The Magical GEMS Cookies

Want to see BIG twinkles in eyes and big WOW expression on your love ones face??? Continue reading…

Because here I present the simplified version of world famous M&M cookies (knows as GEMS here in India).

Would you not love to make something super special for your lovely family and friends this holiday season…Yes of course!!! That’s why when I was counting days for my year end vacations I thought of baking these cookies for my dear daughter as she is a big fan of Gems. I have to admit I still find it challenging to go through much elaborated cookie recipes. I had read so many M&M cookie recipes and I love Sally’s cookies Here. But I am not big fan of eggs in the cookies so I went through few more recipes and finally derived this one based on my liking and comfort.

The result is chewy, thick and delicious soft cookies loaded with chocolaty Gems. This recipe is no brainer such one bowl and you are done!! One caution – how your love to the dough and chill it for some time (at least 3 hour). A tip from Sally and I think it’s the best on when comes to cookies. Thanks Sally!!. Second have everything are room temperature.

2 Cup Flour

½ cup Granular Sugar

½ cup Brown Sugar

½ cup Butter

½ cup Curd

½ Teaspoon Baking Soda

½ Teaspoon Baking Powder

½ Teaspoon Vanila Extract

1 Cup chopped Gems, few unchopped for decoration

All you need to do is

1.    Cream the butter for 2mins until light and then add both the sugars. Beat till its light and pale in color. Add curd and vanilla extract and beat for another minute.

2.    Shift the flour, baking soda and baking power together.

3.    Add this dry mixture in the wet mix small amount at a time and mix till the all of the flour mixture is incorporated. You will get a dough, which is quite easy to handle. If you find yours too stickly don’t worry and if its too hard you and sprinkle a tablespoon milk to loosen it up.Try not to over work the dough, you will not get the right texture.

4.    Bring the dough together by gently working on it and make a ball, wrap it with cling film and keep in the refrigerator for chilling for atleast three hours.

5.    Pre-heat the oven at 180 Degree C. Take out the dough from refrigerator and make 11-12 dough balls. Line the baking tray with baking paper and place them slighting apart from each other. You might need to press the dough balls a bit to help them get the cookie shape sooner if the dough it too hard after chilling.

6.    Bake at 200 degree C for 15-20 minutes until light golden brown. After 1o minutes you can quickly stick the Gems on the cookies for looks. Be careful as everything would be super-hot at this time.

7.    Cool for 10 minutes before serving. I have observed the good crunch and chewieness get set after  the cookie is cooled enough.

Make this with love and share with your circle of love and lot’s of twinkles in the eyes and wows will make you feel very happy. Happy holidays!!!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie

Dark chocolate gooey brownie combined with peanut crunch and peanut butter cups.

What do you do, when you have super simple (don’t tell anyone) brownie recipe and got some peanut butter cups. Yeah we don’t get peanut butter cups everywhere in India so it get a special stature. I have read quite a few peanut butter recipes in books and on internet. So I thought to give it a go, to combine chocolate and peanut butter flavor. I wanted to play with the textures too and I roasted the peanut in oven with some salt until golden brown. These brownies are special for one more reason that it achieves that salty, sweet, chocolaty and butter balance. I layered brownie, then roasted peanuts with chopped peanut butter cups followed by milk chocolate ganach. How good is that??? Heaven!! That’s the work.

Now we have a new favorite brownie and don’t mind baking them every now and then.

2 ½ Cup Plain Dark Chocolate Chopped

1 Cup unsalted butter

3 Eggs

1 ¼ Cup Light Brown Sugar

3/4 Cup  Flour

1/2 Tps Baking Powder

1/2 Tps baking Soda

1 Cup gm Peanut (Skin Removed)

1 Cup Chopped Peanut Butter Cup

½ Cup Chopped Milk chocolate

½ cup Heavy Cream                      

Preheat the oven at 190 ºC. Grease and line a square baking tin.

Spread 2 Tablespoon salt on the baking tray and spread the peanut on it. Roast for 10-12 min at 210 ºC or until golden brown. You don’t want them to get brown. Remove the salt and set aside.

Melt the plain chocolate and butter in microwave for 2 min but keep string it every 30 sec or you can melt them in heavy base saucepan.

Beat Together eggs and sugar then beat in the melted chocolate mixture.

Shift together flour and baking powder and add this is in wet mixture. Add walnuts and mix to bring everything together.

Pour the batter in the baking tin and spread the roasted peanuts and chopped peanut butter cups evenly. Press this layer with light hands in the batter.

Bake for 40 minute at 190 ºC until cake feels just firm on the crust but soft underneath. Please do not overcook or the brownies will be dry. Leave to cool in the tin

Warm the heavy cream in a heavy bottom pan and add chopped milk chocolate and tip a tablespoon butter and mix well. Remove from heat and let it thicken a bit

Spread the cooled ganach over the cooled brownie and cut into square.

