Christmas Fruit Cake (Plum Cake) December 16, 2012

Christmas is a time, when your kitchen is filled with lovely aromas. This year I REALLY wanted to bake a plum cake at home and wanted to do a non-alcoholic version of fruit cake. So here it is, Christmas cake without alcohol  Did it turn out yum? Well, the guests in my party completely cleaned the plate 🙂

Ingredients:

• Light brown sugar – 1 cup
• Hot water – 1 cup
• Salted butter – 4 tbsps
• Ground cinnamon – 1/2 tsp
• Ground cloves – 1/4 tsp
• Nutmeg powder – 1/4 tsp
• Cardomom powder – 1/4 tsp
• Garam masala – 1 pinch
• Black Raisins – 1 cup
• Chopped nuts (cashew and almonds) – 1 cup
• Rind of 1 orange
• Normal sized Eggs – 3, lightly beaten
• All purpose flour – 1 + 1/2 cups
• Baking soda – 1 tsp
• Baking powder = 1 tsp
• Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Method:

• Butter your cake tin with butter.
• Cut a piece of parchment/wax paper to fit the bottom of the cake tin and place it in the tin.
• Mix light brown sugar, water, butter,spices, raisins, nuts and rind in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil over medium heat.
• Let it boil for 5 minutes.
• Let the mixture cool down to room temperature.
• Preheat oven to 180 degree C.
• Add the beaten eggs and vanilla extract into the fruit mixture and mix until well combined.
• Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda in a seperate bowl.
• Add the fruit mixture to the flour mixture
• Pour this mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Let it cool on a wire rack.
• When it cools down completely, wrap the cake using plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for 2 days.

Advertisement

Chicken Dimsums/Momos November 22, 2012

The other we went to a mall and ordered some dimsums. They were so tiny and they served only 6 in a plate. We paid more than its worth and we were left craving for more. I then decided to make some dimsums at home and make use of the steamer that I had recently purchased. I made about 30 dimsums and we all enjoyed eating them. Oh and we ate to our heart’s content 😀

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

For the Filling

1/2 kg chicken mince

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp vinegar

1 tbsp oil

1 medium sized onion finely chopped

1 tbsp of finely chopped garlic

1 tbsp coriander (optional)

Salt to taste

For the momos

250 gm maida (all purpose flour)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Water to bring the dough together

Method

• First mix all the ingredients of the momos and make a fine dough. Let it sit aside for 30 min.
• In the mean while, mix all the ingredients of filling.
• Make small balls of the dough. Roll each ball into flat sheets (small has your palm size.
• Fill in the mince and wrap it with the dough in desired shape.
• Grease the steamer and place the momo in the steamer.
• Steam for 20 min.
• Yummy dimsums ready.

 

Stuffed Shimla Mirch June 22, 2012

A few days back, my hubby calls me and tells me that a friend is coming over for dinner, who is a vegetarian. I was like ok!! I went and browsed through the contents of my fridge and I found these small shimla mirch and I thought I should do something special with these. So I made these stuffed shimla mirch, which is quite easy and tasty too! Guess what our guest thoroughly enjoyed these and I wished I had made some more….

Ingredients

4 small sized shimla mirch

1 large potato

½ cup peas

1 small onion finely chopped

½ tsp turmeric

½ tsp garam masala

½ tsp Kanda masala – red chilli, onion and garlic (or just use red chilli powder)

Salt to taste

1 tbsp lime juice.

Oil

Method

• First boil the potato with its skin. Then peel of the skin and mash the potato with the help of a fork.
• In a skillet, heat some oil, and then add the chopped onion and fry till golden brown.
• Then add the peas and let it cook.
• Now add the garam masala, salt and turmeric. Saute for a min.
• Then add the mashed potatoes and mix well. Sprinkle some kanda masala. Fry for a minute or two.
• Then add the lime juice. This mixture is for the stuffing of the shimla mirch.
• Now cut the top of the shimla mirch and deseed it.
• Coat each shimla (from the inside) with some salt.
• Now stuff the shimla mirch with the potato mixture. Spray some oil on each shimla mirch.
• Now bake the shimla mirch at 180 degrees C for about 15 minutes.
• Ready to Serve!!

