Melting moments - Some what rustic this time

I have been following Masterchef Australia for quite some years now and this has opened up mind food wise. I used to get amaze and still do by the extent food knowledge contestant and Judges have. There are many long lasting impression on me of Judges, chefs, contestant and off course recipes which inspire me everyday. One of such contestant is Julia Taylor who was the finalist of season 4. She was this super competitive reserved lady who has strived to be at top all her life. Now she was here on Masterchef where she was among best of bests.  It was initially surprising for her that there are people better than her. She struggled to find herself in elimination as she knew and believed the she was just meant to be at top. But she realized, accepted and respected the this fact the competition is really tough and there are far more talented people against her. Then what we saw was real dedication, determination and hard work from Julia. I could relate to her a lot because I have also gone through this challenge in life. She made quite a few stunning dishes in the competition but what left a big impression on me was her “Melting moments” from cookies challenge. 

Melting moments are shortbread-like cookies that rely on butter for their wonderful flavor. I got hooked to these cookie because they look very cute and a very easy to make.

I have baked this cookie I don’t know how many times because they just disappear in jiffy. I have to admit more than half I must be eating alone. This time I have introduced my twist to make them very rustic like any home baker. First, I gave it more rustic look by baking it on bit higher temperature for slightly brownish color and used creamy tangy cheese cream filling with mixed fruit jam. I saved some efforts here by using a store brought jam. Fewhh!!!  So following is my version of melting moments.

180 gm Flour

180gm Butter

60 gm Custard

60 gm Powder Sugar

1 tsp Baking Powder

Pre-heat the oven at 180 ºC

Line your baking tray with baking paper

Cream butter until light and fluffy

Add custard powder and mix, and then add powder sugar

Sift flour and baking powder together and then add to the dough

Mix until a soft dough come together

Make small balls from the dough and place on baking sheet

Use a fork and press lightly on the dough balls to create impression

Bake for 10-12 mins until golden. For bit more brownish color, I cranked the temperature to 210 and baked for anothe2-3 mins

Let them cool and then remove from the tin

Cream Cheese Frosting 

½ Cup of Cream Cheese, Softened, at room temperature

 ¼ Cup Butter, Softened, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups powder sugar

2 cups powder sugar

3 Tbs of Mixed fruit Jam

Beat together the softened cream cheese and butter until creamy

Add in the vanilla extract and beat for another 30 seconds

Now start adding the powder sugar 1 cup at a time and beating in between each addition

You can make this frosting before and refrigerate. At the time of usages can give it a whisk and pipe

Before starting assembling of cookie gently warm the jam in small pan

To assemble the cookie, pip cream cheese on the flatter side of cookie and then smear a small spoon of jam over the cheese. Finally top it with another cookie, flatter side facing the filling to make the sandwich

And now enjoy!! Crunchy, creamy, tangy, fruity bits all at the same time will just melt in your mouth

I, thank Julia every time I make these

Easy and Fun - Cinnamon Sugar doughnuts

Doughnuts for me always been an exotic treat as in India good doughnuts can be tasted only at fine bakeries or café unlike west where they are everywhere. Always great in taste and quality. I remember how I treated myself with variety of doughnuts during my stay in Australia. My sweet tooth which loves all not so sweet things got soaked in doughnuts and tarts.

I use to wonder how these things are made and never in my dream, thought that these are deep fried items. Seriously I did not know till I saw in Masterchef Australia that doughnuts are fried.

So now you can imagine what my thoughts must be for considering them as a dish could be made at home. “It’s a store brought thing” was encrypted in my subconscious mind, till I ran into Krispy Creame doughnuts some time back. Off course they are yummilicious. Soft as clouds and super tasty.

It rang a bell inside me asked why don’t you at least try give it a try.

So with newly found motivation I turned to take up this battle.

With some doubts and lot of determination I stared making them and before I could doubt more they were there on my plate. I did not know a home cook can make doughnuts in a humble kitchen and its not a rocket science.

I am in so much love with these fluffy, fragrant and sugary babies that I want to make them again and again. It feels like dream to me.

