Giant carrot and bunny Easter cake

                           

The well-massed friend up there totally encapsulates my mealtime disposition these days, uncomfortably too comfortable, where lazing around the dinner table is the top appropriate to-do thing for such a season. I think she resembles me too. I like her. Do you?

Because isn't the eat-eat-eat-eat-sleep style regimen a thing now, with memes and messages popping  all over screens from people who see humor in a sedentary apocalypse. Besides, really, how much Picasso do you have in you to paint your way through quarantine? 

Although, I must admit, I enjoy "testing" cake on a daily basis, which probably will last till I am introduced to jeans once again.*Sigh*

This could be my new favorite cake, I mean, the contents inside the cyclopean carrot. 

Like I said earlier, I've been dedicating my time, and there's certainly a plenitude of it, to baking cakes I've never ever tasted. Most of these I'd never ever repeat, either, in my lifetime, my kids', their kids and banking on further. 

Pink velvet cake is big league, people.The "velvet" breed of confections is an opener to the well justified extra minutes spent in egg separation/ sole egg white use and totally worth the effort. Once appropriate liquids are added, the air-in-crumb and velvety-dense texture are inevitable, quite magnificent outcomes.

Were it not for the brilliance on my part in adding that quarter cup of buttermilk, this perfect cake destiny may not have arrived.

Baked, shaped, iced and fondant accented in all but a few hours, it's the one undertaking which set my productivity level to way beyond "meh".

Furthermore, my well established love of bunny butts was firm incentive.

So, as you gaze, in utmost gravitas, the fetching scene of a giant carrot, cramful-bowclad bunny, and the companion bum that may hit a little too close to home, I shall sign off.

Happy Easter, friends.

May God bless you, shine on you. heal you and touch you.

Stay safe, secure and anchored in hope.

Ingredients:

(adapted from Liv for Cake, Pink Velvet cake)

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ cup salted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup milk 
• ¼ cup buttermilk
• pink color gel

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line the bottoms of two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper, grease pans and the parchment paper.
• Whisk flour and baking powder and keep aside.
• Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until combined, pale and fluffy
• Reduce speed, beat in whites one at a time. Scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula when needed.
• Add vanilla.
• Mix together milk and buttermilk in a large mixing cup.
• Alternate adding flour mixture and milk mixture to the batter, beginning and ending with flour.
• Blend in 2-3 drops of pink color gel and and mix into batter until blended.
• Divide batter between cake pans. Bake for 20-24 minutes or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cakes should spring back when touched.
• Ice and decorate as needed.

 Notes: I used vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream, covered with marshmallow fondant. Idea and tutorial for the Fat bunny cake here.

*After the cut* updated 4/12/2020

I had to use up some chocolate cake to stack the "carrot",  together with the pink velvet. No one's complaining:-)

Easter ideas:
Ravenous bunny cupcakes
Bird in nest cupcakes
Vanilla hydrangea cupcakes
Battenburg cake
Palappam
Appam beef mappas

******

"Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security." Jeremiah 33:6

Soft sugar cookies with marshmallow cream frosting

The compulsion to bake on a grander, more multifarious scale is purely the result of our newfound quarantine propagate. When the home is full of its members, adult, semi adult alike and nowhere for anyone  to go, all those "ones' cluster around the kitchen and consume copious amounts of food. Included in the isolation bred consumption is the certainty of ceaseless on- demand baking. For example, when your adult kiddo begs for a familiar sprinkle- frosted cookie she's stealth eating like a champion at the dorm, you cede to the request. Purely for the reason that yes, you can better up the whole shortening and forty ingredient store package with your cupboard's supply of a handful of basics.  Plus, mandated social distancing has led to your social circle being the three, and only the three people you do life with. Which isn't bad, but when one is the child that towers over you and believes you are the solution to her weeklong college diet woes... wherein is the freedom of choice, please?

And seriously, those of you claiming millions of hits on Oreo biscuits and gravy - ugh, in the wake of mega viruses and toilet paper rationing, demanded my good self to interrupt, for the sake of sanity. In all, it helps me forget lapses in judgement and especially grace, example in point: morning gym time, now replaced with Bollywood dance workouts that bring me to a daily realization that not all of us Indians can gyrate like an Indian. 

The probability of a homemade cookie with an inferior outcome in my house is near nil. Especially when those cookies par in a fine ratio of butter, which we all know are of higher caliber to those without. Taking it one step further and adding sour cream can unquestionably bring batch after batch to unrivaled heights, with soft bellies and deep, supple bites.

It's quite insane how sour cream makes a definitive difference in the number of cookies you eat. 

The marshmallow frosting completes it, a delightful fluff, draped green, in time for St. Patrick's Day. The one day I pretend I'm Irish. 

Quick and easy, cookie dough makes two dozen. With enough sprinkles, baubles and sugared gems, I believe it can festive up the dullest of days.

Ingredients:

For the cookie~

(adapted from Soft frosted sugar cookie recipe, lifemadesweeter.com)

• ½ cup salted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• ⅓ cup sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
• 1 ½ tbsp cornstarch
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ baking soda
• ¼ tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp orange rind

For the marshmallow frosting:

• ½ cup butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 7 ounces marshamllow creme
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ tbsp heavy cream

Directions:
For the cookie~

• Place butter and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale in color.
• Add egg and sour cream, vanilla. Beat until well combined.
• In a separate bowl sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar and orange rind.
• With the mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture and beat until combined.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for an hour, or pop in freezer for 10-15 minutes.
• Preheat over to 375°F.
• Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Take dough out of fridge/freezer.
• Roll one tablespoon of dough into a ball. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. Flatten each ball with slightly damp hand.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes, until center is lightly puffed, and begin to get  light golden around the edges.
• Cool cookies on sheet for five minutes, then transfer to to wire racks.
• Frost or serve as is.

For the marshmallow frosting:

• Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat in powdered sugar one cup at a time, scraping down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula until combined.
• Stir in marshmallow creme, vanilla extract and cream. Continue to beat until fluffy. Add more cream if you desire a thinner consistency.
• Add food color of choice and pipe or spread onto cooled cookies. Top with sprinkles if desired.

March:

2019~ Vanilla sheet cake

2018~ Date almond cake

2017~ No knead jalapeno cheese bread

2016~ Converse shoe cake

2015 ~ Indian sloppy joes

2014~ Three salads

2013~ Sambar: South Indian lentil stew

2012~ Chili chicken and vegetable noodles

******

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9