sugar

DATE CAKE:

December 7, 2018

I must say, this cake is my Signature dish and very close to my heart. When I was trying my hand in baking, I experienced a lot of failures, but this recipe has uplifted my faith in trying and achieving my goal.

Whenever I made this, everyone liked it for its soft, moist texture. As a little treat to help you relax and settle into Christmas mood, I will share my very easy Date cake recipe with very minimal ingredients. If anyone wants to try their hand at baking, this is just the recipe for you. Just go ahead and try this, you will never regret it.

Now we will see how to make this,

Ingredients:

Dates – 1 cup

Butter /oil – 1 cup

Sugar – 1 cup

All purpose flour – 2 cups (you can mix whole wheat and all purpose too)

Eggs – 2 (beaten)

Water – 1 cup

Cooking soda – 1 tsp or little less.

Method:

– De-seed the dates and chop it either by using food processor or knife, keep aside.

-Grease the baking tray (you can use bread tin as well). Line this with butter paper, keep it ready.

– Take water in a small bowl and boil. When it starts boiling switch off the gas, add chopped dates, butter, sugar, and cooking soda to boiled water and keep aside at least for 20 min.

– After it cools, add beaten eggs and mix nicely.

-Now fold in All-purpose flour, mix gently and pour this batter to greased and lined baking vessel.

-Bake this in a pre- heated oven for 35 -40 min or until done at 180 C.

-If you want to check its doneness, use tooth pick or knife. Insert this, if it comes out clean, remove the tin, keep it outside.

-After some time, remove butter paper and cool further.

-When it reaches room temperature, you can slice it or cut according to your wish and enjoy with cup of coffee or tea.

Note: For the Eggless Version, use 1/2 cup of flax gel and you can refer my earlier post for the preparation.

Rice kheer:

August 26, 2018

As a south Indian, moreover in Mangalore, we normally make Akki Payasa aka rice kheer as a prasadam for some poojas, either by adding jaggery or sugar by adding coconut milk or normal milk and it usually in thin consistency. If it is thick, it is known as pindi payasam and I have already posted the recipe earlier. I learnt this recipe from my close friend Surekha, who hails from Allahabad, all thanks to her for such a wonderful tasty kheer recipe. It is one of my daughter’s favourite as well.

In this recipe, washed rice is cooked in milk, until done and in this process, milk condenses and yields creamy texture and kheer holds melt in the mouth texture as well. Speciality of this kheer is, addition of nutty flavoured Chironji or Charoli. It tastes a little like almonds and are tiny roundels in shape and good substitute to almonds as well. Which contains good fat, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibres in a considerate amount. This is an ideal recipe for any kind of festival, potluck party.

Now we will see the procedure –

Jeera samba rice / small grain rice – 1 cup (you can use any fragrant rice)

Chironji – 100 grams

Milk – 1 to ½ litre (boiled)

Saffron – 10 strands

Sugar – 1 to 1 ½ cup (according to your sweet level)

Method:

-Wash rice, soak rice for 10 minutes.

-Soak saffron in 2 table spoons of hot milk and keep it aside.

– Take one thick kadai, add little ghee and fry Chironji until light brown.

-Add milk to this vessel and heat this. When it starts boiling, add soaked and drained rice.

-Cook in a very low flame, until rice is done and soft.

-If additional milk is needed, please add the extra amount. Each rice is different, so, please take care while adding milk.

-Now add sugar and saffron with soaked milk into it and boil. When kheer is ready, you will see the top glossy layer and it is the time to switch off the gas.

-Serve this kheer hot or cold, however you like to have it.

Carrot Halwa (South Indian Style):

February 13, 2018

Carrot Halwa or Gajar ka halwa is a very popular Indian dessert. This halwa is everyone’s favorite in my place. They love it hot directly from the stove top as it is or with vanilla ice-cream.

It is a south Indian style preparation, which we follow in our homes. i.e. Without khoya/milk solids and it is cooked in whole milk.

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Now we will see my style of preparation,

Ingredients:

Red Delhi carrot – 1 kg

Regular carrot – ½ kg

Milk – ½ litre

Sugar – ¾ to 1 cup (according to your taste)

Ghee – ¼ cup

Roasted Slivered almonds – 1 to2 tablespoon

Roasted cashew bits – 1 to 2 tablespoon

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp.

