Category: sugar

Almond Cashew Mawa Burfi:

August 9, 2020

Who does not love Almond or Kaju Katli? Here I have combined the much loved two raw materials,  with milk solid/ khoya, to give a melt in a mouth Indian dessert, In the form of burfi.

Almond cashew mawa Barfi is a super delicious, easy to make, melt in mouth Indian sweet or fudge recipe. A perfect sweet to make on any special occasion! Or festive time.

Ingredients:

Almond – ¾ cup

Cashew –  1/3 cup

Khoya /mawa – ½ cup / 100 grams ( unsweetened)

Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Water – ½ cup

Ghee – ¼ cup

Saffron – 10 – 12 strands

Method:

-Heat a cup of water, soak almond and cashew. Close the lid and keep it for 2 hours.

-After two hours, peel the almonds, drain the water, spread these on kitchen towel to remove extra moisture.

-Grind them in a small mixer jar, by using pulse option by giving intervals for mixing in between to get a smooth paste. Grease one steel plate and keep it ready as well.

-Now, take one thick kadai, pour sugar, water, and boil until it reaches one thread consistency. It takes hardly 5 minutes, after initial boil.

-Add in Almond, cashew paste, after it melts and forms a homogeneous mix, add in grated Mawa.

-Stir everything in a low fire, without leaving hand. While stirring, add a tsp of ghee at regular interval and add saffron strands as well.

-When mixture leaves the sides, as well as thickens, check for the doneness. Take out little mixture, hold a small quantity, in between your thumb and forefinger, try to make a ball. Formed ball should shine as well as should not stick to your finger.

-If it passes the test, switch off the gas, and keep stirring for another 5 to 7 minutes, if any ghee is remaining, pour in between stirring.

 -Take the greased plate, pour the mixture, and spread evenly and leave it for 10 minutes. Mark the line and keep it aside for cooling. After cooling, take out pieces, store it in an airtight box.

 

 

 

Mango Yogurt Parfait:

June 7, 2020

Everyone loves mango season and enjoy as much as possible before it vanishes from the fruit carts.

Today, I am sharing my little healthier version of mango parfait, when compared to other versions, which usually has loads of fresh creams.

Here, I normally use digestive biscuit base, hung curd with little fresh cream which is flavoured with fresh cardamom ( I like cardamom with mango 😀 ) , Chopped fresh fruit , lastly garnished with crushed almond praline (chikki).

Let us see the procedure , which suffice for 4 tall glasses –

Ingredients:

For Biscuit base:

Digestive biscuits – 12

Sugar – 1 to 2 tbl sp of brown sugar ( can use normal sugar as well)

Butter – 1 tbl sp

For Fruit base:

Mangoes – 2 (Alphonso works well)

Sugar – 1 tsp

For Cream base:

Hung curd or yogurt – 1 to 1½  cup ( adjust accordingly)

Fresh cream – 50  to 100 grams ( adjust accordingly)

Sugar – 3 to 4 tbl sp ( according to your taste)

Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

For Almond Praline: ( you can use cashew as well)

Brown sugar  – 2 tbl sp ( you can use normal sugar as well )

Slivered almonds – ½  cup

Butter – 1 tbl sp

Method:

-Make Praline by heating sugar until it turns brown liquid form without stirring or disturbing in low flame. When it turns golden, add almond, butter give a stir and spread on kitchen counter.

-When it is cool, take the crunchy block and crush by using pestle . keep aside.

-Now, Chop mangoes into small chunks, add sugar and give a stir and keep it in a fridge.

-Next, Biscuit base. Crush biscuits make a powder. Add sugar, butter, and mix all these by using your hand. It should hold the shape, while pressing in between your palm and fingers.

-Now, for the cream base, take a wire whisk ,beat hung curd, add cream, sugar, cardamom powder and whisk until it is creamy.

Now comes the assembling part:

-Take 4 tall glasses. First pour 2 spoons of yogurt mix. Over to that, biscuit crumb, then chopped mangoes.

