24
Dec

X’mas special – mixed dry fruit cake

   Posted by: Kannan V   in Cooking

X’mas 2011 and its time to bake some cake, chose the easiest of them and the least time extensive process, so its a simple mixed dry fruit cake.

Once you mix all the ingredients here is what you get below.

all set to bake

Ingredients:

  1. 500 g self-raising flour.
  2. 250 g light spread (healthy option to butter)
  3. 1.5 tsp Vanilla flavoring
  4. 4 eggs
  5. 320 g caster sugar
  6. 1/2 (60 ml) Milk
  7. Icing sugar for decorating
  8. 1 tsp baking powder
  9. 1/2 tsp salt
  10. Mixed dry fruits and nuts cut into small pieces
  11. A Hand mixer or a cake mixer if u have one.
  12. A cake tin or any other baking dish
  13. and an Oven
  14. and finally lots of love :)
Pre-Heating : Pre heat the oven to 180C, its better to have an oven thermometer, so that you are sure its the correct temperature.

Creaming : Mixing the butter and sugar well to form a creamy texture.

From a couple of initial failed attempts at baking, the key thing to get a good bake is all in the mixing stage, aerating it, meaning, incorporating good amounts of air into the mix so that it expands when baking and makes the cake fluffy and gives it a texture, do not add all ingredients and mix together, mix them one by one.

  • Whisk the eggs at medium speed, start slow, then build up (white and yolk together) until it doubles in volume
  • In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt and keep it aside.
  • In a suitably large bowl, add the Light spread (used this instead of butter as a healthy option) and start whisking so that the spread starts to soften.
  • Slowly add all of the caster sugar to the spread whisking it all along, after 5 minutes you should get a spongy smooth texture with the spread and sugar mixed well.
  • Whisking it at low speed, add the whisked eggs slowly and whisk well to mix.
  • Add the vanilla flavoring.
Folding : This is a process of gently adding the flour, do not beat or whisk at this stage, if you do you will lose all the air in the mixture and the cake will become dense.
  • Gently Sift the flour mix in small quantities and mix, make sure not to form any lumps, mix gently with a spoon.
  • Add milk if the flour becomes too thick
  • Finally add the mixed nuts.
  • Pour the cake mixture onto the greased tin.
  • Sprinkle some mixed nuts on top.
  • Stick it into the Oven second rack from top and leave it at 180C for approx 40 to 50 minutes.
  • Make sure not to over bake it, the cake should have a golden texture to it.
  • To check if the cake is done, insert a knife and it should come out clean without the cake sticking to it, if it does then the cake is baked.
  • Sprinkle some icing sugar on top and brush the top with milk to give it a glazing.

And this is what it looks now.

Baked

 

Tags: , , ,

8
Jun

Enakkul Oruthi

   Posted by: Kannan V   in Poems

Enakkul Oruthi

Azhagai Oruthi
Nezhal ayy oruthi
Nejamai oruthi
Bayamay Oruthi
Sugamai Oruthi
Meliyamaay oruthi
Kaatraay Oruthi
Puyal ayy Oruthi

Enakkul Oruthi….
Enakkul onnai kuduthai nee
Kalandhuvittai ennil nee
Mayangaveythai nee
Ennai onnil karaithuvittai nee

En azhagiyaa thee
Aval Dhan nee…
Enadhu nee.

Tags: , ,

21
Feb

A Post

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

Its been long since i have updated my blog, my last post was in Jul which said i will wait for the right one, and since then too much has happened and things have been whizzing at rocket speed in all aspects of life, all for the better.

Things i have done recently kept me a bit busy in unifying my website and blog and getting all my photo sites and blogs cleaned up and organised.

So will start posting more now.!

Tags:

23
Jul

Miss you….

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

I definitely will for the right one :)

Tags:

26
May

Epping forest cycling – GPS track

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General, GPS

24
May

To say or not to say…

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

Wandering aimlessly through the airport shops I found this little book winking at me, still had some 6 hours for the check-in process to start for my flight and sure this book interested me as a companion, it was like buy at first sight syndrome that caught, even thou I hesitated a bit and was thinking 5 times before I finally bought this, its a book on how to communicate effectively/How to talk to anyone. The tips are pretty interesting, and here is a gist from a chapter that talked about communication with people close to you, your close friends or loved ones et al..

Communicating is hard especially with someone you’re close to (or want to be close to) because it means opening up, letting them know how you feel, letting them know what you really care about, letting them see you cry. It makes you vulnerable: maybe they’ll think less of you; maybe they’ll use it to hurt you or manipulate you.
But once you get close enough to a person, then its much better to spit it out rather than keep things into oneself, this kind of suppressing the thoughts or feelings increases the pressure inside you and makes you more nervous.
How on earth would you expect the other person to know what and why you are feeling the way you feel, nobody is a mind reader, its just that we can find to an extent that something is not all right, the rest is with each other to come to common grounds and settle the matter, be it anything, if you say you cant share certain things, then you are not in true love, for true love needs trust and if you have enough trust then there is nothing called a barrier between the minds involved.

Now that’s pretty ….. :)

17
May

Sunday with Python.. not the snake ;)

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General, Photography

It was a photo process Sunday after the Saturday visit to the wetlands and it ended up a short Python learning session. As I started processing one of the Lapwing captures that I felt was somewhat a keeper after a heavy cropping and then imported it into Corel Paint shop pro, yes its not photoshop, its very expensive so settled for the PSP last year ;) , I had a small script to do the picture border and framing, but came across another script that prints some EXIF details too on the picture frame, and it all started here, instead of processing I started into Python coding and trying to get the Exif script integrated into my script and finally got it done ending up with a splitting headache due to 8am to 5pm staring at the monitor :) and i did realize 400mm is not enough and i need more reach.

12
May

Pedal Power..

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

This is about cycling to work… and to other places too that are cyclable ;)

This time last year, a wonderful sunny Saturday and my friend standing on my home front door with glowing eyes, he said lets go to Decathlon and buy a bicycle, i had that idea in one small corner of my mind, but this time with his immediate and almost certain call, i was all ready in 10 minutes on my way to buy the bicycle, and from then on its no looking back and am on my bike whenever possible and I try to avoid the tube as much.

After an year I have started to look at the benefits of it, am now more reasonably fit with less time at the Gym, cycling to work and back home gives me an hour of quality exercise every day.

The ride is as usual a bit dangerous, occasionally infuriating, a bit vigorous at times, exciting most of the times and above all its the fun factor in it, the key part is in its ability to clear the mind of any issues and gets it ready for another day in the office and the ride back home again clears off any work related issues and am back home fresh, and to top it all, its a sense of pleasure to see fellow riders around.

In all am enjoying the benefits of the Pedal power.

5
May

Finding someone…

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

Finding someone who shares your dreams on subjects that matter most to you……. looks harder than a NASA mission :)

16
Apr

Quiet Skies

   Posted by: Kannan V   in General

Perfect blue skies, happens once a while in London.. ;) , but whenever its there, its always streaked criss cross with smoke trails of the big metal birds flying high above, the night skies are full of comet like lights that move around.

It was a total different scene yesterday and today, woke up to find a clear blue sky with no lines, no sound of the big birds, but the small ones seem to be louder than usual…

Sorry folks to those who had planned their holidays and got their plans crushed.

For all wondering what’s all this about, due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption, there are no airspace activity in and around UK, one of the worlds most busiest airport (Heathrow) is free of planes.

Read more here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8623806.stm

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