Pineapple upside down cake

Never really baked before but want to give it a shot? Well, here is the simplest way to get the feel of it before progressing to the deep waters… This is what I first experimented before going and making a irish cream chocolate cake from scratch (The recipe for that can be found in a different post).

My idea of a warm up was to use some ready cake mixes but have my own little twist to it… That’s when I came up with the idea of a upside down pineapple cake. This one is really easy and yum. Can’t exactly call it a recipe because I used a cake mix here but I am sure to try making this one from scratch also.

Used a plain vanilla cake mix followed the instructions at the back. Added a little bit of the pineapple syrup to the cake mix so that it had both the mildness of vanilla and the freshness of pineapple. Before pouring the mixture into a tray, I added fresh pineapple pieces  to the bottom of the tray. The fresh pineapple added moistness to the cake. Once cooked, upturn the cake to get your lovely upside down pineapple cake!

Just a word of warning, this cake wouldn’t really last very long due to the fresh pineapples and the pineapple syrup so bake just what you know you can consume in a couple of days.

Again forgive me for the quality of the picture… But I dont think I will ever get nice pictures of food unless I cook when I am too full to eat or not enthusiastic enough to try (which never really happens ).

Irish Cream Chocolate Cake

One of my first experiments with cakes and turned out well. I like the taste of Baileys which is an Irish liquer. Coupling that with chocolate was like a match made in heaven for me. Yet again forgive me for the poor photography, I was just to eager to try it (as always) that clicking a nice picture wasn’t really my priority so settled with a phone camera. Not to brag but it looked muchh better than what the photo says…

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
150gm Dark Chocolate
3large eggs or 4small eggs
100 gm butter
100ml milk
225gm caster sugar
225gm self raising flour
2tbsp cocoa powder
4-5tbspn baileys

Steps:

1. Take the butter and chocolate and melt those on a low heat. Try not using the microwave or the low flame as there is a good possibility of burning the butter. The best way to achieve this would be to melt these over steam (A steam bath or a double boiler would be of help).
2. Once these are melted add the milk while stirring continuously
3. Cream the eggs and caster sugar mix until creamy. This is best done with an electric whisk for 8-10mins. If you do not have an electric whisk, I would suggest you prepare the creamy mixture before step 1 and 2 as it would take a great deal of time.
4. Once the creamy mixture is ready, add the melted butter-chocolate-milk mix prepared in step 1 and 2 while continuously stirring.
5. Once it is thoroughly mixed, add the cocoa powder, all purpose flour after sieving. Remember not to be harsh while adding these and mixing. Gently fold these in. In the end add the baileys and fold again.
6. Grease the trays with butter and sprinkle some all purpose flour before pouring the mixture above.
7. Place the trays to an oven preheated to 180degrees/350F and cook for 20mins. If the mixture was a little less viscous than expected, the mixture would take longer to cook. Do the knife test before taking the cake out.

For the frosting
50gm butter
175gm icing sugar
2tbspn cocoa powder
3tbspn baileys
100gm Cream cheese (Philadelphia cheese)

Mix all the above ingredients thoroughly ensuring there are no lumps and spread over the cake once cooled… Then coming to my favourite part of each recipe…. Cut the slices and bite into the gooyness of chocolate and baileys…. Feel the BLISS! (Forget the calories! )

QR code

Wikipedia says it is old and was created in 1994 but to me it is very new and a funky looking code! Though I wish it was pink and black instead of the boring white n black! ( Somethings just dont change! ). I first heard about it when my techie brother-in-law told me about some geek friends of his who has the icing of the cake in the form of a QR code of the flicker album url! I was totally fascinated by the idea and I am dedicating this post just for QR codes!
 

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes. Moreover, most current Japanese mobile phones can read this code with their camera.

A giant QR Code linking to a website, to be read with a mobile phone. These kind of banners and messages invoke an instant interest in people to get to know what it really means and thus solve the purpose when it comes to getting publicity!  

See, film stars are the only creatures who suffer from attention deficit disorder!
 

Some features of QR codes that make them next thing to look out for are:

High Capacity of encoding Data

Conventional bar codes are capable of storing a maximum of approximately 20 digits, QR Code is capable of handling several dozen to several hundred times more information.

Small Printout Size

Unlike Bar code which hold information only horizontally, QR codes hold information both horizontally and vertically. This makes the printout size extremely small.

 Dirt and Damage Resistant

Even if the symbol is dirty or damaged, data can be restored.

Readable from any direction in 360°

This feature enables high speed reading. This is accomplished by position detection patterns in the code itself.

Structured Append Feature

QR Code can be divided into multiple data areas. Conversely, information stored in multiple QR Code symbols can be reconstructed as single data symbols.
One data symbol can be divided into up to 16 symbols, allowing printing in a narrow area.

 

 

As I already mentioned in the beginining that Qr codes are really becoming the ‘in’ thing for techies. There are some pictures of Bday cakes and chocolated where the birthday messages are encoded as QR codes! The person will have to feed this image to a QR code decoder which is inbuilt in many of the phones these days.

This is a chocolate bar with a Happy B’day QR code encoded on it! Cool huh?
 

Even on business cards we find QR codes to see more click here

After doing some research I realized that QR code was also making its presence felt in the arena of art. Dont believe it. Well see this for yourself.

Here, Artist Pedro Morales creates Qr codes like the one on the right here using small cloth flowers!!!! He calls his latest art ‘Puras Flores’(Pure Flowers).
I know it is a little hard to believe! But it is true! 

Here is a closer view of the same Qr code: