Sweet Potato Pancakes

We usually prepare pancakes for our Sunday breakfast. And we have liked simple pancakes, Banana pancakes , Pear Pancake in past. I was inclined to use sweet potatoes in our meals and thought of mixing it with pancakes. 

The sweetness of sweet potatoes gelled very well with simple pancakes. They turned out light and fluffy but when eaten, will leave tummy satisfied for couple of hours. If there is a breakfast that can satisfy the soul and hungry tummy, then sweet potato pancake is the one.

Now to the recipe

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Recipe requirements (Makes – 5-6)

• 2 large orange sweet potato
• 2 cups of self-rising flour
• 2 free range eggs
• ¾ cup of milk
• 1 tsp of cinnamon powder
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup of cooking oil

Method

• In a big mixing bowl – mix self-rising flour with cinnamon powder and pinch of salt.
• Boil sweet potatoes for 15-20 mints or till they turn soft. You can pressure cook for two whistles as well. Take out sweet potatoes in colander and drain the excess water. Keep it open for about 10-15 mints before you mash them well.  
• Now add in egg one at a time, mixing well with flour. Add in mashed sweet potato.
• Add in milk and mix well till there are no lumps left. The pancake batter should be smooth and a nice falling consistency.
• Leave it aside for half an hour.
• Heat up a heavy cast iron skillet /Tava/non-stick flat fry pan.
• Add in 2 tsp of cooking oil spreading nicely.
• Now scoop a full ladle of the batter and drop on the hot skillet.
• Let the bubble surface out. Flip the side of the pancake once you see bubbles pop up nicely.
• Cook the pancakes for another 2-3 mints. Each pancake will take 5-6 mints on low-medium flame to cook.
• Serve hot with maple syrup, honey or butter or any other sauces you like.

Happy Cooking Friends 

Peach Upside Down Cake

We are embracing colder mornings and evenings last couple of days now, paving up its way for autumn season here. While, I do appreciate every season, as each has its own charm. Autumn is somewhat more colorful and enticing. I got a peek into nature’s cycle with few colorful leaves fallen on my walking trails. I tried to capture with my mobile phone and this is what I got.

 I have completely stopped using DSLR these days and all these food pics that you all keep seeing here are mobile phone camera captures. May be, I am losing the habit of carrying or using DSLR camera these days. I may like to think the quality is passable, as I don’t rely on heavy use of editing software.

 This kills the natural tones and color of that particular shots. 

Although, I can’t imagine completely shunning the use of DSLR cameras, but as of now it’s me, my mobile and my solitudes, that works fine for me.

I want to squeeze in every bit of whatever golden summer days are left over here. I have been buying peaches a lot these days and was thinking of making a cake with them. This cake turned out dense with a nice sweet peachy layer on top-absolutely scrumptious. I have used whole wheat flour with plain flour and am planning to make next batch with whole wheat flour completely. That will make the cake even more dense with a nice textured fruity and peachy cake.

Here is the recipe for peach upside down cake

Peach Upside Down Cake

Recipe requirements

• 3-4 peaches
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 and half tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of baking soda
• ¾ cup of caster sugar
• 3-4 tbs of yogurt
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup spreadable butter
• 3-4 tbs of light muscovado sugar
• 2-3 pinches of salt

Method

• Take out spreadable butter, egg and yogurt and let it all come to the room temperature.
• Peel the skin and destone peaches and slice them neatly.
• Sift flour and add in baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• In a big mixing bowl, cream together spreadable butter and castor sugar. Add in vanilla essence.
• Add in 1 egg at a time, mixing very well. Add in yogurt.
• Now mix this wet mixture with the dry mixture and make a smooth cake batter.
• Preheat oven at 175 deg and prepare the cake tin. Spread some butter on the tin and then flour.
• Arrange peach slices well over the sprinkled muscovado sugar.
• Now pour in the cake batter and tap it gently.
• Put the cake tin in preheated oven and bake it for 40-45 mints or till the middle of the cake comes out clean, when pricked with a toothpick or wooden skewer.
• Take out and cool and flip the sides.Peach upside down cake is ready.Enjoy.

Happy Cooking Friends 

Sheermal Bread Recipe

I have made these sheermal bread long time back. I almost forgot that I also had taken pictures for blogging as well, until I started clearing my laptop clutter and discarding some old pictures, specifically food related pictures. These popped up in my gallery like hidden gems. I tried to recall when did I make them, but couldn’t recall much except it was on a cold afternoon day. I happened to check the dates and it was almost 2-3 years ago, when we were still in UK. That old, Duh!! I know.

I didn’t post the recipe at that time either. I had roughly written recipe notes somewhere in my word doc as well. Now after all these time, finally sheermal recipe is now being talked about here. I always liked the sweet version of naan more, I mean sheermal more, as being a Bengali, we like everything which is sweet.

This recipe is apt balanced, not way too much sweet and not bland as well for us. This satisfied our cravings for sheermal bread at that time. Although I made it for lunch, actually now I recall it was late breakfast for us, more of a brunch time when we had devoured these beauties. We had it with chicken keema. That was a really very satisfying meal on a cold afternoon day. When eating sheermal, please don’t count your calories, just enjoy the flavours.

