Orange and Poppy Seed Cupcakes

To me, orange and poppy seed always make a perfect duo for all kinds of baking goods and it's hard to resist whenever/wherever I see them made and appeared as a food!

I was inspired to make the cupcakes by this post  from Khun Jum of maesalim.com who is one of my favorite and best food bloggers..I've learned lots of things from her blog/website since I've started cooking&baking!

Actually, I gave her recipe a try but my cake was underbaked and it turned out wet and poorly rise inside..I figured the problem out and it's nothing wrong with the recipe, instead it's the oven (top heat is far too much and makes tops of baking goods turn browned or burnst so quick!) that caused me a fail. Anyway, I changed the recipe for the second try and decided to make it in cupcake form to avoid long-time baking and this time they came out totally fine...

The recipe could be found here.

Note : I modified the recipe a bit by replacing a tbsp of marmalade with a tbsp of orange concentrated juice and also reduced sugar to 150 g.     

 

Placek

When I saw the photo and description of this Polish coffee yeasted cake on foodgawker, my first reaction was to think of how odd ( for myself !)the name is and then, without second thoughts, automatically double-clicked on the photo to go to the original post which everything there looked convincing to me!

Given no experience and no awareness of the bread before, I simply assumed that the best way to acquaint this Polish Easter bread is to give it a try by myself ! And with a quick search on google , all stories and recipes are not actually different from each other..so I decided to use the recipe from my first source which turned out to be perfect and definitely please all of tasters!

The recipe could be found here.

Ps. this post has also been sent to yeastspotting hosted by Susan of Wildyeast.

Shor gogal

Shor gogal is a popular savoury pastry, made from layers of pastry flavoured with turmeric and fennel seeds. Shor gogal, sheker bura and bakhlava are all eaten at the Novruz spring holiday. According to one tradition, the round, yellow gogal represents the sun, while the crescent shaped sheker bura is the moon. The process of making gogal is time consuming and, traditionally, the women of the family come together before Novruz to make gogal. Although gogal are a holiday food, nowadays they are enjoyed all year round as well.

The first time I saw shor gogal posted on this site I was absolutely thrilled by its look and determined to make them without even knowing what it really is! At the first glance, I thought the recipe was quite difficult to follow but after reading carefully, it's not that complicated as I expected..I ,though, kind of made a mess a bit when shaping and filling the rolled up dough..but all in all , no any harm done to the final outcome !

Since I knew nothing about the bread, so I didn't have guts to modify the recipe and simply followed the recipe step by step..The only thing I made a change (eventually!) is to use caraway seeds as a substitute for anise seeds because I couldn't find it in supermarkets  or shops where I normally go for food shopping..

Now talking about a result, the shor gogal turned out to be a big hit for the whole family! My 5 years old daughter who doesn't fancy any kind of spices (except cinnamon) had a whole piece of it and my husband said it's now one of his favorite breads I've ever made..that's all I can say!

Please click here to see the recipe..

 Ps. this post has also been sent to yeastspotting hosted by Susan of Wildyeast.

Guyanese Butterflaps

When it comes to bread, no matter what it is, needless to say how easy I could fall in love and be tempted to give any recipe a try!

These Guyanese butterflaps were written about and have been posted by Cynthia of Tastes Like Home. They are, in fact, nothing more than just bread and butter..yet it could find a way come to my mind and somehow played a trick to make me convinced that this simple and plain bread would be worth my time & (little) effort and pay off nicely!

I didn't use Cynthia's recipe to make a dough but I instead chose one of my favorite and reliable recipes and simply followed a process of filling and shaping the flaps..as for the outcome, they are absolutely a perfect match..the bread and butter!!

  

Ps. this bread has also been posted to yeastspotting hosted by Susan of Wildyeast..

Mafe ( Senegalese Lamb Stew )

When I saw this lamb stew posted on Leite's Culinaria, I immediately saved it onto my recipes file and undoubtedly planned to cook the dish as soon as I'd have a chance which fortunately, came very soon when my husband rang me the next morning and told me a good news that he was coming home from a business trip on that day which was earlier than it's supposed to be and I didn't have yet any food to be served for his dinner!

What I like about the stew is that it has everything all in one but that's not actually a real reason why my attention has been caught. Instead, it's a fact of the dish that made me keen on giving it a try!

As for a verdict, I was admittedly nervous to serve my husband this stew because I know that he's not a big fan of peanut butter..and honestly, I wouldn't have let him know that the stew had something he doesn't really like unless my daughter asked me infront of him what it was when he was about to start eating his dinner.. I had no choice but reluctantly answered her question and waited for his reaction at the same time! To my surprise, he finished all portion I served and top of everything,he said it's delicious!! so.. I don't think I have to say any more word about this stew!!

You could read a story about the dish and find the recipe from here..

Note : I used Skippy creamy peanut butter and bird chillies due to a lack of original ingredients called for.