Recipe of the month: Carrot Cake Laddus

I would have loved to bring you this recipe in time for Ganesh Chaturthi but I have clearly failed in that endaevor. Never mind! I am posting this recipe well in advance for Diwali/Deepavali with the hope that it adds a touch of modern sparkle to your upcoming festive celebration 😊

I love carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It is such a delightful combination. Carrots are earthy and slightly sweet, while cream cheese is tangy, rich and mildly savoury. It is the contrast that makes this seemingly odd pairing work. 

If you are well-acquainted with my blog, you may be aware of a Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe that I posted years ago (12 years to be precise). Back in Singapore, I used to make them all the time to take to office for my colleagues, for potlucks or to serve at home when having guests over for dinner. It happens to be one of my favourite recipes on my blog. 

This year, for Ganesh Chaturthi, I was looking for a simple recipe (as usual) to kick start the festivities. I had already decided that I was going to make chocolate modaks for the kids. I needed another sweet recipe but with a hundred other things demanding my attention, I wasn't prepared to spend too much time in the kitchen. It was then that I remembered my carrot cake recipe. I thought it would be a great idea to give it a makeover and turn them into laddus. Although I love traditional dishes and firmly believe that classic recipes shouldn't be messed with, I can't help but play around when it comes to dessert. Turns out, my idea wasn't original. There were plenty of recipes I found online that had come up with the same concept way before me. Oh well! 😄

These laddus came together in less than 30 minutes. Oven-roasting the carrots is such a great idea because it brings out the natural sweetness of the carrots. Indians are familiar with carrots being used in traditional sweets like carrot halwa and carrot kheer but for those who find the addition of carrots strange, I can assure you that it does not taste like you have added a vegetable into your dessert 😁 The use of almond flour makes this an "instant" dessert, bypassing the need for cooking and tedious stirring which is common with traditional Indian sweets. So if you are short on time, this recipe should be part of your arsenal. 

At the end, I had a dessert that looked Indian but tasted somewhat International 😄 Everyone who tried them gave me great feedback so I decided it was worth featuring here. These laddus are naturally gluten-free and can easily be made vegan. I have provided ample substitutions and tips with which you can tweak it to suit your kitchen steup or your dietary preferences. 

I am a bit disappointed that I couldn't do much this year for Ganesh Chaturthi. Hopefully, I'll be able to make up for it this Diwali 💫 Stay tuned! 

Until next time folks....

The Orlando Family Vacation We Had Dreamed About

Some holidays fade with time. Others become the stories your family tells over and over again. For us, Orlando in the spring of 2023 will always be one of those stories.

Ever since our twins were toddlers, my husband and I had dreamed of taking them to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios in the US. We wanted to wait until they were old enough to be eligible for every ride, brave enough to take on the scary ones, yet still young enough to be completely swept away by the magic. Once they turned eight years old, they seemed to be at that perfect age where wonder still came naturally and every new experience felt larger than life 😊

My husband and I were no strangers to Orlando, Florida. After staying with extended family in Port Charlotte with my in-laws in the winter of 2007, we visited Sanibel Island followed by Siesta Key beach and Myakka River State Park in Sarasota before driving to Orlando. We spent a few memorable days in Orlando exploring its iconic theme parks along with a day-trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. One of the most vivid memories I have of that trip was this gorgeous three-storey holiday home in Orlando which happened to be my very first experience of staying at a vacation rental rather than a hotel. This was long before the twins came along in those carefree years when we rarely planned beyond the next day's adventure 😆 

Back in 2007, we had visited EPCOT, Universal Studios and SeaWorld in Orlando, but had not been to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom or any of the water parks. More importantly, this trip happened long before The Wizarding World of Harry Potter even existed. By 2014, the Harry Potter attractions had transformed Universal Studios into an entirely different experience. As a family of hardcore Potterheads, walking through Diagon Alley, boarding the Hogwarts Express and stepping into Hogsmeade presented a thrilling prospect for all four of us!

For months, park maps had been studied, Genie+ strategies carefully planned, resorts had been booked, dining reservations had been made, detailed itineraries had been prepared and YouTube videos watched in preparation for what would become one of our most action-packed family vacations. With Easter and Spring Break having ended a week ago, we hoped that the crowds at the parks would have eased by the time of our arrival. The weather was also predicted to be ideal during our visit. Every little detail had been thought through. Although we felt ready, nothing could have prepared us for the feeling of finally arriving in the theme park capital of the world.

After landing in Orlando on April 16th, we picked up our rental car at Hertz and promptly checked into Hampton Inn & Suites Orlando Airport @ Gateway Village. We had just wrapped up an eventful six days in New York and New Jersey so unwinding in front of a TV was the only thing on the agenda for the day. We headed over to the nearest grocery store, bought a bunch of snacks + breakfast staples and later stopped by a local diner in the vicinity of the hotel. 

It had been raining on and off in Florida so the weather was pleasantly cool (bordering on chilly I'd say). The girls enjoyed warming themselves by the outdoor fireplace. 

The next day, the real adventure would begin. The kids were doubly excited to meet their chikkappa and chikkamma (aka paternal uncle and aunt) who were flying in from Washington state to join us. 

The Disney Chapter

Our first morning began by checking-in to Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort, where we had booked one of the charming woodland cabins. These tiny homes are set in a 750-acre pine and cypress forest. They sleep up to 6 people and feature a full-size kitchen, a main bedroom, bunk beds, a queen-size Murphy bed, and outdoor patios with charcoal grills. This was a departure from our usual mode of stay during a vacation so the girls in particular were delighted. 

Before we could officially check in, our luggage was dropped off and we were already racing toward EPCOT.