Now to the recipe

Sheermal Bread Recipe

 For the Bread

• 3 heaped cups of flour/maida
• 2 tsp of active dry yeast
•  2-3 tbs of oil/desi ghee
• 3 tbs of caster sugar
• 1 egg
•  ½ cup of Milk to knead the dough

Saffron infused sugar syrup

•  2-3 generous pinch of Saffron strands
• 2-3 tbs of sugar
• ¼ cup of milk
•  3-4 tbs of desi ghee/butter for garnishing the bread

Method

• Heat up ½ cup of milk for kneading purpose into a lukewarm strength.
• Dissolve saffron in ¼ cup of lukewarm milk and add in caster sugar to the saffron milk. Let it dissolve properly.
• In a big mixing bowl, add in flour, active dry yeast, oil, caster sugar, egg and lukewarm milk. Knead well all till they start to collect well. The dough should be soft and can collect well.
• Leave it to rest for 3-4 hrs or the flour has risen well.
• Knead the dough again for about 5-8 mints and divide the dough into 8-10 small balls.
• Cover the divided dough and let it sit for about half an hour.
• Roll each small balls into rounds with a roller but with gentle hands. The edges ideally should be little thick.
• Brush some melted butter over it and make marks with a fork.
• Set the oven at 175 deg C.
• Line a baking tray with foil. Place 2-3 rounds neatly and bake it for about 8-10 mints each side or they turn out nice fluffy and brown. Half way through take out baking tray, flip the sides of the sheermal bread and again brush with melted butter and put it back into the oven.
• Take out after 8-10 mints and sprinkle saffron infused sugar syrup generously and serve with butter on top.
• You may add toasted sesame seeds and chopped pistachios and almonds as well. I have used some orange colour with saffron syrup to make it look more dramatic, but it’s not that much required, you can skip it altogether.

Delicious sheermal is ready.Happy Cooking Friends.

Blueberry Cake

I have been getting fresh supply of blueberry easily in many super-markets over here, although blueberry is not a local fruit in Malaysia to my best of knowledge. And we do like blueberries a lot, made this cake long ago, but couldn’t post the recipe. So, here it is a simple recipe for blueberry cake.

Blueberry Cake

Recipe requirements

• 2 cups of cake flour
• ¾ tsp of baking soda
• ¼ tsp of baking powder
•  2 tsp of vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup of fine granulated sugar
•  ½ cup of plain yogurt
•  ½ cup of melted butter
• 2 cups of blueberry

Method

• In a big mixing bowl. Sift flour, add in baking soda and baking powder. Mix well.
• Now in a separate bowl, mix together butter and sugar well. Add in eggs, one at a time and whisk in gently.
• Now add in vanilla essence. Add in plain yogurt and gently fold in.
• Now add the flour mixture from time to time to make the cake batter. Use up all flour mixture to mix in with the above mixture. Add fresh blueberries and mix gently.
• Preheat oven at 175 deg C. 
• Prepare the cake tin. Brush butter evenly and then sprinkle flour to coat it well. Tap the cake tin so that the flour gets distributed evenly.
• Pour the cake batter in to the prepared cake tin with a spoon.Tap it gently.
•  Bake the cake in the middle rack for about 25-30 mints or till the center of the cake is cooked through well. Check by inserting a toothpick, if it comes out clean cake is baked well.
• Take out the baked cake and let it cool. Enjoy blueberry cake or pack some slices in lunch box.

Other Blueberry recipes 

Pancake with blueberry sauce

Banana Blueberry walnut loaf

Eggless Apple blueberry nutmeg cake

Blueberry Muffin

Blueberry Cheesecake- no bake

Happy Cooking Friends 

Instant Rava Onion Uttapam

‘’ What day is it?’’ asked Pooh.

‘’It’s today! ’’ Squealed Piglet.

‘’My favourite day’’ said Pooh…………..

Sometimes life’s greatest truth is revealed in children’s animation films. I have watched ‘Winnie- the Pooh’ several times with my dear daughter, while she still was a toddler. Although she has out grown those cartoon stories now, but some of the contextual scenes are still stuck in my mind. So simple and so profoundly told by Pooh and Piglet. Life’s greatest lesson comes from these innocent cartoons. That’s why I always believe in to nurture the innocent child in all of us. Live for the present day and create your own beautiful moments because you only are responsible for your own happiness.

Breakfast are important part of daily meal plans. And we generally on weekends tend to have more varieties for breakfast than the mundane bread and butter. So some days its rice poha, some days Upma or pancakes, some days various fruit filled crepes etc. And then occasionally these tomato onion Uttapams.I tend to cut out the long process of soaking and fermenting ingredients for uttapams. And these instant Uttapams turn out nice and delicious – no need to soak rice etc and then wait for fermenting process.

This is how we make our instant Uttapams

Instant Rava Uttapam

Recipe requirements (makes 4-5,  5’’ inch Uttapam rounds )

•  2 heaped cups of Rava/sooji/semolina
• ½ cup of plain flour
• 1 tsp of baking soda
•  1 and half cup of yogurt
•  1 tsp of salt or to taste
•  About a cup of water

For the toppings

•  1 large onion
•  1 medium size tomato
•  5-6 green chillies
•  About a cup of chopped coriander leaves
•  Salt as per taste and bit of red pepper powder/black pepper powder
•  Cooking oil to make Uttapams.

Method

•  In a mixing bowl, mix in plain flour and sooji/semolina. Add in baking soda and salt.
• Now add in yogurt and mix with the above, it will form a dough like consistency.
• Now add in a cup of water to make a smooth and lump free batter just like dosa /pancake batter and may be even more water if it is required.
• Now let it rest for about half an hour.
• Meanwhile chop onion, tomato, green chillies and coriander leaves very finely. Add in salt and pepper powder – if using to enhance the hotness level.
• Heat up an iron tava/skillet/griddle. Now drop about 2-3 tsp of cooking oil. Rub this oil very well over the griddle.
• Now give a final mix for the uttapam batter .Drop a ladle full of this batter to the hot griddle.
• Flatten out a bit, but not much, just like a small round similar to pancake- approx. 5’’ inch rounds. The trick is to have a little thick rounds rather than big and thin rounds, so that they puff out well and turn soft also.
• Now immediately put finely chopped onion, tomato, green chillies and coriander leaves over the top of the uttapam. Press it gently with the spatula.Let it cook for about 4-5 mints.
• Flip the side very carefully and now again drop some cooking oil by the sides of uttapams.Cover the uttapamas and cook further for about 6-7 mints at med-low flame. Do not hurry otherwise the middle portions will turn out uncooked.
• Uncover the uttapam and flip the side and cook for 2-3 mints. Shift into the serving plate.
• You can have it with tomato ketchup or more traditionally with coconut chutney. These are absolutely divine straight from the hot tava/griddle. Enjoy your breakfast.

