Lemon Sponge Pudding

My dad lives in a different city and because of the fact that he hates to travel due to his health, it's is seldom i get to see him at my place. But whenever he does come over, i have this Honest-to-God urge to impress him. I don't know where it comes from, but i just need everything to be perfect when he comes over. A spotless house and the food being perfect and well presented. Maybe it is because he has done so much for us all our lives that it feels like now he deserves perfect everything in whatever capacity we can give him. Or maybe a part of me just wants to prove to him that i'm not just his little princess anymore and am an independent person capable of managing things perfectly, just the way he raised us all to be. I love to cook for my dad, he, like me, is also a food lover and appreciates new efforts. I believe the best part about cooking is to share it with the ones you love. I have always loved spoiling family and friends with good food.

So today he is coming over and i have been preparing since morning. Excited as i am, i decided to try out this new recipe for lemon sponge pudding. As i mentioned in my previous post that i have been wanting to experiment with lemons. Seeing my excitement hubby dear brought me these amazing looking lemons from the supermarket.

It is not everyday you see lemons this big over here in Pakistan. Usually the local "sabzi wala" has ones that are much smaller in size. I saved a lot of zest for future use so i guess you can expect more lemon-related recipes soon.

Here is the recipe for lemon sponge pudding. I love the tangy-ness in it and the soft texture. It can be served both warm and cold maybe with a dollop of whipped cream but personally i like it served warm with a dusting of icing sugar.

                            

On an ending note, I'm absolutely enjoying trying out all these zesty recipes. In my book, when life gives you lemons, you make lemon sponge pudding.

                           

Lemon Cake

I haven't been able to bake much lately, let alone post something. Z has been sick with some viral infection, and we all know how crazy life gets when one or more of your kids are under the weather. Anyway, she is feeling better now which is a relief. However i'm feeling quite paranoid about A now. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's inevitable that they both share germs and i know sooner or later he is going to catch it too. But so far he seems fine. *fingers crossed*

Today I'm going to share the recipe for a lemon cake that i made recently. I have never really experimented with lemons in baking. I remember making a lemon curd once for a Boston Cream Pie but that was a flop because it tasted too much of egg yolks. So i decided to start my lemon-y goods experiments the other way round and this time i made a simple lemon cake. Lemon curds and puddings will follow later. 

This is basically a pound cake which uses lemon juice and lemon zest to give that moist and tangy flavour. The final touch is your lemon frosting which is made by combining confectioners icing with lemon juice. Everyone in my family loved this cake. It is just the right amount of moist and sweet and tangy. My husband is not a fan of the tangy-ness of the glaze though. But i loved it. You can make the cake without the glaze and this will probably be the best recipe for pound cake in your recipe collection.

Here's the recipe.

And this is how it turned out. I made it in a loaf pan, but i would suggest to use a round cake pan so the frosting settles on top. With a loaf pan you have to make it real thick if you want it to drip along with staying over the surface.

Chicken and Mushroom Cannelloni

My recent haul and a fallen marble bundt cake

Online shopping is probably the worst kind for your budget. Otherwise it would mean stepping out of the house which stay at home moms like me seldom do and as a result we don't shop often. But having stuff just a click away is a little too hard to resist. Especially when you are all for trying out new products.

Recently i have been updating my stock of bake-ware and i got a little carried away with my recent purchases. Here is what i bought;

A mini cheesecake pan with removable bottoms. I have been really wanting this ever since my individual cheesecakes experiment.

A 9" non stick tart pan with removable bottom. I don't own a tart pan/ pie dish. I have always used my mom's for the apple pies. Really want to experiment with more pies and tarts.

A ceramic bundtform pan. Just because this was relatively cheap and bundt cakes are so pretty looking. I have never made a bundt cake in my life and as soon as i got my hands on it, i tried one. I used the marble cake recipe from joyofbaking.com and the result was a perfectly light and amazingly good tasting cake that fell apart due to my own impatience. (So no picture for you guys)

The recipe clearly said to make sure the cake cools in the pan before you turn it over. Well i being the impatient woman that i am, didn't wait long enough and it broke from the top as i flipped it over. Nevertheless it tasted good and as much as i wanted to save the leftovers for a later time, there weren't any. Here's a picture of the last slice i helped finish today. 

At this rate if i continue with my baking experiments and keep consuming them, i'm afraid i will never lose those extra pounds i gained during my pregnancy. (Yes i'm still carrying them) One of these days i would like to post about eating healthy. I really hope that is soon enough. My dear husband generously offered to take all these yummy goods off my hands by taking them along with him to work. I really like the offer, but to avail that i must make sure i make pretty looking cakes next time, not the ones that fall apart. 

Coming back to the online shopping part, i would like to add that there are a lot of pages on facebook these days which deal with all sort of baking supplies. Initially all these supplies were not available in Pakistan and they still are hard to find at local stores, so your best option is to shop online. The best part is that most of them let you contact them via whatsapp so you can inquire about the product in detail and they even let you have the cash on delivery service. I ordered the first two products from Bakers Supplies. I'm very happy with their pricing, the quality of product and their service. The bundt cake pan was ordered from Daraz.pk. I'm really looking forward to more bundt cake recipes. And i promise myself i wont let the next one fall apart. "Feeling Determined"!

