mayurisjikoni

a bread for Halloween    The We Knead to Bake group started by Aparna was challenged to bake a Barmbrack for October. Just the right sort of loaf as Halloween is just round the corner. What is a barmbrack? It's an Irish bread usually baked to serve on the night of Halloween.The Celtic festival Samhain, meaning end of summer and All Hallows'Evening was merged as one. Its believed that souls of the dead walk the earth on that evening. Barmbrack is an Irish sweet bread. Barm comes from the word beorma meaning a yeasty fermented liquor and brack comes from the Irish word brac meaning speckled. Speckled because the sweet loaf is dotted with dried fruits like raisins, sulatanas, cranberries, apricots, mixed peel etc.In Gaelic its known as báirín breac (speckled loaf). 5 items are added to the dough, a thimble, a ring, a coin, a piece of wood and a small piece of cloth. Each member must get a slice of the bread. Whoever got a timble meant they would not get married, if one found a ...

Learning   The few cooking groups that I belong to are really educative. I have learnt new techniques, more about world cuisine, a bit more about other countries and its fun to see the photos of fellow bloggers. The same recipe turns out quite different in different hands. If it weren't for these groups I don't think I would have tried out different sorts of breads or baked goodies. I would have probably stuck to the more familiar recipes. Sometimes time does not permit me to bake on time but I do finish the challenge before the month ends. A lot of research goes into challenging the groups to a certain recipe.Research by both the one who sets the challenge and also by the ones who take up the challenge.    For the month of May Gayathri challenged the baking eggless group to a Kugelhopf. What is a kugelhopf?Kugelhopf, kougelhopf, kouglof, gugelhuph, is a yeast bread popular in parts of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Serbia, France, basically many parts of Central...

  Happy Anniversary Nimesh and Arti     Being away from family is not very nice. Most of my family live either in India, UK, US,Europe, Dubai, Canada or Nairobi. That means I hardly ever get the opportunity to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, festivals with them. Though a disheartening reality, I tend to make the occasions special by making something sweet to celebrate with Ajay. This means that sometimes within a few days I have made something sweet just too often, especially considering Ajay is diabetic. However, I just make the dish and then share it with friends, neighbours , guests and Julius of course :) So, for my dear brother and Arti's anniversary I made this special eggless fruit cake. Sorry no icing...don't want to add more calories and not much of an icing person. Ice it if you like. updated 19/02/2016 EGGLESS FRUIT AND NUT CAKE Serves 8 to 10 1 cup dates without the seeds (press down gently but not too tightly to measure) ¾ cup milk 1 cup plain flour ...