All you need is:

2 tsp active dry yeast

1½ Tablespoons Lukewarm Water

½  Cup Lukewarm Milk

4 Tablespoons Superfine Sugar, plus extra, for dusting

50g Unsalted Butter, melted

2¼ Cups (335g) Flour

1 eggs

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

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.

 Use a 6cm-round cutter to cut around the dough to make 6 rounds. Use a 2cm-round cutter to cut holes from the centre of the rounds to make rings.

Place rings on a baking tray lined with baking paper and set aside for 30 minutes or until risen.

 Place the oil  in a large and deep pan over medium heat until temperature reaches 180°C.

Cook the doughnuts, in batches, for 1–2 minutes each side or until golden.

Drain on absorbent paper. Dust with the extra sugar and serve immediately.

Ta-da , crispy on outside and fluffy soft from inside doughnuts are ready.   

Verdict – If I can make doughnuts at home, you can make them too and with sooooo.. much less worries.

Vanilla Bean Muffin with Cheese Cream Frosting - Baked in nostalgia of Coorg

Vacations are always good and those vacations where you have had a wonderful time lingers for long time on your mind. I have been really busy with work and so many things, on my to do list for few weeks now. As I was dealing with fatigue and stress, I just remembered my vacation in Coorg couple of months back. We all had awesome time in Coorg and even here I would like to thank, our host Mr. and Mrs. Ganapathi of Coorg Classic home stay. One of the exciting thing was to visit coffee plantation and there we got to see spice garden. It was so thrilling to see black paper bunch which was still green. Cardamom, Cinnamon and various other spice are grown in this region of south India along with coffee. The most exciting bit for me was “Vanilla Pods”. Its smell so awesome and induced appetite for cake. Apologies for not posting those pics due to some technical issue with them but here is the pic of my Vanilla Pods.

So I have brought quite a few pod for baking.  I had decided to do a recipe in which the vanilla bean will be the star and did not got a chance to do.  So now when Coorg poped up in my head again I decided to put everything on hold and take comfort in baking vanilla bean muffin.

It’s a very easy recipe, actually nothing much to do then mixing everything in one go.

Vanilla bean Muffin

1  cup Flour

1/4 cup Vanilla Custard Powder

1 tsp Salt

 2 tsp Baking Powder

100 gm Butter, softened at room temperature

 3/4 cup Powder sugar

1 egg (Use ½ cup of curd, if don’t want to use egg)

1 cup milk

1 Pod of Vanilla Pod scrapped (you can use 1 tps of real vanilla essence, if don’t get the pod)

Pre-heat the oven at 180 ºC

Line your muffin mould with butter and sprinkle flour evenly.

 (You can use paper moulds as well but as I don’t have them right now I am doing without it.)

Mix and sift are the dry ingredients together.

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until pale and fluffy.

Add the egg (or Curd) and mix for 1 minute.

Then add the dry mixture small amount at a time and alter it with addition of milk.

Add vanilla beans in the batter. Mix well and pour the batter in muffin mould.

Bake at 200 ºC for 30 minutes until golden brown on top. Let it cool in the oven then transfer on rack for further cooling.

Cream Cheese Frosting

½ Cup of Cream Cheese, Softened, at room temperature

 ¼ Cup Butter, Softened, at room temperature

1/2  teaspoon vanilla extract

2 Cups Powder Sugar

 Beat together the softened cream cheese and butter until creamy.

Add in the vanilla extract and beat for another 30 seconds.

Now start adding the powder sugar 1 cup at a time and beating in between each addition. You can make this frosting before and refrigerate. At the time of usages can give it a whisk and pipe.

I used a soft plastic bag for piping. Filled it up with frosting and pushed the cream in one of the corners and then tied a band to make my piping bag. Cut a moderated opening to pipe the icing on muffin. Start with outer edge and come circling till center. Drop some chocolate chips or colored vermicelli for fun.

You could see small beans in the muffin; they intensify of flavor and fragrance of muffins and make them shine.

