Brocolli-zucchini casserole
October 30, 2009 at 11:16 am | In main dish | 5 CommentsTags: broccoli, healthy, salt and pepper, wheat flour, zucchini
Here’s another one in the “lets bake healthy” campaign- a simple vegetable casserole.
Ingredients:
- 1 head of broccoli(medium in size)
- 1 zucchini (medium in size)
- 1 small onion
- 4-5 pods of garlic
- 1 small tomato
- 1 ½ -2 C of milk
- 1 ½ -2 tbsp wheat wheat flour
- 1 egg(hard boiled)
- 2 cubes of cheese(grated and totally optional
) - ½ C bread crumbs
- A little butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Wash and chop the broccoli and zucchini. Finely cut the onion and garlic.
- In a non stick pan, heat ½ tsp oil. Sauté the onion and garlic in the hot oil till lightly brown. Add the cut broccoli and zucchini, add salt, cover and cook till tender.
- To make the white sauce, stir in the wheat flour/aata in a cold cup of milk. You will need to add a little more that if you want a thicker sauce. This consistency works fine for me but please use your discretion to get the just-right- consistency for your sauce. Pour the milk in a saucepan and cook it till it thicken. Add salt and pepper. Allow to cool slightly. If you are using cheese, add it to the sauce at this stage.
- Add the cooked broccoli and zucchini to the sauce.
- Pour into an oven proof dish. Place thin slices of tomato and the hard boiled egg over the sauce and vegetables. Cover with bread crumbs. Dot the bread crumb cover with butter. Bake in the oven at 180 deg.C for 10 -12 minutes till the bread crumb cover in nice and crisp and the tomato slices cooked.
- Serve with soup and bread.
Notes:
This is the first time I tried making white sauce with atta instead of all purpose flour
and I have to admit, you can hardly tell the difference. There is a minor difference in the colour of the sauce but other than that you cant even tell you have used atta. I don’t know if eating 2 tbsp of atta instead of maida makes any drastic difference to your health status, but it does feel good to be doing something in the name of good health!
Make sure you peal the zucchini before you cook it. If you don’t, it will lend a bitter taste to your dish and you will not like that! I learnt this the hard way.
There is no denying that adding cheese makes the dish richer and tastier.But I have also realised that omitting the cheese doesn’t make any great difference. The casserole tastes fine even without the cheese.May be the sauce isnt as creamy as it is with the cheese, but in the larger objective of consuming less calories, whats a little creaminess, I ask you? 
What vegetables you add to the sauce is totally up to you. After discovering the success of the “atta sauce”, I have made many variations of this casserole- with corn, spinach, paneer, with cheese, without cheese, with bread crumbs and without.
After making white sauce with atta, next on agenda- attempting a cake with aata!
Gujia- celebrating Diwali the weight control way!
October 19, 2009 at 4:07 pm | In Uncategorized | 3 CommentsI shouldn’t take any credit for this recipe. The original recipe I got off Anita’s blog and the idea to tweak the recipe came for my mother. I only provided the labour that churned out the gujias.;)
I associate gujia (or karanji as it is called in Maharashtra) with Diwali. Its a popular mithai on Holi too but my grandmother used to make it on Diwali so in my mind Diwali=gujia. Of course as a child I was only interested in eating the gujia and never bothered to ask her what she put in it or how she made it. All iIknew was it had khoya(or mawa) in it and it was fried.
I have eaten shop bought gujias in Bombay and all of them have a good amount of coconut. I admit, living in this city has changed my tastes. I actually like coconut in my food now! I don’t think my grandmother ever put coconut in her gujia.Which self respecting north Indian would, I ask you? But I now like the flavour and aroma of coconut so when I read this recipe on Anita’s blog , I had to try it out. I tried a small batch with the recipe exactly as it apprears on her blog. The gujias turned out nice but I found the maida cover wasn’t as crisp as my grandmother’s used to be. May be I had done something wrong while kneading the dough or frying the gujia. My mom tasted a gujia and first suggested I reduce the amount of oil in the maida. A few seconds later she came up with this brilliant idea- “Why don’t you bake it?” We are on a weight reduction /maintenance programme at home and the festive season is really taking its toll. Its nice to keep saying no to all the mithais and dryfruits that come your way but every once in a while your resolve shatters shakes and you want to reach out to that kaju katli. Baking the gujias would use much lesser oil that deep frying so I set out to give baked gujias a try. If we can make baked samosa, why cant we make baked gujias?