-Repeat the same sequence: yogurt, crumb , fruit. Lastly divide all the leftover curd equally into 4 glasses at the top and garnish with almond praline and serve, enjoy your treat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coconut Flour and Buck wheat Chocolate chip cookies:

May 17, 2020

In my earlier posts I have discussed regarding homemade coconut flour as well as  eggless coconut flour cookie with chocolate chip.

One thing we must keep in our minds while using coconut flour is, do not underestimate its absorption power by seeing its light and airy texture. It absorbs moisture like a sponge. What I learnt from my previous experience is, it needs almost equal amount of moisture content as flour volume.

Here I have tried with egg as well as without egg by adding  flax gel as an egg replacer, mainly because of its gel like texture. Coconut flour does not have any holding capacity, so thought of using flax gel.

In this experiment I have taken equal amount of coconut flour and buck wheat flour ( I did try with millet flour as well)  it did absorb the liquid, swell and gave me Eleven  cookies 😊 More than everything, this was interesting!! Baking Coconut Flour by adding millet/ buck wheat flour . This was a little experiment, and the results were not bad at all! I got the big thumbs up from my twins.

Let us see the procedure for With Egg Version –

Ingredients:

Coconut flour – ½ cup

Millet/ Buck wheat flour – ½ cup

Choco chip – ¼ to ½ cup

Pink salt – ¼ teaspoon ( you can use normal salt as well)

Cinnamon powder – ½ tsp

Cooking soda  + baking powder – ¼ tsp ( 1/8th  tsp  each)

Eggs – 2

Ghee – 2 tablespoons

Vanilla – ½  teaspoon

Organic Natural brown sugar – ½ cup (you can use normal sugar or jaggery as well)

Method:

-take one bowl, add all the dry ingredients: Both the flours, salt, cinnamon powder, cooking soda, baking powder and Choco chip. Mix everything and keep it aside.

-Beat the egg , add vanilla, sugar, and ghee. Beat everything until you see a bubbly texture.

– Pour wet mix into dry ingredient and fold everything and prepare a dough. It would be sticky and wet.

-Keep this in a refrigerator at least for a half an hour. By this time, coconut flour would absorb the moisture and batter would be perfect to scoop out.

-Pre heat oven at 170 °C. Line the baking tray with the butter paper.

-Scoop out the mix by using ice cream scooper and arrange in a lined baking tray.

-Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

-Do not touch while removing, it will be incredibly soft. Remove the tray and cool as it is.

-After cooling, it will harden a bit. After it cools down completely, store it in an airtight container.

– These cookies are slightly crunchier at outer circle, soft and chewy at the centre.

– It becomes a little harder and firmer the next day .

For Without Egg Version:

For Egg less version, please use any egg replacer or 

Flax gel: The basic ratio is 2 ½ tsp of flax seed powder and three tablespoons of  hot water  and then you simply whisk in the mixture until it becomes gelatinous  to replace one egg.

-Here, after mixing the wet and dry mixture, you can directly proceed to baking. No need to keep it in the fridge. Dough is less liquid, compared to the with egg version.

-Cookies turn out much more heavy and crunchier than the with egg version. Does not spread while baking. It holds the shape very nicely.

Lemon Tart with Healthy Flour:

April 19, 2020

Lemon tarts are a real pleasure to have. When I have homemade lemon curd, usually I make it a point to use it in my baking and enjoy the tangy taste. Usually first preference would be Lemon thumb print cookies by using healthy flours. Then comes the Braided bread and lastly, lemon tart, which my daughters just love to have and this time, one of my daughters tried to bake it and she enjoyed the healthy baking process. At first, we did try by using Oats and whole wheat together and second batch with only whole wheat flour. Both the trials worked out just fine. Oats and whole wheat tart shell was more like a cookie with added flaky texture and whole wheat shell was like any normal tart shell.

We normally like mini cup cake size of lemon tart, due to its tangy and sweet taste. So, giving the measurements for 12 – 14 mini tarts.

This is an Egg-less version and I will update both the versions.

How we did:

Ingredients:

Flour – ¾ cup

Salt – ¼ tsp

Cold butter – 50 grams

Brown sugar – ¼ cup

Cold water – as needed.

Lemon curd – As needed

Method:

-If you are taking whole wheat flour, take ¾ cup. If you want to mix oats or any other flours of your choice, go ahead and use half the quantity of oats flour (by grinding ) or any other flour and half whole wheat flour.