Heart On The Plate – Literally

Last year around this time I was busy for many days thinking, evaluating and planning about a recipe in my head. It was nothing different but a cake. The difference was in the level of challenge. I wanted to raise the bar for myself not just because I wanted to challenge myself but to present a cake like never before. The cake had to be super special as it was a surprise for my dear husband on his birthday. So I decided to do a moist double layer cake with hazel nut praline filled between  the layers and chocolate ganache icing on top (Don’t worry it might sound lot of things but it’s not that complicated), and off course in heart shape ;).

Sponge Cake:

1¼ cups (185g) plain flour

6 eggs

¾ cup (165g) caster/superfine sugar

60g butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).

Grease 2 medium size heart shape cake tin (Chose the shape as you like) and line the bases with butter paper or spread very small amount of flour and spread as thin layer covering the sides completely.

 Sift the flour 3 times. Set aside.

Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8–10 minutes or until thick and pale and tripled in volume.

Sift the flour over the egg mixture and gently fold through. Use a metal spoon to fold the flour through the egg mixture with a gentle cutting, lifting and folding action.

Fold through the butter. Pour lf the mixture into each tin and bake for 25 minutes or until the cakes are springy to touch and come away from the sides of the tin. Cool on wire racks.

Ganache Recipe:

200 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons (20 grams) unsalted butter

Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized heatproof bowl. Set aside. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. (Can also heat the cream and butter in the microwave.) Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand, without stirring, for a few minutes. Stir gently (as you do not want to incorporate air into the ganache) with a spoon or whisk until smooth.

Hazel nut Praline:

50g caster/Superfine sugar

100g hazelnuts, chopped

Place the sugar and nuts into a saucepan over a medium heat and caramelise gently, stirring to coat the hazelnuts.

When the sugar turns golden brown, pour the mixture out onto a butter paper greased with butter, spread out and leave to cool. Once cooled and set, smash the praline into pieces with a rolling pin.

Soaking Syrup

¼ Cup hot water

add 2 tbs Honey in the hot water and let it cool

Now the most fun part, assemble the cake. Soak both the cakes with honey syrup. Spread a thin layer or ganache on the smoother sides of both the cakes. Keep one of the cakes upside down on a wire rack. Have the ganache facing up as this will the foundation for you cake. Spread hazel nut praline on covering it completely. Now place the other cake above it ganache facing down to make the sandwich.

Press lightly.

Cover the cake completely with remaining ganache. Start from spreading from center and then cover sides for a smoother finish.

Sprinkle remaining praline on the sides and cover the sides evenly. Leave the cake for few minutes to set and then move gently to the serving tray or cake stand.

And dark, rich, luscious and hearty cake is ready.

Do bake with heart and soul and it shows. Have a great time baking.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone...Have a great year ahead.

Eat, Pray and Love.Bake lot's of things for the one you love and make everyday of the new year a special one.

Festive warmth of Christmas, bit spiced with Spice Date Cake

The breeze is getting cold, sun is not shining that bright and streets are still filled with red, white and golden sights. They all are hinting unanimously that Christmas has just gone by and new year  is around the corner. I love all the festivals (as everyone does) because they bring the hustle bustle and zing back with them to infuse happiness and cheers in our “Running as usual” life.

My memories of Christmas and new year are of long vacations, chili winters of north India. Red was synonym of the season as  most of the kids use to sport red sweaters. Another thought that strikes in my head is the aroma of freshly baked cake and cookies. As most of the Indian households don’t expertise in baking at home so we also use to get our cakes from nearby bakery.

But now I make sure to bake a cake at home and float in warm misty aroma of my Date and spiced cake. This is a very English cake and perfect of cozy winter evenings. Hope you’ll like it.

Spicy Date Cake

Flour – 1 Cup/225 gm

Baking Soda – ¾  tsp

Bicorbonate – ¾ tsp

Butter – 100gm

Sugar – 175 gm

Date – 225 gm

Black Tea – 125 ml

Egg – 3

Vanila – 1 tsp

Spice mix (Cinnamon, Ginger, Black Paper powder) – 1 tsp

·         Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.