If you want to make gujias the traditional way head over to Anita’s blog. I am sharing here the baked version of her gujias.
Ingredients:
for the cover-
- 1C maida
- 2tbsp ghee
- a pinch of salt
for the stuffing-
( I basically follow Anita’s recipe proportions, just reduce it to get 1-1 1/4C of total ready stuffing)
- 1/4 C khoya
- 1/4C sugar
- 1/2C dessicated coconut
- 4-5 elaichis/cardamom pounded
- 1/8 C chopped dry fruits
Method-
- In a large bowl sift the maida and the salt. Rub in the ghee. Using small quantities of water, knead into a farily stiff dough. The dough shouldnt be so stiff that you cant roll it easily.Keep aside.
- In a kadhai (if you have a non stick, even better) add the khoya, coconut and sugar. Cook on slow heat for 7-8 minutes. Remove from fire. Add dry fruits and cardamom.
- Now for the not-so easy part. Make small balls of the dough(like we do for making chapatis, but make them much smaller), roll each ball into a circular disc, place the khoya-coconut mixture in the centre and fold the disc into half such that you get a semi-circular shape. Its quite a tricky business to give the traditional crickly edge. I really struggled with this one.I have seen my grandmother do it a hundred times so I thought it will be easy. Its not.(Anita I have new found respect for you after seeing how neat your gujias are!) So I found a simpler way to do it. Once you have placed the stuffing in the centre and wet the edge of the rolled out dough disc with a little water. Now when you fold the disc into half, it will stick easily. You can use a fork to press down the edges and get some sort of a design.
- Line a baking tray with lightly greased paper. Place the gujias on it.Bake at 180 deg.C for about 10 minutes, till the gujias take on an even golden brown colour.
- My gujias were larger in size than they should have been and I got 6 large gujias. If you make smaller, daintier looking gujias you should be able to get 9-10 pieces.
Notes: The baked gujias were a hit! They tasted really good and we indugled without guilt. 
I made the khoya for the gujias myself. I suggest you dont do that, unless you are bored out of your mind or over ambitious as I strangely was that day. Making khoya is not rocket science so you can do it if you want to. But it is very time consuming. You have to bring milk to a boil and let it simmer endlessly till it reduces so much that it becomes khoya. While the milk simmers dont forget to stir frequently. I used 1 l whole milk and got about 1 C of khoya. Though I am proud that I was able to make the khoya at home, to be honestly all that stirring was just very tiring. Next time I am going to buy it from some shop and make my life easier!
I could do with neater looking gujias but I am not cribbing. May be they dont look as good as they are supposed to, but they taste great! The neater look is only going to come with practice. For a first time effort, I am quite happy.
This us a special post for two reasons-a- we’ve never done a Diwali post on this blog before and -b- this post is for baby A. You know who you are and you know you are special. Welcome to our world. You have no idea how much happiness, fun and laughter awaits you!!:)
Chocolate Souffle- in another avatar
September 6, 2009 at 12:37 pm | In souffle | 7 CommentsTags: chocolate, hot
We’ve done chocolate souffle earlier here. And though that recipe was nice, this one is nicer!:) I took this recipe from Bakingbites and made a few changes. Changes made have been written in italics.
Ingredients
- 5 ounces dark chocolate (65-72%), chopped- I used a bar of cooking chocolate that I had home. I have no idea of what the proportion of cocoa was in it.
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp kahlua or brandy (or milk)- I used milk cause I had no brandy or kahlua at home.
