Cake Pops

I have been doing a lot of special themed cakes in the last two months and always end up with some amount of cake crumbs after I carve the cakes. This time I made these colorful cake pops with the left over cake pieces/crumbs and chocolate ganache, for my little cousins.

These are not the typical, perfect cake pops and I have no specific measurements for this recipe, it was just an experiment, that ended up being successful :) 

So got any cake left after Christmas? Then try these colorful cake pops and let the celebration continue!

Natural red velvet cupcake with butter cream frosting

Wanna bake something colorful for Christmas and yet keep away from synthetic food colors? Then here is the perfect choice for you! Natural red velvet cupcakes. The secret behind the natural coloring is pureed beetroot! Yes, you read that right. I too was shocked when I came across this recipe for the first time, but trust me, you will never find a hint of the beet taste in the cake. Top it up with an easy butter cream frosting and you'll have your festive cupcakes ready :)

Eggless M&M Cookies | Eggless Gems Biscuits

It's feeling a lot like Christmas!! 

Festive season and holidays, along with fresh home baked goodies! What more do we need to excite a kid or bring back the kid in us?!

I wanted to make some colorful cookies for my little cousins who would be coming home for their vacation. While hunting my refrigerator, I found a pack of M&Ms lying there unopened. It reminded me of a recipe that I had come across in Jeyashriskitchen.com and bookmarked long back. With pretty much simple ingredients and easy method, I tried them right away and yeah the colorful cookies are now baked to perfection and waiting to surprise my little cousins!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season :)

Check out these cookies too for this special season:

• Saffron-walnut cookies
• Custard powder cookies

My Cheerful Kitchen turns 1 :)

It is hard to believe that my baby blog has turned a year old today :) I never imagined that an experiment in the kitchen on a boring Sunday afternoon, would lead me into this beautiful blogging world. 

It has been a terrific year. If at all I could post 125 recipes, while still continuing my job as a software professional, I owe it all to my family and friends who have been my pillar of support.

Not all my experiments have been successful, I've faced a lot of failures - cakes not baking well, too much salt or no salt, food getting burnt, oil spilling and the list would go on. But every single mistake of mine just increased my passion for cooking and baking.

I came across various food and cake designing blogs in this journey, which made me realize nothing is impossible as long as our passion is alive and active!

Working on weekdays and managing the blog on weekends has not been easy. But I enjoyed it :) My parents and many relatives have been directly or indirectly marketing my blog and facebook page! I am truely blessed to get this unconditional love. My friends and colleagues too have been great critics and encouraged me a lot.

For the past two months, I have taken up baking and cake decorating quite seriously, due to which there has been a drop in the number of recipes that I post. Will surely post more, as and when I find time. I thank you all for constant encouragement and I need your blessings and wishes to take it further :)

On this special day, I am happy to share the pic of a colorful strawberry flavored butterfly!! More recipes coming soon on My Cheerful Kitchen - Spreading the cheer, far and beyond my kitchen!

 

Eggless Ginger-Honey-Choco mug cake

Cloudy evening, down with cold, craving for ginger and honey but no mood to spend a long time in the kitchen. What do I do?? Mix up ingredients of my choice and come up with a delicious mug cake!! Yeah time to give myself a treat :) The flavor ginger, added with honey was so soothing to my soar throat. But please do not consider this as a medicine ;) It would taste divine anytime and this is my most favorite mug cake till date!

No maida, no egg, no butter - so this is a healthy treat that is perfect for sudden sweet cravings!! To top it up, it takes a maximum of 5 minutes for preparation and baking (Much lesser time to finish it off ;) )

Recipe source - Priya's easy and tasty recipes.  From the original recipe, I replace carrot with ginger and half the sugar with honey and was absolutely delighted with this wacky experiment!

You might also like to check out the other mug cake recipes that I have tried:

• Red velvet mug cake
• Carrot mug cake with vanilla yogurt icing
• Peanut butter mug cake

Pepper and Garlic flavored eggless scones

After a series of special themed cakes, it was time to take care of myself. Yes, I've been down with cold and cough. This made me crave for pepper, garlic, honey, ginger and cinnamon. But I was in no mood to prepare something exclusive, nor did I just want to satisfy myself with a pepper-garlic rasam or a hot cup of ginger-honey tea. I wanted something special!! That too with a pleasant and cloudy weather.

Here is what I ended up making - Pepper-Garlic flavored scones and Ginger-honey choco mug cake! All done in just half an hour. Sounds good right?! Do try them out and let me know how they turned out to be.

I came across the recipe for scones in litebite.in and modified it according to my taste and ingredients available.

My stepping stones in cake decorations

For those of you who are wondering why "My Cheerful Kitchen" has been silent for a while, here is the reason - I have always been passionate about arts, crafts, cooking and baking. When all these could be put together, I just started loving the output!! Yes, I am talking about sugar crafting and cake decorations. I attended wonderful workshops on intensive icing and fondant decorations, conducted by Mrs.Shyamala Sivaraman and Naveena Thangadurai of Yum's the word, respectively. 

I started of by baking special themed cakes for mom and dad's birthdays and when I posted those photos on Facebook, they became and instant hit among my friends and relatives and started getting orders too :)

Managing work and passion is not easy but still when my weekends got busier because of my passion for baking, I loved it! This is why I have not been able to post many recipes over the past few weeks. Will surely try to post them as and when I try out any interesting recipes.

Happy to share with you all the photos of the cakes that I made recently

My First Fondant cake, that I did during the workshop at Yum's the word!! Dedicated to My Cheerful Kitchen :)

Two special cakes that I did during an intensive icing workshop conducted by Mrs. Shyamala Sivaraman. A bonnet cake and a cute little doll cake!

A Shirt cake for my dad's birthday, that represents his office uniform and has their logo and his initials - also a celebration of his 33 years of dedicated service!

A royal cake for my Queen - My mom :) with roses, bow and tiara designs

My first official order! A bike cake made for my friend who wanted to surprise her husband on his birthday :)

A cute love birds cake for a lovely couple on their wedding anniversary!

An elegant swan couple cake for my friend's wedding reception!

Happiness is to keep your passion alive and active! Yes, I am very HAPPY now :)