Somicious

I’m someone who absolutely loves flowers. But unfortunately flowers also make me sneeze a lot. So I never truly could enjoy a bouquet or strolling through a flowery park in spring. When I saw this trend for buttercream flowers going but, I fell in love. I just HAD to learn how to make these. They look so real and they taste buttery and yum. I mean what more can a girl ask for! 

Dealing with buttercream in a hot and humid city, when you are not working in an air-conditioned kitchen, is extremely annoying. I live in Mumbai. And its summer time. But that didn’t make me lose all hope. It got me very frustrated, sure. But the end result was absolutely worth it. 

I’m adding links to external videos which will definitely help you understand the technique to pipe. This was my first try and it turned out really pretty, so its definitely something you can get in your first go. Simple and extremely beautiful end products. This is definitely something you should try out.

Ingredients:

88-90g egg whites

35g+75g caster sugar

280g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

30ml water

1 tsp vanilla extract

whatever gel food colours you wish to your flowers to be

Method:

In a small pot heat up 75g of sugar with 30ml of water. Heat it till the temperature reaches 120° [incase you don’t have a candy thermometer, you’ll know its ready if you can blow bubbles from the syrup]

Meanwhile, in a completely dry bowl, start beating the egg whites while gradually adding 35g of sugar. Beat it to stiff peaks

Once the syrup is ready, slowly pour the syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream while constantly beating. Continue to beat till the bowl has come to room temperature.

Cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave it in the fridge to cool down completely, 15-20 minutes.

Once the bowl is completely cool, add in all the cold butter cubes all at once and start beating. Now you’ll start noticing that your mixture is splitting. Do not worry. That’s a good sign. Just don’t stop beating it.

But you need to stop beating it the minute it comes together because you need it to be stiff for piping flowers. If you beat it further, it will become soft and spreadable which is great for icing a cake but not for flowers.

At this point you can divide your buttercream into different bowls for different colours.

Now I’ve done two varieties of flowers but there are so so many different flowers you can try out! I’m posting my process shots, but those are probably not going to give much clarity so I’m leaving a link to the video I watched to learn how to do it. 

Piping:

Basic requirements for all:

Piping bags

flower petal tips(I used wilton tip #104 and #81) 

flower nail

parchment paper

a tray

a freeze

And most importantly, patience [especially if you’re living in a hot and humid place like I am]

For the chrysanthemum:

Check out Eat Cake Be Merry’s chrysanthemum piping tutorial :)

Start off by attaching a small piece of parchment paper on a flower nail with some buttercream.

Pipe a blob of icing on it. Your flower height depends on the height of this blob.

Taking a wilton #81 tip [curved tip] and fill your piping back with your coloured firm Italian meringue buttercream.

[If you feel like your icing is going soft and not holding form, pop it into the refrigerator for about 10 minutes and then continue because the icing needs to be firm when you pipe or its not going to hold its petal shape]

Holding your piping bag at roughly 45° angle against the top of the blob of icing, steadily squeeze and drag the bag in an upward and outward direction and pull off. 

Continue this around the blob, steadily moving down the blob.

Once you’re happy with your flower size, carefully move the parchment onto a tray and pop it into the freezer. 

Continue making as many flowers as you’d like and keep freezing them as it makes it so much easier to handle later.

(apologies I did not take pictures of the entire process, but please do watch the video linked above. It’ll give you clarity on how to do it)

For the roses:

Check out happyhappycakes’s video on how to pipe a buttercream rose :)

For this I used the wilton tip #104 [petal piping tip].

Attach a small piece of parchment paper on a flower nail with some buttercream.

Pipe a blob of icing on it. Your flower height depends on the height of this blob.

Keep the tapering side of the nozzle upwards, so that the thicker part of the nozzle is in contact with the parchment.

Keeping your piping back perpendicular to your flower nail and touching the blob, make a small circle by rotating the nail. This forms the base for your petals. 

Now this might sound a little complicated but I promise you it is not. You have to do 3 things simultaneously- squeeze the bag, move the tip slightly upwards and back down and rotate the nail. This will form a ribbon of icing. 