-Now, take flour of your choice, salt and dry mix nicely. Add sugar powder and mix thoroughly.

-Add cold butter by cutting into chunks. Mix everything by using hand or processor. Until mixture looks crumbly.

-Now add couple of tablespoons of chilled water and make a dough. Keep it in an airtight box and allow to rest under refrigeration for 45 minutes.

-Pre heat oven at 170°C . Remove dough and roll the dough by using flour dusted platform.

-Take a cookie cutter, lay those circles in greased  mini muffin pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

-Remove, fill with lemon curd, once again keep it in the oven and continue baking for 5 more minutes.

-Remove, cool and enjoy sweet and tangy/ lemony treat.

 

 

Red velvet Cake :

December 20, 2019

Hey, this is Anushree here and this is my first guest post on my mom’s blog! I have been home from college for a few days now and thought I’d make something special as Christmas is coming up and my sister is coming back from college in 2 days! So, I decided to make a Red velvet cake.

Yes! You heard it right. It is not deep red in colour but filled with healthy ingredients. It is No Artificial colour and No All-purpose flour recipe. And to pull this off, I obviously needed some assistance from an expert in healthy cooking, who happens to be my mom, so that worked out great for me!

In olden days, Red velvet cake was made with All-purpose flour and Beets. Here I have used Mixed healthy flour ( Amaranth , Red rice and Almond flour) with beetroot. So, it is not a white cake with red dye.

While frosting, instead of new age cream cheese, I have opted for an original Ermine icing , which is also known as boiled milk frosting. Here, instead of All-purpose flour I have used mixture of  Almond flour and Arrowroot powder with milk to attain a creamy and flowy texture.

Here is my recipe- Fits for 9” spring foam pan.

Ingredient:

For the Cake:

Beetroot – 1 (small,  to get 3 tablespoons of puree)

Amaranth flour – 1cup

Brown rice flour – 1cup

Almond flour – ½ cup

Cocoa powder – 1 tablespoon

Cooking soda – 1 tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Eggs – 2

Brown Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Butter – 200 grams

Vanilla – 1 tsp

Buttermilk – 1 ¼ cup

For the Frosting:

Milk – 1 cup

Almond flour – 5 tablespoons

Arrowroot powder – 1 tablespoon

Butter – 50 grams

Sugar – ½ cup

Vanilla – 1 tsp

Desiccated coconut – as needed

Slivered Almonds – As needed

Method:

To Bake the cake:

-Pre heat oven for 180° C . Line the baking tray and keep it ready.

-Cook Beetroot in a pressure pan for 2 to 3 whistles, peel the skin and grate.

-Measure every ingredient and keep it ready. Melt butter and keep aside.

-Take a mixer jar, make a paste of grated beet with ¼ cup of buttermilk ,which we have kept for the batter preparation.

-Take one glass bowl, beat eggs, then sugar, melted butter ,pureed beetroot, vanilla and lastly one cup of buttermilk.

-Beat everything until it is well mixed and keep aside.

-Now take one more bowl, put all the dry ingredients, all the three flours, cocoa powder, salt and cooking soda. Sieve couple of times or dry whisk and keep it ready.

–Pour the previously prepared wet mixture to dry ingredients and fold the batter by using any spatula.

-Pour the batter in lined baking tray and keep this for baking for 40 -50  minutes or until done.

-Before removing, check with a knife by inserting, in the baked cake. It should come out clean.

-Cool the cake completely before doing the frosting part.

Method for Frosting:

-Take milk ,Almond flour and Arrowroot powder in a saucepan. Boil the mixture until it is cooks and becomes creamy.

-Switch off the flame, add in butter ,sugar and Vanilla, mix well. Cool the mixture and keep it in the fridge to cool further making it more solid. ( I have not kept in the fridge)

-Now, slice the cake, make a 2-equal slice, Apply the frosting on first layer and cover it with the second slice.

-Now pour frosting on the top, as well as apply at the sides as well. Take desiccated coconut and dust at the top as well as at the sides.

