Saturday Song: Pyaar Ki Pungi from the Agent Vinod movie!

Hello there!


I owe you guys many many photos and many entries, but for today, before taking a lil nap after working I wanna share a song with you guys!


During the wedding days we used to play these two channels on the telly that only play Bollywood videos, and both G and myself got quite into this song, which is rather unusual for us both, but it is quite a catchy song! According to Gaurav the title could be roughly translated as "you've given my heart a nipple twist" or something like that...





Hope you'll like it. Enjoy the weekend!

Wearing Handmade Wednesday: What to wear for an Indian Wedding's Reception, the handmade way!

Hello, hello, heeeelloooo! Well, it has been quite a while! With this and that, and the other thing, I really have abandoned my poor lil blog! But today I decided I really needed to remedy that, so I'm putting the latest book I'm reading aside and working on the first Wearing Handmade Wednesday post in quite a while!

Here it is, a shot taken by Nitin Dani, a friend of Umesh, one of G's best friends. We were at Umesh's reception (part of what Big Fat Indian Wedding is... more on that on a future blog post) and here you can see, Varsha, Harsha and myself, with a mix of occidental and Indian wear. I'm wearing an absolutely lovely dress from Resa Smith (that I need to unpack and take to dry cleaning...) and matching clutch I got custom done by the awesome lady from Cotton Purr and a lovely Ever Designs necklace!

Saturday Song: I Believe In Love from the OST of Mirror Mirror

Hello everyone! Long time no blog and all that jazz! I just wanted to share a song I've been a bit obssessed with since seeing the movie Mirror Mirror, and let you know that in all probability I'll be back on track, resuming the normal blogging schedule next week, since I'll be getting my laptop back next week! Finally!


For now, enjoy Snow White meets Bollywood!

A forced break from blogging...

Hey everyone!

The blog hasn't been updated in nearly a month or maybe a little longer, but with the trip to India, and then my poor laptop getting K.O. after some coffee drop and a oxidiced mother board as a result (I so thought of Erin from Erin Bradley Designs when it happened, how many times she had adviced against the coffee nearby the laptop!)... I'm right now typing on a borrowed laptop and with a few more week(s) to go till I'm back to normal, either with a repaired laptop, or with a new one... we'll see!

I can't share any photos of my latest cupcakes with you, neither of my trip to India or even less photos of my trip to Ireland that I just returned from yesterday!

So, that's all for now, I hope I'll be able to return to the world of blogging soon-ish!

Travelling Plushie Thursday!

Today's Travelling Thursday is gonna be a little different, cause I'm gonna be sharing a few photos of an awesome swap that I'm doing with the ladies of the Attack of the Craft forums.

We're doing a plushie swap, and we're taking pics of our guest plushie while we show him around! Mr Horsie, my guest, came all the way from Georgia in the US! And it came with me to India to visit Gaurav!

Poor Horsie arrived so tired from his long trip from the US!

Already in India, he came with us to the mountains, chilling on top the pine trees!

Gaurav carried Mr Horsie around our trecks!

Enjoying the views from a vantage point!

Chilling with a pinecone!

And he really did get a taste for pinecones!

And even kept us company during some celebrations!

To be continued! ;)

Monday Munchies: Learning to Decorate Cookies with En Ocasiones Veo Cupcakes!

Hello everyone! Long time no see! I think that it's been a month or so since I last updated the blog, with my trip to India and also with a week to trip to get back into the routine of work and the likes...

Getting back to work and getting used to be away from the boyfriend, again, is always a bit of tough work, so I was really looking forward to attend a workshop on decorated cookies with the same awesome lady from En Ocasiones Veo Cupcakes: Gloria! I landed on Monday, went back to work on Tuesday and attended the workshop on Wednesday!

It really was exactly what I needed! Gloria is not only a great instructor/teacher but she also is a lot of fun! The theme for the decorating workshop was First Communion, since over here in Spain it's the start of the season for it, and we'd learn about recipes for the cookies, the royal icing used to decorate them, how to use  fondant and textures for decorating them.