Whole Wheat Citrus Pancake with fruity Honey

Healthy and comforting pancakes laced with orangey fragrance and topped with fruit honey.

This post is dedicated to all mothers who spend almost their 16 hours either feeding, cooking or just worrying that their little one have not eaten enough. So far the most challenging aspect of being a mother has been, making sure my daughter has eaten something out of her meals. Yeah, just something!! You understand my plight??? Thank you!!!

I know many mothers like me, who go through the same struggle four times a day. My daughter said “Good bye” to baby food long back and jumped on to regular food. So I got this challenge of cooking things which are grownup’s food as well as full of nutrition.

I personally love pancakes and can have them any time of the day. She also liked them but the regular pancakes do not fit in my nutrition criteria. So??? I picked one of very humble Indian pancake recipe and gave a twist to make it fun and exciting.

As a child I use to be mad about these whole wheat, sugar laced pancakes which my mother use to make. It was healthy, homely and comforting. Cooked in clarified butter (also known as Ghee) with a hint of cardamom, would lift basic ingredients to a level above.

I thought to throw a spin and replaced cardamom with orange zest and added some orange juice to intensify fruity flavor. Why fruity??? Because my child (Thanks god for this) loves..Loves and loves fruits. Another replacement was sugar with honey. She is not that found of very sweet things and honey does the trick.

Some time back I mentioned about my trip to Coorg. I brought this divine fruit honey from there. Fruit honey will complement the fruity flavor of pancake, though you could use any honey you have.

As you would be making these lovely pancakes for your child, I would suggest you to make them small and slightly thinner than the regular ones. Why? Because first, smaller ones would look super cute and big amount of food in one go overwhelm kids..Try this trick and let me know, if worked with your child.

Whole wheat, orange flavor, honey and cooked in butter did not it sound comforting already??? I am sure your mother brain would be saying “Yes healthy as well”. Don’t you think how come a child would not like to eat such a treat? This recipe has been a hit at my end so I am happily sharing with you..Give it a try mommy and even all the grownups will also like to indulge in its comfort.

2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 Tablespoon Orange Zest

¼ Cup Orange juice

6 Tablespoon Fruit Honey

1 Egg (replace with ½ cup curd)

¾ Cup Milk

4 Tablespoon Butter (melted)

1 Teaspoon Baking powder

Pinch of Salt

In a big bowl add whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder, orange zest, 1 spoon of melted butter and mix. Make a well in the mixture.

In another bowl mix all the wet ingredients ( Orange juice, honey, milk) . Add the egg ( or beaten curd) and mix.

 Pour this mixture into the well of dry ingredients and mix well with a whisker to make smooth batter.

Heat a flat pan and rub tiny butter on the surface. Pour small amount of batter and spread to make a small pan cake. Flip when the side is done and cook on the other side as well until golden brown.

Drizzle 2-3 spoon of honey on the pancake while serving and important serve warm.

You can sprinkle some orange zest while serving.

Oreo Vanilla Cupcake with Tempered Dark chocolate Icing

Do you want to dig into pure pleasure of dark chocolate crunch followed by vanilla sponge and taste gooey dark chocolate Oreo Bites?

Then read on…

Experience is a wonderful thing, irrespective of whether its good or bad. A good one definitely make one feel good but even a not such a nice on leaves with a learning. This goes word to word for me and my baking. To tell you very honestly my equation with cake batter has not changed much, remember my confession here

Kitchen still feels like boxing ring where batter calls me for a face off every time I pick up a recipe to try….But as I mentioned before, experience is teaching me tricks and tip even if batter gets the upper hand some times.

I have learnt the most important thing is that I need to give it love and attention to make it behave. Accuracy in measurement and patience while mixing and baking, is doing wonders. So yes, we are getting better in terms of sweet successes. 

This newly acquired trait “Experience” has given wings to creativity, now when I see some good recipe I don’t hesitate to try and even I think of new recipes and  ideas(Ahuum Ahumm J). As an ardent fan of “Masterchef Australia” I have learnt one thing to look at recipes as building block and use them to create something new altogether.

So what have I done so special that I am writing so much about it..well nothing indeed. Yes really just took my vanilla cupcake recipes and added Oreo and choc chips to have this divine vanilla chocolate cupcake.

Just that?? Yes!!!. Its that simple that indeed it’s feeling silly to write the recipe. Mind you!!! These cupcakes are only simple to make but the flavors are to die for. I am big fan of Oreo and have seen few dishes incorporating it. What is so great about this cookie is when baked it converts into such wonderful soft gooey texture. My plain vanilla cupcake came alive with its dark and dense chocolate taste with vanilla cream melted in the cake to intensify the vanilla taste.