- 2 tsp vanilla extract- I subsituted it with vanilla essence.
- 1 tbsp all purpose flour
- 4 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
Method
- Preheat oven to 375F. Thats about 190 deg.C
- Lightly butter 4 6-oz. ramekins and coat with sugar. If you dont have any fancy ramekins available, simply use a slightly tall katori, as I did.
- Melt the chocolate in a large mixing bowl and whisk together with sugar, kahlua ( or milk) and vanilla extract(or essence as in my case). The resultant mixture will be thick and pasty.Beat in the egg yolks one at a time and follow it with the flour.
- In a bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Whisk 1/3 of beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in remaining egg whites in two additions, till the mixture is uniform.
- Divide evenly into prepared ramekins and wipe edges to ensure they are clean. This helps the souffles get an even rise. Place ramekins in the oven.
- Bake for about 15 minutes, until souffles are well-risen and set at the edges.
- Serve immediately.Makes 4.
There is no denying that there is a definite difference in the outcome between using cocoa powder and chocolate to the souffle. Along with the extra calories, the chocolate lends a creamier, richer texture to the souffle. But if this is an occassional treat, as it is bound to be, its well worth the surplus calories. The texture and taste is most certainly better than the one I got from the last recipe. I loved this souffle and so did everyone else at home.
There is no real trick to get the recipe right. You just need to beat the egg white till stiff- thats a slightly time consuming activity but really, its not rocket science! A little practice and you can get it right. If you like you could look up hints on beating egg whites at bakingbites.
I used whatever chocolate I had at hand. I dint(and still dont) know what proportion of cocoa it contained.May be a higher cocoa content chocolate would have made some difference to souffle, but I was more than happy with the result I got. Like with all other hot souffle, you need to serve this as soon as you get it out of the oven. It tends to sink rapidly and you wouldnt want to serve a falt, sunken souffle.
I made half the recipe and I got exactly two katoris of souffle.
Just when I had returned from my trip, I am all set for another one. This time I am headed to Mount Abu.Should be back in the blogging world by mid-week.
My experiments with ..
August 21, 2009 at 10:18 pm | In breads | 5 Comments..the french roll. Not the truth. I am not evolved enough to exprement with that as yet. Bread will work just fine for me. At least for right now.
The basic french bread roll recipe that had featured on this blog sometime back, works like magic. If you follow the instructions and proportions properly, its what I would call a foolproof recipe. It was the first bread that I oculd make right and so it shall always be special to me. The only think I dint like about that recipe was the fact that it was all maida. Now I dont have that problem with the recipe either. I substituted half the maida quantity with atta and it gave me a nice, soft, wholesome bread that didnot have the heaviness associated with all wholewheat bread and was healthy too!
I made the 50-50 proportion bread twice- once it took the avtar of masala buns loaded with fresh chopped coriander, garlic, spring oinions and capsicum and was served with fruits and egg for breakfast.
The second avtar was inspired by the Foccacia we made earlier with the bread being topped with a good dose of black olives, garlic,capsicum and oregano.Both the breads turned out well but if you me my personal favourite, it would have to be the masala bun-nothing beats the flavour of fresh coriander and the quantities I added ensured each bite had ample quantities.
I am going to be away from the blog for ten days or so. I am traveling for work. Will see you guys soon!
Beans-cauliflower casserole
August 18, 2009 at 11:00 am | In main dish | 9 CommentsTags: cauliflower, cheese, kidney beans, pepper, rajma, savory
Typically when I try to bake vegetables, which isnt often to begin with, I end up tossing them into a white sauce , grating a lot some sinful cheese over them and popping them in the oven for a few minutes. Thats why I like this recipe- it has an ample amount of cheese but the sauce is tomato based. Quite a nice change from the over done white sauce , if you ask me.