Happy Cooking Friends

Instant Rava Idli - super easy

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a very wrong world. The world where views are biased, people have no morals to fall back and where people take things for granted. They mock or doubt you, if you wear your emotions on your sleeves. And then, even if you happen to tell your true inner feelings, people ridicule you for being over-sensitive. I really don’t know when caring or showing concern to fellow humans became being over sensitive. But this is a modern world we are talking about, someone told me and you should also act modern. I am like if these acts mean modernisation, then probably I am well off, without it.

Well this recipe has nothing to do with being over-sensitive, but yes it’s a very quick way of making idlis, when you are running short of time and patience.

 We were craving for some idlis but I had no time for doing the whole procedure of soaking, grinding and then fermenting. There are plenty of recipes for instant idlis out here in net.But all of them use ENO, I didn’t have at the time of making these idlis, so used baking soda and it still came out fine.

Instant Rava  idli  recipe

Recipe requirements

 2 large cups of semolina/rava

3/4  cup of yogurt

¾ tsp of baking soda

For tempering

2 tbs of chana dal

2 tbs of urid dal

 1 -2 twigs of curry patta

3-4 dry red pepper powder

1-2 tsp of brown mustard seeds

2 tbs of cooking oil

Method

Dry roast rava/semolina in a fry pan. Do not let it burn.

Now take the slightly roasted rava in a separate bowl.

Add in cooking oil to the fry pan.

Now add mustard seeds, urid dal, chana dal, dry red peppers and curry leaves.Let it splutter.

Add in the roasted rava to it and mix well.

Transfer the entire content in a big bowl.

Let it cool.

Now add in yogurt and mix well. Add about a cup of water to it. Adjust salt in the above. Leave it for about an hour.

Add in baking soda just before you will make instant idlis.

Prepare idli stand and scoop the rava mixture in to the slotted space for the idli in idli-stand.

Steam about 20-25 mints or till the idlis are cooked well in a pressure cooker.
take out once they are all done.

Serve with coconut chutney.These are always well recieved by my family whenever we feel like having it for breakfast or quick dinner with sambhar.Here is Lauki and bean sprouts sambhar.

Happy Cooking Friends

Apple Pie

Autumn is incomplete if we don’t bake anything with apples, autumns favorite fruit, isn't. But as we bid farewell to autumn finally and welcome winter over here, I thought perhaps, autumn apple pies are must now. It’s little late though, but for me it’s a kind of sweet farewell to autumn over here.

Although, there are many recipes with apples like this and this , but apple pies remains one of our favorites. And with festive season that is reckoning upon us, this sweet preparation with apples, will surely going to win many hearts if you wish to have a baking spree. You can even add other fruits with apples as well, like black berries or blueberries for that nice darkish color sweet filling.

I liked the flavor of cinnamon, so I have used cinnamon powder in the filling, however, you can even do it with other spices- like – nutmeg powder, or vanilla essence etc. You can even use brown sugar in place of normal sugar. I have used ready-made short crust pastry that are easily available here as the base for this apple pie.

Here is how we made it

Autumn Apple Pie

Recipe requirements

1 packet short-crust pastry

3-4 medium size apples 

5-6 tbs of sugar or to taste

2 tsp of cinnamon powder

Method

Take out the short-crust pastry from the packet. Sprinkle plain flour over the working area.

Divide the pastry into two equal parts. One side for the base and the other side for covering the top.

Now with the help of a rolling pin, adjust the parts so that it fits well into the pie tin or baking tin, whatever you are using for it.

And flatten it properly at the edges with your fingers, pressing it down .If any cracks happen, dip your fingers in water and then press gently on the pastry to even out the cracks. Remove extra bit with the help of sharp knife, cutting out those extra edges. Reserve these to make any designs if you wish to do so later on.

Meanwhile shape out the other part and flatten it also so that it fits on the pie tin.

Peel, core and chop apples finely.

Now preheat the oven at 180 deg C.

Take the pie tin or sandwich tin, put all the chopped apples. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon evenly all around over it.

Now cover with other part of short-crust pastry, with the help of your fingers, try to tuck in neatly and sealing the sides of the unbaked pie. Trim out any extra bit of pastry that is left at the sides. With the help of fork; make some marks all around to give a nice shape and sealing the edges of unbaked pie.

Now that you have collected all the unused short-crust pastry, make a dough out of it and roll it with the help of rolling pin, if you need, keep on sprinkling plain flour so that it doesn’t tear out or stick at the working surface.

Now give desirable shapes as you wish. I have given the symbolic autumn maple leaf shape.

Now prick all over top surface of unbaked pie with knife, so that it doesn’t puff up while baking.

Put the pie tin or any other baking tin that you have used to assemble the pie, in the middle rack and bake in preheated oven at 180 deg C for 35- 40 mints, depending on your make of the oven.

Take out when you see a nice golden to brownish crust at the sides of the pie. Eat it warm along with some cream and slices of apples. Or it goes well with vanilla ice-cream as well.

This is absolutely delicious; apples are cooked smoothly in its own juices, sugar and cinnamon powder. A delightful dessert for this festive season.

