Eggless Dates Cake

Thats right..its eggless..yet unimaginable moist and soft-easy and a quickie and a big hit with the crowd. I followed the exact recipe from  Shilpa's Aayi's recipes but reduced little bit of sugar and my baking took less time than the specified.She says that it would catch up a "cake fever" and indeed it did :-)

Ingredients

• 18 pitted dates /date fruit
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2-3/4 cup sugar(I used brown sugar)
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 1 cup of maida/all purpose flour
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• choice of nuts(optional)

Pre-cooking

• Pre heat oven to 350 degree F

Method

• Heat the milk and dates for a few minutes until the dates become soft
• Grind this with sugar to a fine paste.
• Add oil and mix it well.
• Sieve the flour and baking soda and keep aside.
• Add the flour little by little to the liquid mixture until everything is blended smoothly.
• Add the nuts if needed.
• Pour into the cake pan and bake it in oven for 30 minutes.(Time might vary..so be sure to check it in between)
• Cake is done,when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and tidy.

Serving suggestions

• Serve its as such or frost it with your favorite frosting.

Tips

• The cake will be extra moist, so take care when taking it out from your pan.

Add this goes to Bake off event hosted by Bangalore Baker.

Double Ka Meeta/Indian Bread pudding

If you are a Hyderabadi from India or stayed there like me,I'm damn sure you would have tasted this dish. It is a terrible sin if you haven't done so :P . 

I came to know about this dish when I was in Hyderabad for a few months.This also happens to be the city where I started my career in the sinful IT field. Though it was a very short training period we explored the place a lot and needless to say, food played a very important part. If I had been a non-vegetarian may be I would be writing about the famous "Hyderabadi Dum Briyani" but here I am with the popular sweet/dessert of Hyderabad, the city of Pearls.I got this recipe from a friend whom I visited there when I was working but looks like it had to wait until all these years to come alive.

With the richness of sugar syrup and bread, blended together in a thick milk, this dish is a boon for all sweet lovers. The method I have mentioned here is not the authentic version but it is a "quickie" and I see your hands raising even as I mention :) !!!
And here is another information as you drool over the picture,did you know how this dish got its name? In Hyderabad they call bread as "Double Roti", Meeta is sweet in Hindi, this combines it as "Double Ka Meeta".

Ingredients

• 5 or 6 bread slices 
• a cup of sugar
• a pinch of cardamom
• half a litre of milk(whole or half & half)
• few tbs of nuts of your choice
• 2 tbs of ghee or clarified butter
• Oil to fry

Pre-cooking

• Cut the bread into triangular pieces and leave it to dry in open air(may be for 24 hours approx).

Method

• Fry the bread slices in oil(Original recipe calls to fry in ghee; you can try that as well!!)
• The bread will not absorb oil as it is dried.
• Boil sugar and water in ratio 1:1 
• Once it starts boiling add cardamom
• Pour in your milk and keep in high flame 
• After it comes to a boil, reduce the flame and let boil.
• Keep stirring in between so that it doesnt burn.
• After it comes to half of its size, add in the bread slices.
• Let them soak in the milk.
• At this stage you can either switch off the flame and refrigerate it ;and take out after all the milk is absorbed.
• Or if you are in a hurry like me,just keep boiling it, until all the milk is absorbed.
• Fry the nuts in ghee and garnish them.

Bread slices soaking in the stove

Serving suggestions

• You can serve this warm or cold.

Tips

• If the breads are not dry enough, they will absorb more oil and become soggy.

Add this goes to  Joyful Eating whilst travelling event hosted by Jagruti. Unfortunately I do not have a picture from Hyderabad (that was when I was still using a Kodak KB10 camera) but I'm posting this one that we took on a weekend drive to Pondichery from Chennai. This golden ball is the very famous Auroville ,a universal city located in pondichery.

Almond Wheat Rolls

This is actually a sweet from a leftover dessert :) Yes, I made some Badam Kheer/Badam shake for a get together and had some left. Didnt want to have the same dessert again & thus ended up in making a semi badam halwa.The shake is already in liquid form thats why I added wheat flour as it will help in easy solidification and less work ;) But it still ended up beautiful.

You could ideally make it from the scratch, but here I'm going to give the way I made it.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of almond shake
• 1/4 cup of wheat flour
• 2 tbsp of sugar(optional)
• a pinch pf cardamon
• few tsp of ghee or clarified butter

Pre-cooking

• None

Method

• Heat a  kadai/wok  and add the ghee
• Then add your almond shake and bring it to a boil.
• Then slowly add your wheat flour to it and keep stirring.
• Add the sugar if needed.
• Once the mixture becomes like halwa it will leave the sides.(You will easily know the consistency as your vessel will become very clean)
• Eat as such or roll them into your favorite shapes.

Serving suggestions

• You can drizzle with a few drops of ghee.

Tips

• Adding more wheat flour will reduce the taste.

Add this goes to my CoL-Leftover Delicacies event

Appam with apple

For those unknown, "Appam" is not to be confused with Aapam ! Aapam is from Dosa family, while appam is a sweet delicacy made with rice flour. Traditionaly this sweet is made with good ripen bananas and I made a variation with apple.

Ingredients

• a cup of wheat flour
• 1/2 cup of rice flour
• a pinch of cardamom
• 1/4 cup of jaggery/brown sugar(can be varied according to taste)
• 2 tbsp of grated coconut
• 1/4 red apples(peeled and finely mashed)

Pre-cooking

• None.