Ingredients:
- 1/2C kidney beans/rajma soaked overnight
- 1 onions (chopped)
- 3 tomatoes(250 gms) -blanched, peeled and chopped
- 4Cfinely chopped cauliflower
- 21/2tbsp tomato ketchup
- 1tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 C (150gms) grated cheese
- 1/2C cream
- 2tbsp oil
- salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Pressure cook rajma in 2C water and 1/2tsp salt.Drain excess water after pressure cooking.
- Fry the onions and cauliflower in a little oil till the onions turn golden and the cauliflower is cooked.Add salt and pepper.
- Add tomatoes,ketchup, sauce,rajma to the onion and cauliflower.Check for salt.
- Remove from stove.Add half the grated cheese and mix.
- Trasfer to a baking dish. Top with a mixture of the remaining cheese and cream.Add some salt and pepper to the cheese-cream mixture if you feel the need.
- Bake at 180 deg.C for about 20 mins.
Source: Nita Mehta’s Bakes and Cakes
Notes: It doesnt get any more nutritious than this. You have a source of proteins and a source of vitamins and minerals. All you need is to add a source of carbs (like may be from brown bread) and you have yourself a fairly balanced meal. I had made this dish for dinner when I was home alone one day. The copious quantities I ended up making forced me to eat this without any accompaniments but I think a clear soup and a slice or two of bread would have gone well with it. The tomato base was a refreshing change from the white sauce. I dint have any Worcestershire sauce and so I skipped that entirely and I dont know how much difference that made in the overall taste- I am not particularly well versed with the taste of Worcestershire!Though pepper is normally a great seasoning to use, I found this dish slightly lacking on the seasoning front.I mean it tastes fine but for the Indian palette, used to an over-dose of masalas, it was a little on the bland side. It might have been a good idea to add some garlic at the stage when onions and caulifower was being sauted and cooked.
Will wonders never cease?
August 14, 2009 at 11:17 am | In Uncategorized | 6 CommentsBakingbuddies has been awarded. Imagine that! Three wonderful awards bestowed upon us by Parita. I speak for Lakshmi and myself when I say this, Parita- we are mighty glad on receiving the awards. This is, after all, the first time our blog has received any award! A big thank you is therefore be very much in order.THANK YOU!:)
Now moving on to the tag. The tag and the awards are a package deal. Consider yourself tagged people, if you make it to the award list! s. I am going to go with the rules exactly as mentioned by Parita.
Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag eight or ten other people.
1.What is your current obsession?
This one is obvious. Baking.But I think I need a new one now!
2. What are you wearing today?
A blue-green kurta and an off white churidar.
3. What’s for dinner?
Ask the mother. I dont normally cook dinner, she does. It will mostly be the usual dal-roti-sabzi.
4. What’s the last thing you bought?
2 litres of milk. Bought last evening on my way back home.
5. What are you listening to right now?
A bunch of people singing “Happy birthday to you” to their very embarrassed looking colleague.
6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
I love her blog. She posts interesting recipes. And is what I would call a kind and considerate blogger. Ask the silliest questions, you still get your answers!
7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Somewhere in India where it is quiet, peaceful and green. Far from the city but not so far that I miss out on all the conveniences!
8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
If we are talking clothes, then skirts.
9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
May be to the mountains in HP.
10. Which language do you want to learn?
Oh there are hundreds!! Lets start with my mother tongue! Besides that, Tamil would make it to the wish list as would French.
11. Who do you want to meet right now?
The boss. No seriously. I have work I need to finish up with her and my appointment has got cancelled enough number of times already.
12. What is your favorite colour?
It keeps changing all the time. Sometime back it was pink. Now its blue.
13. What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?
A sky blue chikan kurta.
14. What is your dream job?
This one is hard to answer. I terms of my profession, I think I am exactly where I would have liked to be. In terms of the present job, err, I could do better! But still, I think social work is ,y true calling.
15. What’s your favourite magazine?
Not much of a magazine reader. I used to read the Reader’s Digest cover to cover a few years back. Havent really picked up a magazine since then.
16. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
A holiday!!!!For sure!!
17. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
I am no person to make comments on fashion. But there are somethings people wear that I dont really understand. Skin tight jeans for example.
18. Who are your style icons?
Dont have any.
19. Describe your personal style?
Casual. And to come extent conservative.
21. What are your favourite movies?
Dont ask me this!! I am not a movie buff. At the top of my head I can come up with there-Golmal, The Sound of Music,Taare Zameen Par, Ghost,Dirty Dancing. Yes, I am out dated.
22. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
Stylign tips? What are those?
23. Coffee or tea?
Depends on the mood, but its mostly tea.
24. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Stop eating.Sulk. Howl.Talk it out.
25. What is the meaning of your name?
Its derived out of the word “mandir”
26. Which other blogs you love visiting?
All of then are great blogs with wonderful recipes. And all the bloggers are awarded!:)
Psssst. If as a rule you dont do tags, feel free to chuck this one.
27. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?
Ummmm…Caramel custard.Edited to add: Halwa! How could I have forgotten to mention this!! Sheesh!
28. Favorite Season?
Dont look so surprise, I really do like the summers.
29.Which is your dream destination?
30: Which is your favorite international cuisine ?
Indo chinese and Italian.
Parita’s additional Question: Your favorite kitchen tool?
The beater!
And now for my questions
What is the one dish that you have tried and tried and still now managed to get right?
And no, you cant ask me to answer that question for you.A – because thats the rule of the tag and b-because my list would be so long, that it would have to be turned into a post by itself!
Jeera cookies
August 4, 2009 at 9:35 am | In cookies | 14 CommentsTags: ajwain, jeera, salt, sugar
One of the most extensively used spice in our kitchen is the humble jeera.We add it to sundry vegetables, dals and powder it to sprinkle it over our dahi.
Ingredients:
- 120 gms maida/APF
- 85 gms butter
- 20 gms sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp jeera(cumin seeds)
- 1/2 tsp ajwain(carom seeds)
Method:
- Preheat oven at 180 deg.C
- Beat butter,sugar and salt till light and fluffy.
- Sieve flour. Add jeera and ajwain to it.
- Add flour to the butter mixture and mix gently to get a soft dough. Using your hands works best for this.
- Form dough into small balls. Flatten the top of each ball with a fork. Sprikle a few seeds of jeera on top and press them very gently into the dough.
- Line a baking tray with greased butter paper/aluminium foil. Place biscuits and bake for 15-20 mins.
Source: Nita Mehta’s Bakes and cakes.
Notes: I particularly like the combination of sweet and salty in this cookie. I found the proportion of the two to be just right. If you want to make a salty jeera cookie, you can simply delete the sugar from the recipe. You can do the same with ajwain if you dont like it. Though the recipe suggests sprinkling a little cumin on top of the cookies before popping them in the oven,my habit of skip reading made me miss that line. I realised that only after the cookies were baked. Cumin for decoration would have added that extra touch. But thats not to say the cookies tasted any worse just coz they dint have cumin sprinkled over! Actually, if you look carefully, you will be able to notice one or two cumin seeds sitting on top of the cookies. :p The dough is slightly on the hard side, so its not very easy to roll it. It works best to bake small balls of the dough(like you make for rotis) and flatten them between your palms.
Apple pie
July 27, 2009 at 10:23 pm | In pies & tarts | 12 CommentsTags: apple, cinnamon, pie crust
Parita put up her recipe for apple pie recently. It made me root through my drafts and dig out mine. I had made this last winter (!) and dint post it for reasons unknown. Actually the reasons, or rather the reason is know and shall be revealed soon.
I made one serving of the pie and here is the recipe for it.
Ingredients:
For the crust
- 100 gms maida
- 50 gms cold butter
- A pinch of baking power
- A pinch of salt
- Ice cold water to bind
For the filling
- 1 ½ a apples, peeled ,cored and chopped into pieces
- 2 tbsp sugar
- ¼ tsp cinnamon powder
- A few drops of lemon juice
Method:
- Mix together the maida, salt and baking powder in a bowl.
