challenge for the month of March was Kummelweck rolls. Kummelweck, kimmelweck or kümmelweck is topped with salt and caraway seeds which gives it its distinctive flavour. Kümmel in German means caraway, and weck means roll. So simply put these are caraway rolls.  A beef on a weck is a sandwich famous in New York. I am not going  into details about the origin of the rolls as it will be like repeating what is in the wikipedia. These rolls are chewy and crusty from he outside and soft from the inside. The caraway seeds add an earthy, fennel like flavour to these rolls. Caraway seeds are not actually seeds but…