You have to keep overlapping these ribbons while turning the nail. For the outer petals move your tip a little higher than usual before going back down. This gives it a slightly more full bloomed appearance.

Once you’re happy with your flower size, carefully move the parchment onto a tray and pop it into the freezer. 

Continue making as many flowers as you’d like and keep freezing them as it makes it so much easier to handle later.

You can experiment with different colours and types of flowers etc. You can make yourself your own edible bouquet :D 

I used these flowers to decorate my father’s Tiramisu Cake and its recipe is on the blog so you can check out recipe for that as well as the end product over there.

Couple of things have happened in the last week. It was my father’s 60th birthday and he arrival of my new oven. I really wanted to bake my father a cake and was worried the oven wouldn’t be here in time but the universe chose to be kind and actually comply with my wishes. 

My father loves coffee. And I love cakes. So why not turn his beloved coffee into a cake! I assure you this cake has coffee in every bite. The birthday boy loved it too!

I’m going to do a separate blogpost for the buttercream flowers right after this because you really need a whole separate post dedicated to these babies. They’re super fun to make and look really pretty too! So stay tuned! :)

Recipe adapted from Eat Love Eat.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

113g unsalted butter

113g powdered brown sugar

113g self raising flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1.5 tbsp milk

1.5 tbsp instant coffee powder

2 tsp Tia Maria or any other coffee liqueur

A pot of freshly brewed espresso [for assembly]

For the mascarpone frosting

500g mascarpone

75g icing sugar sifted

1 tbsp milk

1.5 tsp Tia Maria or any other coffee liqueur 

Method:

For the sponge:

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C. 

Grease and line two 6 inch tins. 

The method for this sponge is pretty much the same as is with any other basic sponge. Start by creaming the butter and sugar.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mix the coffee powder and milk together.

Alternate between adding milk+coffee liqueur and the self rising flour+baking soda, ending with the flour. Do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool it in the tin for 5 minutes then flip it out onto a cooling rack to completely cool down.

For the mascarpone frosting:

Using a spatula, mix the mascarpone with the sugar.

Add the milk incase the consistency is too thick.

Add the liqueur at the end and give it a final stir.

Et viola your icing is ready to use.

Assembly:

Its entirely upto you as to how many layers you want in this cake to be. 

I decided to do a  naked cake and dress it up with some buttercream flowers [more on that in my next post] 

Mix some coffee liqueur and sugar into your freshly brewed espresso.

Take the first layer of your sponge and moisten the sponge with the espresso mixture.

Apply a thick layer of the mascarpone frosting.

Repeat the same process with next layer.

Since mine was a naked cake, I left my cake after just crumb coating it and adding a buttercream foliage bush on top.

I’m starting to become quite fond of overnight oats simply because of how easy they are to make and how delicious they turn out to be. It really is a lazy person’s dream come true! Minimal effort and maximum flavour+health. Almost every morning I have one dilemma- what should I make for breakfast. And it really does suck having to start your day off with such difficult questions. Your brain isn’t fully awake yet and you’re forcing it to function. This recipe, hence, also helps start your day off on not such a difficult note ^_^’ 

Here’s lazy recipe #2 :] 

Ingredients:

45g rolled oats

30ml espresso

30ml hazelnut milk, (recipe here)

sunflower seeds

hazelnuts

Method:

Combine the oats, espresso and hazelnut milk together in your bowl.

Mix well and make sure all the oats are covered up well. 

Cover it up and leave it in your fridge overnight.

In the morning, toss up some sunflower seeds and some hazelnuts and put them on top of the oats for some crunch and health.

You can add fruits or spreads along with this if you’d like (I added some banana slices and pomegranate seeds along with some nutella for sweetness.)

This bowl is packed with goodness of coffee and hazelnuts and oooooh it smells absolutely divine. 

I was born lactose intolerant. So I actually started my life drinking non milk milk- soy milk. But fortunately a few months/years later my body outgrew the lactose intolerance and its been real milk ever since. Recently however while I was in Italy, despite living on a farm with milking goats, my hosts only drank rice milk. So naturally I also drank rice milk for those 3 weeks. I realised, its actually pretty delicious. 

