Red velvet Cake

Valentine’s day it is! Though the passion and love for my beloved husband just keeps growing day by day, the way I spill it out and how often I do that is just dwindling day by day…Our little one is now taking all our attention…Those twinkle and giggly moments you have with your loved one is just completely replaced by the twinkle we get to see in our little one’s eyes when we just make some stupid voices… Happiness needs no money and gifts is what I have started to learn now..But yes, I still understand that, that day is not far off when I have to pull her from all the toy aisle, seeing her cry her way out…Still I’m loving it.

This year, with all the might I managed to bake this wonderful Red Velvet cake that I have been eyeing on! With a little planning and hubby working from home, we managed to have it for our lunch! What an achievement indeed.

The recipe is exact copy from http://www.joyofbaking.com/RedVelvetCake.html. I had all fun getting my hands colored Red and a sense of relief when we cut into it and could see the yummy layers beneath. Go ahead and have your share of fun making this.

Sweet Potato and Jaggery Relish

I just love sweet potatoes in any form! The best is………….smoked sweet potatoes. When we were kids, it was my grandfather/grandmother’s duty to boil hot water for bath daily. It was done in the backyard with all those wood/stick/coal. We used to throw in these huge sweet potatoes inside and they would come out wonderfully baked with a nice smokey smell! And man….that taste you can never get it by baking them in an oven! And there are more versions… sweet potato curry, vatha kuzhambu, sambar, poli and this quick and easy jaggery relish that I got to make it yesterday. Just for me!

1 medium sweet potato, cubed into bite size
3/4 cup jaggery
1-1/2 cup water
Just a pinch of salt
A pinch of elaichi

Method:
1. Wash and boil the sweet potatoes with skin on and a pinch of salt. Do not pressure cook them as it will turn mushy. We still need chunks and not mashed ones. Drain and keep aside.
2. Boil jaggery with water. Once it dissolves completely, strain them to remove any dirt. Boil this clean jaggery water to a “paagu” consistency. On a low flame, first it will boil over the pan and keep stirring. After sometime, you will see nice thick bubbles forming inside the pan and it will start turning sticky and thick. Switch off the flame, add the potato chunks, pinch of elaichi and stir well to coat and cook covered for few minutes until potato absorbs the liquid.
3. Its best when eaten just like that. Or mash them well to add as a topping to your favorite dessert.

Peach Vanilla Icecream

I scream….You scream……We all scream of Ice Cream when its summer time!!! I vividly remember this…When we were kids mom used to make vanilla, pista, mango flavoured ice creams at home. When we are back from school, we know there is one vessel, in which this was made for so many years. So, if that is missing in its usual place in the kitchen……we know it was ice cream time!!!! Yesterday I bought few peaches and nectarines. One of them somehow became mushy by the time I reached home. I was looking to make some milkshake or something but with some googling, I managed to make this wonderfully rich fresh fruit ice cream.

There are various things you could substitute in this, as per your taste, liking and availability. For instance, mango or kiwi or papaya for nectarines/peaches. Just any fruit with rich pulp could be used. If using papaya or honey dew melons, which do not have that tangy taste, add a dash of freshly squeezed lime juice.

3 cups whole milk (Frankly, I used 2% milk, whole milk will just give you a nice creamy texture)
1 cup whipped cream (If whipped cream is not readily available, use a heavy whipping cream in a cold bowl, use electric/stand/hand (if you have been hitting gym often! ) to create a whipped cream fresh)
1 cup sugar (If you are using a canned fruit pulp, reduce your sugar considerably)
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1 cup fruit pulp (Remove the skin and run it through a blender)
1 white milk bread slice (Chop off the brown edges)
1 can condensed milk (If using condensed milk, omit sugar completely, and reduce whole milk to 2 cups. Just check for taste at the end and add if required. I didn’t have one, so of course didn’t use it in mine)

Method:
1. Heat milk on a medium flame on a large non stick pan for about 1 hour, stirring frequently. This helps in forming the cream / edu from the milk. Add sugar and mix until it dissolves completely. Let it cool completely in a water bath.
2. In a blender, blend fruit, bread slice, vanilla essence, condensed milk, completely cooled milk mixture just until they all mix together.
3. Transfer this to an air tight freezer container. After every 2-3 hours, when the ice crystal begins to form, break them firmly (you could even use your hand mixer) with a fork. Return to freezer, and repeat this for 3 -4 times. Freeze overnight.