Foodie Review on Bombay Chowpatty

Bombay Chowpatty has been in town for a while. We heard a lot about it's amazingness but never had a chance to visit until recently when it opened a new branch in Z block DHA. We were quite prepared for the food to blow our minds, little did we know that it would literally do so. Yes, it was that spicy!

We were four people and we ordered one dish each. Firstly our order took a while to arrive. Secondly, despite having mentioned that we want the order to be brought all at once, the server kept bringing it one by one. The last dish was so late to arrive that half of us were already finished.However the manager was quite humble when we complained about this and promised to cater to this problem in future.

We ordered the following items

All of them looked extremely appetizing presentation wise. We couldn't wait to dig in. But upon tasting, not only everything was extremely spicy, it lacked any kind of flavor. Indian food generally is supposed to be spicy, but i am pretty sure one can sense the flavor within that spiciness. It needs to have that balance. Still apart from masala dosa, the rest were not too bad. Papri chat and bihari wrap was actually good and had a blend of flavors. But if we can get a better papri chat from a thelay wala or a wrap equally good from a place called "waqai bara shawarma" why would we want to visit someplace fancy? we were really looking forward to the Indian delicacies, but sorry to say they were a disappointment.

Price wise, the place was quite reasonable. 

Will we ever visit it again? Probably yes if we want that chat or pani puri just because everywhere else in the city is getting sealed up due to unhygienic conditions.

Our rating: 4/10

Foodies in matrimony

My husband is a great cook. And like all the best people (courtesy of julia child) he loves to eat almost as much as i do. Infact, food is one of the very few things we have in common. Yes, you read that right, very few! we are two people who couldnt be any different. Kind of proves you don't need to have alot in common to be in love. Anyway, ever since we got married we have been eating out atleast a couple times a month (hence the unexplained weight gain) and every time we do, we make it a point to try out a new restaurant. We have tried alot of restaurants in Lahore and a few in Islamabad and beleiveit or not, every time we used to visit a place, we used to rate the food we ordered on a scale of 1 to 10. His idea of romance would be to ask me how i rate my meal? Yes. And for some reason i would totally love it. Before we had kids this was quite a common practice. We even marked a few places as a "no - go" in our list because they were so terrible. So this other day we are driving back from monal, discussing the details of the overpriced and over rated meal we had at the Monal Tree House, we stumbled upon this idea of writing these reviews about all the places we visit in a blog. While i generously offered to incorporate it in this blog, we sort of never got around to doing it. What can we say, life is busy with two kids.

But then soon after we went to this new place in Islamabad which was the talk of the town and the experience we had there made us feel like we owe it to the Pakistani world of foodies out there to put these thoughts in words and hence today i launch this new page in my blog by the name of Foodie Reviews. Both me and my husband will be updating this depending upon the frequency of our visits. Looking forward to this joint venture and some comments from our readers sharing their experinces.

P is for Plain and Simple Pound Cake

Pound cake is usually the first thing you learn to make when you start baking. Also commonly known in Pakistan as "plain cake" this is the cake that is available at every nook and cranny of the city. This is also the same cake that our moms use to make when we were kids. I have to admit i haven't made a pound cake as much as i would have liked, probably because we always used to have it at our place. And need i say that my mom made it the best? Well she actually did, no favoritism. Hers is always moist and tender with a subtlety of vanilla. I never bothered asking her for her own recipe because i always thought it was the same everywhere, that is; a pound of everything. But today i learnt i was so wrong!

Z has not been eating properly lately. She would simply refuse all the "good things" i give her at mealtimes but gladly grabs a cookie or a cake crumb if someone else is having one. As much as i hate to let kids have dessert before mealtime, i have been desperate for her to eat at least something to her fill. So today i decided to bake something at home instead of letting her have the store bought crap, justifying myself that at least this way she will get some egg and butter in her tummy. I know it is not the best choice but hey, no judging, we all do desperate things as moms don't we? Anyway, so i decided to make a simple pound cake for her. When i went online to look up a good recipe, i was pretty amused to see that there were a lot of variations to it. I chose a Martha Stewart Recipe for this one. Here is how it goes.


INGREDIENTS

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 6-cup (8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch) loaf pan; set aside.

Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; add vanilla and salt. With mixer on low, gradually add flour, beating just until combined (do not overmix).

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour (tent with aluminum foil if browning too quickly). Let cool in pan 15 minutes. Invert onto a wire rack, and turn upright to cool completely.

This is how the cake turned out.

I loved the vanilla flavor in it. While adding two tsp of vanilla essence i thought it might turn out bitter, but it didn't. And it smelled great. But i think it was a little too dense. Maybe i was comparing it with mom's version which was always so moist and light. So next time i'm definitely calling up my mom and ask for her recipe. Saving this one for Z and my afternoon tea.