Happy cooking and have a lovely weekend...

Chocolate Swiss Roll Recipe and Happy New Year

Wish you all a very happy new year. Hope you all are relaxing and enjoying these festive holidays. With this holiday season and first day of a brand new year 2014, here is a new blog post with a chocolate cake roll recipe. We haven’t thought of making any New Year resolutions so far, we will take things as it comes to us. We have been visiting Winter Wonderland here on many days during this period and it had been mostly fun days out with walking, strolling leisurely in high streets all decked up with Christmas decorations and most importantly eating warm cooked waffles , crepes and Chinese noodles in Winter wonderland.

And then after ages, I can’t even recall when was the last time we had a chance to watch circus in India, but then we were kid at that time. We watched an hour long circus show and we, especially dear daughter liked and cheered every performance by artists, jugglers and some of the breath-taking stunts by performers.
As the day was finishing up, we had hot chips with curry sauce, listening to one of the live band performances there. Although we know that it’s not that healthy with that much of carbohydrates but then we were hungry and out in cold and then top it all, were walking most of the time in central London and not to mention, particularly in Winter Wonderland. And it does feel so festive in Oxford streets and in all the high streets here, with colorful lights and various decorations and the entire shopping extravaganza this holiday season they are offering. Now, who doesn’t like Boxing Day in UK or the Black Fridays in US. Right?

Now after all that little update on personal front, here is a chocolate cake roll recipe or chocolate roulade recipe for this festive holiday season.
In picture below - Christmas fruit cake and Swiss roll.For the recipe of Christmas fruit cake - here is the archived post.I have made the same recipe in bundt cake tin and the only difference was that I made the caramel sauce first and then made the Christmas fruit cake, otherwise all remained same.

Chocolate Roulade /Chocolate Swiss Cake roll
Recipe requirements
75 g / 3 oz of self raising flour or 2/3 cup of self raising flour approx
25 g / 1 oz of cocoa powder 1/3 cup of cocoa powder
2 free range egg large
75 g /3 oz  of spreadable butter or 1/3 cup of softened butter roughly
57 g /2  oz of caster sugar  or 1/3 cup of sugar roughly
Pinch of soda
1 tbs of yogurt or milk just to mix
Method

• Preheat oven at 200 deg C.Whisk egg one by one very well until they are frothing and fluffed up.
• Now mix in self raising flour, cocoa powder and baking soda.
• Cream together sugar and spreadable butter. Add in whisked eggs and mix the wet ingredients well.
• Now gently start folding dry ingredients- the flour mixture and wet ingredients – butter+sugar+egg together.
• Line up Swiss roll tray with baking paper. I have made two small cake rolls and for that I used two baking tray of about roughly 11 inch long and 8 inch wide tray. So, if you are using 13 inch long baking tray then it will yield one cake roll. I guess it depends on personal choice the length of cake roll, we like small ones for a small family.
• Now gently drop the cake batter and evenly spread out into two baking tray.
• Carefully put the baking tray in a preheated oven at 200 deg C for about 7- 8 mints or till the cake batter is cooked. Do not over bake them as it will result in dry sponge rolls.
• Now make the butter cream.
• Use about 5 oz or 140 ml of double cream, 4 tbs of mascarpone cheese and 3-4 heaped tbs of icing sugar and start whisking well until they it turns out thick.
• Take out the roll cake and gently flip it over a damp cotton cloth which has been lined with greaseproof paper. Take out the baking paper or grease proof paper from the back of the roll or what ever you are using gently.And roll it up and let it set and cool off covered with that damp kitchen towel or cotton cloth.
• It would be nice if you can dust it off the grease- proof paper with some cocoa powder.
• After about 2-3 hrs, gently unroll the sponge roll, and layer it with the cream leaving behind about 1 inch of space from each sides. Now start rolling again untill the end is met up and cover it with a cling film. Let it set in fridge for about 2 -3 hrs.
• You can even layer any flavor of ice-creams as well. For that you have to take out ice-cream from the fridge at least 1-2 hrs so that it is soft and fluffy and easy to handle.
• Now after the cake roll is set, slice it off of about ½ inch thick slices. Serve and enjoy with seasonal fruits or ice-cream of your choice.

Ok, today on new years day we made this Black Forest Cake also.But to be honest this was just part of the whole menu - and the menu was balanced with Palang shak'er bori ghonto, Salmon panpor'er jhal , masoor dal ,payesh and chatni.

Happy New Year Friends and Happy Cooking 

Chocolate Bundt Cake recipe- Our way

It was one mundane afternoon, after finishing up cooking and cleaning, I was about to iron some clothes that were drying up, but then ironing clothes is something I really don’t fancy doing on one lazy afternoon. I had my Cous-Cous Upma ( archive post from 2010) for lunch.And as I was about to start ironing the clothes( the picture of ingredients right above the method steps has that iron even which I somehow cropped it out as that would have been embarrassing, now who needs iron as food props, right ?) The most dreadful chore so as to me, I decided, no actually I was craving for some chocolate cake and then recalled dear daughter has made a wish at the breakfast table for chocolate cake also. You know how kids and chocolate are inseparable.
As I was deliberately postponing the inauguration ceremony of my new Bundt pan, I thought may be it’s now time to do so. Here is chocolate Bundt cake recipe made on one mundane afternoon.

I love how freshly brewed coffee smells, kind of a reckoning, brings all senses alive, a sudden kick to wake you up, and perhaps when this is included in chocolate cake, this imparts a lovely aromatic blend and that dark chocolaty color. I took out spreadable butter, yogurt and eggs prior of making this cake and let it rest for a while. Then as it happens while making a cake, rest was done as accordingly.
When I spotted this Bundt pan  in a super-market here, it kind of drew my attention instantaneously.

