Best of 2015

It's that time of the year to look back and reflect on the year that passed. 2015 was a great year overall, both personally and for the blog.
This is another year of being a full time mom and a part time food blogger. The most memorable memory of 2015 is celebrating my mom's 60th birthday. Planning and executing a surprise birthday is quite a task but the end result was totally worth the effort. Our trip to Niagara is another memory that I will remember for a long time. Also this is the year when we got to spend time with family from all around the world -- thank you all for visiting us and hope you guys can come back again :-)
As for the blog, I logged in a little more than 300 posts and also started to explore more social media networks. My latest favorite is Instagram that I have been updating almost every day. Pinterest has also been getting some love :-)

Big thanks to the family, my blogging marathon buddies for the support and inspiration :-)

Here's wishing everyone a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2016. May the new year bring in many more delicious and healthy dishes your way.

Here are my favorite dishes from each month in 2015.

Sending this over to Valli for her Best of 2015 event.

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 13

Bake of the day: Sourdough Chocolate Cake

I'm going to end this year and Bake-a-thon on a sweet note with this Sourdough chocolate cake. Sourdough is usually associated with rustic breads but it can also be used to make delicious cakes like this one. I already made carrot cake with sourdough and it was quite a hit. That reminds me to make that one again sometime.

I made this cake twice -- first time for my cousins birthday, but I couldn't take pictures and second time to take pictures and enjoy it again. The cake doesn't have any tell tale sign taste of sourdough and everybody liked it a lot. It is a very moist and chocolaty cake that needs just a little bit of planning. 

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Recipe Failures 2015

As much as I want to admit that all my recipes turn out great, there are quite a few recipe mishaps in the kitchen. After documenting my Nutella swirl bread failures, I started to take photos of all of my failed attempts. So without further ado, here are some of my epic recipe failures for the year 2015:

Bread without Salt: One of the biggest lesson I learned this year is not to forget adding salt in any bread recipe. I made that mistake twice and the bread was unmistakably tasted and looked like cardboard both times. So always ADD SALT to bread dough.

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Mexican Chocolate Bars

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 12
Bake of the day: Mexican Chocolate Bars

Last week of December, last couple of posts for this year's Bake-a-thon.. sigh.. time sure is zooming by fast :-( Can't believe we are just a few days away from a new year, I'm excited and anxious as to what it's going to bring.

Coming back to today's dish, I made these Mexican Chocolate bars way back in May when I had my blog buddies over for a get together. I took the photos but didn't get a chance to post the recipe till now. Recipe is from Woman's Day.

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