Shall I talk about the dark chocolate icing…Let me do a quick dance first!! I am excited and thrilled to share this here that my first ever Chocolate tempering effort is a success. 

If you are wondering what Tempering is??? Its defined as process of producing small cocoa butter crystals to get the uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate is tempering.

It is actually a simple yet technical thing to do. Chocolate is melted in a double boiler which is not boiling till it reaches 46-48°C (depending on milk or dark chocolate) then a small amount of chopped chocolate is added in the melted hot chocolate. The mix is stirred to maintain the same temperature though out and then again the temperature is increased till 46-48 °C. For Dark chocolate the chocolate is melted at 46-48°C. Tempered chocolate get spread or poured warm and the temperature is maintained placing the pan back on double boiler when ever required.

I tried tempering with a small batch of chocolate  and without thermometer, just going by my instinct.Luck was on my side and my temperature instinct worked. I coated my cupcake with warm tempered chocolate and in the end I had this wonderful shiny and full of bite chocolate layer on top.

It’s a sin full delicious cupcake…don’t trust me??? you have to bake to believe. 

For the cupcake 

1/2 cup  Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature

1 cup  Granulated Sugar

2 Eggs (use 1 cup curd, if you don’t want to use egg)

1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1½ cup Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Milk

¼ Cup Chocolate Chips

6 Oreo Cookies chopped in big chunks

For frosting

200 gm Dark Chocolate Chopped

2 Tbsp Milk Chocolate grated (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

In a bowl beat the butter and sugar together with a handheld mixer whisker attachment on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until creamed and fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until everything is combined, about 2 -3 minutes.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 additions and stirring by hand after each addition. Mix until just combined, do not over mix. This batter will be thick.

Fold in chocolate chips and Oreo chunks with spatula.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For Tempered Chocolate icing

Prepare a Bain Marie (Double boiler) by placing a saucepan on stove with some water. Take a slightly smaller pan and put ¾ of the chopped chocolate in it.

Place the smaller pan in the simmering water pan, making sure only the bottom of the pan touches the water. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE WATER IS NOT BOILING and you be careful about no water droplet gets into the chocolate pan. PLEASE FOLLOW this to the “T” or else you will not be getting tempered chocolate at all.

When the chocolate is melted remove from heat and add chopped chocolate and stirrer this with a spatula until all the chocolate is dissolved. Place this pan again in the simmering water pan and stirrer gently for 1 min and remove from heat.

Your chocolate must be shiny and super smooth. Cover the top of your cupcakes generously with it and sprinkle grated milk chocolate.

Leave you cupcakes alone to get the chocolate set on the top. You can tuck these shiny babies in the refrigerator for 5 min, if you are in a hurry to eat them: D

Mini Chocolate Loaf - Easy Breezy Baking

My love for tea has incited my interest to explore more around its cup of warmth. I absolutely love English High tea. I feel it’s so classy and luxurious to spend your evening with a cup of tea being served with nice and fresh tea breads, scones, loafs, cookies, pies, cakes and bars…Umm Yummms. Sounds like pampering. 

Basically this concept of high tea was started by British Royal ladies. In those times of tight corsets it was very difficult to eat much during lunch time.  By early evening hunger use to strike back so this routine of having tea  with small treats at 4 o’ clock started. This not only fill the stomach to go till dinner but tasted great with tea.

And now days as I am more inclined to bake bready things I thought of baking a chocolate tea loaf.  I have been very nervous around yeast lately because most of the time it did nothing to my dough. The thing with instant yeast is you get your success sign in the very beginning. If you were ignorant like me, first thing you need to learn is to know whether your yeast is alive or dead. When you put your yeast with warm water, sugar and milk it start reacting to form a foaming mixture. If you see all that had happened and your mixture is bubbly and foamy, you have a alive yeast. On the contrary, if bubbles are not formed or very thin layer of froth has appeared, you very much have got dead yeast. Only thing you could do is to discard this mixture and start with a new yeast. It’s a must to have an alive yeast or your bread will not prove and rise.

To get started all we need is: 

2 tsp active dry yeast

1½ Tablespoons Lukewarm Water

½  Cup Lukewarm Milk

2 Tablespoons Superfine Sugar

50g Unsalted Butter, melted

2¼ Cups (335g) Flour

1 eggs

Dark Chocolate squares – 6

Place the yeast, water, milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.

Add the butter, flour, eggs and another 1 tablespoon sugar to the yeast mixture and use a spatula to mix until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean, damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Make a ball of dough and roll out 1cm-thick to make a rectangle.

