Kaale Gajar ka Halwa - Purple Carrot Fudge

There's a certain pleasure in cooking with ingredients that are seasonal and available in limited areas. Like Kaale Gajar or purple carrots available mainly in North India. I certainly haven't seen them in any market in Mumbai.

My friend Sangeeta Khanna of Banaras ka Khana  an excellent blog that showcases recipes from Benaras and Eastern UP, was coming to Mumbai for a very short trip and at my request, brought me a generous bagful of beautiful purple carrots. "It's early in the season and the carrots are baby sized" she warned me as she handed me the precious cargo. I was delighted to receive the carrots, large, small, or baby sized!

If you post the question "What to make with kaale gajar?" on social media you will get two answers - halwa, and kaanji. There are no takers for kaanji in my house so I made halwa with a portion of the booty. Throughout the process of making the halwa we were entranced at the beautiful colour of these carrots and I took lots of photos, some of which you can see here.

A common issue with this halwa is that the milk tends to split. Luckily for me that didn't happen. It could be thanks to the full fat buffalo milk I used.

You can add more sugar if you prefer the halwa sweeter. We're a diabetic household so I kept it as low as possible. I also used condensed milk which is sweetened - another reason why I kept the grain sugar low in my recipe. The recipe also has raisins which add their own sweetness.

There are numerous methods for gajar ka halwa, this is what I did.

Kaale Gajar ka Halwa

3 cups peeled and grated purple carrots/kaale gajar
1 litre milk
2 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
4-5 cardamom pods
1/2 can Milkmaid condensed milk
75 grams khoya + 25 gms extra for garnish
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp sliced and fried (in ghee) almonds

In a thick bottomed vessel place all the grated carrot. Pour in the milk. I used full fat buffalo milk from my local milk shop, not branded tetrapak-ed milk. Add the sugar and salt, stir well and then put it on the heat to boil. Chuck in the cardamom pods, lightly bashed to open them up and expose the seeds within.
As soon as it comes to a proper boil reduce the heat and let the carrots cook and the milk reduce. This will take a while so be prepared. The milk will slowly change colour as it absorbs colour from the carrots. I was so amazed by the beautiful colour I took a photograph of some of the milk separately and then poured it back into the pot.

Stir the mixture every few minutes checking to see that it hasn't stuck to the bottom of your pan/vessel.
When the milk has reduced to less than half pour in the condensed milk, stir well to mix, and cook further. Add the raisins at this stage.
On the side, heat ghee in a tadka pan and fry boiled and sliced almonds till golden. Keep this aside.

Keep cooking the carrot-milk mixture till it reaches the sticky thick consistency of a halwa. As the mix thickens it will need constant supervision and stirring so the halwa doesn't stick or burn. This is the last 10 minutes or so of the process so don't worry, there's not too much effort required!
Crumble the khoya and mix it in. Cook for a few more minutes till the consistency is perfect.

Remove to a pretty bowl, garnish with more khoa and the fried almond slivers. Serve the halwa hot. 

How to Make Apple Pie

Some desserts are ridiculously easy to make and they're really delicious too. I made a slightly tweaked cheat's apple pie today for a potluck with friends. The theme was Chinese food and I spiced my pie with Chinese 5 Spice powder instead of just cinnamon. I also used ready puff pastry to top the pie as I didn't have the time to make short crust pastry this morning in time for the potluck lunch. Since no one complained about the pastry I'm confident the results were quite palatable!
Here's how to make an easy apple pie with ready puff pastry.

Apple Pie with Puff Pastry

4 red apples
4 granny smiths
1.5 tsp Chinese five spice powder or Cinnamon powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
50 gms butter
A large pinch of salt
A little milk
1 sheet puff pastry, enough to cover the pie
Vanilla ice cream to serve

Peel and chop all the apples into large chunky pieces. Don't chop them small as they will turn mushy when you cook them for the filling. 

In a large pan heat the butter. As soon as it's all melted add the chopped apples. Stir well to coat all the fruit with the butter and cook for a couple of minute on medium heat. 

Sprinkle the five spice/cinnamon powder and the brown sugar onto the apples, stir to mix evenly, add salt, and then let it cook for a few minutes till the apples are cooked but not completely mushy. Leave some 'bite' in the fruit. 

Pour the apple mixture into your pie dish and let it cool. 

In the meanwhile get your puff pastry sheet out of the freezer. As soon as it's soft enough to work roll it out till it's larger than the surface of your pie. Trim from one side so you have a large enough piece to cut out decorations to put on top of your pie.

Cover the pie and cut out flowers or any other shape from the trimmed piece with a cookie cutter. Place the cut outs on the pie. Brush the top with milk and bake the pie in a preheated hot oven - 200C- for 15 minutes or till the pastry is a lovely golden colour. 

Serve the pie with vanilla ice cream. You can have it hot or cold. 

Sukeli and Jhola Gur Upside Down Cake

This cake has been on my mind for months. I hadn't heard of sukeli till one of the staff brought us some from his village in the Vasai region of north Mumbai. As it is I don't eat fruits and am unfamiliar with most things fruit - but this was way, way out of my ambit! 

Sukeli is a kind of preserved banana, peeled and sun dried, then wrapped in banana leaves. The fruit gets dehydrated and takes on a golden hue with a toffee-like sticky texture thanks to the natural sugars getting concentrated. 

What I liked about sukeli is that it doesn't have that strong banana smell (something I dislike very strongly). The hubby munched on one packet of sukeli just as they were and I asked him to leave the second one for me to play with. Life got in the way and it took me a couple of months till I found the time and the mental bandwidth to get back to the sukeli. 

I had decided I would make some sort of upside down cake using the sukeli. I only had to work out what else I would put in that cake. On my last trip to Kolkata I picked up nolen or jhola gur, the liquid jaggery that's a winter specialty and it occurred to me that sukeli and jhola gur would work really well together. 