We started the morning with a cup of coffee and some cookies that Gloria brought so we could try the taste of them and see how we liked the recipe and texture. And they were so very tasty!

Then it was time to start with the decorating itself, so we all got one boy, one girl, one cup, one heart and one cross, and get our hands busy!

We started with fondant decorations for the boy and girl. First we decided how we wanted to dress them, and as expected for lil atheist me, I went on a different route, and decided to decorate a princess and a San Fermin bull runner! We started learning what to use to get the fondant or sugarpaste to stick to the cookie, and then we made the faces for our cookies. We also made the dress for the girl with textures and used some edible paint to get the texture to stand out more.

Then we continued to work on their faces, with modelling tools and also adding some blush to their faces with dust colours. My lil runner seems to a) have been running a lot or b) overdid it with the booze to fortify himself for the running with the bulls! I coloured fondant red for the sash and the hankie round his neck, to look like a proper "San Ferminero"! After adding the white shoes, he just lacked hair!

For the lil princess, I managed to get the blush right so she didn't look like she was tipsy and worked on her arms and added matching shoes and a garland of flowers to her neck, which were a lil difficult to get in place. So now my lil girl was only missing her royal icing hair.

But before working on that, I had to get the hang of using royal icing for doing the borders on the cookies, and then use the less thick royal icing to fill in the cookie and do some inlaid decorations. It took me a while to get the hang of the pressure to do a decent line and of course, it needs more practice, but I finally managed to do something decent. This heart got some fondant doves added to it and I'll give it to one of my besties that will be getting married this year (I think!).

Once I was feeling more confident with the royal icing lines I worked on my two lil ones, giving the runner straight hair and the princess curly hair. I really liked doing the curly hair, so I think I'll give curly hair to all my upcoming cookies! Just added a lil matching flower to top her hair right!

And here are all my finished cookies! I used marbling technique with the royal icing to give a lil nice something to the cup and cross. And you can also see the doves I added to the heart cookie, made with a silicon mold.

And finally, we managed to take a pic of Gloria and me together that we totally missed on the cupcakes workshop! (I stole this one from Gloria's blog, but I think she won't mind!) 

Now, I'm gonna leave you cause I need to finish unpacking my suitcase (I know, it's already been a week...) and to start planning the cupcakes for St Patrick's Day! I know, I know, I'm way too enthusiastic about St Patrick's day for a Spaniard, but I can't help it, I love anything Irish and it's a great excuse to try new cupcake recipes!

Traveling Thursday: Cuenca, Spain!

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Traveling Thursday!

I think I've just channeled Stephen Fry intro to QI... If only I could channel also some of his brain power! My brain has been completely scattered this week! So busy at work, and thinking of leaving this Sunday and also not sleeping too well is leaving my brain in a state of wonkiness... I think I'll go get a nice latte or something from my Dolce Gusto and continue to work on the entry in a wee bit, to help with the mental fog!

Aaaand back, sipping on a vanilla latte. Hopefully I'll kick the laziness enough to work a bit on rearranging the packing, take some shots for future blog entries, maybe even schedule a pair of them for next week, and bake some cupcakes to take to my bro's for my nephews!

Getting back on track, today I'm gonna share with you all Cuenca, the capital city of a Spanish province of the same name, nearby Madrid. It's a small city, mediaeval and smack right in the middle (or confluence) of two rivers, the Jucar and the Huecar. It's built on a hill and you can see the canyons carved by both rivers. Absolutely stunning views! I've been there a few times, cause is the hometown of Alberto and Emilio, two friends of mine, and in Emilio's case, he's also the bf of one of my best friends!

Cuenca's cathedral, it's almost like a twin of Notre Dame de Paris!

One of the most famous sights fo Cuenca "las casas colgadas" translated roughly as "the hanging houses" built right at the border of the cliff.

