Thumbprint cookies

Once again I  used the cuban short bread cookies as a reference  point for these cookies.

Ingredient:

• 75 gms  APF
• 35-40 gms butter
• A pinch of salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 15 gms sugar
• A little egg to bind (about ¼ egg)
• Jam to top
• 8-10 cashew nuts coarsely ground

Method:

• Sift  together flour, salt and b.p. Keep aside.
• Rub in the butter using your finger such they the flour resembles bread crumbs. Adding egg bind the dough together.
• Make six to seven portions of the dough. Shape each of them into even round. Using your thumb press  the centre of the dough ball. The depression created wil be filled with jam post baking.
• Prepare all the six/seven pieces this way. Baste the sides and top of each cookie with egg white and lightly roll them in the crushed cashew such that the cashew evenly coveres the cookies.
• Bake at 180 deg C for about 10 mins.
• Remove from oven. Let cool and pipe in jam of your choice.

 

Notes: I got 8 small cookies out of this recipe. I wanted to try it in small quantities, so it worked out fine for me, but you may want to double up the recipe to meet your family’s needs. I struggled a bit in shaping these cookies. No matter what I did the depression in the centre wasnt deep enough!! I have realised that it works best to do the basic  shaping  of the cookie with your hands and then to place in on a flat surface and then create teh depression. If you try making the depression while holding the cookie in your hand, you get no depression at all!!  You could use any nuts besides cashews- almonds, pistachios,walnuts.  The choice of jam is also open to you. I had strawberry (with strawberry chunks) and mango jam at home. Kissan has come up with these cool squeeze tubes for jams. If you have one of those at home, use it to pipe in the jam. Its much easier and neater than spooning in the jam. If you want to store these cookies for a while, it might be a good idea to store them without the jam. Jam tends to make the cookies soft over time, so it makes sense to store them in air tight containers without the filling.Add the filling a little before serving. I liked these cookies because they  have the right amount of sweetness and crunchiness.

Mango tart

I love mangoes. I dont think there exist too many people who dont. I mean whats not to like about the fruit? Its sweet,juicy, with a distinct taste and an lovely aroma that gently wafts through your house. Plus there are so many  varieties of the fruit that you are literally spoilt for choice. I am very easy to please when it comes to mangoes. I like ‘em all! Unlike most Bombay junta that is partial to the alphonso and quite literally avoids any other kind of mango.  Why even my boss’s driver refuses to eat any other mango!  Its either hapoos or nothing. He comes from Devgad so that could be one reason for refusing all other mangoes..but still I dont quite get the reason behind looking down at other mangoes. Anyway, let them all be mango snobs,  I will indulge in all mangoes I can lay my hands on!

Ingredients

For the crust

• 75 gms maida
• 35 gms cold butter
• 1 tsp sugar
• A pinch of baking powder
• A pinch of cinnamon powder
• Ice cold water to bind

For the filling

• 2/3 C mango puree(about 140 ml)( you can use any mango you have available.I used safeda. Just make sure you strain once you have pureed it in the mixie)
• Cream- half the quantity of mango puree or about 70 ml
• 1.5 tbsp sugar( if your mango is a bit sour, increase this to 2-2.5 tbsp)

Method:

• Mix together the maida, cinnamon powder and sugar 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, on a well dusted working surface, roll the dough 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)
• To make the filling, take any mango and puree its pulp in the mixie.
• Take a thick bottom pan and add the mango puree, cream and sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes till the mixture thicken. Ensure you stir periodically to avoid any burning. Keep aside and cool.
• When the pie case is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool. Pour the mango mixture into the pie case. Decorate with fruits of your choice.

Note: This is a fairly straight forward recipe. The only thing you need to take care of is the consistency of the filling. If its too runny it will ruin your tart. So before you get the filling off the stove just check for consistency and if it seems too thin, either add a bit of cream or keep it on the stove for a little longer till it thickens.

Zebra cake

The entire food blogging world was doing Zebra cakes sometime back. I made my version of the cake sometime around then but never got down to publishing a post on it. My Zebra cake has been a draft for long enough I think and no matter how out dated the cake is, I am publishing it now.