After that I wanted to try out more dairy free milk but I never got around to actually doing it. Until a couple of days ago. I came across a pack of hazelnuts at my local grocery store and got tempted to buy it. Question remained, what would I do with 100g of hazelnuts? 

Thats when I stumbled upon The Blender Girl’s recipe for hazelnut milk. I followed her recipe and made one change just to suit me. Thanks to this recipe, I also ended up with a delicious bowl of coffee and hazelnut overnight oats (recipe for this beauty will be coming up in the next post!) 

This recipe makes about 1 cup of hazelnut milk.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup or 75g of raw whole hazelnuts

1.5 cups of filtered water

Filtered water enough to soak and cover the hazelnuts

1 tbsp of honey 

1.5 tsp Kahlua or any coffee liqueur, optional

Method:

Soak your hazelnuts in filtered water overnight or at least 8 hours. Keep it covered with a cloth.

Drain them and wash them well put them in the blender. Add in 1.5 cups of filtered water and blend it till there’s not whole nuts left.

Now add in your honey and kahlua (incase you’re using) and give it another whizz.

You can use the milk as is or choose to strain it. Strain it using a muslin cloth and then leave in the fridge for a few hours.

Et voila! Your hazelnut milk is ready to be used! 

As mentioned earlier, I used this in an overnights oats bowl whose recipe will be coming on the blog right after this post. Stay tuned!

Recently I travelled to Mangalore. Its a city along the coastline of Karnataka. Its a quiet and quaint little city. And the food there was simple yet so ridiculously good! Once we started eating, we just could not stop. Despite it being so spicy with every bite we’d be left wanting more. 

When I got back home, I was CRAVING for that food again. I went through several recipes and decided to give it a shot. I tried recreating the prawns that I had eaten there but I couldn’t make it as spicy and tangy as they had. I’m still on a mission to perfect that recipe and will definitely get back to you once I have perfected it *determined look*

How does the kheema fit into all this? The spice mix. The spice mix gives it a flavour that reminds me of my Mangalore adventure. And since I’m all about giving a twist to traditional recipes nowadays, you got some grilled cheese french toast in there too! It might seem a little bizarre at first but trust me, just give it a shot. It will not disappoint.   

This makes 2 sandwiches. Heads up, these bad boys are pretty filling.

Ingredients:

100-150g chicken mince

2-3 tsps Bafat masala *

2 sprigs of  curry leaves

1 tbsp coconut oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

a thumb sized piece of ginger, minced

salt to taste

1/4 tsp roasted cumin powder

3 tsp tamarind juice/paste

1/2 an onion, chopped really finely

1/2 a tomato, deseeded and chopped into small pieces

30g Monterey Jack cheese, grated

30g Mozzarella cheese, grated

2 eggs

4 slices of bread

Cream cheese and butter

Bacon strips, cooked (optional)

* Bafat masala is a manglorean spice mix consisting of two varieties of chillies dry roasted along w some mustard seeds, black peppercorn, cinnamon, coriander seeds and cloves.

Method:

In a mixing bowl mix together the meat, minced garlic, minced ginger, the curry leaves, the bafat masala, cumin powder, tamarind paste salt and 1 tsp of coconut oil. (reserve the remaining 2 teaspoons for later)

Let this sit for about 15-20 minutes.

In a hot pan, add some coconut oil and saute the onions till they become translucent. Then add the tomatoes and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add the marinated mince into the pan along with the marinade and add a little bit of water to it, just enough to cover the mince halfway.

Cook this till the water evaporates and check for salt. Add salt if required.

Now comes the easy bit- the sandwich assembly! Grab your slices of bread spread that cream cheese [a generous amount if you really like cheese as much as I do.]

Add a layer of Monterey Jack cheese, top it up with the kheema you made earlier, add your bacon slices now incase you’re using, then finally top with mozzarella cheese before closing the sandwich.

Pour over some beaten eggs with a pinch of salt, on top of the sandwich and make sure it absorbs it well.

