Flourless Orange Cardamom Almond cake (Dairy-free, Gluten-free)

..a walk through a sunny orange orchard, breathing the zesty air!

It was a very special blessing to live so close to an orange orchard since I love all things citrus. The sight of all those bright sunny oranges never failed to cheer me up and truly California is sunnier with all those orange and lemon trees everywhere!

You would have seen many citrus desserts on this blog, but nothing quite like this cake, made with whole oranges, boiled in their thick orange skin and flour less and butter less to boot! Sounds pretty crazy right? I thought so too!

I was introduced to these at that bakesale we had taken part in. There was a sea of colorful baked goodies- iced sugar cookies in all shapes, gorgeous layer cakes under glass domes, cupcakes piled high with frosting.....but what caught my eye were these tiny clementine mini muffins with a very intriguing ingredient list: Whole clementines, eggs, almonds, sugar, baking powder. No flour? No butter?! Curious, I bought a bunch to share with friends and wow! was I rewarded! 

Each little bite was  incredibly tender and moist, more like pudding than cake, with a heady citrussy flavor and fragrance. I loved them so much I had to have the recipe which the lovely Andrea who baked for the sale, mailed to me. They are made in the food processor or mixie and are quite easy to make too. 

They are perfect to nibble on with a cup of tea or strong coffee ( in my case) and simply perfect for the Mad Tea Party today. What could be madder than a flour less, butter less cake I say ?!

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Apple Oatmeal Smoothie

Do you have a cheeky monkey running loose? I do. Is he a picky eater? Mine is, most of the time :( He stubbornly refuses delicious roast chicken after having devoured it like it was candy the previous day. He clamps his mouth shut at the mere mention of cauliflower. Some days all he wants is his soy milk. So what's a Momma to do but sneak in apples and oat meal, with a dash of cinnamon and a spoonful of brown sugar, or maple syrup, and watch the cheeky monkey slurp it all down. Pappas will like this too- why not start off Father's day with some healthy and yummy, cool fruity-oatmeal goodness, perfect for these warm summer days :)

The sticky fingered apple thief! From knocking over props to running off with them, kids are not conducive to photography :( On the other hand these may be my two most favourite pictures ever!

P.s What do you think about my blog tweakings? Like it? or do you like the old look (with the cupcakes, remember them?) better? Do let me know! 

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Easy Baked Chicken and The Kerala Kitchen June 2011 Event Announcement

Last month the amazingly sweet Sarah of Spoonful of Delight hosted the Kerala Kitchen while I was busy packing, shifting houses, unpacking and rescuing a little monkey who loves to dive headfirst into cardboard boxes. Head on over to her wonderful site here to check out the awesome collection of Kerala inspired dishes we received from our awesome members. Now that I am all settled into my new home and new kitchen, I am happy to be hosting again! Sarah had a neat idea to make it even easier for you to submit entries, with a simple form that you can see at the end of this post, so no need to fuss with emails. Thanks for that, and for being such a wonderful person Sarah! 

Last week was another good friend, awesome blogger and my co host of Kerala Kitchen Ria's birthday and I celebrated with Chocolate Oreo cake. Today I am posting her grandmother's recipe for a delicious tender and juicy baked chicken which is also super easy to make. It earned her mom the Pachakarani ( Queen of cooking) title at a cookery competition so you can be certain this is a surefire hit! 

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Chocolate Oreo Cake with Quick Fluffy frosting- Happy Birthday Ria!

"Birthdays are Nature's way of telling us to eat cake ;) Here's one filled with wishes for you Ria! Hope the year ahead is as awesome as you are!"

I am always looking for an excuse bake cakes. And what could be a better reason to bake a moist chocolate cake and slather it with fluffy clouds of marshmallow like 7 minute frosting ( which takes about 10 mins to make by the way) and crumbled Oreos than a galpal's special day! 

Yesterday was my friend and awesome blogger Ria's birthday and of course I immediately wanted to bake her a cake. Even though she lives at the other end of the country and would only get to see the cake, while I get to eat it, on her behalf of course :P  I then proceeded to happily spend all day looking for the perfect cake recipe and thinking of a pretty pink girly cake. As I called to wish her I asked her if she had any preferences, the birthday girl revealed that she would like chocolate. We got to talking about one of our favourite cakes to bake, which I know as my sis-in-law's easy but perfect chocolate cake, and which Ria knows as the Hershey's Perfect cake. 


The interesting thing about this cake is that it is made with oil instead of butter. Now there are lots of arguments about butter being the vital ingredient in cake and oil is like a dirty word when it comes to baking.  I agree that butter imparts a lot of flavor, but the thing about oil based cakes is that apart from being easier to make without all that creaming of the butter etc., they are incredibly moist and stay moist longer too. I have dabbled quite a bit with butter-less cakes since this discovery. 

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Scrambled Egg Curry: Quick dinner and Easy way to use up yolks or egg whites!

I am really excited that my article on Kerala Cooking is up over at The Daring Kitchen :) Go check it out! Come back quick for this awesomely easy, creamy scrambled egg curry in coconut milk, Kerala style!

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Jeni's Salty Caramel egg-less ice cream with carmelized peaches

I am back! It hasn't been easy shifting house with a little one year old boy/monkey on the loose, climbing into boxes, toppling piles of laundry, and giving me frequent heart attacks and then smiling up at me angelically, with four, four! brand new teeth in the last week. But, we survived! I still have a lot of unpacking to do, and I am enjoying taking a break from cooking while I (very slowly) set up my brand new kitchen which I will post pics of soon! Because I am so excited about it! and the new place which is a short walk away from a Farmers Market (yay!!), and a little park for the kiddo to go run around, chase birds and expend all his limitless toddler energy.