I liked the delicate pattern of this Bundt cake, although this is a small tin as compared to the standard Bundt tin measurements, but there is this lovely design which makes me more inclined to use it over and over again.

 Although, this chocolate cake that you see now is the first time that I tried the Bundt cake, but since then I have made carrot cake, two batches of chocolate cake and one tutti –fruity cake as well. The base recipe for the cake remains same, like I replace drinking cocoa powder with more flour and shredded carrots or tutti-frutti assortment as the recipe calls for it. But today it is chocolate Bundt cake recipe for you for the time being.

Chocolate Bundt Cake
Recipe requirements
1 ¾ cup of cake flour/self raising flour
¼ cup of good quality cocoa powder
2-3 tbs of yogurt
2 free-range eggs
5-6 heaped tbs of butter spread
1 ½ tsp of instant coffee
¾ tsp of baking soda
½ cup of sugar

Method
Sift cake flour well and then mix in coco powder. Now add in baking soda.
Cream together sugar and spreadable butter well until light and fluffy. You may use vegetable oil as well
Make half a cup of coffee with the amount of coffee powder mentioned.
Now add in egg one at a time mixing through. Add in yogurt, mixing well.
Now in a big mixing bowl, mix in half the amount of flour+ cocoa powder mixture with butter+sugar+egg+yogurt mixture.
Now keep on mixing the rest of dry mixture with wet mixture and lastly freshly brewed coffee until you get a nice gooey chocolaty cake batter.
Prepare the cake tin with spraying some oil, and then dusting off evenly with plain flour.
Preset the oven at about 175 deg C or gas mark 4 .
Pour the prepared cake batter in the floured cake tin. Place the cake tin in the middle rack and then bake for about 30-35 mints. Please check your own oven settings and timing for cake baking. I guess fan assisted oven are slightly different than convectional oven in a standard microwave. Best is to read user manual and then proceed. Always keep an eye on the cake in oven.
Take out when the cake is done and let it cool off.Flip the side upside down with the help of a plate.Dust off extra flour from the top of cake with a brush.Now prepare sugar icing as usual or have it with out that.
I would suggest having it with a scoop of your favorite ice-cream. Delicious.And do you know you can even pack it in your travel-bag as a quick snack.

Edited on 6th Dec 2013
I made this cake yesterday again with few changes as I was running short of self raising flour....
*Used plain flour and then added 1/4 tsp of baking soda and 1/2 tsp of baking powder.Added strong brewed coffee about half a cup* ..
The cake batter was quite on a runny side but it turned out just like fudge cake ..dense and moist,uploading a picture with vanilla caramel ice-cream....now "delicious" is just a word here ....

Happy cooking and baking 

Raspberry Jam

It has been raining here most of the time, making it grey for the time being. But, actually autumn season has turned up showing in with its sure signs of yellowing and falling leaves, and even if it’s raining it still displays out splendid views. Every year this is just like a natural rhythm and cycle, what comes in, must go out as well. And when you walk past the public pathways, it looks absolutely beautiful with falling leaves everywhere, so colorful and vibrant, but here comes rain and it lashes out everything. I would really like to see sun-rays streaming through those beautiful autumn trees, but for that I have to wait some more time I guess. I have also planted some window sill plants – it looks like mint leaves are ready to be used up in cooking, and two garlic pods have also been planted, however I am not sure how they will end up though.

These days mornings are too early for us, as it is completely dark outside, and when I put the kitchen light on, it feels like lighting up a “diya” in complete darkness, first thing that I search out the dip-dip tea –bags in kitchen cupboards to make ginger tea for us. Morning rush-hour becomes hectic there after. But still it has a rhythm of it’s own, cooking and packing lunch-boxes, getting ready to drop dear daughter off to school and we do walk to school everyday, while we get to see many beautiful autumn trees these days and what marvellous views they have.

While we are struggling with patches of rain here, I thought let me add little bit of color to our mundane cooking, so made these raspberry jam- red , vibrant and of course very sweet. And this has been finished up already with in 3-4 days. Actually this is a wish on my daughter’s part to make raspberry jam after I made Red Currant jam last time. And we have been putting up this home-made jam over rotis, paratha and as toppings over biscuits as well, and then of course there is way to use them up over our morning breakfast toast as well.
Sometimes, there is such simplicity of a recipe that there is no need to write instructions for that, but for those who are starting to make home-made jams, this is for you.
Raspberry Jam
Recipe requirements
250 Gms of fresh raspberry
7-10 blackberry
250 Gms of sugar
¼ tsp of lemon juice

Method
Wash and clean raspberry. Pluck out the sad ones.I have used black-berry as well but in very few quantity.
Now put those in saucepan put the heat to medium flame. Sprinkle about a pinch of salt and let it cook well. After about 7-10 mints they will tend to release lots of water.Press them with the help of cooking spatula so that they gets mushy or crushed well.
Now collect them and sieve through well to discard the seeds( since I was working with less quantity , I relied on the tea-strainer, but if you are working with huge quantities, I would suggest to use a good quality strainer ) and collecting all the pulp that is formed. However, if seeds don’t bother you much then proceed to adding sugar now.
Now add in sugar and let it to cook at med-low flame about 15-20 mints. Meanwhile discard any white froth forming from time to time on the top. (Ok, sometimes I tend to make sugar syrup before hand and then add the pureed raspberries, then wait till they gets thickened and mixed up.)
Once it starts to become thick, stop the flame, and then add lemon juice to it, do not cook any further now as lemon juice have been added.Take the saucepan off from the stove-top.Put a thoroughly clean glass jar in pre-heated oven; keep it for 1-2 mints so that the water in that glass jar gets dried up well. This is our quick way of doing sterilization process.
Now pour in the cooked raspberry puree in to the sterilized glass jar. Once it gets cooled,keep in fridge and it stays fresh for 8-10 days if it lasts till then.
Note-
I haven't used pectin as gelling agent for this recipe.