Heat up a frying pan and add a generous dollop of butter. Carefully transfer the egged sandwich into the pan. Flip it over after about 3-4 minutes, once the sides have turned a nice golden brown. Repeat this on the other side as well. Also make sure you cook the sides of the sandwich too. Don’t worry, nothing except perhaps some cheese will fall out.

Now the moment you’ve been waiting for-cutting into this glorious sandwich and digging right in! Cut it up and eat it or eat it as is, thats on you. I cut it up and ate it with a slow roasted tomato sauce and a coriander chutney. oomph ~

I love bread. The process, the taste, the SMELL oomph. Then it hit me. Why not bake bread at home? I’ve been seeing these oozy cheese bites and got far too tempted to do the same. And decided to throw in some meat in the mix while I was at it.  

Ingredients

For the buns-

2.5 tsp active dry yeast

1/2 cup of warm milk, you may require more so just keep some extra 

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp of salt

450g of all purpose flour

 45g of melted butter

For the stuffings-

Half an onion, chopped

One clove of garlic, chopped

100g minced chicken or any meat of your choice 

half a tomato, deseeded and chopped (optional, I just really like tomatoes with everything) 

Dried herbs, salt and pepper to taste

[note: for a vegetarian alternative- use chopped mushrooms and spinach instead of minced chicken] 

Method

Put the yeast and sugar in the warm milk [needs to be warm not hot otherwise the yeast will die.] Leave aside for 5-10 minutes.

Sift flour and mix in the salt.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in your bloomed yeast milk mixture. Bring it together till it comes together completely.

Now pour in the melted butter and knead it till its been fully incorporated.

Cover with a damp cloth and leave to proof in a warm place for about an hour or till it has doubled in size. [mine took 1.5 hours to rise]

While your dough is rising, you can quickly whip up your stuffing. 

In a heated pan, add some butter, cook the onions and garlic till they’re translucent.  

Add the mince and cook it till it browns. For the vegetarian alternative, toss in the mushrooms and sweat them out. Save the spinach for the very end. 

Add the tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes. For vegetarian alternative add in the spinach now and wait till it wilts.

Season it and set it aside to cool.

Once your dough has rested for 1-1.5 hours, take it out knock out the air from it. Divide it into 12 equal parts.

Prepare your baking tray with a silicone mat.

Flatten out a piece and put into it some one the mixture along with about 5-7g of mozzarella cheese. Proceed to pinch the ends shut and place the pinched side down. [You can really just play around with the quantity of filling and cheese to your liking]

Cover the dough balls again with a damp cloth and let it rest for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Uncover your dough balls and give them an egg wash [milk wash if you’re doing the vegetarian alternative] and bake for about 20 minutes, till they’re nice and golden on top. 

Give the finished product a nice brushing of butter and your surprise buns are ready to serve!

You can eat them as is or serve it up with some BBQ/pizza sauce. I definitely suggest eating these warm because eating them cold really won’t do them any justice. 

A couple of days ago I had a slight cake accident. This led me to looking up things I can make with leftover cake and one thing caught my eye- leftover cake cookies. This honestly sounded too delicious to not try out. But there was a problem- I have always been a little scared of making cookies. 

Why? Simply because I would somehow always manage to screw it up whenever I tried. I decided to try my luck with one more time and slowly realised, its really not difficult at all! In fact, this singular cookie dough base can be used to make a variety of cookies! I ended up making two different kinds of cookies with this base and its safe to say it was a success. 

Ingredients:

For the basic cookie dough base:

125g butter

170g brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

180g flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

For Nutella stuffed cookies:

1/2 tsp of nutella per cookie

50g of chocolate chips

For leftover cake cookies:

150g of leftover cake crumbs

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line your baking tray with greaseproof paper or a silicone mat.

In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar as you would for a cake.

Beat in the vanilla extract and egg into the creamed mix.

Sift in the flour and baking soda until fully incorporated.

At this point you can choose what kind of cookie you wish to make. I decided to make a batch of each.

