Tiramisu cupcakes

  After making Mascarpone cheese, I didn't want to make this winner dessert right away.  I took some time to go through what I wanted.   With guests at home and my kid waiting to get pampered, I could not have settled less for the cupcake.  Yes, super soft and moist coffee cupcakes paired with Mascarpone cheese icing, with a hint of coffee on top.  I got this super-soft sponge recipe from Natasha's Kitchen. With coffee flavour infused, they were great even when had straight away from the refrigerator.

So, what's this Tiramisu?  What makes them so special and so romantic?  Tiramisu meaning 'pick me up' or 'lift me up', is a popular Coffee-based Italian dessert.  It is assembled with ladyfinger -(a sponge cake in a shape of a finger) dipped in coffee syrup and arranged with a layer of mascarpone cheese and whipped eggs, topped with cocoa.  It's this beautiful combination of coffee, cocoa, and cream that can light up the romance in the air.  <3  <3

So, let me hope that you agree with  the same and bake them for ur better half's ;)  ;)

Desi-styled spaghetti/ Ajwain flavoured spaghetti

    The heat of Degi mirch  along with pureed tomatos and aromatic  ajwain seeds.... Can anything go wrong with this??  Definitely not... :)  The sauce I made for this spaghetti had this strange medley blend, though they tasted heavenly together.. A strange marriage between two varied cuisine, yet they bonded each other very passionately and gave out an pleasant dining-out experience :)

Partially they are from my Morphy Richards guide, this sauce were used in Pizza.  I just transferred the idea to spaghetti, though I should also mention that I had made lot of modifications.  For cheese mentioned, I replaced them with cottage cheese/paneer.  Vegetables like onion, tomato and capsicum has also been replaced quantitywise to match up our Italian bridegroom :P

I, also dressed up this prepared spaghetti with olive oil before topping up with sauce.  Every bite was delecious, and I got an strong credit from my brother-in-law.  :P  Yeah.. that was an prestigious moment as I could recollect them...  Hope you would try the very same and let me know...

Spaghetti with meat sauce

  Spaghetti is thin, long pasta from Italy.  Here, I used dried form of spaghetti packet, made of wheat durum semolina.  Spaghetti is topped usually with tomato sauce, with herbs like basil and oregano.  Here, I used meat sauce and the result was awesome.  The basic sauce, I used was Maggi's instant pasta sauce.  If you want an home-made one, click here

 

Since, this was my first Italian association, I followed each steps carefully.  These spaghetti were a bit denser than our instant noodles.  I cooked them till they were completely done and it went good with sauce.  They were heavy on stomach. One bite topped with sauce was completely heavenly.  I added both meat and vegetables here, vegetarians can replace the same amount of meat with additional mushrooms.

 

Mocha and almond biscotti

     Happy Independence day to one and all :) :) :)  Baking partners challenge for this month included four cookies from four different countries, when I first read them all were interesting and challenging in its own way.  But the biscotti from Italy, a twice-baked cookie drew my attention.  Personally, I felt this one to be more challenging and thanks to Swathi Iyer and Sandhya for recommending the same.  Biscotti is an perfect dip for tea and is flavoured with nuts.  It is more or less similar to our Indian rusk (tastewise and texturewise).  The cookie dough is first rolled into log, part-baked, sliced and finally baked again!  I flavoured them with coffee and almonds, result was wonderful!  Hubby luved to have it with tea

Source - www.joyofbaking.com

Ingredients required

• 1/2 cup or 75 gm of blanched whole almonds (which is later deskinned and finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 11/4 cup all-purpose-flour
• 1 tbspn instant coffee powder (dissolved in 1 tbspn hot water)

Lasagna

      Lasagna is an baked Italian dish layering  ribbon-shaped pasta sheets  with white sauce, meat/vegetable mince with tomato sauce and cheese.  I had eyed this dish  nearly a month ago.. After extensive study, research and videos, (for two weeks)  I, finally am coming up with this recipe... Here I will be discussing how to prepare  & cook Lasagna sheets, preparation of two sauces (Bechamel sauce, Bolognese sauce) , Assembly, Baking and lastly how to store & reuse.  I am also presenting Lasagna cups, a new variant of   quick lasagna...

How to prepare &  cook Lasagna sheets