Method:

-Wash and peel the outer skin and grate the carrots.

carrot halwa 1

-Take one thick bottomed pan, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee and fry grated carrots for 10 min, till it completely wilts.

-now add milk, cook until milk evaporates and carrot cooks.

Ribbet collage 1

-now add sugar (here we must check for required sweetness, we usually prefer a little less sweet), and mix nicely by adding the remaining ghee until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.

-now garnish this with cardamom powder, roasted slivered almonds and 1 tablespoon ghee. Mix this nicely.

Serve hot as it is or with vanilla ice cream and enjoy your winter treat.

Walnut – Chocolate chip Coffee Cake:

January 27, 2018

Coffee flavoured cake happened by chance. I had some unused Nescafe instant coffee and wanted to finish it ASAP. So, I thought of baking a cake. It is made up of healthy flour and a very good option as a snack.

While getting ready to assemble everything, I thought of adding chocolate chip and walnut as an attraction to kids and it worked out very well with finger millet or Ragi flour as well. Now we will see how I proceeded with the ingredients.

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Ingredients:

Whole wheat Flour – 1 cup

Ragi/ Finger millet flour – 1 cup

Baking soda – ½ tea spoon

Baking powder – ½ tea spoon

Salt – ¼ tea spoon

Walnuts – ½ cup

Choco chip – ½ cup

Butter – 100 grams

Eggs – 2

Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Hot milk – 1 cup

Instant Coffee powder – 1 to 1 ½ table spoon

Hot water – ¼ cup (you can take little less than ¼ cup)

Method:

-Pre heat oven at 180°C, line a baking tray with the butter paper.

-Take one bowl and mix all the dry ingredients like, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, walnuts and Choco -chips.

-In another bowl, beat melted butter, eggs, sugar, milk by adding one by one respectively.

Ribbet collage 1

-Make dark coffee by mixing powder and water. Mix in the liquid and beat.

-Now wet mix is also ready.

-Pour this 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 until done.

Ribbet collage 2

-It takes anywhere between 40 to 50 minutes.

-Before removing, check with a knife by inserting, in the baked cake.

-Knife should come out clean.

-Remove the cake, cool before cutting, and serve.

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Note: For the Eggless Version, use 1/2 cup of flax gel and you can refer my earlier post for the preparation.

Energy cake:

December 25, 2017

This energy filled cake has millets, oats, coconut flour. Usually after extracting coconut milk from the fresh coconut, the residue that remains will go into the trash. Coconut residue is very high in fibre. It is much healthier than wheat bran or oats bran. I usually collect this residue, after extracting the milk for any south Indian kheer, and use it in my baking as it is, by storing it under refrigeration for a couple of days.

This energy bar is a little softer than a normal crunchy bar. So, I named it as Energy cake. Shelf life is any where between 2 to 3 days at room temperature, Up to 10 days under refrigeration. If it was under refrigeration, please re-heat to get soft texture.

Ingredients:

Oats – 1 cup

Mix millet flour – 1 cup

Coconut residue – ¾ to 1 cup (You can use coconut flour or desiccated coconut as well)

Brown Sugar – ¾ cup

Butter – 100 grams

Honey – 2 table spoons

Milk – ¼ cup

Cooking soda – ½ tea spoon

Vanilla essence – 1 tea spoon

Choco chip and almond flakes – to garnish

Method:

-Pre-heat oven, line a baking tray.

-In one bowl, combine oats, 2 flours and mix thoroughly.

-Take one sauce pan, heat butter and sugar. When sugar melts, switch off.

-Add in honey, milk,vanilla and cooking soda and mix.

-Pour the frothy wet mixture over oat and flour mixture and fold the batter.

-Batter will be a little thick and heavy. Pour the mixture and spread evenly on a lined baking tray.

-Garnish with Choco chips and almond flakes and press a little.

-Bake this in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for about 25 to 30 minutes or until done.

-Cool, cut into pieces and serve as a snack or a breakfast bar.