As I thought about the adjustments to a straightforward pound cake recipe that would be my starting point I wondered if I would have a cake or a disaster. I experiment very confidently when I cook but not so much when I bake. I like to have the support of a recipe even if it is something I have baked a zillion times already. But this time I felt I must be confident and just go for it. The 40 minutes that this experiment sat in the oven were the longest in my life! And then the interminable wait for the cake to cool, the hubby to wake up from his post-lunch nap and give his final report on the cake - that was an exercise in patience for me. The story had a happy ending after all which is how you get the recipe for a delicious Sukeli and Jhola Gur Upside Down Cake. 

Sukeli and Jhola Gur Upside Down Cake

1 cup flour 

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup jhola gur

125gms butter

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essesnce

1 packet sukeli (there will 3-4 in the packet)

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

Set your oven to preheat at 180C.

Separate the sukeli carefully and then slice them into 1/2 cm discs. Keep aside.

Combine the 1 tbsp butter with the 2 tbsp brown sugar in a bowl and zap in the microwave for a minute in 30 second bursts. Whisk together with a fork and pour into your baking tin.I used an 8 inch round tin. Spread the mixture all over the base covering as well as you can. Place the sliced sukeli pieces to cover the entire surface. Don't worry if there are gaps. Keep this aside.

In a clean mixing bowl sift the flour and baking powder together. 

In another clean bowl cream the butter with the 1/2 cup brown sugar. Use a stand mixer or a hand held electric mixer and mix for at least two to three minutes till the sugar is smoothly blended and not grainy. 

Add the eggs one by one along with the vanilla. 

Now add the sifted flour and the jhola gur in alternates till you have a smooth thick batter. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan over the layer of sukeli. Tap the tin to remove any bubbles and then put it into the preheated oven to bake for 35-40 minutes. Test the cake for doneness with a long tooth pick and remove from the oven when done.

Let the cake cool completely before you take it out of the tin. Be patient and let it cool or the caramelized sukeli will remain stuck to the tin. If you look closely at my cake you will see evidence of my impatience!

The cake itself will have a pale coffee colour and a slightly dense crumb. Don't worry about the nearly black colour of the sukeli on the cake, it's perfectly caramelised and not burned at all. 

You can try this recipe with kankvi or any other variant of liquid jaggery too. I think it will work quite well. 

Chocolate Buttermilk Bundt Cake

This turned out to be one of the best cakes I've ever baked in my life. I was browsing around on Pinterest looking for something new to try out. I also had a new bag of Callebaut cocoa powder that I was waiting to play with. As I looked around I chanced upon this recipe on the Taste and Tell blog by Deborah Harroun. I had most of the ingredients and the recipe was the kind I like - straightforward and uncomplicated. What I didn't have I could make or replace easily and so I decided to try it out.

I didn't have cake flour so I made some - all you do is replace 2 tbsp of plain flour with 2 tbsp of cornflour for every cup of flour and sift it well. I made more than required for the recipe and stored the extra cake flour in a labelled canister in my baking supplies cupboard.

I didn't have Dutch processed cocoa so I just used the Callebaut cocoa I had.

For buttermilk I put in a dash of white vinegar into the required quantity of milk and let it sit for a few minutes.

Instead of unsalted butter I used normal Amul butter and didn't add salt as the recipe demands. Most of us are used to baking with Amul butter and so am I and I don't stress out when a recipe asks for unsalted butter because usually the recipe also required you to add salt. I just use good old Amul and no one has complained about my cakes yet!

I used a Nordicware bundt pan instead of a regular 'boring' cake tin to get a fancy looking cake. This was also because I didn't want to ice the cake and therefore wanted it to look nice on its own. Since the pan I have is quite large I doubled the recipe. You will find the original recipe in the link above.

Chocolate Buttermilk Bundt Cake


2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup hot coffee
3 1/2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Set the oven to preheat to 180C.

Butter the bundt pan well and dust with loose flour.

Mix the hot coffee and the cocoa powder till you have a smooth thick mixture. You can brew fresh coffee or simply use instant coffee and hot water like I did.

Now sift the cake flour with the baking powder into a clean mixing bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl if you're using a hand held mixer) cream the butter and sugar till it's pale. This should take around 5 to 8 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time and keep mixing between each egg. Make sure your eggs are not cold from the fridge because the batter might curdle. Don't panic if it does, though - just proceed with the recipe and it will sort itself out on its own.

Add the vanilla after the eggs and then start adding the cake flour. I use the smallest measuring cup from my set and slow the speed of the mixer as I drop in the flour a little at a time. Once the flour is all in and is just about combined it's time to add the coffee-cocoa mix. Keep the speed of the mixer slow so you don't splash everything with the liquid.

Once it's mixed in pour in the buttermilk. Mix and then finally add the chocolate chips and mix further till just blended into the batter.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake till the cake is cooked through - around 35 to 45 minutes depending on the size of the bundt and your oven. Poke the cake in the centre with a cake tester or long satay stick to check. If it comes out clean your cake is ready.

Let the cake cool in the tin for a while - at least 20 minutes - and then unmould carefully. Let the cake cool completely before you cut it or it will break while cutting.

You can serve the cake with a dollop of plain vanilla ice cream to balance the rich dark flavours of coffee and cocoa, or have it as it is like my family did.

Chushi Pithe'r Payesh

Making payesh is as good as meditation for me - with a dessert to look forward to at the end of the process. Payesh takes patience and needs attention and concentration, just like I imagine meditation does. The process is simple but it's slow and it takes time. And practice. Just like meditation. And I find it calming and steadying, just like meditation is supposed to be. So I make payesh more often than I meditate.

