Roasted Strawberries

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A super easy recipe for oven roasted strawberries, that are great as toppings for ice cream, panna cotta, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, cakes and more.

Roasted Strawberries

Growing up I was always fascinated with strawberries. It was not something that was easily available fresh, and mostly available either in jam or ice cream form, that too the synthetic kind. Its not that India wasn’t producing strawberries, but the Indian palate had not taken to the sour taste of this bright red colored fruit, hence the fresh kinds were limited to supply to a few regions. Luckily now, fresh strawberries are easily available good part of the year, and without breaking your bank.

This year I plan to grow some strawberries, my unfortunate brown thumb permitting of course. I also do plan a herb garden, but let us see how all of it goes!

Coming to today’s recipe of roasted strawberries, its a super easy and delicious way to use strawberries, besides straight up eating them. I stumbled upon the recipe on Deeba’s site years ago and since then have used these roasted strawberries in tonnes of my dessert recipes. Roasted strawberries have made way as a topping on my panna cotta recipe here, in strawberry ice cream here and even in cakes. In each dessert they have been a hit, and so thought it is only fair that they get a post of their own.

The last time I made these roasted strawberries, I added a bit of orange blossom water too and love the combination. You can choose to omit it if you don’t have any on hand, or try a squeeze of orange juice instead. Adjust the sugar in the recipe according to how sweet or tart your strawberries are. Hope you get to try the recipe and in case you do, let me know how you used them. Comment here or tag me on your creations on instagram or facebook.

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Chocolate Zucchini Cake

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A delicious, rich and moist chocolate zucchini cake made even more healthy with whole wheat and applesauce. No one will guess it has vegetables in it!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I bought some zucchini the other day to use in a side of grilled vegetables, but instead I ended up ordering in, leaving the zucchini sitting in the refrigerator. I had been itching to bake a cake and decided to re-strategize and used the zucchini to make a chocolate zucchini cake instead, and I am glad I did.

I know I have been super silent here. My last post was last year July, which says a lot. From posting 2-3 times a week, to posting 8-10 times a year is a giant step down. When I started this blog, it was a place for me to share my recipes along with snippets of my life. Since a lot was happening in my life that I particularly did not want to share on a public platform, the blog mostly became a space for my recipes. When I took up photography professionally, time in the kitchen testing recipes was replaced by time tending to client work, and hence the hiatus the blog. I tried to still post 2-3 times a month but last couple of months have been super busy. I have now moved to Delhi, and between shoots and edits don’t get much time to do personal blog stuff. I keep saying I want to change that but as a freelancer its tough to say no to new job opportunities, which leaves no time for a hobby (in this case, testing recipes, writing about them on the blog). I am grateful for the opportunities that come, but I feel sad that the thing that started it all- this blog, has now become a neglected space.

I do miss my time in the kitchen experimenting, learning from failures and then rejoicing at successes. One such success is this Chocolate Zucchini Cake and since I posted it on my instagram and facebook, I have had lots of requests for the recipe. With some free time on hand, decided its high time I get myself out of the hiatus and here I am with the recipe for this Chocolate Zucchini cake.

The recipe is adapted from allrecipes.com . My variations included subbing half the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour, cutting the sugar by half, and replacing half the oil called for with apple butter. I would like to make a note of the apple butter here- it was homemade and I think it is the secret ingredient here. The apple butter recipe is a slow cooker recipe that I adapted from here. I added less sugar than the original recipe, instead I added some red wine to the apple butter, and a star anise which really did bring a nice liquorish taste to the apple sauce. You could use any homemade apple butter, or you could just use oil. If using only oil, I would suggest use a total of 1 1/4 cup. It should be enough for the recipe.

I served the chocolate zucchini cake with a drizzle of caramel sauce. The cake is seriously addictive, and it got over in no time. No one will ever be able to guess it has a vegetable in it!

I hope you get to try this chocolate zucchini cake recipe  and if you do please do share your results with me on instagram or facebook or leave a comment here. 

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

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Smooth Creamy American Buttercream Recipe

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This is my favorite recipe for american buttercream. It is creamy, not gritty and not overtly sweet. People confuse it for swiss meringue buttercream because of the gloss and shine  and velvet like texture it has and also the taste. Its the only american buttercream recipe I use.

American Buttercream recipe

Over the weekend, I hosted my first ever food styling and photography workshop in Chandigarh. When I started food photography I never thought that I would reach a stage where someone would like to learn from me. It has taken years of practice and even now there is so much to learn, but since so many people kept asking me to do a workshop, I decided it was time. With the help of my friends at Eighty.Tribe and Madras Prop Store, I set Saturday April 7th, 2018 as the date for the workshop.

As soon as I posted about the workshop on my instagram page, panic struck as to would any one even register. Luckily, people did and we had a full house. While I think everything went smoothly, there is always room for improvement especially if its the first time you are doing anything. For one, I should have taken more photographs of the space, the behind the scenes and should have at least taken one group shot with everyone! Well, that was a learning.

Another learning was I should not take on everything. There is so much work for a workshop. Between planning for the presentation and live styling sessions, I also decided to make the treats that would be served for the participants. Which meant staying up till late, the night before the workshop baking cupcakes, cookies, sandwiches and pound cake. And also, wrapping the small takeaways I had made for everyone attending the workshop (a hand painted board and napkins)

All that effort did pay off, since everyone loved the treats and the gesture at the end. A few people asked if the recipe for the buttercream frosting I used on the chocolate cupcakes was in the blog archives. That’s when I realized I hadn’t posted it.

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