-Decorate the cake with slivered almonds and serve and enjoy with the family <3

Note: 

For Egg less version, please use any egg replacer or 

Flax gel:The basic ratio is 2 ½ tsp of flax seed powder and three tablespoons of  hot water  and then you simply whisk in the mixture until it becomes gelatinous  to replace one egg.

Cranberry and White chocolate cookies:

December 19, 2019

It is an easy, eggless, one bowl recipe. No baking powder or soda in it. To increase the protein quotient, I have added little moong ( green gram dal) flour as well. These white chocolate cranberry soft, chewy , flavourful cookies are so simple and so addictive! 😀

Cranberries and white chocolate make the best Christmas coloured cookie. You can see one more green gram flour/ gluten free cookie over here .

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour – 3/4cup

Green gram/ Moong dal flour – ¼ cup

Butter – 100 grams

Sugar – ½ cup (powdered)

Dried cranberry – ¼ cup

White chocolate chips – ¼ cup

Method:

-Mix All purpose flour and moong dal flour and keep it ready.

-Beat butter and sugar until fluffy and soft, either by using hand or food processor.

-Now add flour and mix until u gets uniform mass. Add in white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and make a dough.

-Now take one cling film sheet and keep this dough over it, on a flat surface and make squarish or round log, maintain uniform shape and cover with wrapping. Keep it under refrigeration for an hour.

-Now take your baking tray and line with a butter paper.

-After one hour, remove this dough from the fridge and unwrap the Clingfilm cover, make slices of ½” thickness and arrange these pieces in a lined baking tray.

-Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170°C for 14 to 18 minutes.

-Cool this on a wire rack and store this in an airtight container.

-My family just loved it and hope you also like it as much as we did.

Seven cup Burfi :

November 29, 2019

I am celebrating my blog’s 3rd Anniversary, what more reason do we need to celebrate than this? Presenting  one of the easiest sweets which can be prepared in a jiffy and with a straightforward. It is very easy to follow, no hassles of  making sugar syrup and worrying about its consistency. I must say, it is a beginner’s recipe, which is pretty simple, straight forward and hassle free. Mix everything, start making and at the end, be vigilant while achieving the right consistency and follow the notes, whatever I have listed. Even if you messed up a little, no worries, it would turn out delicious. If it is under done, it would be fudgy and if it is overdone, it would be like sweet granules. 😀

Ingredients:

Besan /Bengal gram four – 1 cup

Milk – 1 cup

Ghee – 1 cup

Fresh grated coconut – 1 cup

Sugar – 3 cups ( I normally put 2 ¾ cup)

Method:

-Take one thick bottomed kadai, add everything from Besan to sugar.

-Switch on the gas. Fire should be kept at low flame and you should continue stirring without removing your hand.

-After 10 to 15 minutes you will see the changes and mixture will become bubbly and shiny.

-Now it is the time to add cardamom powder and be vigilant. It will be ready in any moment from now.

-When it is done, mixture will leave the sides, base and sides of the vessel will become light brown or sometimes we see the ghee separating and oozing out from the bubbles. (these are the indications to remove)

-Now pour this mixture to a greased vessel, don’t touch or press after pouring, leave as it is.

-Cool it for about 5 min and mark the lines by using a sharp knife.

-Once it is completely cooled (it takes anywhere between 2 to 3 hours), invert the plate on another plate or by keeping butter paper. It needs some knocking at the base because air bubbles would restrict the easy exit.

–   Remove gently, break all the pieces and store it in an airtight container.

Your 7 cup Burfi is ready to serve!

 

 

 

Apple Jam:

September 26, 2019

Apple jam is an awesome spread ,which is mild in flavour as well as with soothing colour. Homemade jams are always rich in taste, due to the usage of fruits and natural colour. It is preservative free and non-synthetic . Here I have used fruit as a whole /with skin.

Normally Apple turns out sour when you cook /boil . To avoid the sour taste, first I used baking technique , pureed , sieved and proceeded to make jam with the added mild cinnamon flavour.

It was a real hit and tasted really good and texture also turned out great. Usage of fruit skin gave the pinkish hue to the end product.