My last visit to Kolkata threw up many new ingredients as I wandered markets and melas whenever I had the chance. Among the myriad things I saw was Chushi or Choshi Pithe - small rice shaped dumplings made with either white flour or rice - used in payesh. It reminded me of 'ghavlye', a similar dumpling made in Maharashtrian households and also used in kheer. Payesh and kheer are both desserts made by reducing milk till half and then adding flavours, sweetness, and a thickener in the form of either rice, vermicelli, and occasionally these rice-like tiny dumplings. Similar dumplings are made among many communities across the country.

Chushi pithe are extremely laborious to make and as a result not many women make them any more. Who has the time?! Fortunately there are enough enterprising women from villages and small towns who are happy to make these labour-intensive products and bring them to the big cities for sale. I bought several packets and once back home in Kharghar I made Chushi Pithe'r Payesh at the first chance.




The lady who sold me the pithe gave me very simple instructions. Fry the pithe in ghee till it's a nice golden brown and keep aside. Make payesh as you normally do adding the pithe to the reducing milk so it cooks properly. That's all.

Chushi Pithe'r Payesh

2 litres full fat Milk
1 cup Chushi Pithe
1 cup fine Sugar
5 Cardamom pods
3 Indian bay leaves or Tej patta
2 - 3 tbsp Ghee
1/4 cup Raisins

In a thick bottomed vessel bring the milk to a boil and then simmer over medium heat to reduce it to half. Put in the cardamom pods and the tej patta while the milk is reducing. Remember to pop open the cardamom pods.

In a small pan heat some ghee. Use good quality ghee and not vanaspati. Once the ghee is hot fry the chushi pithe till the grains turn a light golden brown. This takes just 10 to 15 seconds so keep an eye on it while frying. Do it in batches if necessary. Drain off the ghee and keep the fried pithe aside.
In the same ghee fry the raisins and keep aside.

Once the milk has come to a boil add the fried pithe to the milk so it cooks while the milk reduces. Stir gently to ensure the pithe doesn't stick and form clumps. Let the milk simmer gently and reduce till at least half. The colour will change to a light pinkish brown. Check that the pithe is cooked through and isn't hard in the centre.

Add the sugar and stir nicely to combine. Add the fried raisins too keeping aside a few for garnishing later. Let the payesh cook for another 10 minutes or so till it is as thick as you like it. Remember payesh will thicken as it cools so don't reduce the milk too much or you will end up with a solid pudding.

Remove the payesh to a serving bowl and garnish with the remaining fried raisins. You can also add lightly fried cashew nuts or almond slivers to the garnish.

Pahadi Limbu infused Hot Buttered Brandy Pound Cake

I have become a little obsessed with citrus - every sort of citrus fruit seems to occupy my mind these days. And of course, the cosmos conspires to provide me with plenty of variety! Not only have I had top quality sweet limes or mosambis as we call them, from Luv Thy Farmer, which I used to make this amazing Mosambi Cake, I got Meyer lemons from Imtiaz and Sue which I used in these beautiful Lemon Cakes, and then Rushina gave me a couple of Pahadi Limbus that she'd got from her in laws' village in Garhwal! My cup of happiness was overflowing. Did I mention I have been haunting gourmet stores, making a beeline for their fresh veg sections and getting busy scratching and sniffing the lemons looking for the fresh and flavourful ones?!

Anyway, coming back to the pahadi limbus. They are huge. Bigger than your average apple, in fact. The skin is thin and must be zested carefully. But what a burst of freshness when you give it that light scrape against the microplane!

The limbus waited patiently for me to find a recipe worthy of them and I chanced upon this Hot Buttered Rum Pound Cake recipe. The recipe uses oranges but I thought the pahadi limbus would shine here, and oh they did!  A look in the drinks cabinet for something instead of rum, a hunt through the pantry cupboard for the rest of the ingredients, and I was set.

The recipe has three elements - the pound cake, the soaking syrup, and the hot buttered brandy. I'm going to give you the recipes in the order they are made so you're not going back and forth between ingredient lists and the methods, thereby giving you less room for error and confusion. Though I have largely followed the recipe above, I have made a few adjustments and replacements to make it more suited to what the hubby likes.


Pahadi Limbu infused Hot Buttered Brandy Pound Cake

Brandy syrup for soaking cake

1/2 cup sugar
zest from one pahadi limbu
2 to 3 tbsp brandy
water

Mix the zest into the sugar with your fingers and help them release their oils. This gives more flavour.

In a small pan heat the sugar-zest mix with the brandy and a little water. Bring it to a boil stirring gently till all the sugar is dissolved. Boil the mix on a medium flame for another minute and then leave it to cool as you make the cake.


Pound cake

1 1/3 cups ground sugar
zest from one pahadi limbu
2 cups maida, sifted
1 tsp cinnamon powder
6 green cardamoms, seeds pounded
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups Amul butter
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Set the oven to preheat at 180C.

In a clean mixing bowl combine the flour, salt, cinnamon powder, and the crushed cardamom seeds with a whisk.

In a small bowl mix the zest into the granulated sugar till it starts getting clumpy. This step helps release the oils from the zest and extracts maximum flavour from it.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or in a regular mixing bowl beat the butter on medium speed till it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar-zest mix to the butter and beat for a few minutes till it's all mixed and light. Beat at a high speed for a few minutes. Make sure you stop the beater and scrape the sides of the bowl and the paddle to mix everything properly at least once.

Now it's time to add the eggs. Add one egg at a time and beat well to mix completely before you add the next one. Once all the eggs are added in  pour in the vanilla extract. The original recipe has zest and a flavour extract - I opted not to use the flavour extract because I was sure it would mask the flavour from the zest completely. I'm glad I did because the cake was full of natural lemony flavour and didn't need any help at all.

Once the eggs and vanilla have been fully incorporated add the flour mix next. I do this a little at time with the help of my 1/4 or 1/3 cup measuring cup, whichever is clean and at hand. Keep adding a scoop of flour and continue beating till you have a smooth batter. This cake has a thick batter beautifully speckled with the crushed cardamom seeds and cinnamon powder.