- Using your finger tips rub in the cold butter till it resembles bread crumbs. With ice cold water and bind it all together gently to make a dough. Cover with a wet cloth and refrigerate for half an hour or so.
- Remove dough from fridge, keeping aside about ¼ th of the dough, roll the remaining on a well dusted working surface to an even thickness. Gently life and place it in the baking dish ensuring all side are properly covered. Roll a rolling pin lightly on the edge of your baking dish to cut away the superfluous dough.
- Prick the base of the pie case before putting it in the oven and baking it at 180 deg. C for about 15 minutes(till its light brown in colour). Remove from oven and cool.
- Sprinkle the cinnamon powder and sugar and lemon juice over the cut apple pieces. Using your finger tips mix well and ensure all pieces are well covered with sugar and cinnamon.
- Place the pieces in the pie case in two or three layers. Keep aside.
- Use the dough that had been kept aside to make the top cover of the pie. Roll it out and cut it into strips and place these in a criss cross manner over the apple-filled pie. Alternately cut interesting shapes from the dough and use these to cover the apples.
- To bake the top crust, place the pie in an oven and bake at 180 deg.C for about 15 mins.
- Serve hot or cold. I like it hot!
Notes: I had made the effort of preparing and blogging about the apple pie long back when I dint have this baking blog. I have used the same recipe this time around. The only difference between then and now is that with all the baking practice, I am much faster at it than I used to be! I liked the end result of the pie but my mother wasnt very enthusiastic about it. As it turns out, she likes a lot of apple in her pie. Now if you chop your apples into pieces, they arent really going to fill your pie up with so much apples (no matter how well you pack them in) that you taste more apple than pie crust when you take a bite. So her verdict was that the pie was ok enough but didnt have the amount of apple she thought was necessary. I think this is nature’s way of getting even with me. As a child I always complained to my mother that her aloo paranthas werent stuffed with enough aloos. I wanted there to be a burst of aloo in each morcel I ate. Friend who ate my tiffin at school considered the parathas just fine. That could be an explanation as to why they busied themselves in polish off my parathas while I cribbed and fussed and ate very little. My mother tried to explain to me on numerous occassions that there is only so much potato you can stuff in the paratha before it becomes un-rollable. I continued sulking nevertheless.
Now its my mother’s turn to say the “stuffing isnt enough.” She hinted I might want to grate the apples and add them to the pie in that form. You can add more apple than way. But I wasnt too sure of thats a good idea. Wont the apples release juice and the pie get all soggy? It was on my agenda to try a tiny pie with grated apple so I could be a compare-n-contrast type of post. The grated apple pie never happened and thats why the apple pie post never got published. As things stand right now apples cost a bomb in the market. There is no way I am going to buy a dozen to grate and cook them! Version -2 of the pie is just going to have to wait till winter. Meanwhile, if you have ever used grated apples in your pie, be kind and share your experience with me- disasters, successes, whatever.
Lemon chiffon cake
July 23, 2009 at 11:13 am | In cakes | 8 CommentsTags: chiffon, lemon, light
I became an ardent fan of Anita’s blog, A Mad Tea Party after we tried her zamodod at home some time back. We’ve made the zamodod a hundred times since then.I tried her chiffon cake a few weekends back. She’s adapted her recipe from Bakign bites but I followed her recipe exactly, except for the fact that I halved it. A 6 egg cake seemed too big for my small family. You can read her original here.
Ingredients:
- 2 ¼ C sifted APF
- 1 ¼ Cpowdered sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ C milk
- 5 tbsp refined peanut oil
- zest and juice of 2 lemons
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla essence
- 6 eggs, separated
Method:
- Preheat oven to 160 deg.C.
- Keeping aside 2 tbsp of sugar, mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.
- In another bowl mix the yolks, oil, vanilla essence, lemon juice and zest and milk. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients mixture. Mix well till well mixed.