·         Line the tin with butter and flour.

·         Mix and sift all the dry ingredients together .

·         In prepared black tea add the chopped date and cook for couple of minutes till the dates get bit soft

·         Beat the soft butter and sugar together till its light and fluffy.

·         Then add one egg at a time and beat lightly, add all three eggs.

·         Add the spice mix and vanilla and beat.

·         Now add the date mixture and fold in the dry mixture, adding small amount at a time.

·         Pour the batter in the tin and bake for 35 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Philosophy of Smiles - Food for thought

It was like any other dusk when I just took out a pack of ready to fry snack “Potato Smiles” to accompany my cup of hot tea. I heated the oil and slide couple of Smiles in hot oil. Round, plump and frosty Smiles with a big smile on its face.A minute before they were shivering in cold. Now swimming happily after they have dived in hot oil. The splutter drew my attention to them again. The comforting frost was dying away in the heat and leaving Smiles all exposed in an unknown territory.  Everything around has changed but one thing, the happy big smile on their faces.

This get me thinking about life. Our life is also a collection of such tiny journeys, like freezer to hot oil and finally on to plate. We keep running into times when our comfort zone is challenged to enter in a unknown testing territory. Always these testing times are for a period and of course how we have dealt with them becomes foundation of something else in life.

But what is most important is how we have been in that time? Do we have the courage and endurance of Smiles. Can we keep smiling even when nothing seems right?

Most of the times the answer is “NO”.

Sipping my cup of tea, I kept hovering in the philosophy of Smiles. Philosophy of keep smiling.







Courtesy - Mccan Smiles Image

  

Vidyarthi Bhavan





Image Courtsy - Google Image







Change is the only constant thing in life.

Very well said but there are people like me who wants lot of things to remain the way they have been. Old world charm is something, I am really drawn towards. For me the stillness, tranquility and tidiness of old times are very alluring.  I feel the same charm and old world aura whenever I visit Vidyarthi Bhavan.

Vidyarthi Bhavan is a vegetarian south Indian eatery founded in 1943, right in the middle of hustle bustle of Gandhi bazaar in Bangalore.

The entrance itself hints about its heritage. The place is a moderate hall, lined up with basic tables and benches. There is this profound rule that if there is an empty seat, it will be used. You get this experience of eating with a complete stranger on the same table and sometimes running into someone interesting.  So it’s like a cozy community canteen. The hall is lashed with photographs and sketches of eminent visitors of this café who happens to be top politicians, writer, artists and actors. It gives me goose bumps by thinking that  these people has been here and have eaten the way we are going to eat.

The food is quite essentially banglorian snacks – dosa, ideli, Poodi sagu, Vada etc and finish it off with delicious filter coffee. Dosas  are super  crispy and ideli’s are so soft. Everything on the menu is mouth-watering tasty and very economically priced.

This place is able to take you to that old earthy wonderful world. That’s the reason I wish that Vidyarthi Bhavan is one of the few things which should be spared from Change.

Visit this place and you would know what I mean.

Magical Giggales

There are many special dates in our lives. Birthdays and anniversaries top the list as they come around every year. Then there are dates like when we joined our first job, when we met  " The special one”, when we brought our first car and things like that. Sometimes I really get amazed that whenever we think of these special days our heart gets filled with the same feelings as we must have experience long back. One of such days for me is when my daughter was born. It felt like magic, I could not believe that little rosy bundle of joy is my own. Touch wood!!

The time has flown by and now it was her 1st birthday and I have baked everyone’s favorite dark chocolate eggless cake for our midnight celebration (Yes now days kids don’t sleep that early). Blowing magic candles making her giggle like ringing bells and its all feels magical all over again.

It’s a simple gooey eggless cake with chocolate mousse icing.

