Celebrate spring with flower decorated cupcakes! From birthdays to weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, graduations, cupcakes are a sure crowd pleaser for both young and old. Cupcakes can be easily decorated to suit any occasion or theme.
With easy and simple steps you can turn ordinary cupcakes into spectacular eye appealing ones. The decorating tip I am sharing today is one of my favorites. I use it for cupcakes and cakes.
Middle Eastern cuisine has numerous eggplant (aubergine) dishes. Many use roasted eggplants. The most famous Arabic appetizers ”Mazze” using roasted eggplants are Mutabal and Baba Ghanoush (or Baba Ghanouj as some refer to it).
So, I thought of sharing the different methods for roasting eggplants. All methods yield the same result, and which method you follow depends on your personal preference and convenience.
Before you start roating your eggplants, you need to wash the eggplants and dry them well. Then roast following one of these methods:
Yakhneh (يخنة) is originally a Turkish word that means a dish of vegetables and meat in red sauce. In Middle Eastern and Arabic cuisines, there are various “Yakhneh” dishes prepared in different methods with various kinds of vegetables: green beans, peas, potatoes, mulukhiya, zucchini, cauliflower to name a few Middle Eastern Cuisine dishes. Some stews are prepared with meat while others with chicken; all can be prepared vegetarian. Many stews have tomatoes in them as well.
Yakhneh dishes are very easy to prepare and don’t take a lot of your time. If you are using frozen vegetables, then even the cleaning and preparing of the vegetables is taken care of and your meal is ready in a snap. Yakhneh dishes are customarily served with plain rice.
Green Beans Stew or Yakhnet Fasulia is one of my favorites! In addition to its delicious taste, it is very easy to prepare.
My favorite cake frosting is cream cheese! I use cream cheese frosting for all my cakes even sometimes for the chocolate cake! I find it to be much lighter than butter frosting or butter cream. For birthday cakes when I am not using marshmallow fondant, I use cream cheese frosting.
The serving of the cream cheese frosting in this recipe is sufficient for frosting an average size cake from outside plus one inside layer. Or frosting about 30 cup cakes.
You can adjust the serving size by adding or eliminating 100 grams of cheese. Each 100 grams of cheese needs 25 grams of butter and 1/3 cup of powder sugar.
When I prepare cream cheese frosting I always prepare extra for my girls. they always add an extra layer of frosting to their cake slice plus they enjoy strawberries dipped in cream cheese frosting.
If you google Carrot Cake you will find that carrots have been used in desserts for centuries. Growing up I wasn’t aware that carrots are used in desserts and up till today I don’t know of any Arabic desserts that use carrots. The first time I had Carrot Cake I was in my twenties.
As a kid, vegetables weren’t on my “favorites' list”, and vegetable cakes didn’t pose any kind of temptation, so if at the time anyone had asked me “do you want a piece of Carrot cake?” my definite answer will be “duh, no!”
The first time I ate Carrot Cake was by chance in a friends house. I couldn’t believe that it was a cake based on a “vegetable”! It was that coincidence that got me on the road to trying out desserts other than ones based on chocolate, candy, cheeses and ice-creams. no I can proudly say that I now make several vegetable-based cakes and a few of those I love, including Carrot Cake and Zucchini Cake,
The carrot-pineapple cake is an enhanced version of the average carrot cake. The mixture of carrots and pineapples enhances the flavors of both and produces a juicier carrot cake. Also, the addition of pineapples makes it possible to reduce the amount of oil in the batter, making it a healthier version.
You can eat the carrot-pineapple cake plain or with cream cheese frosting. At home, we prefer it with cream cheese. If you plan to serve the carrot-pineapple cake plain, add an additional 1/4 cup of sugar to the batter. I reduce the sugar as I always serve it with frosting and we don’t like it when the cake turns way too sweet.