- In another dry bowl beat the egg whites till very fluffy. Add 2 tbsp of sugar kept aside of sugar and beat till stiff peaks form. Using a metal spoon, gently fold half of the egg whites into the cake batter. Make sure it is thoroughly mixed. Fold in the remaining egg whites.
- Pour into a prepared baking tin& bake for 45-60 minutes.
Notes: I like lemon flavour in general-in cakes, tarts, whatever. That was one reason for wanting to try out this cake. That and the fact that I had never made a chiffon cake before. Beating the egg whites is not as hard as is often made out to be. What I find hard is folding it in the rest of the batter! Thats coz you have to be very gentle and patient while you are at it. I like cakes in which you can beat it all in! But really, if you put your mind to it, folding in is neither difficult nor very time consuming. The chiffon cake’s texture is very different from a pound cake. And if you are used to eating only pound cakes, you might say this cake tastes a bit strange. The first time I bit into a piece, I took a while to figure out how it tasted like the usual cake, yet tasted different. By bite 3 I was over the figuring-out phase and into the enjoying-the-munching phase. My colleauge however, never moved from one phase to the next. She kept saying “This is not your usual cake. Your usual cake is nice.. this is…umm…different…. is this kaccha?No? it tastes different.” I guess when she said “tastes” she actaully meant “felt”. Chiffon cakes do have a distinct texture thats hard to describe. You have to eat it to know for yourself. Based on my experience and that of my colleague, I think I should issue this warning- if you havent been exposed to chiffon cakes before, bite into one with an open, accepting mind. Its like trying out any other new food. You take some time to get used to the flavour and the texture but essentially it is a cake that looks and tastes just fine! Unlike angel cakes- I have tried those one and I think they just taste and feel so weird!:P
I made half the original quantity but it still took me about 50 mins to bake it completely. I served my cake plain but you could pair it up with ice cream as suggested by Anita or cover the cake with a layer of chocolate frosting like her.
Oh,by the way, I am so done with cakes for now. I have done so many cakes that they are no longer fun. So we arent going to do cakes for a while here. Unless you guys have some absolutely great recipe that you think I shouldnt miss…
Chocolate souffle
July 6, 2009 at 2:12 pm | In souffle | 7 CommentsWe dont do souffles very often here. Heres our effort to add another simple recipe of chocolate souffle to our very restricted repertoire.
Ingredients:
- 1T or 12 gms Butter
- 2T 12 gms APF
- 1/4Cor 60 ml milk
- 40 gms Castor sugar
- 1 ½ Egg yolk
- 1 ½ Egg white
- 30 gms unsweetened chocolate or 2T cocoa
- 30 ml milk
Method:
- Set oven at 180 deg.C
- Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in maida and cook for 1-2 mins.
- Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly and bring to a boil. Cool for 2-3 mins till thick. Remove from heat.
- Stir in the unsweetened chocolate or cocoa mixed with 30 ml milk. Add this to the maida-milk mixture.
- Allow this mixture to cool slightly and beat in the egg yolk.
- Whisk the egg white separately till stiff. Fold the egg white into the cocoa-egg yolk mixture gently.
- Spoon into a oven proof dish and bake at 180 deg.C for 20 mins.
- Serve immediately as the soufflé sinks when removed from the oven.
Source: Basic food preparation
Notes: Just like the last souffle, this too is a hot souffle that sinks really fast once its out of the oven. Other than that there isnt anything I have against this simple to make, no frills souffle. I dont know if there is a way to keep the souffle from collapsing, besides serving it straight out of the oven! I used to think I do something wrong that makes my souffles sink but whatever little literature I have read on it (including referring to good old wikipedia), tells me all souffles sink a few minutes after they leave the oven. .. even if you do everything right. So it isnt me afterall!! If you have a pretty ramekin to bake and serve in, use it. I dont, so I spooned it out of the vessel and served it on a plate.
This recipe serves 1-2. Double or triple up as per your requirements.
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