For the cake crumb cookies:

- Mix in the cake crumbs into the dough in thirds. I suggest you mix in this addition by hand because you can get a feel of the dough. Depending on the texture of your crumbs you might have to add more or less. - Make them into 18g balls and slightly flatten them onto your prepared tray, evenly spaced out.

For the nutella stuffed cookies:

- Split an 18g dough ball into two disks. Flatten out one disk on the prepared tray. Put 1/2 tsp of nutella in the centre of the disk. Flatten the other disk and gently lay it on top of the nutella. Seal the two disks together .

- You can now stick some chocolate chips on top and set it to bake.

For either cookie variation, bake it for 12-14 minutes. Don’t worry if it feels a little soft on top. As it cools down, just like any other cookie, it does harden. 

You can add anything to this recipe and make it a whole different variety of cookie. Let me know what other variations you like or tried out! 

Lemon curd in one of my favourite fillings. I’m generally a sucker for all things citrus. These buttery tartlets mellow down the zing of this tangy citrusy filling perfectly, making this the perfect combination. I’d recommend making the lemon curd a few hours prior and letting it chill in the fridge. It thickens very nicely and becomes a nice pipe-able consistency. 

Ingredients:

For the lemon curd-

40g butter

83g sugar

1 egg

1 yolk

juice of 2 lemons

For the tartlets- 

110g flour

55g cold butter

2 tbsp water

Method:

For the tartlets-

In a food processor, pulse the butter and flour together till it resembles sand.

Add the water and pulse it again till it combines. Bring it together into a ball.

Cover with cling film and refrigerate until you need to use.

When ready to use, roll it out to about a quarter of an inch thick. I used a 4-inch cookie cutter and cut out three rounds and laid them out in my greased tart moulds.

Bake in an oven preheated at 180°C, bake these tartlets for 20 minutes or till they are golden.

For the lemon curd-

Add all the ingredients into a bowl and set the bowl over the pot of water on a medium-low flame.

Keep whisking the ingredients. Do not stop as the eggs may curdle.

Also, don’t worry, it might look very gross/curdled initially but it does smoothen out.

Its going to slowly start becoming glossy and smooth. Its ready when it slowly starts looking opaque and the whisk leaves behind trails.

Take it off the flame and transfer it to another container to cool down. Proceed to use it once its completely cooled.

It can stay in the fridge for about a week at max. 

Now I didn’t use the lemon curd immediately and and instead left it to chill in the fridge. It thickened really well and even held its shape when piped into the tartlets.

You can pipe the lemon curd into tartlets, into cupcakes, in between cakes or even on pancakes or parfaits! 

-somicious

This right here is one of my most favourite food of all time. I need to have a jar of this lying around in my fridge always because its just such a great thing to have lying around. Sweet, salty, so rich and lush-just talking about it makes my mouth water. Salted caramel makes for great gift jars too! Despite having made this recipe several times, I never really get it right in my first go. So I strongly suggest investing in a candy thermometer to avoid wastage and increase accuracy.

Ingredients:

200g sugar

60ml water

250ml cream

1tbsp butter

sea salt as per taste

Method:

Pour in the sugar and water together in a heavy bottomed pan. Keep it on low heat.

Caramel is is tricky business. And without a candy thermometer it becomes so so much worse. A split second and bam its burnt. Despite having made this in the past, it still took me 3 tries to actually get it right.

It took me about 22 minutes on a low flame to finally see the colour changing and thats when things get intense. 

Keep your eyes fixed on the caramel post the initial colour change because its going to be ready in a minute max.

Keep your cream poured out in a cup and ready to pour.

As the caramel attains a slightly dark amber colour, take it off the heat and start stirring in the cream. SLOWLY. Pour it in a thin stream and be very careful because its going to resemble a witch’s boiling cauldron.

Keep stirring until all your cream has been incorporated. Finally toss in the butter and stir.

Add sea salt to your liking. Make sure you use sea salt as regular table salt is iodised which will end up imparting a slight bitter taste to it.