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together and make a batter.
• The consistency should be that of idli batter. 
• Heat oil in a kadai for deep frying.
• Take the batter in a laddle (the one you use for pouring idli may be ) and pour into the oil and fry to golden or deep brown.
• You will get a very nice aroma of rice flour..yummm !!

Serving suggestions

• Serve Hot..nothing else :)

Tips

• You can even use rice flour fully without the wheat flour or vice versa.

I recently read this book "Twenties Girl" by Sophie Kinsella and enjoyed it to the core. Already being a fan of her books , I found this to be another feather in her cap. If you are book lover and enjoy reading light hearted girly stuff, just go for it and have fun !!!

May be you could have an appam in one hand and the book on the other huh ;) ??

3 Minute Chocolate Cake !!!

I am not kidding on this one..it just takes 3 minutes to bake this cake and with all the pre-baking preparation it will hardly take 5 minutes.It may not be a delicious ,moist chocolate cake but it is sure a tasty treat especially if you are a chocky fan . And the best that you can get in 3 minutes !!!

I stumbled upon the recipe from this site and made it immediately. This also becomes my first cake post in the blog.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp cake flour/all purpose flour/maida(original recipe calls for cake flour;I used maida though)
• 4 tbsp sugar(you can increase this if you wish)
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 1 egg or use the Ener G equiv
• 3 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp oil
• 1 coffee mug (big size)

Pre-cooking

• None.

Method

• Put all the dry ingredients one by one into the mug and mix well.
• Then add all the wet ingredients and mix along with the dry ones.
• Ta-da your mixture is ready !
• Now keep the mug inside your microwave in HIGH for just 3 minutes.
• Cake is ready.Do not miss the the fun part of the cake raising inside the microwave. It is a treat to watch :)

What are you waiting for? Go get your coffee mugs in action and let me know how it turned out :-)

Serving suggestions

• Top it with a spoon of whipped cream and some cherries(Man, I wish I had some cherries with me :( )
• Goes well with evening tea.

Tips

• You can prepare the dough in a mixing bowl and then transfer it to the mug later. That would make the cake even perfect . (I was lazy to do that !! )

Sending this to the chocolate cake event hosted by Divya at Easy Kitchen

Almond Candy

Dont give me looks hearing the title.This is just the basic badam halwa rolled in the shape of candy to feast my eyes :)

We were travelling to a friends place in St. Louis & I wanted to prepare some sweets to take to their home and thus ending up preparing the badam halwa.

Ingredients

• Whole badam(almonds) - 1 cup
• Sugar                           - 1 cup
• Milk                              - a few tablespoons
• Ghee(melted butter)       -  as per your taste
• Cardomon Powder          - a pinch (optional)

Pre-cooking

• Soak the almonds(badam) in normal water overnight or hot water for minimum of one hour.
• Peel the skin after that and keep them ready.

Method

• Grind the almonds with sugar with as little milk as possible to a fine paste.(Use milk just to cover the almonds)
• Take a kadai and keep in medium flame .Add few drops of ghee and pour in the grounded paste.
• Keep stirring the mixture(this might take nearly 10-15 minutes). Take care as the mixture will spill all over.
• After a few minutes the texture will start to change and you will notice the badam will leave the sides.
• This stage add few more table spoons of ghee and the cardoman powder and keep stirring  for 5 more minutes.
• Take off the flame to have your badam halwa.

Serving suggestions

• You can take the halwa and eat them directly with a spoon.
• You can pour them into greased plate and cut them into desired shape after it cools down.

Tips

• Peeling of badams will be easier when they are very tender.
• Always keep the flame in medium or lower than that. Increasing the heat will burn the badam.

Halloween Special- Pumpkin Halwa

Halloween- never really gave a thought when I was in India.But with all the costumes and Ads one can not miss it in the US. And with the many visual treats comes Pumpkin- Orangy to the core. So I bought a small pumpkin to give a treat. But sadly it was lying in the fridge until last week when we invited few friends for dinner. So I made this Pumpkin halwa, purely my mom's recipe :)

Ingredients

• Pumpkin - 1 
• Carrot    - 1 
• Moong dal - 2-3 tbsp
• Condensed milk - 1/4 cup
• Cashews/walnuts - as required.
• Sugar - as required
• Ghee - you need this a hell lot

Method

• Pressure cook the dal so that it is completely mashed. Do not over do the water.
• Cut the pumpkin and carrots into large pieces and pressure cook them until mashed like the dal. Care should be taken to use minimal water. (Incase you do the mistake of using excess water, do not panic, just drain the water only at the cost of some nutrient loss)
• Mash the veggies with a spatula , add the dal &milkmaid . Then blend completely. You can use a blender if required.
• Take a kadai or a non stick pan and add the ingredients.
• Now comes the task of stirring it.
• You need to really stir it continously adding few spoons of Ghee and sugar in between.
• Take care regarding the amount of Sugar if you are using sweetened condensed milk.
• Do the wholoe process in a medium heat so that even if u take a little rest in between (like me ;) ), it will not burn the halwa.
• Dont worry if the colour is white or pale yellow, you need little patience
• After nearly 20 minutes, the color and texture will change and you will know when it is done.
• Once it reaches the halwa concentration check for sweetness.
• You can add sugar even after it is done and stir. Thats the advantage in this method :)
• Finally Garnish it with fried cashews and enjoy the treat.

Note: You can store this in fridge and microwave later to have it hot. Adding carrots is for color and mass, you can ignore if needed.