Similarly strawberry jam, apple jam can also be made.

Happy Cooking Friends

Red Currant Jam

As usual I was doing my weekly grocery shopping in a supermarket here, came across a packet of red currants- red delicious edible small rubies. Now, I don’t know what drew my attention towards them- the colour with which it was glowing or the fact it was way cheaper than most of the other berries displayed out there. I picked it up, and then the first thing that came to my mind was making red currant jelly or jam out of it. I came back home then I put the music on at youtube and then started slowly taking out other things from my "haat-bazaar" bag.

After I had put all the vegetables in refrigerator making and creating spaces in between, I put red currants over my window sill( if you have been with me over these couple of years, you do realize that’s the most active part of this blog, I happen to take almost all the pictures for this blog over there).

And I thought they indeed look very pretty, like scattered priceless red rubies. These red rubies were looking so delicious that I couldn’t resist the temptation and popped couple of them in my mouth, but wait, it turns out they are sour, I mean very sour. So, I was right, there is no other way I can imagine eating them, so it is red currant jam for sure. I was skeptical; really don’t know how this will be received by my folks. But it seems so far they have tried to include in every possible way, over breads, with biscuits, over Oreo or with mascarpone cheese, with ice-cream topping and with yogurt shake, milk shake and well I don’t need to tell now that it’s well almost finished.

Then suddenly I realized ok I have to write the recipe here, in case somebody else is having a tempting time in super-markets to try them, to all those don’t fret or shy away, red-currant jelly or jam can really do wonder to your mundane breakfast table, trust me on that or there is always a better way of using it up with masala lamb steaks the more traditional way.

Red Currant Jam
Recipe requirements
250 Gms of red currant
250 Gms of granulated sugar
1 tsp of lemon juice

Method

1. Wash well red currants in running water. With red currants no need to pluck the stalks, just put all in the simmering pot and soon it will be all mushy and watery.
2. Now put them in a large pot and let it simmer. Just press gently with spatula so that red currant turns into mushy texture. Leave it for cooking.
3. After about 10-15 mints when they release water add in sugar and mix well. Let it come to one rolling boil and then put it to simmer. Discard the white froth which will be formed from time to time.
4. After about 10-15 mints when the red currants have all mixed well with sugar. Turn off the flame. Add in lemon juice and stir. Remove it from the flame.
5. Sieve through a soft muslin cloth or a cotton towel. This way seeds can be discarded. Collect the juice. You can do this step overnight if you are using more quantities. I generally don’t wait and like to strain out the entire pulp using a tea strainer in several small batches.
6. Now put small quantities in a strainer and press it forcefully so that you can collect maximum pulp out of it. Discard the residue that is left after wards.
7. In a large bowl after collecting all the red currant pulp, mix it all well. It still will be warm.
8. Meanwhile you are collecting the red currant pulp, sterilize a glass jar or wash them very well with soap water and then pop it in oven for 3-4 mints till it gets dry. And don’ forget to take it out.
9. Now fill in the red currant jam in to the sterilized jar.
10. Once it gets cooled refrigerate it for best results. Consume within 6-7 days for good results.

Note- Many jam recipes use pectin as a setting agent, I have never used that so can’t tell about it. But when ever I have used lemon juice, it has quite worked for me so far. This is one of those jam recipes one wants to make again, and again and it’s scrumptiously delicious.

Happy Cooking Friends

Spinach Mushroom Onion Baked Frittata- " Nonta Cake"

I find myself often puzzled when I need to make breakfast on early mornings and that too on Sunday. Now usually it’s chirer pulao/poha  or upma-“the nonta suji ” most of the times or many times banana pancake, or some blueberry banana muffins and oh!  How can I forget chocolate muffin, without that the world would crumble like Adele’s sky fall. And then sometimes a frittata is also made out of blue. As we the grown-ups are little averse of eating so many eggs and cheese together, but it’s for our dear daughter who likes these new kinds of recipes a lot. 

Her “nonta cake” as she calls it fondly, has been made couple of times now with obviously her choice of vegetables. Actually this was being one of the reasons I started to make frittata to develop her interest in eating vegetables. She was not into eating spinach and some of the vegetables, so told her about “Popeye” and his spinach eating antics. She said, “Are you joking Ma!!”  I am not going to eat spinach puree-yuck! And who eats that gooey green puree these days, it’s just the cartoon character and the fictional story, seriously? Kids I tell you are way much advanced than we were as kids and the conversation stopped there. Although couple of days ago when I made palak-paneer, it was all gone- two picky eaters that I have in our home, finished their share quickly, helping themselves for second times. And I told dear daughter, “Hey! Hey! I see with my eyes, somebody eating spinach puree just like Popeye does”. To that she told me, “I know but I don’t mind eating spinach puree as long as it has paneer with it, the white paneer, not the fried -panner which you generally tend to add in palak gravy!! Even Popeye can eat palak paneer sometimes for a change, and I think it can be much better option than the canned spinach puree”. Well I can only imagine “Popeye’ eating Palak paneer with kulcha or naan and drinking a glass full of lassi in a famous Punjabi dhaba for the time being, then smile and be happy for it.

Coming back to frittata recipe, well spinach leaves, mostly the baby spinach leaves is what I like to use in this frittata recipe, along with some chopped fresh coriander leaves, mushroom, onions, cherry tomatoes, some times even zucchini. So mix and match of the vegetables is the motto here but the base recipe remains the same. Someday try this “nonta cake” for a change as breakfast or brunch whatever suits your time.

