Happy Bday Ram
Posted on: October 1, 2010
This time my baking wasnt a success. I replaced eggs with Flax seed, the cake wasnt very moist like the previous ones I had baked and it didnt taste all that gud either..
Sorry Ram maybe we can have a better cake for Veda’s birthday 🙂
Banana Dosa / Pancake
Posted on: September 28, 2010
- In: Breakfast items | Culinary | Snacks
- Leave a Comment
The taste of banana dosa /പഴം മൈദ ദോശ, reminds me of banana fritters / പഴം പൊരി / ഏത്തക്ക അപ്പം. I prepare dosas with apple, plum, pear etc. Its easy to cook and can be had plain or with any curry or chutney.
Recipe :
All purpose Flour/ maida – 1 cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Brown sugar – 3 tblsp
Coconut scraped- 2 tblsp
Banana – 2 smashed
Water – 3/4 cup approx
Vanilla essence – 1tsp
Cinnamon powder- 1/2 tsp
Salt – a pinch
- mix all ingredients well
- if very thick add a little more water
- heat a non stick pan and pour batter and spread out in circles
- apply ghee. If skipping on ghee, make sure u sprinkle water on the pan, before pouring batter, else it tends to stick to pan.
- cook on both sides
- serve hot with chutney, curry or serve with coconut and sugar.
Butter Chicken
Posted on: September 21, 2010
- In: Culinary | Main Dishes
- 1 Comment
Location: Culinary / Main-dishes / Butter Chicken
While I was in Dubai, ‘KFC’ and butter-chicken from ‘Sind Punjab restaurant’ used to be my fav. My mom had tried many recipes for Butter chicken but nothing tasted close to that from ‘Sind Punjab’.
One day, one of my seniors, from school in NIMS mentioned, they had prepared butter chicken for their home-science class. So I noted down the recipe from her and gave it to my mom. The outcome was a success, I think Lucy Mam was their home-science teacher, so thanks to her we have reduced our visits to ‘Sind-Punjab’ restaurant 🙂
Its a very easy recipe. Also I have prepared it several times, replacing chicken pieces with either potatoes , cauliflower or Paneer(cottage cheese). Here in Mauritius we get veg roasted chicken, veg fish, veg meat, veg prawns and what not :-), its all soya or wheat based products. So I get to eat veg butter chicken here 🙂
Recipe
For chicken roast
Chicken breast pieces – 10 small pieces
Curd – 2 tablespoon
Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tsp
Pepper – 1 & 1/2 tsp
Orange red food color – a pinch/ 1/4 tsp
salt as per taste
– Marinate using curd, ginger garlic paste, pepper, orange red food color and salt
– keep it for minimum 1/2 an hour
– You can bake the marinated chicken in oven for 15 min or fry it in pan. I use a non-stick pan and very less oil
For gravy
Tomatoes – 4 medium sized
Green chilly – 3 nos
Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tsp
Cooking cream – 1 cup
orange red food color – a pinch
– make a paste of tomatoes, green chillies and ginger garlic paste.
– then cook it in a saucepan, let it boil for 5 min
– add chicken pieces and let it cook further 5 min
– add cooking cream, and food color
– add a little water if gravy is too thick and boil for 2 min
– add butter while serving
– I prefer butter chicken with Nan or bread. It doesnt go well with chapathi or rice
Black Forest Cake
Posted on: September 17, 2010
Location: Culinary / Sweets / Black Forest Cake
My first successful trial baking a pastry cake. I guess it was really easy, the only tough part was whipping the cream as I dint have an electric mixer. It took me and hour or so to do the whipping. Seeing my effort, Ram bought me an electric mixer 🙂 .
I have started using the cake recipe for my pastry cakes from the zebra cake recipe
Recipe:
For the chocolate cake
Powdered Sugar -1 cup
Eggs – 2 nos
All purpose flour/ maida – 1 cup
Baking powder – 2 teaspoon
Cocoa powder – 2 teaspoon
Vanilla essence – 2 teaspoon
Milk – 1/2 cup
Oil – 1/2 cup
– In a bowl, beat eggs and sugar till smooth using a wire whisk
– add vanilla essence, milk and oil to the sugar-egg mixture
– In a separate bowl, sieve flour, baking powder and cocoa powder
– then transfer the flour mixture to the bowl containing sugar-egg mixture, one spoon at a time and fold in
– check for consistency and add more flour if required
– This picture is taken from the original Zebra cake recipe link to get an idea of the consistency of the cake mix
– I baked the cake in 2 parts.
– grease the microwave dish and pour 1/2 the cake mix
– baking time would be around 6-7 min for each trip, not on very high power.
– once cake is risen and looks dry, then try inserting toothpick to see it its done.