Et voila! You got yourself some delicious salted caramel. Pour it on icecreams, put it in milkshakes, put it on cakes, or just eat it as is,as I often do :3

Of late I’ve been seeing a lot of these fluffy soufflé pancake photos everywhere. As someone who enjoys pancakes, I thought this recipe must be given a shot. And I definitely was not disappointed. These little fluff-cakes were soft, spongy, airy, light and of course, super yummy. The zing from the lemon zest lifts the flavour of these pancakes and somehow takes them on a whole other level.  

This recipe is adapted from here.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup all purpose flour

25ml milk

1tbsp butter, melted 

2.5 tbsp caster sugar

2 eggs, separated into yolks and whites

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Mix the melted butter, milk, vanilla, zest and yolks together.

Sift in the flour into this mixture and stir in.

In a completely dry bowl, whisk your egg whites into stiff peaks while gradually adding caster sugar- basically a meringue.

Fold in a third of the meringue into the yolk mixture only until the white disappears.

Repeat until all the meringue is done.

Heat up a non-stick pan, grease your pancake ring and the pan and spoon in enough batter to fill the ring almost to the top but not all the way.

Put in a bit on water in the side of the pan and cover the pan with a lid for about 2-3 minutes. You will see that the pancake is starting to rise. 

Remove the lid and flip the pancake over with the ring still on and let it cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Take it off the pan and de-mold. Repeat this process till you’re done with all the batter. This should yield you about 4 pancakes in total.

Serve it up hot with butter, maple syrup or anything you like your pancakes with. I went with some homemade strawberry compote and it was delicious!

Ever since I’ve moved back home, I seem to have embraced my lazy side. This is easily the simplest breakfast I’ve ever made. Added appeal is that its quite delicious and healthy too. You can put on any topping to it like I have or just go ahead and dig right in. Its yum either way, I assure you. With only three ingredients, and prep time under 5 minutes, this recipe is definitely a keeper!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup or 45g rolled oats

1/4 cup+ 2 tsp milk

1/4 cup nutella

Fruits of your choice for topping.

Method:

In the container you wish to use, mix oats and nutella together until properly mixed. Make sure the oats are coated with nutella. 

Add the milk and mix properly.

Leave it covered in the fridge overnight et voila! 

You can cut up any fruits and use as a topping to make it a healthy fruit bowl if you’d like.

Do tell me what is your favourite version of overnight oats!

-somicious

Its 2018! 

Its been a bit of an overwhelming year, 2017.

An overview:

I finally graduated. [May]

Became a farmer in Italy for 2.5 months. [June-Sept]

Got a job and left home. [September] 

Left said job and returned home due to unforeseen circumstances. [November]

As you can see, its been quite an emotional roller coaster. Graduation was super fun but also a little tough as I had to pack up 3 years of my life and move out. 

I traveled a quite a bit in the remainder of the year. I traveled domestically as well as internationally. I visited a lot of areas in Italy while farming there for two months. But there’s going to be a whole other blog post dedicated to that, coming soon. 

Got a job, moved to Bangalore, had my knees slowly give in because of an injury I overlooked and then had to consequently come back home and get it fixed because it was affecting my work. [never overlook/ignore injuries, especially on the knee even if its just a random fall. DO NOT IGNORE]

Fast forward to now - I’m home and unemployed. Resting for most of it, but also slowly restarting cooking and baking, which brings me to this recipe.

My mother has been using oats as a substitute for wheat in all that she eats. That got me thinking, why not use oats to make banana bread. And I just so happened to have some overripe bananas lying around that were screaming to be made into banana bread. And since its strawberry season, why not throw in some strawberries in the mix? I played around with recipes I know and well- there you have it!

Ingredients:

113g softened butter

101g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

158g oat flour [ground oats]

1tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

120g yoghurt

3 overripe bananas, mashed

75g strawberries, diced

Handful of broken walnuts, optional

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line your loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

Melt the butter. Mix the sugar into the melted butter. Stir the mixture till it cools. 

Add the eggs one at a time, mix well. Make sure the mixture has cooled down before you add the eggs as otherwise they will scramble. Add vanilla extract. (note: I ran out of vanilla extract so I used fresh vanilla instead and it was oh so yum as well)

In a separate bowl, mix the yoghurt and mashed bananas together. Keep aside.