Chocolate Mousse:

Semisweet chocolate – 150 gm

Butter – 2 tablespoons

Cold Heavy whipping cream – 1 cup

Pure vanilla extract – ½ teasp

•  Take semi sweet chocolate and butter in heat proof bowl.
• Put this bowl on top of simmering water saucepan. Basically we are melting the chocolate by double boiler technique. Make sure that water is not touching to the bottom of the top bowl. Melt the chocolate completely and stir continuously. You can do it in the microwave as well; just keep chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl and warm for 2 minutes. Remove it from double boiler/Micro wave and let it cool completely for about 15-20 minutes.
•  Meanwhile whip the cream in a bowl by using hand mixer or by hand with wire whisk, until go get soft peaks. When you pull the whisk out of cream a peak of cream will be form and it will remain there until you shake the bowl gently. At the soft peak stage cream feel firm yet soft and light like foam.
• Add vanilla extract and gently whip one more time. Don't over whip now.
• If melted chocolate mixture is cooled completely, add third of whipped cream to it
•  Fold the cream in gently by moving your spatula round and then cut that round in half. (We do not want to deflate the whipped cream.)
• Then add another third of cream and fold. Then add remaining whipped cream and fold gently. It will be very airy in texture.

Keep this in the refrigerator. Now move on to the cake. It’s a simple vegetarian cake with good taste and great texture.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

2 cups   refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾ tbsp   Soda bi-carb

1 cup   Thik curd

A few drops Vanilla essence

1 cup   Milk

¾ cup   White butter

¾ cup   Caster sugar

6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

• Make sure all the ingredient is at room temperature. This makes a lot of difference in baking.
• Preheat oven to 180*C. Grease a cake tin and dust with flour and remove excess flour.You can also line it with butter paper instead of dusting flour.
• Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
•   Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.
• Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
• Pour into well-greased cake moulds and bake on the centre rack for 8 minutes.
• Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, Demold it.

When the cake is completely cooled off, spread the mousse icing on top of the cake. Take generous amount of the icing and spread evenly from top to the sides. Try to spread in one stroke till edges to get a smoothly finished icing on the top. Though you can have fun as you want, try making small swirls and spike by a flat knife. As my cake was birthday cake, I kept it smoothly finished and filled up some mousse in the piping bag (I made at home from butter paper) and made some twisty borders at the edge. Melted some dark chocolate and filled it in another piping bag to write on the cake.

Chocolate mousse cake icing  does wonders to this simple cake. Its not just add the rich creamy lux to the cake but  also accentuate the chocolaty flavor. You can add a spoon of coffee with chocolate while melting the chocolate for making mousse. Grownups will love it even more. ..

                                        Happy Baking!!



For the love….

Baking has always enticed me, though I was a declared bad cook (by everyone who has got to try my culinary outputs). Thanks to my husband, his encouragements and his VERY good luck that I got much better since I started to cook for him ;). With this newly acquired “Ratatouille Magic”, I went back to my eternal calling of Baking.

What really excites me about baking is the drama and suspense around it. With few ingredients, you  first achieve this silky smooth harmless looking  batter which could turn you upside down with its performance after it has been out of the oven. It can reward you by giving you glodenish brown smile or can just sit flat and see you beating your head or maybe it can even ditch you by rising like a star when in the oven and then sink with your hopes when come out.  This winning and losing is so exciting that I am not ready to give up.

I have tried many recipes from the cook books and posts on internet but the issue I have faced is either you don’t get those ingredients or their specifications are not the same. Above all the oven instructions are difficult to follow as most of us don’t use very sophisticated baking equipments. So I have been testing and trying few recipes to adopt then for a basic home baker. Here I will share the recipes which has been easy to make, ingredients readily available and very successful ;)

Keep an eye for the next post….

Have a great day!!!

The Story of many stories

Welcome to my world of anecdotes. I have been a story teller ever since my existence. I like to talk and share the experiences, memories and incidences which get turn into stories as I don’t know how to cut it short.  What I like to talk about……. everything which has made me laugh, giggle, happy and excited.

Join my journey of tales about travel, food, fun and above all love of baking.

Rightly said by Julia child -

“A party without cake is really just a meeting”