– Like I have mentioned in my earlier microwave oat bran cake, if overdone it might become like biscuit..so stay put near the microwave till the cake is done..
– let it cool .. 15 min..then run knife through the edges and lift a little using spoon.
– place aluminum foil on a plate and invert microwave dish on to it..
– then let it cool further.
– It doesn’t luk as beautiful as a sponge cake baked in oven but does taste wonderful and its soft
For the Icing
Whipped cream – 240 ml small pack (2 small packs if u have an icing bag and want to do some decoration on top of the cake)
Icing sugar – 3 tablespoon
– once u start ur baking, place a steel vessel in freezer for whipping
– take a tray of ice in plastic bowl(the bowl shld be big enough to contain the steel vessel)
– pour the whipped cream into the steel vessel and place the steel vessel into the plastic bowl.
– start whipping. if manually using a whisk, you should whip in a zig-zag manner rather than circles. this helps whipping.
– once it stiffens, add sugar and whisk further till u get really stiff peaks. Check for sweetness and then add more sugar if required
Sugar Syrup
water – 1/2 cup
sugar – 1/2 cup
vanilla essence – 2tsp
– mix all the ingredients well
– actual recipes call for boiling the water with sugar syrup. hehhe .. I like things done faster and quick. so I skipped boiling the sugar syrup. The cake did taste wonderful
For the pastry cake
cherries / mixed fruit jam (Ram and I hate cherries, so I opted for using jam ;-))
cooking chocolate/ ready made chocolate chips
– if the cakes are not in regular shape, place one on top of the other and cut the edges so as to get a uniform shape
– now take one portion of the cake and using a spoon pour the sugar syrup on top of it.
– then using a knife spread the icing on top of the cake
– place cherries or jam on top of the icing
– now place the next piece of cake on top of the first one.
– once again pour the sugar syrup
– now spread the icing on top of the cake and on the sides.
– it doesnt matter if it isnt a neat spread or cake crumbles appear on the icing because we r going to put chocolate chips on the cake
– now sprinkle chocolate chips / grated cooking chocolate on top and sides of the cake.
– once again decorate with cherries/ jam
– if u have an icing bag and more icing u can decorate the top of the cake.
– place it in refrigerator for sometime and then serve
I bought a small pack of whipped cream, as this was my first trail, so didnt have much for decorting the cake. the second time I baked a pastry cake was for our anniversary, I bought a very big pack of whipped cream. I actually overdid my icing 🙂
Oat Bran Cake
Posted on: September 15, 2010
Thanks a ton to Madhuram’s eggless cooking
Wonderful cake ideas.. we have started devouirng vegan cake now 🙂
I have tried many recipes of her with a twist though. Having all the required ingredients at a time has always been a problem for me. I dont cook preplanned, it has always been on the fly. So I do mix and match of her recipes.
Oat bran cake one of my favorites, its healthy and I dont feel guilty eating cakes anymore 🙂
Recipe
All Purpose Flour – 1 cup
Oat Bran – 1 cup
Baking Soda – 2 teaspoons
Baking Powder – 1 and 1/4 teaspoon
Cardamom powder – 1 teaspoon
Brown Sugar(light brown) – 1 cup
Carrot – 1 medium size grated
Apple – 2 medium size grated
Raisins – 1/2 cup
Coco powder – 3 tsp
Oil – 1/2 cup
Milk – 1/2 cup
Yoghurt – 1/4 cup
Vanilla Extract – 1 teaspoon
– sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda.
– mix oat bran, sugar and cocoa powder with it. (I use wooden spatula for mixing purpose)
– add milk, oil, yogurt and vanilla extract and fold in.
– make sure all the ingredients have mixed well.
– then add grated carrots, apples and raisins and fold in.
– now grease a microwave dish, use butter or oil
– pour the mixtureto 1/4 level of the dish height
– I sprinkled sliced almonds on top for garnish
– bake in microwave
– my dish was small, so I had to bake this in 2 parts. It took me 8-10 minutes on medium high for one batch.
– keep a watch on ur cake. Let it rise and then test it with toothpick. toothpick should come out clean when inserted in the centre
Notes :
- I have noticed in Madurams recipes she replaces flour/maida with whole wheat flour/aata, wheat germ etc . I have tried all in this ratio :-
– whole wheat flour -3/4 cup and all purpose flour – 1/4 cup
– wheat germ – 1/3 cup and all purpose flour – 2/3 cup
- I used sunflower cooking oil.
- Fold in means, make a complete circle with the wooden spatula and then draw a line from 12’0′ clk to 6’0’clk. Dont have to mix too much as airpockets keep coming and ur cake may have lot of pores.
- The cake tends to be like biscuit if kept for long in microwave. so make sure u stay put near ur microwave till its done.
High Spirited Sree's blog 