Kashi Halwa – Ash gourd Halwa:

October 17, 2017

Ash gourd halwa is very popular in Coastal belt of South Canara region. It has many names like Kushmanda halwa, Dumroot,Kumbalakai halwa or Kashi halwa. All names are one and the same. Basically, grated Ash gourd is cooked until its water evaporates, further cooked with sugar and some ghee and flavoured with cardamom. Which is a very laborious job, but once you taste it, you will never regret making it.

We will see how to prepare this tasty dessert –

Grated Ash gourd – 3 cups (tightly packed)

Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Ghee – ½ to ¾ cup

Salt – a pinch

Cardamom powder – 1 tea spoon

Roasted Cashew nut pieces – ½ cup (as needed)

Method:

-Wash Ash gourd, peel outer skin and remove inner core with seeded part. (Core part can be used to make Sweet Dosa or Plain Dosa batter)

-Grate ash gourd and collect gratings and water which is oozing out while grating.

-Put all this in a thick wok and keep it in a fire. Cook until water dries up.

-When water dries up, add salt, enough sugar, and cook. Once again you will see lots of liquid.

-Don’t worry, mix in-between and wait until it is dries up. Now it is time to start adding ghee at intervals.

– Now onwards it needs continuous stirring and in-between add 2 table spoons of ghee at a time.

-Keep on stirring until mixture leaves the sides and becomes like a mass.

– When it is done, you will notice three things. When you flip the mixture from the bottom, you will notice little whitish parts (like roasted), when you drop the mixture it will not stick to the spoon and drop like a mass and ghee oozing out at the edges.

-This is when it is perfectly done and time to add Roasted cashew nut pieces, cardamom powder mix thoroughly and switch off the gas .

Now leave this ready Halwa to cool or Serve Hot.

-When it attains a room temperature, store this in an air tight container.

Shankarpali/Diamond biscuits:

October 14, 2017

Shankarpali is a traditional Maharashtrian, deep-fried snack. It was introduced to us by our neighbour aunty. It is a very light, flaky, melt-in-the-mouth, a small, irresistible cookie that is deep-fried and not baked. It has a good shelf life, and one can enjoy it even after Diwali.

Traditionally, Shankarpali is made by using All-purpose flour. Here, I have used Whole wheat flour and oat flour and did not feel any change other than the colour of the final product.

If you want to use All-purpose flour, follow this recipe, replace the flour, and proceed.

Ingredients:

Milk – 1 cup

Ghee – ½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup ( I have used Brown sugar)

Salt – 1 tsp

Cooking Soda – ¼ tsp

Flour – 3 ½ to 4 cups (as required) ( All-purpose flour OR Whole Wheat and Oat Flour)

Oil – to deep fry.

Method:

-Take one bowl or food processor, beat milk, ghee and sugar until frothy.

-In another bowl, take 2 cups of whole wheat flour and ½ cup of oats flour, salt, cooking soda and dry mix everything.

-Add the mixed flour to the liquid ( beaten milk and sugar), add some more whole wheat flour and make a soft, pliable dough by adding whole wheat flour little by little.

– Cover this bowl and keep it aside for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Keep the oil on a low flame to deep frying.

-Take a small portion of the dough, roll it into a thick ¼ inch circle, like a Roti. Remove the outer curved portion and make a square. ( it is optional to get only square pieces)

-Take a pizza cutter or any other zigzag cutter and cut this flattened disc. Now deep fry it on a low flame.

-When it becomes light brown, take it out and spread it on a tissue paper laid plate.

-When it is cool, store this in an airtight container.

NOTE: Keep the gas flame to a simmer and maintain the temperature of the oil. If oil is overheated, the shankarpali would turn into deep brown/ half-done and charred.

Badam Halwa / Almond Halwa :

July 5, 2017

Badam halwa, the name itself brings back so many fond memories of my two kiddos’ as well as of my late father in law. My memories go back to my delivery time. When my father in law heard about my twin daughter’s arrival, he celebrated his joy by preparing and distributing this sweet to our near and dear ones. While growing up, even my kids used to enjoy this sweet and used to refer to this as “Yellow sweet”. After so many years last weekend I prepared this to celebrate my hubby’s birthday and enjoyed every bit of the preparation by cherishing all these fond memories.

I Normally follow this age-old method-

Ingredients:

Almonds – 500 grams

Sugar – 750 grams

Milk – ½ to ¾ litre

Ghee – 1 to 1 ½ cup

Saffron – 1 tsp

Cardamom powder – ½ teaspoon

Method:

– Soak almond overnight.