Though the original recipe says a 9x4 loaf pan will do, I found it was not big enough. I used a disposable loaf case for the leftover batter and had two beautiful bars of pound cake. I think two medium loaf tins should work well. Line the tins with parchment or grease well and dust with flour before you pour the batter in. Level the top with a spatula and it's ready to be baked

Pop into the preheated oven and bake for roughly an hour at 180C, till the cake is a nice golden colour. It should ideally split along the middle too. If your cake is browning too fast reduce the temperature to 160C and bake it longer till it is cooked through. Test with a skewer to check for done-ness.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin for around 10 mins or so and only then remove to a wire rack to cool further. Place a tray under the rack to catch any drips, poke the surface of the cake with a thin skewer and then brush it with the brandy syrup you have left to cool. Be generous and keep slathering the cake - it will absorb a lot of that syrup. Do this while the cake is still quite warm. Let it cool on the wire rack.

Hot buttered brandy glaze

50 gms Amul butter
1/3 fine sugar, preferably brown
2-3 tbsp brandy

Heat the butter in a small pan till it begins to foam and turns brown. It will start to smell nutty. Stir with a wooden spoon or heat proof spatula to brown the butter evenly. Take off the heat and let it cool for a minute. Now add the sugar (preferably brown) and then the brandy. Stir nicely to combine. Use a fine grain sugar for a smoother glaze.

Spread the glaze on top of the cake with a pastry brush. Slice and serve your Pahadi Limbu infused Hot Buttered Brandy Pound Cake immediately. Keep any leftover glaze in a covered jar and warm it slightly to serve with any remaining cake.

This is another beautifully flavoured tea cake that has the freshness of lemon and cardamom along with the warmth of cinnamon. Since the pahadi limbu is difficult to get, you can use regular oranges as in the original recipe. The cake has many sugary elements and therefore I have cut down the sugar slightly in the cake. You can adjust the sugar according to your preferences. Meyer lemons would also work very well in this recipe as would mosambis or sweet limes. Use more zest if you're using mosambis as they tend to be quite mild in flavour.

You might have noticed there's no baking powder or baking soda in this recipe. As in the classic old pound cake recipes, this one has none. Yet, I had a wonderfully light and well aerated cake. It's all in the slowly added ingredients and the many minutes of beating. In spite of a thick 'heavy' batter, the cake rises perfectly. The more recipes I explore, the more I learn :)

Of Microplanes, Meyer Lemons and Lemon Cake

It's no secret that I love baking. It's no secret that I love kitchen gadgets. And it's no secret that I like playing with new ingredients either.

I had wanted to add a Microplane to my small tools drawer for a long time but somehow never actually got around to it. This year the hubby gave me a stash of money to spend on random things I wanted, as a birthday treat. I bought that Microplane finally! I'm not fond of fruit in general but I do love the citrus ones. I saw Meyer lemons at a gourmet food store and decided to indulge myself, their steep price-tag notwithstanding.

And there I was! Armed with the ultimate zesting tool in creation and a variety of lemons I'd been drooling over from a distance for a long, long time - it was time to bake!

I have spent many hours looking at lemon cake recipes and even bookmarked quite a few to try out once I had everything in place. But somehow, I couldn't settle on any recipe when I set out to bake. After hours of back-ing and forth-ing between recipes I decided to just wing it and do my own thing. After all, I'd been baking for as long as I could remember and how hard could it be?

Lemon Cake

1 cup Maida or APF
3/4 cup Sugar, powdered
3 Eggs, at room temperature
125 gms Butter, softened
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 Meyer lemon, zested, and juice extracted
1 -2 tsp Sugar for the drizzle
a little zest, reserved for the drizzle

Grease and flour an 8 inch cake tin. Set your oven to preheat at 180C.

In a clean bowl sift the maida with the baking powder.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or in a mixing bowl using a hand held mixer cream the butter with the sugar till it's smooth and pale.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue beating. Add the vanilla extract too.

Once the mixture is smooth, chuck in the lemon zest. Mix till it is combined nicely.

Add the flour into the mix in small amounts. I use the 1/4 cup measuring cup from my set, and whisk well after each addition. Mix in all the flour to get a smooth batter.

Pour batter into the cake tin and bake at 180C for 35 to 40 minutes. Check with a cake tester in the centre and if the tester comes out clean your cake is done.

In the mean time make the lemon drizzle. Combine sugar into the lemon juice and mix well till the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the reserved zest. Taste and check for a good balance of sweet and lemony sourness.

Sprinkle the drizzle randomly on your cake while it's still warm. Let the cake cool completely before you unmould it. I didn't soak the entire cake with the drizzle but just randomly splashed it on the surface. This resulted in surprise lemony explosions of flavour while eating the cake, which I loved.

Serve this beautiful cake at tea time, add slices to lunch boxes or, like me, make them in disposable cases and distribute to your friends. Deliciousness, like happinesss, must be shared. So go on, get baking!

Luv Thy Farmer and Mosambi Cake

Mosambi (Sweet Lime) Cake

I noticed a post on Facebook where a friend was making an effort to help a fruit farmer get a decent price for his produce (mosambis or sweet limes) by selling it via the social network. The usual route for farmers to the retail customers is through multiple middlemen which means the farmer gets paid a fraction of what you and me, the end users, actually pay for produce. In Mr Gaikwad's case he was getting roughly INR 12- 15 per kilo while we were paying around INR 70 per kilo. My friend Ranjit decided to try to bridge this enormous price gap and thus Luv Thy Farmer was born.

I bought a 5 kilo bag of mosambis for INR 300 - that's INR 60 per kilo for mosambis which turned out to be far better than the ones I'd bought from my online grocery store, and cheaper too. I did juice quite a few of them but these fruits were so fragrant I wanted to make something more than just juice. A cake was the most obvious thing that came to my mind and I set about looking at a few recipes to see what I could do.