Ingredients:

• Eggs – 4
• Maida – 200 gms
• Sugar (powdered) - 200 gms
• Fresh cream - 200 ml (the Amul tetra pack works just fine. Else you can save up fresh cream from milk over 3-4 days to collect the requisite quantity.)
• Baking powder – 2 tsp
• Cocoa powder – 3 tbsp
• Vanilla essence a few drops

Method:

This cake requires two separately flavoured batters. To get these separate batters, you can either use the entire quantities of ingredients and proceed till the point where the flavours need to be added ( i.e.till you reach the stage of adding maida ,baking powder and essence), or you can begin the entire process by preparing two separate batters right from the beginning. I chose the latter(dont ask me why! i like to take on challenging tasks.) Using the latter method would require some amount of quick action but it is doable!

• Divide the maida, baking powder into two. Sift together 100gms of maida, 1 tsp baking powder thrice and keep aside.
• From the other measured quantity of maida remove 3 tbsp of maida and substitute with 3tbsp on cocoa powder(the weight of cocoa powder and maida is almost the same).  Add 1tsp baking powder. Sift thrice and keep aside.
• Beat the eggs till fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and beat for another 3-4 minutes. Then add the cream and beat till the batter looks fluffy and light.
• Divide this egg-sugar-cream batter into two equal parts. You don’t need to be very precise, an approximate division will do.
• In one of the egg-sugar-cream mixture, cut and fold the sieved maida and baking powder (prepared in the first step).Add a few drops of vanilla essence. This is your vanilla batter. In the second egg-sugar-cream mixture, cut and fold the maida-cocoa mixture(prepared in step 2). To ensure an even aroma, you can add 2-3 drops of vanilla essence to this also. This is your cocoa batter. Thus you now have two separate batters.
• In a greased baking tin pour begin my pouring a ladle full of the vanilla batter at the centre of the tin. Take a ladle full of the cocoa batter at the centre of the vanilla batter.  Then add another ladle of the vanilla batter at the centre of the cocoa batter. Continue alternating between the two batters like this till you use up both the batters.
• Bake at 180 deg.C for 40-45 minutes.

Source: The recipe is the same that was used by us earlier for the marble cake.

Mandira’s notes: A Zebra cake is basically a marbled cake  with exquisitely done layers. Its one of the best looking cakes (without fronsting and icing) I have seen. Alternately pouring the batter to get the design is not difficult at all. It only requires a fair amount of concentration. If you would like to see a step by step picture guide about how to pour the batters, you could go here.

What I like about the cake is obviously how it looks. But what I dont like so much is the fact that the layers of the two batters are a little thin so when you bite into a piece of cake, you kinda get a blended taste of both the flavours. In a marbled cake, the layers are thicker and so the two flavours are more easy to distinguish. Nevertheless, I would make this cake if I were to impress someone. Look at those lines! Someone is bound to think you are a pro if you can make cake that looks like that!;)

Cashew cookies

Most people,barring me, like dry fruits so this is a cookie that should appeal to the aam junta(as you can see the election fever will take sometime fade away!)

Ingredients:

• 100 gms maida
• 75 gms softened butter
• 50 gms powdered sugar
• 2 drops almond essence/1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2-3 tbsp finely chopped cashewnuts

Method:

• Sieve maida.
• Preheat oven at 200 deg C.
• Beat butter and sugar till light and creamy. Add essence and beat again.
• Add flour and mix gently to get a soft dough.
• Form into small balls, flatten lightly and roll in the chopped cashews.
• Arrange in a greased baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from tray when cool.

Notes: There is nothing wrong with these cookies except one thing- the cashew pieces tend to fall off once the cookies are baked.  Obviously just pressing them onto the cookies before baking isnt good enough. I think to remedy the situation we could baste the cookies with lightly beaten egg white and then roll them in the cashew piece. I think that would make them stick better. I am not sure how effective would using milk as a substitute of egg white be since  I normally use egg in recipes I am not sure about how effective its substitutes are.

This by the way, is the tenth cookie on this blog. Not bad I think!!:D

Hot and sour cabbage

A side dish and for a change one that doesnt contain potatoes!!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium cabbage(about 500 gms) cut into 1 “ squares
• 4 tomatoes
• ½ C grated carrot
• 3 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1 Cwater
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tbsp soya sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt

Method:

• Blanch tomatoes. Remove skin and chop.
• Heat oil, add grated carrot and chopped tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Blend in a mixer.
• Remove blended tomatoes and carrot in a bowl, add vinegar, salt, sugar,soya sauce and mix well.
• Mix cornflour in 1C water and add this to the tomato mixture.  Pour into a pan and cook on stove till the sauce is thick and translucent.
• In a greased baking dish, place the cabbage pieces.
• Pour sauce over cabbage and mix gently.
• Bake in an oven at 280 deg.C for 20-25 minutes till cabbage is done.