Now to the recipe

 Spinach Mushroom Onion Frittata- 

Recipe requirements

• 100 Gms of baby spinach leaves or 1bunch of tender spinach leaves
• About 2 cups of chopped mushroom
•  1 medium size onion
• 10-12 sweet cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup of shredded cabbage 
• 1/2 cup of chopped spring onions
• 1/2 cup of chopped coriander leaves
• 1 cup of mild cheddar cheese preferably grated
• 1 tsp of red pepper powder
• 1/2 tsp of crushed red chilly flakes
• 1 tsp of dried oregano 
• 1 tsp of salt or as per taste
• 4-5 free range large eggs
• ¼ cup of self raising flour
• ¼ cup of milk
• ½ cup of cooking oil

Method

• Preheat an oven at 175 deg C.
• Chop mushroom, onions,cabbage, coriander leaves,spring onions and tomatoes roughly . Heat up a saucepan, add cooking oil just enough to sauté the vegetables. Stir/fry the vegetables for 4-5 mints .Season them with salt and red pepper powder,crushed red chilly flakes and dried oregano. Add in spinach leaves, now no need to fry them along with other vegetables, they will tend to get cooked with the heat stir/fried vegetables has. Take off the fry pan now.
• In a large mixing bowl, add in self raising flour, half of the cheese. Now whisk in eggs one by one with a spoon gently. Do not beat them. Many times I also add ricotta cheese when I am short of cheddar cheese or use both in combination.
• Now fold in the fried vegetables and eggs flour cheese mixture gently. At this time if it becomes sticky, then add milk just enough so that you can mix well all.
• Now prepare a rectangular baking pan or any deep dish suitable for oven baking, grease some oil over it now transfer the entire contents of vegetable flour eggs cheese mixture to baking pan.
• Sprinkle generous amount of left-over cheddar cheese or Parmesan cheese what ever cheese you like on top.
• Bake it for 25-30 mints or till a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in to the middle of this frittata or the frittata is well set.Please check your own oven settings and make of the oven for proper baking.

Note-

Usually in spongy and  light frittata recipes, flour is not added but I tend to add flour to it, to make it even more filling and dense. This has been part of our weekend brunch menu for quite a long time; vegetables do keep on changing though, many times only made with onions and potatoes. Many times I don’t saute the vegetables if I am running short of time and patience.

Generally in breakfast other than eggs we don’t eat meat or chicken, but grilled chicken pieces or chicken kebabs or if  people who like meat, then meat pieces can also be added to make it even more filling and delicious. It can be made as part of dinner menu as well or can even be divided into edible portions and served as starters in get-together also. Options to make frittata remain limitless, and this can be a great way of incorporating any left-over recipes as well.

Other Breakfast recipes/ideas  here-

Eggles Walnut Dates Bread

Pear Pancake

Matar Kachori and Chana ki sabzi

Yogurt and Cereal

Banana pancake

Porota and aloor torkari

Happy Cooking Friends

A Very Berry Cake

No, don’t judge this cake with the cakes available at pastry shop or by many talented food bloggers who do really make beautiful , breath-taking cakes. This is our, read – mother and daughter’s joint effort. A fun Saturday evening was spent like this. We fought over who will do the cake decorations, and finally we settled on half her way through and half mine.But it all got jumbled up later on, in pursue of utilizing the vacant space.Every vacant space needed some real decorations. And we are no pro – let’s admit it very frankly.Well ok this is our first joint effort in cake decorations.We are then even not amateurs perhaps novice yes.

I had some raspberry and strawberry which I was thinking to use up, other than with yogurt like this   with breakfast cereals. So decided to bake this very very Cake, berry –berry cake – hmm ok... Very Berry Cake instead of.

Somehow decorating a cake with a cone- paper cone, requires quite lot of patience which we both don’t have. And we end up doing this cake in record 15 mints. So, you can see many mingling lines. But again it’s the cake which has its own story. Few days ago when I was putting the ingredients together for this cake I was in a hurry , and so didn't measured the flour or sugar, just went with instinct, looking at the batter I knew I needed  to make two cakes, as I have two small round cake tins. But whatever, I was net surfing then and was reading something interesting and also it was soon going to be dinner time. So, I end up dunking all the batter in one small cake tin pan. While baking the cake, it started overflowing, dropping and spilling over in oven. I didn't mind it, after the baking time I took out the cake, it was baked well, smelled nice but it would have been better if I had gone through making it in two small rounds instead of big one round cake. There wouldn't have been such wastage. So, bottom-line is never mix two things especially cooking and net-surfing.
OK, now if you have Bundt cake pan, it can precisely hold on the amount of batter. Thumb rule is leave about quarter of the cake tin pan and fill only ¾ part or better half part with the cake batter. This is how I have measured the cake batter while baking cakes over these years, but somehow on that day everything just skipped my mind. Anyways we always learn from our mistakes and faults so that we don’t repeat it again. The recipe written down is revised version of that cake, but the pictures are from that spilling cake.The cake was moist and soft and had a very pleasing smell of strawberry.So you know the result , when you try making a berry cake and that too with strawberry.
I am always little skeptical of using colors in baking etc...But sometimes it’s good to let yourself just be free of it . We both – me and DD had a great time decorating this cake.
Here even after done with the cake, somebody is still practicing the art of decorating a cake with a cone.

