Time to bake, no time to blog

Even if I don't have time to do anything else, I still manage to squeeze some baking in. So, I've been baking, but not blogging.

I invited everyone over for nihari, and since when you make nihari, you only make nihari, I made a heavier, and fancier (I guess) dessert. I opted for 2 layered cheesecake. Strawberry cheesecake on the bottom and strawberry swirl cheesecake on top. I also made a strawberry sauce to go with it. (The recipe called for 4 8 oz. blocks of cheese, but I only had 2, so I improvised a little. That's why the layers look kinda flat). Delish!



I made some java jolt brownies for poker night. The brownie part was good, but the java ganache was a little too strong. I'll make the brownie again, but cut back on the coffee syrup in the ganache.

Rehan's favorite fruit is a mango, although we have a hard time getting the kind they have in Pakistan here. So I decided to incorporate mango into a cupcake. The cupcake was easy to make, but it ended up more like a dense mango pound-cupcake, not fluffy like vanilla cupcakes. The taste was very good, and the mango flavor shone through without tasting like a mango. It tasted like cake.

Now the hard part turned out to be the frosting. I chose this cupcake to try out the Italian Meringue buttercream. It turned into mango soup. For some reason, the butter didn't incorporate into the egg mixture. I think it was too cold and curdled the mixture. I tried heating it, and adding more butter, but to no avail. I was so mad because I had used a lot of butter. Precious, precious butter. I still spooned the mango soup onto the cupcakes, and we ate them like that. Except Rehan wasn't too excited about mango cupcakes. He ate 1/2. All that work only to get heartache.

One day I was moaning about not knowing what to cook, and Amna told me she's making korma that night. She offered to bring some over to me, but I decided I wanted to eat at her house, so I invited myself to her place. Yea, I know, I'm shameless. Of course I couldn't go uninvited and empty handed. So, I rushed home from work and whipped up these babies. Banana cupcakes with chocolate filling and cream cheese forsting. I topped each with a chocolate dipped banana chip.

I was extremely proud of myself to have these done on time and they looked good. Tasted good too.

Ready to party.

I wanted to try a different type of cookie, so I searched high and low until I found this cookie. Cheesecake flavor but in a cookie. I drizzled some melted chocolate to make it a little fancier, and because I usually can't leave well enough alone. They were very light, and very easy to make. Tayyab keeps telling me to make them again. I'm going to have to accomodate my baby. They tasted absolutely decadent cold, like a disk of cheesecake.

Well, even if I'm not blogging, I'll be baking.