How I did –

Ingredients:

Apple – 1 kg

 Sugar – ¾ kg

Cinnamon – 1 or 2 pinches

Lemon –  ½

-Wash Apples, dice ,remove seed part and arrange in a baking dish.

-Bake this in a 170°C pre-heated oven for 15 minutes at first.

-Remove, flip those apple pieces and continue further 15 minutes.

-After 30 minutes, check the doneness. If it is soft, well cooked ,remove it.

-If it is not done, bake for further 5 or 10 minutes.

-When it is cool, add a little water and churn in a juicer by adding 1 or 2 cups of water.

-Sieve ,discard the roughage ( fibre as well as outer skin remains)

-Put this pulp in a thick bottomed kadai, add sugar, cinnamon powder and cook until it is done.

-To check the doneness, take some water in a small bowl, drop the cooked mixture in it, immediately it should form a thick mass. If it dissolves, then you should proceed cooking.

-When it is done, add lemon juice and cook for 2 minutes

-Remove from the fire and cool completely and pour it into a glass bottles to set.

– Store this in a clean, dry bottle and refrigerate.

NOTE:

-If you prefer sweeter jam add 1 kg sugar and adjust the quantity of sugar according to your need.

 

Mango- Guava Jam:

June 16, 2019

Homemade jams are full of flavours as well as without any chemicals and preservatives. Mango and guava turn out super delicious and texture of the jam would be little grainy and thick due to guava. If you want a silky-smooth texture, you can use only mango and proceed.

Now I will proceed towards the procedure-

Ingredients:

Mango’s – 600 Grams (roughly)

Guava – 500 grams (roughly)

Sugar- 1 kg (according to your taste)

lemon – 1

Method:

  • Wash, Peel the mangoes and chop.
  • Wash, chop guava into pieces.

  • Put all these pieces, with a little bit of water (till it immerses) and cook for 4 whistles.
  • -Mash the mixture by using masher. Don’t use mixer grinder for mashing. (it would crush the guava seeds)
  • Sieve this pulp to remove fibres and seeds.

  • Collect the smooth pulp and heat it in a low fire, until it starts boiling.
  • Add sugar, cook until it is done.
  • To check the doneness, take some water in a small bowl, drop the cooked mixture in it, immediately it should form a thick mass. If it dissolves, then you should proceed cooking.
  • When it is done, add lemon juice and cook for 2 minutes.

  • Remove from the fire and cool for a while and pour it into a glass bottles to set.
  • Don’t close the lid until it is cool. Store this in a clean, dry bottle and refrigerate.

NOTE:

-If you use very sweet mango, adjust the quantity of sugar.

 

 

 

 

Punarpuli sharbath/ Fresh Kokum Juice:

May 21, 2019

To start with this wonder fruit, I should introduce its plant, benefit, procedure to preserve the outer skin, to rest of the world. Kokum is belonging to Guttiferae family, same as mangosteen and its botanical name is Garcinia Indica, is a fruit bearing plant only found in western Ghats and coastal southern India.

It is a summer fruit, which is widely used for juices or Rasam in our region to quench thirst as well as to balance body heat. It has so many health benefits as well. It is a natural healer for acidity.

It is a ritual in our native to dry the outer skin in summer months to preserve to use whenever it is needed. Fresh fruit of Kokum is often halved, discard the inner pulpy white part which is a fleshy coating of real seed to make Kokum butter, which is used in medicinal as well as cosmetic products as a raw material. Then outer dark maroon skin will be sun dried and when it becomes crispy, it’s stored in an air tight manner. During this process, we used to prepare fresh pulp to make juice and I used to love fresh juice from its inner pulp. It is much tastier than the outer dried skin juice.

Last week found these cuties here in Mangalore stores. Picked up some and enjoyed my favourite drink after so many years.

How to prepare –

Ingredients:

Kokum fresh pulp – little

Water – as needed

Sugar – as needed

Salt – ½ tsp

Method:

-Soak fresh pulp and couple of outer shells in little water for some time.

-Mash everything by using clean hand and discard the seeds and outer shells.

-Add sugar, salt and required amount of water and mix everything and serve by adding couple of ice cubes.

-It is very good for our gut health as well as to keep us hydrated.