I think at least somebody will be better than her mother is, in decorating cakes. What say?
Now to the recipe-

Very Berry Cake – Raspberry/Strawberry Cake
Recipe Requirements (measurements are approx)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of self raising flour
½ cup of cooking oil
1 free range egg
¾ cup of white sugar granulated
1 cup of chopped raspberry
1 cup of chopped strawberry
¾ cup of organic strawberry yogurt
½ tsp of baking soda

Method
Mix in dry ingredients in a mixing bowl- all purpose flour+self raising flour, and baking soda.
Then in a separate bowl, mix in oil and sugar very well.
Add in egg, then followed by strawberry yogurt. Purpose of adding strawberry yogurt is to add the flavor of berries even more. If you don’t have strawberry yogurt, you can make it in home – in about a 1 cup of plain yogurt, add in 5-6 fresh strawberry, adjust sugar and then pulse through in a mixer for half a minute. And again if you don’t like tiny seeds of strawberry...Mash some fully ripened strawberry, pass this over small strainer, and collect the seeds from the strainer. Add this cleaned strawberry paste to the yogurt and mix it with spoon.
Sprinkle some sugar over chopped strawberry and raspberry.Sprinkle some flour as well.
Mix all the ingredients – dry one and wet ones both.Add in chopped berries.
Prepare the cake tin.spray some cooking oil, dust some flour and tap it gently to even out the surface.
Preheat an oven at 175 deg, bake the cake for 35-40 mints or till a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
Take out , let it cool, flip the cake and place it over a plate.Now cut into half with a sharp knife , here comes baking two cakes with the batter part.If you go ahead and make two cakes then there is no need to cut into the half along the sides.Just tier it up over the other.However I didn't make two so , here is one cake , cut along sides to half.

Prepare the icing -
About 3/4 cup of cream or Elmea double
3 tbs of icing sugar
few drops of liquid,  food red colour

Mix all very well cream and icing sugar ,till soft peak forms.Reserve some for decorating the cake.Add the colour to the reserved icing and mix well.
Put rest of the icing over the half  portion, place the other half , then put the icing again top over it.Let it chill for couple of hours in fridge.Take out once it's set.
Make a paper cone with a grease proof paper or may use a transparent plastic, seal the end with tape.Fill in with coloured icing , then cut a small opening at the tip .Start working with the cone and decorate the cake.

Note-
This cake is made with more strawberry than raspberry; however there is no hard and fast rule of adding fruits to the cake. You may use other berries as well.

Happy Cooking and Have a nice weekend...

Banana Wheatgerm Bread- Breakfast Made Easy

Hola! How was your weekend? I am sure plenty of things to do or to make you busy, pampered and loved. But why pampered, I would say it’s your right to indulge in sometimes happiness that surround you in terms of the laughter of the loved one, pranks innocently thrown at you which catch you sort of unaware. 

Mischievous, innocent planning and conversations with your kids which makes you stop and ponder for a while, thoughts that whiz pass effortlessly. Moments spent in day-dreaming, realizing there are definitely other arenas still unexplored. Life gives us many such opportunities effortlessly, but we on other hands tend to always ignore and pass on doing things which are just so part of our daily grind. Take a moment away from this busy schedule, steal one golden moment from this nitty-gritty of complex life, smile for a moment, thank God for the love and blessing it has showered on you, look around, see and feel the warmth of sunshine, smell the sweetness of new and flourishing blossom around you, and of course love of your loved one. Life is all that, all that we can make out of it and depends on how we will mould, bend, stitch, sew and cut it to be just like a tailor stitches the clothes without wasting it. You are the tailor of your own life, and I am sure the end product will definitely going to be all worth the effort you will be putting on it from now on wards. So bring it on.

This bread recipe is super easy to make, no rocket science or need to calculate escape velocity or torque. Whatever...

I had some ripened bananas, which were in dire need to use up otherwise they would end up in bin; personally any waste of food to me is just like a sin. And here comes “count the blessing part”. I also had some wheat germ which I have been using in making breads for a while now. I spiced it up with little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg powder. A healthy alternate to shortenings or butter is cooking oil that also goes into making this bread.

To the recipe part now

Breakfast Banana Wheat Germ Bread

Recipe Requirements

2 cups of all purpose flour or 1 cup of all purpose flour + 1 cup of whole wheat powder (Atta)

1 cup of wheat germ

3 ripened bananas

½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of baking soda

½ tsp of cinnamon powder

½ tsp of nutmeg powder

1 large free range egg

1 cup of plain yogurt

½ cup of sugar

½ + 2 tbs of corn oil

Method

Mash bananas with fork evenly.

In a separate mixing bowl. Mix in all purpose flour with wheat germ. If you are using whole wheat flour then mix it as well.

Add in baking soda and baking powder. Add in cinnamon powder + nutmeg powder. Leave aside.

In a big mixing bowl, take the mashed bananas.

Add in corn oil and one egg. Mix well.

Now add in yogurt about two tbs at a time mixing thro.Use the entire yogurt content. It would be great if you can take the yogurt out from fridge about 10-15 mints prior of mixing it with the batter. This would help in even mixing.

Now use the flour mixture half a cup at a time mixing very well through. Use the entire content.

Prepare the oven and preheat at 175 deg C.

Grease a loaf pan, sprinkle some flour and tap it gently to even the flour all over the loaf pan.

Add in the prepared bread batter and transfer this to the middle rack in the oven.

Bake for 50-55 mints or the outer part has turned brownish or golden. Check inserting a toothpick, if it comes out all clean when inserted in the middle part of loaf, the bread is ready.

( Weekend  Breakfast- Fried egg, Banana Wheat germ bread, Chocolate muffins and honey dew melon pieces.)

Note- 

The texture of bread is more like a cake –soft and spongy. This batter recipe is very flexible; you can even make cupcakes with it. Just reduce the time for baking to about 20-25 mints or bake until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.You can find the Chocolate cupcake recipe Here.

Please refer your oven manufacturer manuals as this is just a rough guide to make cupcakes and bread which suited in my oven here.

Happy Cooking Friends