 

Notes:  If you are partial to flavours of  Chinese cooking you should like this. The only problem with this dish is that it seems a bit too high on the tomato content- the tomato taste is a bit over whelming. It would be a good idea to play that down a bit…but I dont quite know how… The cabbage comes out pretty crisp inspite of being baked. The crunchy texture was appealing to me. so make this dish if you can figure out a way to tone down the tomato.

apple and date cake

There is a strange joy in buying out of season ingredients and baking with them. Dont ask why, its there and there is no explaining it. Here’s an example of the very same- apple and date cake prepared with ridiculously expensive pureed ( not even whole pieces!!) apples.

Ingredients:

• 2 large apples- cored, peeled and chopped
• 1/3C or 85 gms softened butter
• 1C powdered sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp b.p.
• 1 ¾ C all purpose flour
• ½ C chopped walnuts
• 1C stoned and chopped walnuts

Methods:

• Blend apples to a puree with 4 tbsp water
• Sift flour and b.p. and keep aside.
• Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
• Alternately add eggs and sieved flour to the butter.
• Add the apple puree and mix.
• Keeping aside 1 tbsp of walnuts and dates for the top, add the rest to the cake mixture.
• Grease a 11” X9” cake tin and pour the batter in it.
• Bake at 180 degree C for 45 min to 1 hour.
• Cool, cut and serve.

Source: Nita Mehta’s Bakes and Cakes

Notes: The cakes texture is obviously heavier than the basic cake that we make.  Its  got too many things inside to not be!! But that doesnt mean its dry or that there is something wrong with the texture. Apple and date make a wonderful and combination. I have never made cake with apple puree but have read a few recipes.I was quite happy with the overall effect it had on the cake- I believe it made it softer. While the cake is soft, the chopped walnuts add just the right amount of crunch to it.  This is a recipe that you should try…..sometime in December!!

Apple clafouti

I learnt this from Arundathi ’s food blog and tried it out some weekends ago. I loved the results so I am sharing it with you here.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chopped apple
• 3 tbsp maida
• 1/4 cup Caster Sugar + more for dusting
• 3 tbsp Whole Milk + 3 tbsp Fresh Cream
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 1 Egg

Method:

• Butter for greasing the  baking dish
• Butter the baking dish and sprinkle a little  sugar. Place the cut apple over the sugar. Keep aside.
• Beat the egg till light and fluffy. Add the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla to  it. Add the flour and mix well.
• Pour the mixture over the fruit.
• Bake in a pre heated over at 200 deg.C for 20 mins. Serve plain or with ice cream.

Notes:While Arundathi used pear, I used an apple.Dint have any pears at home you see. I think you can use any hard food , the kind that wont turn into a puree when subjected to heat waves in the oven. What I loved about this recipe is that its so quick to put together!!This is probably the fastest baked dish I ever made!! The top of my clafouti got a tad overdone (try refraining from saying “AGAIN!!??”)  thats why it doesnt look as nice as it should. See Arundathi’s post to get an idea of how the clafouti should really look like. I admit the Thar desert like look  does act as a deterrent  but all you have to do it take a bite and they you dont care about how it looks. We ate it without ice cream but you could serve it with any flavour you like.

Thanks for the recipe Arundathi!:D

PS: you can look at another version of the clafouti here at Bakingobsession. Quite an expert at work there!! 

Orange apricot muffins

I am really happy to put this recipe up… coz I “invented” it..all by myself!:D

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 80 gms maida/APF
• 80 gms powdered sugar
• 80 gms softened butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 50 ml orange juice
• 2 tbsp chopped dry apricots
• 1 tbsp orange zest

Method:

• Sift maida and b.p. and keep aside.
• Beat butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.
• Add the eggs and beat till well incorporated.
• Add the maida along with the chopped apricots, juice and zest.
• Pour in a well greased muffin tray and bake at 180 deg.C for about 20 mins.

Notes: I had some apricots lying around  that I dint know what to do with. I though up this recipe on the bus to work- the traffic is dreadfully boring to watch and thinking up recipes is definately more fun that inhaling vehicular exhaust and counting cars!  The orange juice makes the muffins moist and soft and add a distinct flavour. I dont normally add juice to cake/muffin batter because I fear it would spoil the batter consistency. But done in the right amount, it yields encouraging results.

