Beautiful flavors in one cake and just amazing! Do you love Caramel oozing on your cake? Do you love bursting citrus flavor? Nuttiness? Yes, then this is the one cake you must try without reasons. It is pretty easy and worth the time baking it, for that beautiful golden hues that you can admire all day.
Below recipe uses eggs, but I tried eggless version by replacing the egg with a 1/4 cup of hung curd. You can make the same cake with pineapples too and double the recipe for a 9" cake. This time I've tried to capture the recipe in pictures with butter and flour all over my phone. (Wonder how people take flawless pictures while cooking and hands dirty)

This has a pudding texture, soaking up all the citrus and caramel syrup. Goes well with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of Vanilla ice cream on top or just plain old cake.

Hi friends, I'm back with an elaborate post describing the whole process of making cake pops at home. I made for my friend's daughter's birthday party. They turned out really yummy and looked super cute in the pics. People should stop cutting cakes and just buy lots of cake pops to celebrate... so much fun to decorate them and no mess while eating them. You just have to pop them into your mouth :) 

Cake pops can be made at home with any cake - vanilla or chocolate or literally any cake. If you even have leftover cake or cake crumbles, turn them into these lovlies. I will be explaining the recipe of a chocolate cake i used here for beginners who want to try cakes. If you want to save some time, you can even buy the cake mix boxes. Bake them and use for cake pops.

This post will explain: 
1. Wacky chocolate cake recipe
2. Cake pops recipe
3. DIY Colored Sugar sprinkles recipe

I'm so excited to share this simple, yet an amazing recipe with you. It's so simple but the taste and the smell of the freshly baked loaf is just out of the world. The smell will still linger in the house after a day or two. It's so fun to be a part of these facebook baking groups, and to participate in the bake along events. If you are a beginner baker like me, you will not feel alone in the baking world out there. There are so many people to give you tips and share their experience in baking the same recipe, even with healthy replacements. Such a group is Fond bites by Subhashini. I'm so grateful and lucky to be a part of this group. This is the third bake along week I'm participating and I always look forward to new recipes every week.

This week it was a simple Lemon loaf recipe by Subhashini. But I had some sweet oranges, also called as Navel Oranges at home. The big orange coloured pretty ones, which almost looks like wax fruit. So I changed the recipe to make an orange loaf. Cutting my story short, lets get to the details of the recipe.

The pinnacle of my dreams after I started baking was to make a beautiful Black forest cake, which is my childhood favorite cake ever! I baked it for Christmas... I know Plum cake is known for christmas. I researched a lot for the best plum cake recipe, but all of them had a long preparation list and alcohol is required to add the kick to the cake. So finally i decided to save those cake recipes for next christmas, and bake my favorite Black forest cake for the first time ever. It's the other name for Celebration, all that you love - Chocolate cake, cherries and whipped cream.

Currently my new OTG is the new baby at home. As soon I reach home after a tiring day of work, I feel like baking something and treat my taste palates everyday. And this can also be a surprise treat for my hubby... :P  
I'm loving baking as a good hobby and experimenting with different ingredients is real fun!!

Day by day I have started to feel the importance of our age old food habits and their medicinal benefits. We have totally forgotten about our grandmom's home remedies and we are heading to the Hospital everytime ending up having a big hole in our pockets!! Someday I would want to make a collection of these age old Indian Ayurveda and Vedic remedies to common ailments and even modern diseases. The ancient scripts which mention these remedies are not less than 1000 years old...!!!! They are the real jackpot we should aim for!!

So How many of us have heard about Navadhaniyam (Tamil word) or the Nine Cereals (Nava means Nine and Dhanya means grains)? It is mentioned in the ancient vedas, and is still used in India for all auspicious rituals. But we do not know the real importance of these cereals, it was supposed to be used as our staple food for leading a healthy life.

We are either having more rice or wheat in India now... South indians started having a lot of Wheat thinking it is better than having carbohydrates in Rice. But that's not true!! Wheat has gluten (Glue-like property) which is hard to digest. Another point Wheat will never suit South Indians... Having lots of wheat will create heat inside the body, which is only required to those who live in extremely cold places. And we have also started having a lot of Maida/flour nowadays in the form of Pizza, Paratha, Bread, etc. We have totally forgotten about the other healthy options!!

What are the Nine Differet Grains or Cereals?
Pigeon Peas (Toor dal/Thuvarai)
Wheat
Horse Gram (Kollu)
Green Gram (Moong Dal)
Paddy/Rice
White Beans (White rajma/Avarai kai)
Black Sesame (Til/Ellu)
Chickpeas (Channa/Konda kadalai)
Black gram (Urad dal/ Ulundu)

Auspicious Significance of the Nine Grains:
Each of these grains represents one of the nine planets, and hence they are used in performing Hindu rituals like Grahapravesham or House Warming Pooja, Navaratri Pooja, etc.

Suriyan (Sun) – Wheat
Chandiran (Moon) -  Paddy/Rice 
Chevvai (Mars) - Tuvarai (Toor)
Bhudhan (Mercury) - Greengram (Moong)
Guru (Jupitor) - Chickpeas (Channa) 
Sukiran (Venus) - White Beans (White Rajma or Motchai or Avarai seeds) 
Sani(Saturn) -  Black Sesame (Til)
Rahu – Black gram (Ulundu or Urad) 
Kethu – Horse gram (Kollu)

I wanted to make some sweet in the last minute for my 3rd Anniversary... but dint want to make the usual Rava Kesari!!
I saw this recipe in Sharmi's Passions, to make kesari out of Aval/ flat rice. I just made a little changes in the procedure, used milk instead of water to make it super rich and ta da!! Made my anniversary special dessert for my hubby... in about half an hour. And it was too yummmy!! I can't forget the taste!
Now to the recipe for you:

Recently we've been watching Fox Traveller for hours and hours together. We saw this recipe on the "Food Safari" show. Wanted try this authentic Chinese delicacy immediately... Toffee Banana is a classic Chinese dessert. Banana is dipped in a batter, deep fried and then coated with toffee. It's a different taste from other common desserts. Try it for an evening snack... or have it with vanilla ice cream.

We love all kinds of fruits and like the adventure of trying new fruits now and then. We are currently loving the Mangoes, Lychees and Peaches this season. I had some peaches lying in my fridge, almost ripe enough. It was a bit sour to eat it as is, milkshake was the only option I could think of. I thought to put in my creativity a little bit and make a delicious dessert for both of us... A cold dessert to sccop into, for this summer. And then I made my own Peach delight recipe... you can say it's kind of a sorbet, a slightly different version of the Peach Melba. But you can even serve it hot/warm too.