 

Red Velvet Cup Cakes June 6, 2012

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cups sugar

2 heaped tbsp baking cocoa (powdered)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 sticks/200 gms salted butter at room temperature

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk (see note at bottom)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon red food coloring

Method

• Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in a mixing bowl.  Sift dry ingredients three times.
• Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, making sure to beat well after each egg.
• Add alternatively the flour mixture and buttermilk to the  sugar-butter creamed mixture. Keep mixing till you get a smooth batter. Make sure you start and end with the dry mixture.
• Now mix in vanilla and food coloring.
• Fill lined cupcake pans 1/2 full of red velvet batter.  Bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Note:- For the buttermilk, just add a tbsp of lemon juice to a cup of milk. Let it stand for 10-15 minutes. Your buttermilk is ready.

 

For the cream frosting

Beat 200 gms butter with icing sugar. Add a tsp of vanilla essence and some food color to get that pink touch. You can also add some strawberry pulp to give it a strawberry flavor.

Basa Fish Fillet with Fried Rice April 24, 2012

It has been such a long time since I made an entry on my blog. Today, after such a long halt I’ve decided to upload a recipe that I tried today. I had some basa fish ( a Vietnamese catfish) lying in the freezer. And I thought I should try a new recipe with it, which is both healthy and delicious. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

For the fish

1 fillet of basa fish

2 tbsp of low butter

1 tbsp of olive oil

½ tsp freshly ground pepper

½ tsp chopped garlic

Chilli flakes to taste

Salt to taste

Lemon

Coriander leaves (for garnish)

For the Rice

3 cups of cooked white or brown rice

Vegetables of your choice

2 tbsp of onion

1 tsp of garlic

Dry Red Chilli (chopped)

1 ½ tbsp of Soy Souce

1 maggi cube

Method

First, let’s prepare the fried rice.

• In a wok, take some oil and add the onions and garlic. Sauté till slightly pink.
• Now add the red chillis and sauté for 2 min.
• Then add the veggies and toss for a while till it is cooked.
• Now add the soy sauce and maggi cube. Then stir in the cooked rice and mix slowly to ensure the rice doesn’t break.

Fried rice is ready. Now let’s make the fish

• Mix the butter, olive oil, pepper, chilli flakes, garlic and salt.
• Now add the basa fish and coat both sides with the butter mix.
• Leave it for an hour in the fridge.
• Then place the fish on a baking tray and cover the baking dish with foil paper. Bake the fish for 10 min.
• Remove it and squeeze some lemon juice on it.

Now on a serving plate, place some rice. On top of the rice, place the fish. Garnish with coriander leaves and some chilli flakes 😀

Shortbread mini fruit tarts January 5, 2012

I’ve always loved fruit tarts and wanted to try my hands on it for a very long time. But I never got the time or was reluctant to try making some. But this Christmas, I just went ahead and baked some. I followed the recipe posted in joyofbaking.com, but made a few modifications here and there. They turned out heaven-licious.

For the Shortbread Tarts:

1 cup of salted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour/maida
3 tablespoons corn flour

Method

• Grease your muffin trays and keep it aside.
• In a bowl beat the butter and sugar till it forms a smooth mixture. You can use a hand mixer or an electric mixer.
• Once it is smooth, add in the vanilla extract, flour and cornstarch (sieved flour and cornstarch). Mix till the mixture just comes together. When you can see pea size morsels just stop mixing. With the help of your hands get the dough together, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour.
• Now make small balls of the dough and place it in the muffin tin. Press the dough with the help of your fingers to cover the entire area of the individual cup of the muffin tin. Then cover it with cling and refrigerate for about 30 min.
• In the meanwhile preheat your over/convection microwave to 170 degrees.
• Now place the tin in the oven and bake for about 20 min. In between check to see if the tarts puff up, if they do just prick them with a fork.
• Once baked let it cool and remove the tarts.
• You can refrigerate or freeze these tarts and use it when needed.

Cream Cheese Filling:

200 grams of full fat cream cheese
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
Zest of one lemon
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

With the help of your hand/electric mixer, beat the cream cheese till it smooth and creamy. Now add the remaining ingredients and beat till smooth. Store it in the refrigerator for at least 8 hrs before serving. This filling can be stored in the refrigerator for about a week.

Before serving,

Get the cream to room temperature. now fill the tarts with the cream filling. Then place fruits of your choice and serve. You could use all kinds of berries, kiwi and peach 😀

Jeera (Cumin) Short Bread December 22, 2011

Short-breads are wonderful buttery cookies that is of Scottish origin. They are usually served during Christmas and New Years. This year I thought to bake some for Christmas, but with an Indian twist and therefore I added some Jeera or more commonly known as cumin seeds.