– The next morning, peel the skin. Usually three fourth of the content will shed their skin, if you mash those swelled almonds inside the water, by using your palm.

– After removing the outer skin, put these in a mixer grinder jar, make paste by adding sufficient milk.

– Soak saffron in half cup of hot milk and keep aside.

– After grinding paste will look like idly batter with grainy texture.

– Put this paste into thick bottomed vessel and heat.

– Add sugar and boil for a while.

– When it starts bubbling, add ghee little by little at regular intervals until mixture becomes glossy.

– At this point, you can add saffron soaked milk and cardamom powder and proceed.

– When mixture starts to leave from the sides of the vessel and edges become dry and bubbly, switch off the fire and keep aside to cool.

– When it reaches room temperature, store this in a stainless steel or glass container.

Chikki from ellu bella/ Energy bar from left over sesame mixture:

February 2, 2017

Makara sankranti festival is over and you may have left over Ellu Bella which you got from your near and dear ones during distribution to each other.Usually there will be no takers for this after two days of festival. Even I had some left over sesame mixture and tried this Indian Chikki or energy bar from these power packed ingredients.This mixture usually has lots of sesame seed, which is a high iron source, peanuts, coconut bits etc.

Ingredient:

Left over ellu bella mix – as much as you have

Sugar – 3 to 4 spoons (What I took)

Butter – 1 table spoon

Cardamom powder – ¼ teaspoon

Method:

Separate Sugar blocks as well as jaggery chunks from the mixture.

Take one thick bottomed vessel; add all these jaggery and sugar chunks as well as extra sugar with butter.
Heat this by constant stirring, until it becomes caramelized liquid.
Immediately mix in the rest of the sesame mixture and cardamom powder mix nicely to coat caramel liquid uniformly.

chikki collage

Spread this on a clean kitchen counter or butter paper laid baking tray and press this nicely till it is uniformly flat.
You can use either pav bhaji masher or roti belan to press this mix.
Make a mark when it is hot by using sharp knife.
When it is cool, store this in an airtight container.

Lemon pudding cake with Fresh Strawberry Sauce:

January 24, 2017

Soft, melt in a mouth citrusy warm pudding is paired with fresh strawberry sauce. It is a real treat in winter evenings. The basic recipe is from here and I adapted it according to our taste and availability of the ingredients.

Ingredient:

All-purpose flour or Almond flour – ¼ cup

Salt – one pinch

Lemon zest – from one lemon

Eggs -2 (separated)

Butter- 1 tablespoon

Sugar- 2/3 cup

Buttermilk – 2/3 cup

Lemon juice – 2 tablespoons

For Sauce:

Strawberries- 20

Sugar – 2 tablespoon

Method:

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl. i.e. All-purpose flour, salt, lemon zest and mix this nicely by using a dry wire whisk.
Preheat oven at 160° C . Keep cookie tray inside by putting water. So that the water bath will be ready to bake while preheating.
Take 4 pudding moulds and apply some butter or oil and keep aside.
In another bowl, beat egg yolks, buttermilk, lemon juice, sugar. Beat until well mixed.
Add dry ingredient content to this and keep aside.
In another bowl, beat egg whites until you get stiff peaks. It takes almost 2 to 3 minutes of beating.
Combine this with a pudding mixture by folding gently by using a wooden or plastic spatula.
Divide evenly by filling this into 4 pudding moulds.

Bake these filled cups in a hot water bath for 40 minutes or until the top becomes light brown.
After placing the cups, check for the water level in the cookie tray (water bath). If it is less, please fill it with little hot water and close the oven door.
When it is done, remove from the water bath and cool those cups.

Now you can make strawberry sauce or Compote :
Chop all the strawberries, Mix in sugar and keep aside for 5 minutes. Churn half of the content in a mixer jar and keep another half as it is. So that you will have some chunks in your sauce and it looks good as well OR to make the compote, cook all these until syrup become bubbly and cool before serving it.
For serving, invert the pudding on a serving plate and pour some strawberry sauce and enjoy.

Note: To invert the pudding, you can use a small knife at the edge and it will release itself from the sides.