But in the mean time I have been digging up some stuff that I made earlier which I somehow didn't get to post, all lined up for you all to enjoy. Like this truly wonderful sultry! yes, that is the only way to describe this sophisticated ice cream that I am sure will blow your mind, which I made last summer and am posting now, just as we eagerly await a new one, with barbecues! and picnics! and trips to the beach! to think of at least to get my mind of the crazy depressing rains we have been having recently.

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DMBLGIT April 2011 Winners!

What a great month it has been, hosting the prestigious food photography event DMBLGIT ( Does My Blog Look Good In This) the brain child of Andrew of Spitoon extra, and claimed by food photography lovers around the world! Gorgeous pictures greeted me in my inbox every day and left me gasping in rapture. I am so inspired now to learn more about photography and improve my skills so thank you all for that! 

I would also like to thank the wonderful judges this month: Zoe Francois, Shaheen Peerbhai, Ria Mathew, Dario Milano as well as honorary Judge Helene Dujardin who also generously shared their favourite food photography tips in my previous post.

After careful evaluation of all the 43 stunning entries we received this month, the judges scored each photo according to edibility, originality, and aesthetics. The entries with the 3 highest scores when all categories were combined were chosen as the overall winners.

First Place: Ghoriba- Moroccan Almond Cookies by Soma Rathore. This picture was taken with a Konica Minolta Dimage A200. I love the textured back ground of the picture, as well as the almond slivers which almost look like scattered petals! 

Second Place: Apple Butter Pots de Creme by Asha Pagdiwalla. This was taken with a Nikon D5000, 50mm Lens

Judge Shaheen fell in love with this incredible photograph and this is what she had to say:

"The one photo that still comes back to my mind after going through the whole bunch is Asha's. It's gorgeous."

Third Place: Apple cake by Pamela Rodríguez. This was taken with a Canon EOS 350D, 50 mm f/1.8 Lens Is it just me or are you suddenly craving apples too? 

Asha and Pamela both were overall winners last month too! Well done!

Category Winners: These are the highest scoring photos for each category, after excluding the overall winners,

Originality Category winner: Butter Paneer Curry Naan Pizza 

taken with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS with EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens by 

Xiaolu Hou who was the previous host at her wonderful blog 

6Bittersweets 

I am personally thrilled that Xiaolu also received the fourth highest scores from the judges, not only because of her gorgeous photographs, but because she is an amazingly sweet and generous person, with ready tips on everything from photography to macarons to woks! 

These are some of Judge Dario's comments on it when it was submitted to him for critique on his awesome photography blog:

"Commend you for doing something different... The food is great looking, rustic and country, I love it!"

Edibility Category winner: Yeasted meringue coffee cake by Pavithra Elangovan Taken with a Canon Rebel Xsi / 18-55 mm. Love the shiny glaze and browned tops! Wish I could pick one up right from the photograph! 

Incidentally Pavithra is also one of the top 5 selected Daring Bakers selected for the best edible container contest, so do go vote for her over at the Daring Kitchen! 

Aesthetics Category Winner (Tie): Fruit fusion by Nisha, Taken with a Canon EOS 500D, Tamron 17-55mm. Perfectly lovely summery shot!

Aesthetics Category Winner (Tie): Navy bean stew by Harini Taken with a Canon EOS 350D with 50mm1.4F lens. So hearty those beans look in that lovely rustic bowl and it does sit well on that board that her son brought back for her on his way back from school- how sweet! 

Apart from the winning entries, one of these wonderful entries which did not make it to the winning list, but also deserves mention, was personally picked by honorary judge Helene Dujardin, author of the Food Photography bestseller Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling for the Host's choice award: 

Host's award selected by Helene: Gule Kambing Kacang Hijau (Surabaya-Style Goat Mung Bean Curry) by Pepy Nasution. Taken with a Canon Digital rebel XTi and Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM


Helene's comments: "They took a very difficult subject and not only made it look appetizing but they made it their own. The color scheme is good, the composition has movement. It draws the viewer in different steps. The only thing I would suggest is to maybe to be aware of the highlights/blown outs on the whites in the background. I also would suggest to reduce the visibility of the cutlery which takes away a bit from the main subject. Maybe off to the side to hide some of the silver reflections or wood."


Thanks once again to all the wonderful Judges for sharing their time and insight to support us aspiring photographers, and to all the wonderful participants for so much beauty and such a feast for the eyes! 

Do feel free to comment on these gorgeous pictures here or in the DMBLGIT Gallery, I would love to hear your thoughts, and I am sure the photographers would love to hear from you too!

I would also like to apologize once again to  Patricia Scarpin of one of my favourite baking blogs Technicolor Kitchen  and Vania Samperuru of the lovely Our Family's Favourite Recipes  whose gorgeous entries I missed because they somehow went into my spam folder :( I am so glad that this month's host the wonderful Prerna of one of my favourite blogs Indian Simmer, has generously agreed to include them in this month's entries. Do send in your entries for this month to her. Also Indian Simmer has recently been selected as finalist in SAVEUR magazine's Best Food Blog Awards in the Best Regional cuisine category so please do go and vote for her, if you haven't already! 

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