I liked this recipe for Moist Lemon Bundt Cake on a blog called Amy Kay's Kitchen and I adapted it to include mosambis instead of lemons. I have also reduced the sweet elements that make up this cake. Here's what I did -

Mosambi Cake

2 1/4 cups maida, sifted
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups castor  sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 2 large mosambis
1 1/4 cup milk
150 gms butter

Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare a baking tin, either a Bundt pan or any regular shaped cake tin, by coating the inside with butter. I used a pastry brush to spread the butter evenly.

In a large bowl combine the sifted maida, salt and baking powder and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer crack the four eggs and mix on medium speed till thickened. The eggs should turn a pale lemon colour. Add the sugar in small amounts beating continuously.

Add the zest and the vanilla extract and continue to mix.

Slowly add the dry flour mix, a little at a time incorporating completely into the egg mix.

Heat the milk and add the butter to it. Stir to mix and let the butter melt. Remove from heat. The milk shouldn't get too hot or boil.

Slowly add the milk-butter mix into the batter and let it all combine. You will get a runny batter.

Pour batter into the prepared cake tin and set it in the oven to bake for 30 to 35 minutes. A cake skewer inserted in the middle should come out clean.

You can drizzle the cake with a mosambi juice and icing sugar glaze if you like. I didn't because we are now a house full of diabetics and this cake is stretching the limits as it is! I just sprinkled some extra mosambi zest on top of the cake. The fresh burst of flavour from that zest was just superb.

Kahlua Chocolate Cake

I have great ambitions about baking cakes. I love cakes. I sit for hours on Pinterest looking (and drooling) over the myriad cakes that call out seductively. Some are so beautiful, in fact, that I don't even care that they're fruity cakes - I want to bake each one some day. Baking, like cooking, is something I find incredibly relaxing and today I really needed that therapeutic dance of measuring, mixing, and baking till a magical cake appeared.

Usually I simply throw together the basic sponge or pound cake that I learned when I was just a kid, and the most I do with that recipe is add booze soaked fruit, chocolate chips, nuts, preserved fruits, etc., to make it a little different. Today I needed more than that comfortable, familiar, and nearly mindless recipe. I needed to be involved. I needed to be wholly occupied with baking a cake leaving no room in my head to think about anything else. So went on to Pinterest to look for something that suited my needs and what I had in my pantry.

I found this Kahlua Chocolate Cake recipe and it fit the bill perfectly. A simple enough recipe with no branded ingredients that I would find impossible or expensive to procure, and with enough to do to keep me fully occupied, this chocolate laden cake was destined for me today!

I'm reproducing the recipe here with easier measurements and a slightly more detailed method keeping in mind the hiccups I had while making this beautiful cake. This recipe has several steps so read the entire recipe first and get your ingredients and equipment together before you start.

Kahlua Chocolate Cake

For the Cake

2 1/4 cup Maida
1/4 cup Hintz cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

110 gms chocolate

1 cup Kahlua
1 cup sour cream

125 gms butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup boiling water
1 cup chocolate chips

For the Glaze

110 gms chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 or 2 tbsp fine sugar (if required)
Kahlua

Start with the cake -

Preheat the oven at 180C.

Prepare a 12 cup Bundt pan by greasing it with butter. To figure out the capacity of your Bundt pan simply pour in water using your cup measure and count how many cups fit in. If your pan is small you will have left over batter. No worries, make a small cake in a suitable cake tin or make cup cakes with the leftover batter.

Melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl. I zapped it in the microwave till it was silky and melted.

In a measuring jug pour a cup of Kahlua. Now add enough sour cream to take it up to the 2 cups mark. I used Amul sour cream and needed one full tub which I beat lightly with a fork before adding to the Kahlua. Mix the two with a fork till they have blended.

In a clean large bowl mix the maida, cocoa, baking soda and salt till all are well combined.

Place the butter in the mixing bowl of your stand mixer or in any mixing bowl and use your hand mixer. Use the paddle attachment if you're using a KitchenAid. Add the brown sugar and cream it well till the sugar and butter are blended, light and fluffy. Now add the eggs one at a time, mixing well with each addition. Pour in the vanilla now along with the melted chocolate and continue to mix.

Get the boiling water ready.

Alternating between the dry flour mix and the Kahlua-sour cream mix add the two to the butter-sugar-eggs mix till everything is incorporated.

Now add the boiling water and mix carefully. Slow down the speed of the electric mixer as the water can splash out. It takes about half a minute to get incorporated so be careful. Add the chocolate chips and mix them in gently.

Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and bake the cake for 50 to 60 minutes till a skewer poked in comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely in the mould before you remove it. This is a soft moist cake and it might break. So be patient. Cool further on a rack before glazing it.

My cake had risen while baking so I had to trim it to get a flat bottom. It was easy enough, all I did was wait for it to cool and then went at it with a large serrated bread knife. We scarfed the scraps quite happily (there was no way I was letting anyone near the cake before I'd taken photographs, obviously!).

To make the glaze -

In a small pan bring the cream to a boil. Have the chocolate ready in a jug. Pour the just boiled cream over the chocolate and let it stand undisturbed for a couple of minutes. Mix with a spatula till you have a smooth glossy glaze. I added a couple of tablespoons of fine sugar as the chocolate I used was quite bitter. Add a tablespoon or two of Kahlua and incorporate fully till you have a satiny smooth pourable glaze.

Place the cooled cake on the rack over a tray to catch any drips and drizzle the glaze over the cake. I spooned the glaze over and 'helped' it dribble down the sides attractively ;)

Let the glaze set and your Kahlua Chocolate Cake is ready to serve.