View of the hanging houses from the middle of the bridge 

A view of all the city!

Another view of the top of the hill

Another view of the hills opposite the city

My friend Irene, Alberto, David and myself

Here you can see the "hanging houses" and the bridge

And another view of the cliff and the "hanging houses"

Mark This Book for Monday Munchies: Making Cupcakes With Lola!

Hey there! I've been dragging a bit this Monday since I didn't get to sleep much last night, which tends to happen when I work morning shift after a few days off. But now, finally after dinner I've edited some photos for this entry, which is a combination of Mark This Book Monday and Monday Munchies!

Today I'm recommending a recipe book for cupcakes only, that came highly recommended from the very awesome Alma from Alma's Cupcakes when I asked her what book she'd recommend since I already had Cake Days, Primrose Bakery and Eat Me!, and without a doubt she recommended "Making Cupcakes With Lola", and was she right!

As much as I love the Primrose Bakery book and the Eat Me! books, and the Eat Me! book is full of awesome recipes, I adore this one cause it's JUST cupcakes, and it's the kinda book you open and start thinking "I wanna make this" *turn page* "and this!" *turn page* "ooooh, and this!!" and you can go on like that till you run out of pages! I usually put business cards to mark pages for recipes I like and want to make, and I can barely close the book with the amount of cards marking recipes! I think I need to get coloured post-it to avoid damaging the book!

Two of the first recipes I wanted to make and that jumped to the first line as soon as I saw them where the Masala Chai tea cupcakes and the Matcha Chocolate cupcakes! I love tea, and I love chocolate, and I love having chai when I'm in India so those two were a MUST!

So, last Friday I was meeting my friends from college, Pilu and I were having lunch at the new Indian restaurant (and only one, I might add) in town (they have Kingfisher!! = Indian beer) and then we were meeting Esther and Sara for coffee, so I decided to make both recipes on Thursday to have them ready for Friday. I wanted to make half the recipe for both, but since the matcha chocolate cupcakes recipe calls for an egg, and seriously, half an egg? Well, I made 12 of those, and 6 of the masala chai cupcakes!

According to Alma's scale of goodness based on how long the mmmmmmm is, I have to say the masala chai cupcakes were the supreme champion! The three of them kept going "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" at every bite! And I have to say they were damned tasty! The buttercream was delicious, I added a bit of the milk with the tea even if wasn't supposed to be part of the recipe for it, but a bit of milk is a good idea to make the buttercream manageable and not too thick! Which was the problem with the matcha buttercream, a bit too thick, even if I added a bit of milk too. But experimenting is half the fun! I'm thinking of trying the buttercream in this chai recipe with the vegan chai cupcakes from the "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World". And I think I really need to try the recipe for green tea buttercream from the Primrose Bakery book.

And aside from that, I also wanted to share a recipe from the book that I modified to make it a bit more "parents-with-high-cholesterol" friendly, and also added a bit more spice to it, I made it with my friend Irene on Sunday morning!:


Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Makes 12-15

Ingredients:

- 175 gr whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 a pinch f salk
- 2 eggs
- 200 gr brown sugar
- 100 ml vegetable oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large carrots, peeled and finely grated
- 40 gr canned crushed pineapple, drained (or just finely chop canned pineapple and drain well)
- 3 tablespoons chopped walnuts.

Method:

- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Line the cupcake pan with paper liners
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon, ground ginger and salt in a bowl.
- Put the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until thick and well combined. Add the oil and the vanilla and beat until smooth.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients and beat on low speed/by hand until combined. Stir in the carrots, pineapple and walnuts and mix well.
- Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Bake in the preheated over for 22-25 minutes or until well risen and a toothpick/cake tester comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a wire rack till they're cool enough to decorate.

I used the Cream Cheese Frosting according to the book directions, but I think next time, I'll just make them without frosting, cause they're so very yummy, very fluffly and very moisty! And if I make the frosting, I'll use the one Alma gave us in her latest workshop!