Fruited Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Bake-a-thon 2014: Day 14

Bake of the Day: Fruited Sourdough Bread

It has been a busy Christmas weekend. We drove to Chicago to see my cousins. It was a really long drive (about 800 miles) and thankfully it went really well, though we are still recovering from the after effects. I had all the last weeks posts scheduled ahead of time and planned on baking couple of cookies for the last 2 days of bake-a-thon.

But unfortunately the hectic weekend is taking a toll on me. I can't seem to keep myself awake, so I looked through my drafts and found 2 bread recipes that I baked a while back. After the eggless ricotta loaf, here's another loaf bread using sourdough starter and fruits like apple & raisins.

Read more »

Best of 2014

It's that time of the year to stop and dwell on the good, the bad and the ugly of the past year. Like any other year 2014 flew by real fast. As a full time home maker and part time food blogger, the blog had a whopping 325 posts this year, highest in all of my 9 years of blogging. Big thanks to my family and the Blogging marathon group for the inspiration and motivation to blog actively.
My month long trip to India was the most exciting part of this year. Though I couldn't do a lot of what I planned to do in India, I was lucky to spend some quality time with my mom. The kids had a blast too. Visiting Chicago and my cousins for Christmas is another memory that I'll cherish from this year.
A-Z Indian States and A-Z International Cooking series are the highlights from this year's blogging. With the help of my fellow marathoners, I finally have a pictorial recipe index. Though it's still work in progress -- I'm happy I started working on it.

Here's wishing all of you a very Happy, Prosperous & Successful New Year -- 2015.

This is a recap of my favorites from each month in 2014.

Eggless Ricotta Loaf

Bake-a-thon 2014: Day 13

Bake of the Day: Eggless Ricotta Loaf

This is going to be a quick post today. I had some ricotta cheese in the fridge that needed to be used up and I also had to bake a bread for the week, so a little googling landed me at Versatile Kitchen's amazing eggless ricotta loaf recipe.

It is eggless but has the nice moist and beautiful crumb that the usual brioche breads have. A perfect bread to have for breakfast with some butter and jam or for a more elaborate French toast breakfast. It tastes good just as is for a quick snack.

Read more »

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

This is one of the 3 pies along with Sweet Potato Pecan Pie that I made at the pie making class last month. The crust here is super simple, it's just crumbled cookies mixed with some melted butter. I guess the chef wanted to teach us a very easy crust along with the ones that are a bit more elaborate.
The filling is the highlight of this pie. I wasn't sure if I would like the peanut butter in the filling, but when I tasted it -- it was a dynamite. Peanut butter taste is not too assertive, but plays a nice balance to the cream cheese and brown sugar.

Read more »