Cola Chocolate cake (eggless)

Ingredients

Maida /all-purpose flour – 1½  cup

Coco powder – 1/3  cup or slightly less than ½ cup

Baking powder – 1½ tsp

Baking soda – ¼ tsp

Salted butter – 60gm (1tbsp less than ½ cup)

Powdered sugar – ¾ cup

Coca cola – 1½ cup

Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

Choco chips – 1tsp (optional)

Method 

1.    Pre heat oven to 180^Oc.

2.    Sieve maida, coco powder, baking powder and baking soda.

3.    Now beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

4.    Add half of the maida and half cola, mix and then repeat with the remaining maida and cola. Mix well. If required add enough cola to get a dropping consistency.

5.    You can add chocolate chip or walnut at this stage, mix well.

6.    Line a muffin tray. Spoon  mixture into them fill them ¾ only (as it will rise).

7.    Bake in the preheated oven for 25min or till done.

8.    Cool and serve. 

Mawa Malpua

It’s Holi the festival of colour and I wanted to make something new. Malpua was a holi desert I thought of making but my only concern was the taste of sauf / fennel seeds, which my kids may not accept. While hunting for recipes, I saw a mention of mawa malpua. It’s a Rajasthan sweet which is made of khoya/ mawa. Khoya is a form of dried whole milk.

I have adapted Nisha Madhulika’s recipe. The end result was wow feeling and a simple mouth water desert.

Do try it and put in your comments.

Ingredients

Milk – 2 cups

Mawa or Khoya - 1 cup grated

Maida – 1 cup

Sugar – 1 ½ cup

Kesar/ saffron strands – 10 pieces.

Ghee - to fry.

Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

Almond – 20

Water – ¾ cup

Method

1.     Heat the milk to luke warm

2.     Take the grated khoya in a bowl and to this add little by little the milk and mix well till there is no lump.

3.     To this add the entire milk and maida to make a batter.  Mix it well. And keep it to settle.

4.     In the meantime prepare the syrup by boiling ¾ cup of water with sugar. After the sugar melts, let it boil for 5 more min. ( the syrup should to sticky and watery, so no need to do the string test).

5.     Now to this add the cardamom powder and kesar.

6.     Now heat ghee in a broad pan. The heat should be on low flame or the malpua will burn.

7.     Pour 1 tbsp of the malpua batter into the ghee to make small round shape pancakes.

8.     Let it cook till it turns light brown in colour from one side and them turn to cook the other side.

9.     Now take them out from the ghee onto a soaking paper that would soak the excess ghee.

10.                        Dip this malpua into the sugar syrup for 5 to 10 min, then remove and arrange it on the plate.

11.                        Garnish it with the almonds. 

Custard Cookies

Ingredients

All purpose flour / maida – 250gm

Powdered sugar – 155 gm

Butter – 250gm

Custard powder – 155gm

Egg -1

Castor sugar for coating about half a cup

Method

1.           In a bowl cream butter and sugar by whisking to together.

2.           Now mix in the egg and whisk it.

3.           Mix together the maida and custard powder.

4.           Add the powder mixture to the liquid mixture.

5.           Mix in to a loose dough.  ( don’t over mix and rub into a soft dough)

6.           Line a baking tray with butter paper.

7.           Now make lemon size round balls from this dough.

8.           Coat it with castor sugar.

9.           Place it on the butter paper.

10.      Take a fork and press it on the top of the roundels

11.      Bake them at 180C for 15 min.  ( don’t overbake it as it will discolour and become hard. 

Chicken Gold Coin

I have a colleague who celebrates Chinese New Year.  Every year she make lots of dishes mostly non-vegetarian. One of them was chicken gold coin. She had got few for us to taste, it was yummy.  That’s when I thought that I will try making it at home.  The recipe credit goes to her and Sanjeev Kapoor link. The final product was more than I thought.  It’s a very good starter and   kids love it as evening snacks.

So do try it.

Ingredients

Bread Slice -  12

Minced Chicken – 250gm

Onion – 1 small (finely chopped)

Ginger – 2 tsp (finely chopper

Garlic – 2 tsp finely chopped

Soya sauce – 1tsp

Corn starch – 2tsp

Pepper powder – 1tsp

Green chill – 2 optional (finely chopped)

Egg – 2

Sesame seed – 2 tbsp

Salt to taste

Oil to deep fry

Method

1.           Cut the bread slices into roundels with a round cutter or a kattory(steel bowl) as shown.

2.           Take the minced meat into a bowl.

3.           To this add the soya sauce, onion, ginger, garlic, greem chilli, pepper powder, corn flour, 1 egg, and salt. Mix well to make the filling.

4.           Now in a separate bowl break the second egg, add pinch of salt and 1tsp water and beat it well to make the egg wash.

5.           Take the prepared round bread, lightly brush the egg wash on one side.

6.           On top of this keep a little filling of chicken.

7.           Again brush the egg wash on top of the chicken filling.

8.           Spread sesame seed and press lightly.

9.           Do the same with the other bread roundels

10.      Now refrigerate it for 15 min.

11.      Heat the oil to fry in a wok.

12.      When it is hot to fry, first lower the heat, and then fry the prepared gold coin with the chicken side down for 10 min and turn and fry for 2 min.

13.      Remove from the oil and strain the excess oil.

14.      Chicken gold coin is ready to eat with sauces or dips. 

Heart Centred Cookies

For this Valentine’s Day this is what I have prepared. The only twisted part is to make the heart shapes stand straight and get it combined. Rest its pretty simple and fast to make. I made about 5 batches with this recipe and took it to my office for a small Valentine ’s Day celebration. My colleagues enjoyed it.

So try to make it.

