Goodbye to 2018 & Hello to 2019

      Wishing you all a Happy and Colourful New Year 2019!!!

2018, what a year with loads of ups and downs,though i can still say that 2018 was a good and fruitful year. So many changes happened in my both professional and personal life. Professional life became a priority now, obviously blogging took a back seat. However i managed and planned everything as usual earlier not to give up anything regarding blogging. Sometime because of my hectic working days, i truly want to quit blogging but blogging is one of my passion and passtime to forget all my daily chores. 2018 went very much faster than i imagined, few of my dreams came true during this year. One of my favourite tourist destination was Greece and its happened this year during summer, yes had a fabulous summer vacation. One more dream is get a kitchen gadget which i have been longing for, finally H gifted me a Kitchenaid gadget to knead my bread doughs and whisk my cake batters with less efforts. Cant ask more na.

As much as every year, i blogged three days per week, all credits goes to Blogging marathon and tried posting upto 15-18 posts for a month. Not to forget that i have blogged successfully two whole months of Mega marathon with two different themes during this year which was quite a challenge for me. Thank god, i finished both mega marathon brilliantly as i planned everything earlier to stick with theme i picked for.

Dont forget to check 26 days of Mega marathon:

April 2017 - Explore the Flavors with 4 different themes for 4 weeks

September 2017 - A to Z International Flatbreads with some traditional and unique flatbreads from around the world.

I kicked started 2018 with a Srilankan Sugar Buns aka Kimbula Banis and i have blogged 208 posts during this year and my blog counts 3723 posts now.While in my another blog Cook N Click i have posted  81 posts and its counts totally 621 posts.

Let's take a glimpse of my top recipes with highest views during this whole year.

January - Carrot & Oats Kozhukattai/Steamed Carrot & Oats Dumplings

February - Chocolate Gulab Jamuns/Dark Chocolate Gulab Jamuns

March - Mushroom & Spinach Balls/Kaalan Keerai Kola Urundai

April - Vitumbua/Tanzanian Doughnuts/Gluten Free Coconut Pancake Balls

Mai - Andhra Style Mint Rice/Pudhina Annam

June - Club Kachori/Kolkata Style Club Kachori

July - Ring Shaped Vegetable Samosas

August - No Churn Frozen Mixed Berries Icecream

September - Warqi Paratha/Lucknowi Warqi Paratha

October - Cassava Murukku/Maravallikizhangu Murukku/Tapioca Chakli

November - Cashew Coconut Milk Pulao

December - Santa Claus Shaped Brioche Bread

Hope you enjoyed this post and am very thankful to each and everyone for being part of my blogging world, nothing is possible without you all.

This year's cooking resolution is going to be More Millets & Less Refined Sugar.

Sending this post to Srivalli's Best of Year 2018.

Cornflakes Chocolate Brownies/Cereals Choco Brownies

You might already tried cornflakes cookies, but today's recipe is completely a different one.Cornflakes chocolate brownies is definitely a must to try if you have leftover cornflakes sitting sadly in your pantry to get finished.  Yes i used leftover cornflakes for baking out some chocolate loaded brownies instead of trashing them. I grounded cornflakes as coarse powder and used them in a brownie batter to bake out some incredible brownie out of it. I hate trashing, obviously i will think twice to make use of anything which is leftover aside for many days before their expiry date. Even my H used to blame me that i dont trash anything easily than giving them a second life.

No Maida, No Sugar, No Butter Christmas Fruit Cake

You may wonder how can one bake a rich looking Christmas fruit cake without Maida, sugar and butter. Trust me, even i was skeptical before baking this incredible cake. Its quite an interesting Frutis and nuts loaded Christmas friendly cake to carry with you if you are visiting friends or family. I have prepared fruits and nuts soaked in jaggery syrup before 20 days for baking this Xmassy cake. Yes you heard it rite, this cake is completely sweetened with jaggery. Varieties of dry fruits and nuts are soaked in a thick jaggery syrup is used to flavor up this fruits loaded rich looking cake. Actually my initial idea to make this rich fruit cake was with usual ingredients as much as every year. When i opened the fridge, i noticed that there was no butter, obviously i opted for Olive oil, then comes to idea to make this fruit cake without all purpose flour/maida. Finally i baked this cake with Spelt flour, jaggery syrup and olive oil.

Pastry Cream & Chocolate Chunks Brioche Wreath

Christmas is not complete without wreath, either its edible or decoration you can find wreath everywhere during this festive season. Its been quite a yearly tradition for me to bake as wreath and am trying to keep this since three years. However we dont forget to decorate our entrance door with a wreath as well. Coming to this brioche wreath, its quite a dangerously addictve bread swirls which is definitely easy to shape and bake. Apart from preparing pastry cream and brioche dough, this wreath is quite an easiest bread to give a try without any hesitation. Usually we wait for an hour to dig these sort of breads once they comes out of the oven but my kids went completely crazy when they smelled the aroma of this bread. Best part of this wreath is just to pull a bread and enjoy it immediately.