Cherry Chocolate Cake

My pantry was suddenly full of cherries. No, not fresh ones though it's the season for them now, but bottled cherries. I'd bought a couple of kinds from my favourite shop in Crawford Market where I shop for goodies occasionally, and then Saee gave me some more. While I'm not a fan of fruit the hubby loves them and always waits eagerly for me to make something exciting with fruit in it. With such a flood of cherries it went without saying that I'd be making something with them soon.

I browsed around on Pinterest, my favourite source of ideas and inspiration, and came across this exceptionally simple yet delicious sounding recipe for Cherry Chocolate Cake on this lovely blog called Tutti Dolci. I ran it by the hubby and once I had his approval I set about making it. It goes without saying that I have made my own adjustments and changes to the recipe and here is what I did, though I followed the method exactly.

Cherry Chocolate Cake

3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup or 60 gms butter
2 tbsp preserving syrup from cherries
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk with a tsp of lemon juice stirred in
enough cherries preserved in syrup to decorate

Preheat the oven at 180C.

In a clean mixing bowl combine all the dry ingredients.

In another bowl whisk the sugar and butter till light and creamy. I did this in my stand mixer. You can do it in a bowl with a hand held electric mixer or even by hand with a whisk. Use small grain sugar. I added a couple of tablespoons of the cherry syrup at this stage.

Once the sugar and butter are creamed well add the egg and the vanilla and beat well. Slow down the speed of the mixer and pour in a bit of the flour mixture and mix. Add some of the lemon and milk mix. Beat to mix. Add the dry mix and the liquid in alternates and blend it all in well to make a smooth satiny batter.

Smear the insides of an 8 inch round cake tin thinly with butter. Pour in the batter. Dot the top with as many cherries as you can but don't squash them too tight. The cherries will sink into the cake and, since they're preserved and not fresh ones, might even disintegrate into the cake. Don't worry, the cake will be delish anyway. Bake for around 25 minutes. Check with a thin skewer to see if it's done -the skewer should come out clean.

Cool the cake in the tin before removing. Ideally, use a loose bottomed tin so you can unmould it more easily. If, like me, you're using a regular tin wait patiently till the cake is cooled before you try to remove it or the cake might break.

Dust the top lightly with powdered sugar if you like and serve. A scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside a warmed slice of this cake would also be magical!

Marathon Bloggers

Black Forest Buns - We Knead to Bake #25

The chosen bread for February, being valentine's month, for the We Knead to Bake group was Black Forest Buns. These buns have cherries, chocolate cake and chocolate sauce incorporated into bread in the form of buns. The idea appealed to me instantly and I got the ingredients together to make them on a Sunday.

Since K loves jams, jellies and preserves, he has quite a collection and I had his permission to raid his stash for something suitable. I did. I also made my easy pound cake with a whole lot of cocoa powder added to the mix for a home made chocolate cake that I could crumble and use for this recipe.

The Black Forest Buns are basically bread rolls stuffed with a cherry preserve or compote, and crumbled chocolate cake. Ideally they should look like cinnamon rolls and should stand individually instead of turning into pull apart rolls as mine did. The hubby certified the taste to be outstanding, so I'm glad I got that right at least!

To make the chocolate cake I followed the same Basic Sponge Cake recipe that I've been making for many years, with around 3 to 4 spoons of cocoa powder added to the flour. You can add a little milk to the batter if you feel the cocoa is making the batter too dry. Let the cake cool completely before you take it out of the tin. I used a little less than half the cake for crumbs. The rest will be slathered with Nutella and enjoyed with coffee :)

Black Forest Buns

The recipe is quite the same as given by Aparna here.

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 heaped tablespoon soft butter
1 and 1/2 tsp Instant yeast
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups plus extra maida

For the filling

Crumbled chocolate cake
Cherry preserve or compote or any berry jam. Chunky will give good texture.

For topping

Melted cooking chocolate


Start by mixing the milk and water in a pan. Heat the two till hot but not boiling. Remove from heat. Add the sugar and let it dissolve. Let this mixture cool considerably and then put it into the mixing bowl of your food processor or stand mixer. If you're kneading by hand then just use a large mixing bowl.

Add the egg and the yeast into the still warm liquid mix and stir to combine. Then add a cup of maida/white flour and start your machine. I used my stand mixer with the batter paddle attachment. Gradually add the remaining flour till it all combines. Don't forget to add the salt early enough.

I changed to the dough hook once the ingredients were combined and left the machine to knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. Once the dough was more or less together but still a tad sticky I took it out onto my work surface and kneaded it by hand till it was soft, smooth and very lightly sticky. Add loose flour little by little as you knead to get there. Use the stretch and fold method to work the dough.

Take an oiled bowl and set the dough aside to rise. I will take a little more than an hour to double. Leave the bowl covered with a damp cloth.

Once the dough has doubled get all your filling ingredients together.

Punch the dough down gently. Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough to make a large oblong around 18" x 12" Try to make it as neat and uniform as possible so you have nicely formed rolls at the end. Work quickly so the dough doesn't rise too much as you work.

Once the oblong is rolled out spread the cherry preserve (or whatever you are using) generously all over, leaving a small border around.

Next spread a generous amount of the cake crumbs covering as much of the dough as you can. Try to make the layer as even as you can.

Now comes the tricky part. Start from one long side and roll tightly to form a long log creating a spiral as you go. Tuck in the dough gently and carefully so the roll is not loose. The sides of my dough were a bit too thick so I had a really fat centre so remember to roll it as thin as you possibly can.

Use a dough scraper or a really sharp non serrated knife and cut out individual buns from the rolled log. Arrange these in a tall sided baking tin and leave them to prove for another hour. They will double.

Bake the risen buns for around 30 mins at 180C. Keep an eye on them so they don't become too brown.

