Meet the angels in disguise

When you have planned a dinner or lunch for friends at home. It is imperative to set the mood. And what better way to do that than with some amazing appetizers. And the classic Deviled Eggs are my favourite. The great thing about this dish seems to be its universal appeal. it pleases a variety of palates young and old and are terribly easy to whip up. Prepare them in advance and serve them chilled, and watch the party take off. Here's some I made for a party last night.


You need. 6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise, ¼ cup Light Mayonnaise or Salad Dressing, ½ teaspoon dry ground mustard, ½ teaspoon white vinegar, 1/8 teaspoon salt,  ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, and some red paprika for garnish.


Most of these ingredients are always available in your pantry. Gently coax the egg yolk out of the whites. Gather all the cooked yolks in a bowl, add the mayonnaise, the mustard, the salt, pepper and the vinegar and mix it into a smooth paste. Now simply spoon them back into their white egg hollows, or if you are one of those fancy cooks with a piping bag, pipe them in beautifully ribbed swirls. Just sprinkle each egg with a pinch of fiery paprika to add that zing. 
Just cover the plate or bowl with cling wrap and you can refrigerate the Deviled Eggs for max up to a day. Quite contrary to the name, they are actually slices of heaven.

Crazy about cupcakes!

There's nothing cuter than cupcakes. And here are the pics of some I baked recently. Delicate, fluffy and light. They make me look forward to tea times even more. I have two types of cupcake tins, one small and one quite large. Passed on to me by mom, they are quite old. 

Well, you don't need an occasion to bake cupcakes, they are like these anytime desserts that you'd love to pop in your mouth.

I got cracking on some purely for the kick i would get out of icing them.

The recipe below makes 24 small cupcakes. This choco-chip variety is my favourite and fairly simple to make. I like this recipe because it substitutes butter with vegetable oil, which makes the cake more moist and healthy.

Take 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour. Add 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Add 2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder. And sift them together. Add 3/4 cup superfine sugar (or just take plain sugar and give it one blitz in your food processor) and 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (the yum part) This is what we call the dry mixture.

For the wet mixture take 1 cup milk. Add 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1 egg  and 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract. Quickly whisk together.

Now pour wet mixture into dry, until they form a brown paste. Fill muffin cups half with them. Bake for 20 mins at 400 degrees oven.

Soon the aroma of chocolate will drift across your kitchen teasing your taste buds. But hold your horses, insert a toothpick into one of the cupcakes if it comes out clean then your cake's ready.

You can have them minus any icing or if you like icing try the butter cream one. Take 100 gms unsalted butter and icing sugar. Whisk the butter with icing sugar, keep adding icing sugar until your butter cream holds its soft peaks. Once that happens you know it's ready. Add 2 tsp of vanilla extract to add that beautiful flavour. You could use any food colour you prefer. If you want you could even add some melted chocolate but that makes the icing brown, and brown on brown though not unheard of, might just make it look a little boring.

Here's what mine looked like with vanilla butter cream icing...

As they say.... there's nothing cupcakes and coffee can't solve! So bake a bunch and have fun going crazy with the decorations. They always make me smile and i hope they add a little more sweetness to your life as well.