Fold in the oat flour, salt and baking soda into the egg mixture. 

Now mix the banana mixture into the oats mixture until combined. Now would also be a good time to add the walnuts.

Pour this mixture into the prepared tin. Toss the chopped strawberries in some oat flour before pressing them into the top of the batter.

Bake until a knife comes out clean from the centre of the cake, roughly an hour. 

Let it cool completely before cutting into it.

Happy baking! :)

-somicious

Last July I did something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time now- travel. Why have I not been travelling? Well, thanks to the program I’m in, it becomes a little difficult to travel for oh so many reasons(separate post about the Systematic Training and Education Program a.k.a. STEP very very soon.)

Just as our exam leaves were coming to an end and all of my batch mates were packing their belongings to head back to our respective hotels, I was packing my bags to head off to Europe! 

I was headed to Europe to attend a music festival in Lisbon and then just generally relax and hang around with my sister in Copenhagen. 

This was the first time I was travelling overseas, all alone. A general rule of thumb when travelling- always be well rested. If you aren’t, trust me, it really wont be a pleasant ride. 

I was up for 2 days straight by the time I was in Copenhagen. Not exactly the best feeling; also not a great idea if you’re headed for a music festival right after.

Moving on to the next travel essential- weather appropriate clothing. 

In India, when someone says summer, first thing that comes to mind is excruciating heat and possible humidity. In most of Europe, summers don’t necessarily mean the same. Make sure you check the weather around the time of your travel and pack clothes accordingly. Lisbon is quite hot during the day but chilly and windy in the evenings. Copenhagen is windy, rainy and chilly in summer. Definition of summer varies in different regions of Europe. 

Something that goes hand-in-hand with clothing- shoes.

I cannot begin to stress on how important a good pair of shoes is whilst travelling. A trusty pair of sneakers is ideal. They’re comfortable and great for walking around. What more do you need? (Not saying carry only one pair of shoes, but sneakers are always numero uno!)

Next thing to remember when you’re travelling- jet lag.

Jet lag can be a bitch. Especially if you’re not well rested. You’re going to be very disoriented and fatigued. Eye masks are probably going to become your new favourite travel accessory.

Lonely exploration has one main requirement- planning.

Grab a map of the city. Download offline maps of the city. Grab a couple of guide books lying around at stations and airports. Do some digging on the internet. Figure out where you want to go, what you want to see. Plan out your day and then step out. 

~walking can help discover gems like this art installation~

Best way to explore- walking.

Personally, walking is the best way to get to know a city, to learn about a city. Everywhere I went in Copenhagen was on foot, and sometimes bike. Same was the case for Malmö. Offline maps are your friend. And if you do get lost, there’s always people around to help you out. Never hesitate to ask. Unless they’re shady, in which case you should probably look for someone else for assistance. 

~....I played a lot of Pokemon Go while I was exploring ~

Next super important essential- power banks.

Power banks are easily the most handy item you can carry when you’re travelling especially if you’re alone. Our generation is one who lives on their smartphones. Keeping them powered up always is important since that’s your mode of staying in touch and also navigation. (And those of you that still play Pokemon Go, you most definitely need it one.)

~good books give great company while exploring parks~

What you require next is a trusty travel companion- a backpack.

A little backpack that can hold all your exploration gear- wallets, maps, power banks, a jacket/hoodie, a book, some pepper spray, the address where you’re staying, emergency contact details, and most importantly your passport. 

Whats the best way to experience a new city? Speak to the locals. 

No one knows a city better than the people who live in it. They’ll be able to tell you cool things to do that probably aren’t anywhere on the internet even. Mingling with/befriending the locals also helps in understanding the culture better. Try living in airbnbs instead of hotels. Always a more personal and indulging experience.

~ Spettekaka- traditional south Swedish dessert which is made of essentially eggs, potato starch, flour and sugar. It had a biscuit-y texture and was quite airy. Suggested to me by a few locals I spoke to while roaming in Malmö ~

Most importantly- document everything. 

Try and document your entire journey. Its always nice to have pictures to go through once you’re back from your trip. Make sure your phone/camera always has space cleared up.