 I also topped the buns with dried cranberries before putting them in to bake. Melt a little chocolate and drizzle on top of the buns. Serve them still warm or enjoy them later with your evening coffee or tea. These will be great as tiffin fillers for the kids.

We Knead to Bake

Marathon Bloggers

Chocolate Ganache - Easy Primping for Cakes

Chocolate ganache - it's one of those things that every home baker and cake lover knows about and loves. We've all seen so many pictures of luscious ganache topped cakes and cup cakes all over Facebook and Instagram  and drooled at each one of them. I've been drooling too but have never made ganache myself.

The thought of heating cream seemed suspect to me. I know. There's no logical reason for my suspicion but I was suspicious anyway. I am like that. I am wary of trying new things and new techniques and find excuses not to try things instead of just leaping in and just doing it. Yes, silly of me but there you are!

For the last few weeks I haven't been in the mood to cook or bake or paint or do any of the things I really enjoy. Blogging has suffered too. Then this morning the hubby was moaning about sticky cakes and puddings and God knows what else and I thought, let's make something new today. Ganache came to mind and I also had all the ingredients - yes, both of them! So I made the usual pound cake, slashed it in half and then slathered the whole thing inside and out with the ganache.

I was chatting with my friend Garima who bakes and cooks a lot and she assured me that ganache was ridiculously easyto make and of course I could make it, and of course it would turn out very nicely too. She explained every nitty gritty detail and I must have asked her every possible question about ganache making. She answered. Patiently. Aren't I lucky to always have a helpful friend at hand, just when I need them?!

Chocolate Ganache

250 gms cooking chocolate. I used Morde's Dark Chocolate
125 ml cream. I used Amul cream

Grate the chocolate and put it in a clean bowl. In a saucepan heat the cream stirring slowly till it begins to bubble. Take the cream off the heat and pour it on to the grated chocolate. Let it sit for a minute and then stir gently to blend the cream and the melting chocolate into a smooth silky ganache.

That's it.

The next time I make ganache I'm going to add a hefty spoonful of coffee. I think it will be magical.

Make any cake that you like and frost it with this delicious chocolate spread. Add sprinkles to jazz it up if you like. You will have a beautiful cake to perk up your tea time.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Lebu Sondesh - Lemon scented Sweet Cottage Cheese

Sondesh is something that is quintessentially Bengali and you will find it hard to find a Bengali who doesn't like this subtly flavoured fresh cottage cheese sweet. I'm not crazy about it but I do enjoy a couple of them once in a way, and always have a few when I'm in Kolkata.

Over the last couple of visits there I have bought myself quite a pile of sondesh moulds. These are available in the markets in Kolkata, usually in the shops that sell paraphernalia related to religious functions and rituals.

I also had a pile of fragrant gondhoraj lemons waiting to be used. So I decided to make sondesh with gondhoraj lemon zest for flavour instead of the usual cardamom.

Sondesh with Gondhoraj Lebu

2 litres full fat buffalo milk
2-3 tbsp lemon juice as required. I used Dabur Lemoneez
3 tbsp castor sugar
zest of 2 gondhoraj lemons, or of 4 regular limes
elbow grease
Sondesh moulds smeared with ghee

Bring the milk to a boil in a large vessel. Pour in the lemon juice and stir well. The milk will split into solids and whey. Let it boil gently for a couple of minutes so that the whey and the solids are completely separated.

Line a colander with a fine cheesecloth or large piece of muslin and then pour the split milk into the colander carefully. Let the whey drain out.

Gather the cloth together to make a bundle and hang up the fresh cottage cheese to drain. Squeeze out as much whey as you can, but be careful, it's hot. Let  it hang over the kitchen sink tied to your faucet for 30 to 45 minutes. While you want most of the whey to drain off you don't want a dried out cheese. It must remain moist.

In a clean plate take out the drained cheese.

Now's the time to use that elbow grease! Knead the cheese well for a as long as it takes to get a smooth texture that is as free of granules as possible. I broke it up and then pushed it to one side of the plate. Then little by little I pressed the cheese down on the plate with my thumb. In this way go through all the cheese, squashing and kneading as you go. I think a pav bhaji masher might be useful here, but since I don't have one I went the traditional way. Eventually you should have a smooth ball of soft cottage cheese.

Add the sugar and the lemon zest and knead it all in well for another 3 -4 minutes. Taste the mixture and add sugar if you need it.

Now comes the fun part. Take out your best non stick pan or wok and cook the kneaded cheese for 4 to 5 minutes stirring all the time. Make sure the pan is squeaky clean because the cheese will absorb any smells or flavours from the pan. I tried to mash the cheese further with a wooden spatula as it cooked. The cheese will get soft and pliable. Don't wait for it to harden or your sondesh will not form into the shapes, it will crack. That's because the cheese hardens as it cools.

Remove the cheese from the heat. Now take small amounts of the sondesh mixture and put it on the greased mould. Press the mixture in gently so the impression of the design comes through nicely. Leave it in the mould for a couple of minutes and then unmould gently and arrange your sondesh on a pretty plate.  Work as quickly as you can and heat the sondesh mixture slightly if it has gone cold.

If you don't have the traditional moulds you could even use the silicon chocolate moulds, or simply make little balls and press down to flatten like we do for pedas. Sprinkle some lemon zest on top of the ready sondesh and they're ready.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Plum Clafoutis - A Simple French Dessert

The hubby saw the box of plums I had bought and demanded a Clafoutis made with the fruit. The word Clafoutis always made me imagine a light frothy French confection that would be decadent, and difficult to make. Now I had to make it.

I looked around on the Net and found, much to my surprise that a Clafoutis is a ridiculously simple dessert and it would be quite a doddle to make. This baby was right up my street!