Divide it by cutting with a sharp knife into 6 rectangle pieces. Place a chocolate square in the middle and fold the dough inward like wrapping a gift and seal the ends to make loaf like shape.

**Please make sure that chocolate pieces are big enough to get wrapped properly and should not be too small or else you would not be able to get good bits of chocolate.

Place these mini loafs on a baking tray lined with baking paper and set aside for 30 minutes or until risen. Sprinkle some granular sugar on top.

Place them in a pre-heated oven at 220°C and bake for 20 min or until golden brown.

Cool on wire rack and you are ready to enjoy crusty from outside and soft buttery bread with a rich gooey chocolate.

Its a winner….and sure pleasure thing to bake and eat.

Plum Pudding Cake - Sweet, Fruity and Spicy Treat

It’s a gorgeous sweet, fruity and spicy treat – great as a pudding or with evening tea.

I find baking with fruits is very exciting and quite challenging. Getting a good texture and keeping the flavours of fruits alive is quite tricky if you ask me.  So when I got my hands on some lovely ruby red plums I thought of trying this cake. The heart and soul of this cake is good sweet plums so please taste your plums before taking the plunge. I came across this recipe long back on a BBC show and it’s just got stuck in my head. It’s not like I did not try it before, that warning above is coming from there. You need beautiful and sweet plums, ITS A MUST.

Other thing which I would insist on is brown sugar. Brown sugar not only uplifts the flavors of fruits in the cake but it does wonders to the texture. So get ready to bake a rich, buttery and gooey cake with me.

2 Cup Flour

1 lightly heaped Tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1 lightly heaped Tsp ground Cinnamon

1 lightly heaped Tsp Ground Ginger

4 Tbsp of Honey

1 Cup Butter

¾ Cup Brown sugar

¼ Cup Granular sugar

 2 Cup Plums

2 Eggs (Replace with 1 Cup curd, if not using eggs)

1 Cup Milk

Pre heat the oven at 180C. Line a square baking tray with baking paper.

Sift together flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger into a bowl.

Warm honey, granular sugar and butter very gently in a pan until the butter and sugar melts. Stir in the brown sugar. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.

Halve the plums, or cut them into quarters if they are very large, and remove the stones.

Break the eggs into a bowl, pour in the milk and whisk lightly to mix.

Pour the honey butter syrup mixture into the flour and mix with a large spoon. Pour in the egg and milk and continue stirring till you have almost sloppy batter without any lumps.

Tip the mixture into the lined cake tin, drop in the plums and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Server this pudding cake with a dollop of whip cream or just a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and see the magic.

Double Chocolate Cupcake with chocolate frosting

In the west you hear lot about comfort food, honesty this term does not make much sense to my Indian foodie heart as I feel everything we cook is comforting and specially what our mother would  cook for us is the ultimate comfort food. With this thought, I was thinking what really pops in our head when most of think of one thing which would bring a smile. Chocolates!!!

I am sure I could not be wrong with that. We all are so obsessed with chocolates and its loved by every age and gender. So I got my sleeve’s up to bake dark, rich, soft and extremely chocolaty double chocolate cupcake with a smooth chocolate frosting. Well I did not made my frosting super chocolaty as I like the chocolate chips to stand out but you can go ahead with adding 2-3 full tbsp of coco powder to intensify the chocolate flavor in the cupcake frosting.

Though I started with a mood to do beautifully frosted cupcake but in the end lost the steam and again washed my hand by rustic look (lazy look, I should write rather) but the taste did the talking and my little one came running for the next one as soon as finished her first cupcake.

Double Chocolate Cupcake

1/2 cup Unsalted butter

80gm Semi-sweet dark chocolate

1/2 cup Cocoa powder

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp Baking soda

3/4 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup  granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp  vanilla extract

1/2 cup  buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Frosting

2 ¾ cup Confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

6 Tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips for decoration

For the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I used a 6 cup pan and baked in two batches.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 min and stirring every 30 sec. You may also melt the butter and chocolate over low heat on a double boiler. Stir until smooth and let it cool a bit.

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together until thoroughly combined.

 In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the cooled butter/chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk. (To make buttermilk at home just add a tsp of  white vinegar in ½ cup milk and let it stand for 5-7 min.)***

Repeat until everything is added. Stir until just combined; do not overmix. The batter will be very thick, so don’t worry.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting: sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder to assure there are no lumps. Set aside.

 With a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy - about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sifted sugar/cocoa powder alternately with the heavy cream and vanilla. Beat on low speed after each addition. Once all added, beat on high speed until creamy and combined for at least 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt if frosting is too sweet.

Frost cooled cupcakes and top with chocolate chips and that’s it. You have these lovely cute intense chocolate cupcake inviting to taste them. Do bake them and let me know, how they turned out.