I tried making a glaze for the muffins and thats the only thing about them that flopped!! You see there is only so much “invention” you should indulge in in any given day. I had met my quota with the muffins, the glaze was therefore destined to fail. I didnt have the vagues idea about how an orange  glaze is made and so something went terribly wrong with the consistency.It was waaay too thin. And I kinda boiled the apricot piece along with the glaze and that made them too soft and caused discolouration. I am sticking to non-glazed cakes and muffins from now on.. unless you have a basic glaze recipe that works..

Potato nests

Yup, we are over doing potatoes on this blog. And we have no real reason for it. Promise to keep the potatoes away for at least 3  months right after you tell us how absolutely wonderful this potato side dish looks!

Ingredients :

• ½ C bonesl ess chicken/ crumbled paneer
• 4 large potatoes- boiled and grated
• ½ C sliced mushrooms
• 4 tbsp softened butter
• 2 tbsp milk
• A few sprigs of coriander
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Mash  the boiled potatoes till smooth.
• Add in 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp milk and the seasoning.
• With your hands or with the help of a katori/vati shape into small nests.
• Cover the baking tray with greased aluminium foil. Place the nests on it. Bake at 200 deg.C for 15- 20 mins, till the nests are set.
• Melt 1 tbsp butter and sauté the chicken/paneer till golden.  Add some water and cook till done (in the case of paneer the cover and cook step can be skipped).
• Sauté mushrooms and add to the chicken/paneer.
• Fill the mushroom-chicken/paneer filling in the nests, garnish with coriander and serve.

Source:Nita Mehta’s Bakes and Cakes

Notes: The humble potato is probably the most versitile sabzi I have  ever met. Falling short of cauliflower in  for dinner? Throw in some potatoes to increase teh quantity of the sabzi.  Dint get time to go vegetable shopping this week? Look around, there are sure to be some potatoes and onions around- throw them together to make a simple vegetable and tide over the vegetable drought. There are  millions of ways to cook and serve potatoes- this recipe is just one of the many that you will find on the blogosphere. What do I like about it?  Its not too complicated to do and its looks very good. The original recipe asks for chicken. I subsituted it with paneer with sauted grated carrots and spring onions. You could use any kind of filling- mushrooms, sauted bell peppers and onions, baby corn,shredded spinach and olives. Basically anything you fancy.

Rice aubergine casserole

 A slighty time consuming recipe.. but one  that yields yummy results.

Ingredients:

• 1 C rice
• 2 bay leave
• 1 tsp shahi jeera
• 1 large brinjal/aubergine cut into 1” piece
• 1 large capsicum cut into ½ “ pieces
• Oil for frying

Red sauce

• 2 tbsp oil
• 11/2 oinion chopped finely
• 4 large tomatoes pureed
• ½ tsp red chilli pwd
• ½ tsp suage
• 11/2 tsp salt

Cheese sauce

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp maide
• 2 C milk
• 2 cheese cubes grated
• ¾  tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper

Method:

• Sprinkle 4.4 tsp salt on the brinjal pieces and leave for ½ hour ro sweat. Pat dry with a kitchen towel. Heat oil and deep fry till golden brown.
• Boil rice in 5 C water with salt, bay leaves and shahi jeera. Cook till tender. Drain excess water and keep aside to cool.
• To prepare the red sauce, heat oil, sauté chopped onions toll light brown. Add tomato puree, salt, red chilli, sugar and oregano. Cook for about 5 mins till slightly thick. Remove from heat and keep aside.
• For the cheese sauce, heat butter in a pan, add the maida and stir on low heat for  about a minute. Add milk stirring continuously till it comes to a boil. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, add seasoning and grated cheese. The sauce should be thin in consistency.
• To assemble, spread half the rice in an oven proof dish. Spread half the aubergine and capsicum on it.  Top with ½ the  red sauce and ½ the cheese sauce.
• Spread the next layer of rice. Add brinjals, capsicum, top with the two sauces.
• Cover dish with aluminium foil and bake in a preheated oven for 10 mins at 200 deg.C.
• Serve hot.(Serves 4)

Notes:   To avoid deep frying the aubergine pieces, I shallow fried them on a non stick pan.  It doesnt turn out as crisp as it would have had it been deep fried but it gets cooked just fine. The original recipe doesnt ask you to cook the capsicum pieces butI have a mortal fear of serving kachha khana,  so  I sauted the capsicum in 1/2 a tsp of oil before adding it to the dish.  This recipe made me realise one thing- white sauce and rice make a great combo! The white sauce makes the rice creamy and rich.  The texture you get is somewhat like risotto.. at least to me it tasted like risotto and because I love risotto I gave this recipe a doubel thumbs up!:D