Molten Lava Cake - Oozy surprise

Welcome to chocolate indulgence. Molten lava cupcake is all about super rich chocolate taste and an encapsulated molten center in its super gooey texture.

Let me begin with asking you a question. Do you like surprises?

Who does not!!! And that’s exactly I adore about lava cup cake. Best enjoyed just out of oven and when you cut into it and molten chocolate oozes out….Yummmm!!

I don’t know why but I just feel excited every single time. The joy get triple fold when your home baked lava cup cake behaves the same. I have to admit I used to intermediated thinking about how the bake such a thing. I have gone through lot of recipes of lava cake but I was just scared to try them as most of them are too technical for me. Then I stumbled upon this super duper simple recipe…and wasted no time in embracing it my own. Simple chocolate cake better play with some simple trick and Viola!!! Done.

Try this out…take my words you will love it.

¼ cup   Chocolate chips

¼ cup   Cherry filling

2 cups   Refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾tbsp   Sodabi-carb
1cup   curd
A few drops  Vanilla essence
1cup   Milk
¾cup   White butter
¾cup   Caster sugar
6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 170*C. Grease a cake tin and line it with butter paper. Mix the chocolate chips with cherry filling and keep aside.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
3. Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.

4. Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
5. Pour into well-greased muffin moulds and spoon chocolate chips & cherry filling mixture in the centre and bake on the center rack for 8 minutes.
6. Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, demould it and serve

Baked Pasta : A small little treat anytime any day

Finally, I am back. Yes after such a long time, today I am able to let me thoughts flow and writing it down. Its kind of over whelming at this point. How do I structure my thought to let you know where I have been all this while and what all I did.

First thing first, thank you so much everyone who has drop by my posts. I thought my abandoned blog must be deserted. But, no some many of you have being dropping by and seriously that has given it a new lease of life.

So what happened? I went through a very tough time personally as well professionally. But through I this learnt few very important lessons, which I will be sharing one by one. I got this really difficult project at work, which challenged all my learnings and skills. At one point I thought seriously am I really good at what I am doing? Do I really have it in me? Kind of questions. I started doubting myself as it was pushing me to the edge to excel. I somehow sail through but biggest take away was, I truly love my profession J

Then came bad health amidst of storm of crazy work schedule. I always say “in my head, I am still 22”. But body does not hear that unless you take care of it and that’s exactly I have been doing. Juggling through hundreds of things, ignoring signal that I need to slow down and take care. Anyway all that is bygone and with my newly acquired knowledge I am trying to do what I love, Bake and write.

Today I am sharing a very simple classic dish,over simplified to suite all of us – Bake pasta, to give a little treat to yourself when we don’t have much time to cook yet want to enjoy a little something.

Everyone cooks pasta, and everyone has that something to be spot on when it comes to the dish. So for me it “Al Dante”. Perfectly cooked pasta. I hate overcooked pasta to the core. So what the trick to have it perfect every time. For me simple –bubbling boiling water, an eye for2-3 mint when pasta is cooking and sprinkle of olive pit just after draining. What is it for you? Let me know.

All you need:

1 Cup Pasta (any shape you like but Penne is great for baking as it absorbs lot of sauce)

4 Cup water

3 Tablespoon Olive oil

3 Tomato (chopped and sliced)

6 garlic Cloves

1 cup Milk

½ table spoon plain flour

1/2 cup grated cheese

½ cup onion chopped

Salt, Paper and Herbs to taste

1 sage leaf

1 table spoon butter

1.       Boil water and add a pinch of salt. Add pasta and cook it for 2-3 min. Cook it till it’s cooked but still has a slight raw center. Drain and add olive oil. Keep aside

2.       Boil milk in a heavy base pan with 1 spoon chopped onion and sage leaf for 15 min and strain the milk.

3.       In a pan, warm butter and add flour. Cook for 2 min and add milk while stirring. Make sure there are no lumps in the mixture. Add Cheese and cook for 1 min, add salt and paper to your taste.

4.       Pre-heat oven at 200 degree C. Grease a baking tine with butter. Arrange chopped tomato, sprinkle chopped onion and garlic. Pour half of the white sauce.Drizzle some olive oil. Over this layer with half of cooked pasta and sprinkle some cheese and herbs. I chose thyme, go for what you like. Repeat the process. Now place remaining tomatoes and cheese and give a good sprinkle of olive oil, salt and paper.

5.       Bake for 30 min at 200 degree C unless cheese melts and turn brown.

Serve warm and enjoy a happy meal with a smile.

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.