Happy Birthday my Love

Hello Readers,

We have been busy with my in-laws visit;  indulging in all the touristy things we do around it.

You may agree with me, there is a weird satisfaction at pointing at day-to-day things of your routine, to wide-eyed visitors.😜 If it's their first visit; then you turn into a walking advertisement, elaborating the finer points of the city, that even you never considered. Admit it we all have done that.😎

Yesterday was my darling hubby's birthday. And just like every year the menu is all his favourite food & of course a home-baked cake, with the works!

Generally being a painfully conscious planner, everything about birthday's (esp of my loved ones) have to be meticulously planned. From the gifts to menu.

However I have dichotomous side, which is equally compulsive, creative & absolutely "last-minute" types. Can you imagine it normally comes forth when I'm baking. I plan a Cake design & flavour weeks in advance, and at the last minute I do a u-turn & whip up something from a whim.

Not a great sign if I ever want to go in the baking business😕. But hey! my last minute creations are some of my best. Example look at hubby's Butterscotch-Nutella Cake with Marzipan.

The end product of my flight of fantasy this year. A light butterscotch flavored cake with nutella layer, wrapped in hubby's favourite marzipan, decorated with gold dust & fondant creations.

Of course putting it together came with it's own set of challenges. The biggest one was the base cake not risen enough once baked, which did cause some momentary palpitations. Fortunately the texture was fine & mercifully not dense.
I always prepare batter for more than one cake hence the disaster was averted, by baking the extra batter in a thin cake and layered it onto the former with nutella icing & butterscotch bits (yes the nutella was an afterthought, but i assure you the taste of butterscotch & nutella is a potent combination)

This problem of cake not rising or collapsing after baking is a nightmare every baker goes through once in awhile. Layering is one option instead of starting from scratch, if you are not expendable on time and have the luxury of extra batter lying around. Icing the layers with any kinda jams, preserves, spreads is another one I've tried before. A friend of mine used butter cream icing in for layering in a similar predicament and it was a success to boost the cake height, as long as the top decor is light. In my case wouldn't have worked as the cake had the herculean task of holding the marzipan blanket on top.

As far as the blame game goes, I strongly suspect the fresh batch of flour as the culprit since my traditional east-Indian dumplings called "Fugiyas" too were playing havoc in the wok, spluttering like molten lava cakes. The visual picture in my mind (of that scenario) as I'm typing, sounds entertaining like those roadrunner cartoons, but honestly handling them in close quarters was nothing short of leashing snapping dinosaurs. Managed to salvage some decent ones, enough to satiate the birthday boy (just using the relative term here!!)

Thankfully the day unfurled smoothly with loads of merriment, good food & blessings from parents. Here's looking forward to a year of more wisdom, few more grey hair's (which makes him more handsome in my opinion ;) & eventful memories!

Cheers!!!

P.S. To extent of sounding boastful, just can't resist adding a few snaps of the lovely creation which was borne outta series of unfortunate events...