Baby Shower Cake - Animal Theme

I made this baby shower cake with animal theme.

I baked French vanilla cake with butter cream frosting to make the fondant to stick. I mixed yellow, bright green, light green and purple color fondants separately to make the fondant base with yellow fondant, green for the grass and moss, and purple fondant to make the ribbon to write the message with butter cream icing. I put plastic cake topper animals, to make my work easy and also to look elegant.

It is fun to work with fondant, but at the same time hard to mix and roll out the fondant, but cutting shapes and designs is easy.

I am trying to work on the writing skills now. I hope this is not bad this time, because before I used to get happy birthday candles or edible cake toppers and just write the name by myself. But I decided to give it a try again. I am happy that it turned out pretty good.

Iyengar Bakery Khara Biscuit/Savory Shortbread Cookies Karnataka Special for ICC May Challenge

Its been quite a crazy month so, far. Kuttu still not well, now its the same old Weather Problem, Adenoids!!!!! After much waiting, the Doc started Anti-biotics yesterday, hopefully he gets better soon!!!!

This Month ICC is a Baking Challenge.  Srivalli has chosen Karanataka Special Khara Biscuits from Champa's Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen. It was a Quick Recipe to Make and Quite a pleaser!!!! My Hubby Loved the taste, though his xerox wanted a Sweet one!!!!

Ingredients
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Butter - 5 TBSP + 1 tsp
Sugar - 4 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Yogurt - 2 - 3 TBSP (start with 2 TBSP)

To Grind  Coarsely
Green Chillies - 6 chopped fine or more per taste
Cilantro - chopped 2 - 3 TBSP (See Notes)
Curry leaves a few
1 tsp Cumin seeds

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 C. Line the baking tray with parchment paper. If you line them with aluminum foil, very lightly grease with vegetable oil spray. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar till creamy. Add the 2 TBSP yogurt and continue to beat.  Add the dry ingredients and beat slowly. Use your hands to work the dough, don't use too much of pressure, Now add the coarsely ground mixture to the dough, if necessary, another TBSP of yogurt. I added ½ tbsp of yoghurt at this stage and worked the dough. 

The Original recipe, calls for Chopping the chillies and coriander finely and adding it to the dough. But, I didn’t know whether my kid will like this savory biscuit or not, if at all he likes it, he would prefer a smooth texture, so, I grinded the ingredients for the Kharam to a Coarse mixture.

Roll the dough and Cut with your cookie cutters. Place on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 18 - 20 minutes. Do not forget to rotate halfway. Since these do not have lot of sugar or soda, they don't brown on the top much. Bottom will have a golden brown when done. You might feel they are still soft when done, but they will get firm when cool. 

I wanted Crispy Cookies, so i baked 2 minutes extra to get it crispy. Cool them on the  wire rack  and transfer to an air tight container. Stays fresh for 4 days. 

Notes

Champa Suggests to experiment with the flavors, Try using Cracked Pepper/Mint instead of chillies/cilantro. 

Khara Biscuits ~Indian Cooking Challenge

Indian Cooking Challengers are into baking for the May Challenge. Srivalli chose Khara biscuits and gave us Champa's recipe. The recipe is very simple with easily available ingredients.  It makes a great snack to go with tea. The recipe is a versatile one that you can add any spice of your choice and come out with various flavors. 

You need

• Maida/All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
• Butter - 1/3 cup softened 
• Sugar - 4 tsp
• Salt - 1 tsp
• Green Chillies - 6, finely chopped
• Curry leaves - 2 tblspn, chopped fine
• Curd -  3 tblspn

Method

Measure flour and salt into a bowl. Whisk well. Cream butter and sugar in another bowl.  Add 2 tblspn of curd to it and beat well. Add the flour mix to it and incorporate into the cream mixture. Just bring together the dough and don't knead it. Add chopped chillies and curry leaves.  If you feel the dough is too crumbly, add little more curd. The dough need not be wet, but you should be able to roll it. 

Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Bake in a preheated oven at 160 C for 25 minutes. These cookies doesn't brown on top.  The bottom will be golden brown. You can bake it for few more minutes to get crisp cookies. The cookies when removed will be soft to touch and they firm up on cooling. 

Note: You can add crushed pepper for the heat in place of chillies. Mint/coriander leaves can be used.
The baking time may vary depending up on your dough and oven.