Easy chocolate cup cake

I have some Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup in my refrigerator that’s nearing its expiry. I wanted to find out some quick recipe to make a cake or muffins. I saw this Ina Garten’s recipe in food network and didn’t wait a moment to try them. They were deliciously soft, spongy and had a wonderful chocolate flavor. As said in the original recipe, do not over beat the cup cake batter. Just a few strokes to blend the batter, you will be rewarded with a moist cup cake. This measurement gave me exactly 6 medium sized cup cakes. These are not like muffins and will not rise well, as the do not have any leaving agent.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
About 1-1/2 cups of Hershey’s chocolate syrup (I used sugarless, dark chocolate syrup. If you are using normal syrup, reduce the sugar to 3/4 cups)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules (Very very important….wonderful flavor)

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 325 deg F.
1. Cream butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.
2. Add eggs one at a time and beat enough to blend.
3. Then add the vanilla essence, chocolate syrup and coffee granules just until it blends.
4. Add flour in parts and with few strokes as possible mix well. Do not over beat. You don’t even require a mixer, just use your spatula to mix the flour.
5. Line muffin pans with paper liners. Scoop until 3/4th of the cups each with the batter. Bake for 30 mins or until skewer inserted comes out clean. Do not over bake, promptly remove once done.
6. Cool them on a wire rack completely.

Beetroot Halwa

Two big poor beetroot crept into my refrigerator couple of weeks ago. One was lucky enough to be made as a curry for chapathi. But beets are such a sweet vegetable (pun intended), they were never to be eaten again as a curry…This was my hub’s oath. So now, I have to make something to make this poor beet become more sweeter, and I decided to make beetroot halwa yesterday….:D and they turned out very well…Now the beet halwa is more preferred than beet curry so success!

2 cup grated beetroot
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of cardamom powder

Method:
1. In a microwave proof dish, mix the grated beets and milk and keep on medium power with constant stirring for about 25 mins or until beets have been cooked completely and milk is absorbed. If on a gas top, cook in a heavy bottom non-stick pan with constant stirring on medium flame until same consistency.
2. Add the sugar and keep on medium power, stirring occasionally for about 15 mins until sugar is completely dissolved and the required consistency for the beet is achieved.
3. Sprinkle cardamom, and toasted cashews.
4. Serve hot or cold

Orange Gateau

I have been postponing to update my blog…Wanted a good recipe for my 50th post…And yaayyyy today happened to be my b’day and what better reason to bake a cake. Lots of choices..do I make a black forest cake… that happens to be hub’s best ever….then i thought why not try something with oranges.. they are lying in my pantry for quite sometime. So I started my search for a basic sponge cake. I found it in Suma’s blog . She has some very good collections and been one of my inspirations for home-bakers recently. So I tweaked it a little bit and then started my journey.

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
4 large eggs
3/4 cup oil
2 teaspoon Baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Orange rind for a big orange or 2 if its small

For the filling:
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup water and 3 teaspoon sugar (Heat a little until sugar dissolves. Mix with orange juice and refrigerate)

For cream:
3-4 cups whipped cream (Ahhh..I’m lucky to get ready-made whipped cream)
Juice from 1/2 orange (Mix with whipped cream and refrigerate. Just blend with cream else it will become too runny)

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
1. Mix flour, baking powder and corn starch, sieve twice and keep aside.
2. In a mixing bowl beat eggs until it triples in volume and starts giving froth. Add essence and orange rind and keep beating.
3. Add sugar and beat until it becomes nice and creamy.
4. Keep adding oil and beating simultaneously.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients gently. Do not over mix. Use a spatula and mix in “8″ movement.
6. Grease your baking dish and pour the batter gently. Tap on the counter top for the bubbles to settle down. This should give a flat cake, but mine did rise well.
7. If using a glass dish for baking, bake for 40-45 mins. For a normal tin, 25-30 mins should suffice.

Once cooked, remove from oven and let cool in the dish completely. Gently tap and the cake will fall off. Use a sharp long knife and cut into 3 sections or 2. I cut mine into 2 and the soaking didn’t pass through the entire cake. So 3 should make the magic.

Now, soak the cake layers for few seconds in the orange juice. Or, even better use a spoon and sprinkle evenly and generously on the cake layers. For the top layer, soak from top as well.

Then, take the whipped cream, and start coating each layer generously, leaving 1/2 gap on the edges. Assemble the cake, one layer cake, then cream, cake, cream, cake and finally use the rest of cream to cover the entire cake. Mine didn’t look professional, but it did taste fantastic

Decorate as per your taste, and refrigerate overnight for the flavors to blend well and soak in the cake.