Plum Clafoutis

8 -10 semi ripe plums, washed, halved and stone removed
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup cream or fresh malai
butter
4 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 tsps brown sugar
2 tsps maida

Method
Preheat the oven at 180C.
Halve the plums and remove the seed. Try to keep the hemispheres of fruit as intact as you can. The seed can stay stubbornly stuck so use a knife to prise it out.
In a saucepan heat the milk, malai/cream and vanilla till it just begins to bubble. I used fresh malai off the top of a pan of fresh full fat milk I had boiled earlier and cooled in the fridge. Stir it and take it off the heat. Leave aside to cool.
Whisk the eggs and the powdered sugar till combined. Add the flour a little at a time and continue to whisk till it is all blended in. Make sure there are no flour lumps.
Wipe your pie dish clean and melt some butter on it. Just pop it into the preheated oven and wait for it to start bubbling. Place the plums cut side down on the butter. Now sprinkle the brown sugar on the plums and the spaces between and put the pie dish back in the oven. Cook the plums for 5 to 8 minutes.
Combine the egg and sugar mixture with the cooled milk and cream. Whisk it well and pour it onto the plums carefully. Put the dish back into the oven and let it bake for 25 to 30 minutes till the custard is set and has a nice golden look.
This tastes best served hot. You can serve it with ice cream and also dust it with icing sugar if you like. The hubby devoured it as it was :)

I adapted this recipe from here. I have halved the quantities approximately and fiddled around with the ingredients to suit our tastes.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Mousse Daruwala or Chocolate Mousse with Booze

It's been a while since I made chocolate mousse. I used to make it on order when we lived in South Mumbai and in those days I even made a few hundred portions at a time for large orders. I made it so often I could make it in my sleep. Once we moved to Kharghar it wasn't practical especially since mousse is a delicate dessert and needs proper refrigeration at all times or it becomes loose and runny. That happens because I make mousse the classic way, with eggs.

A bunch of friends decided to get together for a dinner at home and I volunteered a big bowl of Mousse Daruwala as my contribution to the dinner table. A simple dessert, if made right, it can be absolutely fabulous. Use the best chocolate you can find and it will be even better. However you can use the regular non gourmet cooking chocolate available at your local supermarket and still have a damn good mousse.

Gather the ingredients.

Make space in your refrigerator before you begin. Make sure your equipment, utensils and mixing bowls are squeaky clean and dry. And then follow this recipe that I added to this blog around six years ago. I have yet to find a recipe that can match it in simplicity and dependability.

Dig out a nice bowl and let the mousse set in it. Decorate with whatever you have at hand - I grated some 85% dark chocolate and lined the sides of the bowl with white chocolate chips, after letting the mousse set for an hour in the fridge. You can also set individual portions in whiskey tumblers or wine glasses if you want to be fancy.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Gajar ka Halwa - Indian Carrot and Milk Pudding

It started towards the end of October - as the weather cooled in the north I saw picture after picture of the delicious red carrots flooding every food group board on Facebook and more often than not, people were making gajar ka halwa with those carrots. 

I have always disliked Gajar ka Halwa. Once again I have a seemingly stupid reason for my dislike. My dad liked to cook and as most men, especially in those days, he was not into making mundane daal, bhaat, torkari, but liked to cook up the fancy and complicated stuff. The fact that slave labour (me) was available inhouse was an added benefit, I'm sure! And so gajar ka halwa featured often. 

I would be duly sent upstairs to our neighbour's house to get their grater. It was a big red plastic bowl with a white grater that fitted on as a lid. 30 years ago it was unusual and uber cool. Anyway, I hated that grater because I'd be the one stuck grating that mountain of carrots. Okay. Honestly, it was probably just a kilo of carrots but to a 9 year old it was a mountain. I'm not surprised that I remember nothing about the process of making the halwa apart from the grating. I seem to have deleted it all out of my memories! 

Well I am past 40 now and I like to think I have grown up enough to get over the trauma of grating those mountains of carrots. And so I set out to make gajar ka halwa myself. No. I didn't grate any carrots - I got my cook to do that part of the job ;)

Having seen tons of Gajar ka Halwa posts on Chef at Large on Facebook I asked for a recipe. The answers were instantaneous and I had a whole load of fool proof recipes to choose from. Ultimately the Hubby selected one that he felt was the most authentic one and it appealed to me too because it had no short cuts.I like to do a recipe the correct way the first time and only after that pare down the method for an easier version for future use. 

Thank you Harpreet Bedi Chadha for sharing your recipe. 

Gajar ka Halwa (with my own tweaks)

2 kg Red carrots, grated

2 lts full fat buffalo milk

5 green cardamom, seeds removed and reserved. 

Pure ghee, as required

Sugar - roughly 1 cup. Use more or less according to how sweet you want the halwa to be

15 blanched and halved almonds

20 raisins and 10 cashew nuts for garnishing. 

Take a thick bottomed largish vessel to make the halwa. 

Put in the grated carrots and the full fat milk and bring both to a boil. Pound the cardamom seeds gently in a mortar and pestle or under a rolling pin and add them to the boiling carrot and milk. Reduce the flame and let the milk get absorbed into the carrots and reduce. 

Stir every few minutes ensuring that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the vessel. This is going to take a few hours so there is no option but to be patient. Keep stirring every five minutes or so.

In the mean time you can peel the blanched almonds and halve them. Put them aside. Heat a little ghee in a separate pan and fry the almonds very lightly. If you're using raisins or cashews, fry them too. Drain out the excess ghee and leave these aside. 

Eventually the milk in the carrot-milk mix will reduce and you will get to the final stages of the halwa. 

Add the sugar and stir well. The sugar will dissolve and the halwa will get watery again. 

Stir away patiently till the halwa reaches a nice thick halwa-like consistency. If you like you can add a few of the raisins and a few nuts (chopped) to the halwa. Pour in the ghee too. Mix well and your halwa is ready. 

Remove to a pretty bowl and decorate with the remaining nuts and raisins. 

Marathon Bloggers Project 52