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Eggless Tutti Frutti Cake and Memories Galore

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As I write this blog, it is raining outside. The sound of the pitter patter outside adds to the soothing cadence of the keys of my laptop and transports me to my childhood days when rain did not herald the coming of a migraine but the promise of pure adulterated joy. Like the parched earth, soaked in the downpour, we embraced the rain for it promised general uplifting of spirits in everybody. The daily drudgery was forgotten and out came the karahis for the pakoras. The sound of laughter became more abundant and previously crabby siblings shared your enthusiasm for the latest prank to be enjoyed in the rain. Tea was served and the pakoras disappeared at an alarming rate along with the requests for more ketchup. While I am reminiscing about these golden days, culinary wise it is not the pakoras that tempted me more, rather it was the sweet melt in your mouth-tutti frutti cake slices or fruit cake as we called it back in India. A trip to the bakery was incomplete without pur
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The Bestest Ever Chocolate Cake and Compliments Galore!

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There are chocolate cakes and then there is the one pictured above. I think the above picture of the cake is really doing justice and conveying how moist and super spongy it turned out. Sheer heaven on earth. This is a cake that is supposed to make even staunch vanilla cake lovers switch side to the dark side..of...chocolate. Case in point being yours truly and also my friend who is a fresh convert after having tasted it last night. It is a chocolate lovers fantasy that turns out right every single time and is guaranteed to make your receive compliments galore.  I normally bake this one for birthdays or when the chocolate craving hits any member of my family. it is a fairly simple bake and relies upon the richness of real baking chocolate rather than cocoa powder. Any good semi-sweet baking chocolate with cacao percentage of around 60%  should do for the recipe. Addition of sour cream as well ensures that the end product is super moist and decadent.The only thing to be borne in mi
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Themed Cake for our Hercule Poirot's Christmas Book Club Party

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I am a sucker for British mysteries so then why shouldn't the queen of crime -Agatha Christie enjoy the numero uno position in my beloved authors' list. Her being there has much to do with her Belgian detective - Hercule Poirot and his insistence on using those little grey cells. His waxy mustache might also have a part to play too, Anyway, after a year of some heavy reading, when our book club decided on Hercule Poirot's Christmas as our December read, I decided that our Belgian detective not only deserved a cake of his own but a whole party dedicated to him.  As such, our book club meeting for that month turned into a Book Club Christmas Mystery Party. That was the event invite that was sent to the members and the response was enthusiastic, a fact not surprising considering majority of them share my love for the somewhat vain Belgian detective. Most of us have grown up reading Christie and share a fondness for her which got us into the right spirit of things and
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Desi Chai Cupcakes and Shark Tank !

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Rack your brains as much as you want but chances are extremely slim to none that you will find a connection between chai cupcakes and shark tank or even chai and sharks alone for that matter. The above statement will hold true before reading the blog post of course. Once, you have acquainted yourself with the text that  follows, the mystery will be  solved or in simpler terms , you might see the connection that prompted me to name the title so . You see, I long to keep interesting titles for my blog posts and when this unusual one came along in my brain , I simply couldn't ignore it . The thought that it may pique the reader's interest and this generate more curiosity for the blog post also prompted my naming it such. The mention of a genial beverage based cupcakes with a gritty business reality show is enough to raise eyebrows but here is the story behind it . You see, tomorrow is the last day of school for my 4th grader. But instead of watching  movies or playing game
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Orange Upside Down Cake and New Year Vibes !

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We are two months and four days past the New Year but still can't help making a reference to it  as  I proudly proclaim this particular blog post to be my first one of 2017. No mean feat considering the fact that  writing baking blog posts has  taken a backseat lately . But, hey another year has  dawned and I for one  intent to fully embrace the positive spirits that New Year brings . Sincerely wishing  that  maybe this year will be different from last year in the fact that  I might surprise you guys with ample quantity of new blog posts though the strict definition of "ample" in this case might be debatable. Whatever number of blog posts I end up writing this year , lets give it a good solid start with this particular one which is for an sticky  upside down orange cake. It is my way of paying culinary homage to the current citrus season. So, grab your cloth grocery bags and make the trip to your nearest food store or farmer's market to stock up
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Smiley Face Brownies!!! :)

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   So, brownies. Haven't done them in a while. Last brownies I remember finding themselves on the blog were the Black Bean Brownies  way back in May of 2015. Now , that is a long time to go without brownies. Seriously !!  Well actually, I didn't even  bake the brownies then.  Last I checked, my mom did.  That's right. I'm not the famous Harveen Roy. I'm her daughter, Yagyesha Roy with  some good old fashioned chocolate brownies.Since they are my first bake, I am going ahead and giving them a fancy name - "Smiley Face Brownies." Why this name, you ask ? The picture should give a clue. Well, there was more text on the surface of the brownies which you will come to know later but the smiley got lucky as it got to be the one which got photographed and thus found itself  on the pages on this blog. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about brownies! When somebody says brownies, what comes into your mind? The All-Ame
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