Like most Disney enthusiasts, we had alarms set before sunrise to secure Genie+ reservations. It is amazing how quickly "holiday mode" can transform into military precision when you are trying to maximise every minute inside a Disney park. I ain't kidding you when I say this but it almost feels like a competitive sport! (I even made sure that all of us were dressed comfortably and had sports shoes  on 😆). 

The EPCOT International Flower Garden festival was in full swing and there were vibrant blooms every corner we turned. 

Recipe of the month: Taushe Bhakri (Cucumber Rotti)

Continuing my exploration of regional Indian dishes, today’s find is a Konkani  speciality called Toushe Bhakri or Cucumber Rotti. It is an easy to make, light on the tummy, traditional breakfast dish. Even better, it comes together with ingredients you probably already have sitting in your kitchen.

Somewhere along the way, I have had to accept that I don’t quite have the time (or bandwidth) to blog the way I once did. I'll admit that it is a bitter pill to swallow. Having said that, the urge to keep at it hasn’t gone away. I still find myself saving recipes I stumble upon, usually with a quiet conviction that this one will be the one that brings my blog out of its coma! And that is exactly how I found the recipe for this dish. I had never heard of it before, which immediately piqued my curiosity and it seemed like the kind of dish that would work perfectly for our busy household of six.

On an unrelated note, it does make me a little sad to see traditional blogging slowly fading into the background. Nobody really has the patience for it anymore because everything nowadays needs to be quick, snappy and instantly consumable, doesn't it? 😢 Even recipe videos have a shelf life of a few minutes before people start losing interest. Attention spans are shrinking at an alarming rate, and instant gratification seems to be the rule of the game. To avoid disappointment, I am not holding on to hope that my Generation Alpha daughters will read my elaborate blog posts. By now, I am quite convinced that I am an old soul at heart. I have little interest in keeping up with technology. I have never approached content creation as a means to an end. Podcasts, vlogs, audiobooks, YouTube shorts have never really appealed to me. I still believe in the power of writing, in documenting lived experiences, in taking the time to say things from the heart and in today's day and age, not having an AI chatbot say things for me that I am perfectly capable of saying myself! (no matter how unpolished it may sound 😝). But my thoughts aside, the fact that my blog still gets a reasonable number of views is reason enough for me to keep showing up here.

Coming back to today's recipe - this was (for the most part) a hit just as I thought it would be. My husband didn’t quite take to it, but that is due to his long-standing dislike for cucumber in the cooked form. He is one of those people who prefers the vegetable raw. Fair enough I'd say. The rest of us really enjoyed it and I can easily see this dish working just as well with zucchini. I served the bhakris with homemade butter (so good), coconut chutney, chutney pudi and pickle. It complemented everything very well. 

To those of you who still take the time to visit my blog, read my ramblings and try my recipes, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are the reason I'm still here 💜

Baker's Corner: Blueberry Lavender Cinnamon Rolls

I'm not going to make any excuses for now showing up here. It is what it is (sighs). On a more positive note, a personal goal for me this year is to get back to cooking, baking and blogging which still rank among my greatest passions in life. I have some brand new amazing cookbooks that I brought with me from Singapore to India during our relocation but I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't opened a single one yet. That has got to change 😛

A bit of background on how this blog post came about - last month, we played Secret Santa at work. Somehow, I ended up being in charge of organizing it which was mildly amusing because I had never played the game before (surprising no?). In the beginning, I naively assumed that  it would involve picking a name, buying one holiday gift, and calling it a day. How mistaken I was! 

What followed was gifting guidelines with a designated WhatsApp group and weeks of multiple mini gifts, tricks, clues, stealth tactics, mysterious collaborations, in depth handwriting analysis, decoy Santas, dress code, dramatic reveals and what not! I can confidently say that I get all the nuances of the game now and I promise to be a force to reckon with the next time it rolls around 😂

My Secret Santa (who turned out to be a dear colleague who I work closely with) gifted me a handmade recipe book along with several other thoughtful goodies. Knowing my penchant for baking, she had included a collection of beautiful dessert recipes with detailed instructions, all carefully handwritten and paired with hand drawn illustrations. Needless to say, I was deeply touched by the time, effort, and sentiment that went into it 💜

One of the recipes that caught my attention immediately were these Blueberry Lavender Cinnamon Rolls. My daughters noticed it right off the bat too. If you have gone through my dessert gallery before, chances are, you would have come across my blog post on Cinnamon Rolls. You may have also correctly deduced that I  am a sucker for cinnamon in general. I truly dig the stuff. 

Lavender, however, was completely new territory for me. It was the only ingredient I did not already have on hand, and I was genuinely excited to try it.  A browse and click on Amazon led to its arrival on my doorstep two days later. 

This recipe is very easy to follow and uses ingredients that are (mostly) readily available. It does require two rounds of dough rising (proofing), which takes some time, but I promise it is worth the wait. The rolls turned out soft and pillowy. The gentle floral notes of the lavender complemented the fruitiness of the blueberries beautifully. The sweetness of the glaze was balanced by the salt in the rolls and the slight tartness of the berries. The cinnamon took a subtler role while still providing its comforting warmth.

I did not follow the recipe from the book exactly. I made a few minor adjustments based on my own preferences and intuition as I went along. For a first attempt, the taste and texture of the rolls felt just right. I made two batches, took one to work for my colleagues who all gave it the thumbs up. The second batch I kept for my family. My girls have been thrilled to see it make an appearance in their snack box and now they are asking me to make it for all their friends 😆 I did not feel the need to tweak the recipe further, so I am sharing it here just as it is for all of you to try.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year 2026 💫

I will try my best to show up here more often (and I really mean that!).