Ingredients

2 ½ cup all purpose flour

1 cup butter (preferably unsalted, but I used salted butter because it is difficult to get unsalted butter in India. If you are using unsalted butter, then add 1 tsp of salt to the recipe)

2 tbsp castor sugar

Jeera

Method

• With the help of an electric mixer or hand mixer (which I used) beat the butter till it is soft and creamy.
• Then add the sugar till it is nicely mixed with the butter.
• In the meanwhile, sieve the flour and then add it to the butter mix. Just beat the mixture till it comes together when pinched with your fingers. We don’t want to beat it too much and make it like chapatti dough.
• Take the dough out and wrap in some butter paper or cling wrap and refrigerate for about 30-60 min.
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Then roll out the dough to 1 mm thickness and then sprinkle some jeera/cumin on top.
• Now with the help of a cookie cutter cut different shapes of dough. Place them on the tray and bake it for about 15-20 min or till it is light golden brown. A good thing to do before baking the cookies is to refrigerate them for 15 min so that the cookie retains its shape.
• Let it cool before removing them from the tray.

Chicken Burger October 18, 2011

This is a very simple and easy chicken burger recipe that can be made in a jiffy. This recipe undoubtedly ends up with some mouth watering and delicious burgers. When you’re in a hurry and want to have a home cooked meal, this recipe is a great option. Children will definitely love it as well.

Ingredients

For the chicken patties

250 gm mince chicken

1 onion (medium) finely chopped

1 egg

1/2 tsp black pepper

Salt to taste

Bread crumbs

For the burger

Lettuce

Sliced tomatoes

Mayonaisse/sandwich or burger spread

Burger Buns

Method

• Mix all the ingredients for the chicken patties except for the bread crumbs
• Now take portions of the mince mixture and flatten them in your hands to give it a shape of a burger.
• Coat with bread crumbs
• Grill or shallow fry in some oil.
• Now apply some mayo on the buns, place the burger patty and the veggies on top.
• Serve with fries or potato wedges.

Chocolate Cake September 28, 2011

My sister-in-law had come over to my place last week and I wanted to bake her a cake. She wanted to eat some chocolate cake, so I made this. The recipe for it is here..

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of flour

3/4 cup sugar (castor sugar)

2 eggs

3 tbsp milk

2 eggs

3 tbsp cocoa powder

100 gms butter

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda bi-carb

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180 degree C.
• Grease the baking tin and sprinkle with flour.
• Melt the butter and then add the sugar to the melted butter and whisk properly.
• Now add two eggs and milk and whisk.
• Seive flour, baking powder and soda bi-carb and then add this to the wet mixture. Mix well till all ingredients are blended well.
• Now add the cocoa powder and mix well. Pour in the batter to the baking tray and bake for 25-30 min.

Banana Muffin September 15, 2011

I’ve noticed that whenever I purchase half a dozen bananas, I always end up with a few bananas getting over ripe. Today I had 3 brown bananas sitting on my table and I really didn’t want to throw them in the trash. So I figured, why not bake some banana muffins. As a kid I used to love gorging on banana muffins that my dad would get home.  The muffins just came out perfect. It was by far the best banana muffins I’ve ever eaten. Moist, fluffy and delicious are just some adjectives that can best describe the muffins.

Here is the recipe. This recipe makes about 12 banana muffins.

Ingredients

3 brown bananas (over ripe)

1 ½ cups all purpose flour (maida)

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

½ cup melted butter (I used salted butter, you can also use unsalted butter but you will need to add a tsp of salt in the batter)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda bi-carb

Method

• Mash the bananas with the help of a fork and keep it aside.
• Preheat the oven to 180 ◦ C and line the cup cake mould tin with paper baking cups. I bought some stylish looking silicon cups and used them instead of the paper cups. These silicon cups in different colors and shapes. The best part about these silicon cups is that they are reusable.
• Take the melted butter in a big bowl and add sugar to it. Mix well.
• Now add 2 eggs and beat it into the butter and sugar mix.
• Then sieve in the flour, baking powder and baking soda to this mixture and mix well.
• Now add the mashed bananas and mix till all the ingredients are blended together.
• Spoon in the batter to the muffin cups. Just make sure you just fill 3/4^th of the cup to avoid the batter spilling over. Bake for 20 minutes. I baked them in batches of 6.