Basundi

Basundi….Ahhh!! A divine mouth-watering sweet dish made of milk…. I remember my mom making this when we were kids….for about 7 of us…now I know how much patience and energy she must have had then. Today I wanted to try this for just the 2 of us…which itself took almost 1hr of constant stirring and collecting. Though the end result was just yummy creamy and was so good.

1 Lt whole milk (no reduced fat milk…it just won’t work out well)
4 teaspoon sugar
pinch of cardamom

Method:
1. Pour milk into a thick heavy bottom non-stick pan. Thick and heavy bottom ensures milk doesn’t get burnt. Non-stick makes life easier to collect the residual milk and cream from the bottom of the pan.
2. Bring milk to a boil and simmer it. Milk will start letting out the cream or what is called the “Paal Aadai”. Take another bowl and start collecting this paal aadai.
3. After every collection ensure to stir the milk from the bottom. This will make those tiny little cream to blend with the milk nicely.
4. For about a litre of milk, you will be able to collect the paal aadai for about 15-20 times. Depending on how good your milk is.
5. After about 40-45 mins, you will see the milk has reduced to a considerable amount and the colour has changed from bright white to pale yellow.
6. Now add the sugar and let this melt. Then add the collected paal aadai and give it a stir and boil for another 15-20 mins until sugar melts and basundi comes to a thick consistency.
7. Garnish with cardamom, chopped nuts if desired. Serve hot or cold.

Chocolate pudding cake

I bought this Nestle evaporated milk can sometimes back and it was still occupying my pantry. I wanted to use this up and found the best recipe to make a warm pudding cake. Actually, when I bought evaporated milk, I assumed it to be similar to the condensed milk, as both are milk boiled and reduced. But yes, I was WRONG! This is no way close to condensed milk…..its not thick…its doesn’t look creamy and it has very less sugar. But still gave a nice texture and flavor to my pudding cake. So lesson learnt..you cannot substitute condensed milk for evaporated milk.

Though you can make your own evaporated milk, by boiling your milk on a medium to low flame, stirring often on a flat big bottom pan for about an hour until it reduces to half in quantity. I haven’t tried it though. Ok.. time for recipe.

1 can (350 ml) Evaporated milk (About 1.5 cups)
1-1/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + an additional 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon water

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
1. Take a bowl and mix flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoon cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
2. Whisk in 1/2 cup evaporated milk, oil and vanilla extract just until it blends and no lumps. No beating is required.
3. Grease a baking dish (little deep) and pour this mixture to form the bottom layer.
4. Mix water and remaining 1 cup evaporated milk and microwave on high for 1 minute.
5. Take another clean bowl, mix remaining 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa powder.
6. Pour milk and whisk continuously until cocoa melts. Pour this as the top layer.
7. Bake for 30-35 mins until you see bubbles forming on the edges. At the beginning, it will look like a cake with center not set at all. But once you see bubbles (takes almost 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the cake after 25 minutes) you know its done.
8. Cool it until its warm. This is not a cake and you cannot let it fall off the dish. As you see in the picture, the center will fall inside once it cools. Use your spoon to scoop out and serve with ice cream or whipped cream or chocolate sauce.

Semiya payasam

Semiya payasam is a very very common sweet dish that can be found in most of the Indian home. I just love the simplicity of this dish, yet has the unique flavors brought by milk, cardamom and saffron. Making this with whole milk gives the best taste..though today I’m making it with 2% reduced fat milk. For the Easter, we had a pot luck lunch at one of our neighbor’s place. And one of the guest Ana, a Mexican has invited us to her house today. So I didn’t want to go empty handed and making my favorite sweet dish and I hope they like it

1 cup dry semiya
2 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar (Add more if you like it very sweet)
10 cashews split into half and fried in ghee
2-3 cardamom flakes powdered
2 teaspoon ghee

Method:
1. Add ghee to a heavy bottom non-stick pan. Once its hot add the semiya and fry them for a minute.
2. Add 1/2 cup milk initially with 1/4 cup water and cook the semiya.
3. Then add the sugar and let it dissolve completely. Add milk and cook with frequent stirring on a medium flame. It takes about 30 mins on a medium flame to come to a nice thick custard consistency. If you need it little more thin, switch off after 20-25 mins. Using whole milk actually gives out the milk cream on top which is really yummy!!!
4. Check for consistency as per your liking. I like mine to be of a custard consistency and not very running payasam.
5. Garnish with powdered cardamom, fried cashews and serve hot or cold.