Snowman Cake

I have 2 god daughter's whose birthday is around Christmas. One before and one after. So we always celebrate their birthday at the Christmas gathering.
This year, they requested a Snowman cake.

Luckily, I had some fondant left and I was able to make it.
It was actually pretty easy.
Cover the cake with white, color some of the fondant and roll it out for the hat.
The extra strip on the hat is optional.
Then use a knife to make the markings on the hat.

The most difficult part was making black fondant because black is hard to make from white.
I started off mixing in all the colors together to make the fondant darker. Then I added the black coloring. I find that has the best result. If you try for black right away, it'll turn grey because the fondant is white.

If I didn't have fondant, I would have used white chocolate ganache cream to cover the cake and color the cream and pipe the hat etc etc.

Happy decorating.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fall is time for pumpkins and all the wonderful winter squashes. I love pumpkin soup. It's yummy on it's own or as a soup base for noodles. If you want to use it with noodles, try cooking frozen Udon noodles in with the soup. 

The first time I made pumpkin soup, I just cut it up, peeled, boiled and blended it. The roasting method takes a little longer but I find it's less work overall because peeling can be a pain. It also adds another flavour to the soup because it's now roasted.

This recipe will make everything from scratch including the soup base! You can replace the soup base with instant broth if you already have it available.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Medium size pumpkin
• 2 onions
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 chicken shell
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp garam masala
• pinch of nut meg
• Sprinkle of Savory powder
• Sprinkle of cinnamon powder
• 2-3 L water
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
   
2. Cut the pumpkin in half and use a spoon to the scrap of the insides. (save seeds to roast for pumpkin seed snack)
3. Cut the pumpkin into smaller pieces and line them into baking trays. If there's an empty space, add the onions as well. There's no need to cut up the onion.
4. Add a bit of water to the trays and then put it into the preheated oven to bake. Baking process should take 30 min to an hour depending on your oven, size of your pumpkin etc.
5. While the pumpkin is baking, get your soup base ready. Start with 2L of water in a pot and bring it to a boil.
6. Add the chicken shell to the water along with the bay leaves and let it simmer for the entire time you bake the pumpkin. Add more water as necessary. 
7. You can poke the pumpkin with a fork to test it's readiness. Once it's soft it's ready for blending.
   
8. If you have a blender that can withstand heat, use a spoon and scrape the pumpkin meat right into the blender. Add a little bit of the chicken stock to help it blend.
   If you do not have a blender that can withstand heat, scoop all the pumpkin meat into a big bowl to let it cool. Blend after it's cooled.
9. Once you're done blending the pumpkin, blend the onion with the garlic as well using the same method.
10. Remove the chicken shell from the stock and add the pumpkin and onion puree into the pot with the chicken stock.
11. Add the cumin, garam masala and nut meg and sprinkle savory and cinnamon powder. Let the mixture simmer for 5-10 mins for the flavours to combine together.
12. Taste and add as much salt as you want to bring out the flavours.

Yummy on it's own or as a soup base for Udon noodles!!!

Enjoy!