Ingredients 

Butter – ¾ cup

Castor Sugar – ¾ cup

Egg – 1

Maida / all-purpose flour – 2 cups

Baking powder – ¼ tsp

Salt – 1 pinch

Red food colour

Strawberry essence

Heart shape cookie cutter 

Note : all in room temperature

Method 

1.           Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2.           To this beat the egg for a minute.

3.           Now add the essence and mix.

4.           In another bowl swift together maida, baking powder and salt.

5.           Mix the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

6.           Mix well and knead it to a dough.

7.           Tint 1/4^th of the dough with red colour and wrap into a plastic wrap.

8.           Wrap the remaining plain dough also in a plastic dough.

9.           Refrigerate the doughs for 2 hrs.

10.      Lightly flour the rolling surface and roll red dough into a thick rectangular sheet. With the cookie cutter, cut as many shape as possible.

11.      Repeat the same with the remaining red dough.

12.      Place the cut heart one above the other to make a long heart rod (as shown in the figure). Refrigerate for 15 min.

13.      Make a long thick strip of the white dough and fill the groove of the heart.

14.      Now roll the plain dough and rollup to cover the red dough and roll it to make a cylinder.

15.      Wrap up in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hrs.

16.      Preheat the oven to 180^OC.

17.      Unwrap and cut the dough into 1/4 inch slices.

18.      Line a baking tray with butter paper and place these cookies with a little gap between each cookies.
19.      Bake the cookies at 180^OC for 12 min.

20.      Remove to cool. 

Watermelon Slice Cookies

This long weekend of Republic day, after a little looking around in the net. This is what I found and made. My husband loved it and kids are all ready to show it off in school tomorrow.  I enjoys make this and it’s a visual joy to see the end product.

I summer fruit, recreated in winter. So, Enjoy Baking !

Ingredients

Butter – ¾ cup

Castor Sugar – ¾ cup

Egg – 1

Maida / all-purpose flour – 2 cups

Baking powder – ¼ tsp

Salt – 1 pinch

Red and green food colour

Chocolate chips – as required

Note : all in room temperature

Method

1.     Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2.     To this beat the egg for a min.

3.     Now add the essence and mix.

4.     In another bowl swift together maida, baking powder and salt.

5.     Mix the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

6.     Mix well and knead it to a dough.

7.     Reserve one cup of dough. Tint the remaining dough into red and shape into a long cylindrical log around 12cm. Then wrap in a plastic wrap.

8.     Tint 1/3 of the reserved dough with green colour and wrap it into a plastic wrap.

9.     Wrap the remaining plain dough also in a plastic dough.

10.    Refrigerate the doughs for 2 hrs.

11.     Lightly flour the rolling surface and roll plain dough into a thin rectangular sheet long enough to cover the red dough.

12.     Place the red dough on the plain dough sheet and rollup the plain dough to cover the red dough.

13.    In the similar way roll the green dough to a rectangular sheet. Place the red and plain dough roll on the sheet and rollup to cover.

14.   Wrap up in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hrs.

15.    Preheat the oven to 180^OC.

16.    Unwrap and cut the dough into 1/4 inch slices. Now cut the slices into half slices (like a half circle).

17.     Press chocolate chips in the red dough to resemble watermelon seed.

18.      Line a baking tray with butter paper and place these cookies with a little gap between each cookies.

19.      Bake the cookies at 180^OC for 12 min.

20.      Remove to cool. 

  

Christmas Plum Cake

A traditional plum cake recipe which pass passed on from my mother to me. She never used spices but I have tried with the spice and like it. There no Christmas, without this cake. This year I made about 20kgs of plum cakes and still it is always less.

It’s too late to put this recipe, but I had to pen it. Every year I think of posting it and due to festivity and lack of time, its push it to next year. And it never comes up.  So here I go………… 

 

Ingredients

For Soaking:

Mixed dry fruits of your choice - 3 cups/ a jar full ( I have used candied orange and lemon peel, sugared ginger, raisins, cashew-nut, dates, tuti-futi, glanced cherrys)

Rum/Brandy – about 1.5 cups/ till it cover the fruit in the jar (I used old monk dark rum)

• Chop all the dry fruit to equal small size. You can use dried fruits of your choice.  
• Fill it in a glass bottle and pour rum till it socks the fruits till the top. I sock it about a month back.

For Caramel:

Sugar - ½ cup

Warm water - ¼ cup

• Place the sugar in a pan and heat a pan (I prefer a deep pan). Heat it & let the sugar melt.
• When the color of the melted sugar becomes dark brown, remove the pan from fire & add ¼ cup warm water to this. You need to be very careful at this stage since the water tends to splash & can cause burns.
• Bring it back to the heat & boil for a few more mins, till the water mixes and melts completely.
• Remove from fire & let it cool completely.
• You can prepare the caramel in advance and store it in a dry glass bottle.

 

For Spice Powder:

Cloves powder– 1 tsp

Dry ginger powder – 2tsp
Cinnamon powder – 2tsp
Nutmeg powder – 1tsp

• Mix all together and store it in a dry container.  Use as per required.

 

For Cake:

Castor sugar – 250gm

Unsalted butter – 250 gm
Egg - 5
Plain flour (maida) – 250gm
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Vanilla essence – 2 tsp
Socked Dry fruits -  ½ cup
Caramel – 2tbsp

Note :  all ingredient should be in room temperature.

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven @ 180 C for 10-15 mins, before baking.
2. Swift the flour, baking powder and spice.
3. Beat the butter for about a minute till it becomes smooth.
4. To this add sugar and beat again for a min.
5. Now add egg one at a time a beat it as you are adding.\Now add the vanilla essence and the caramel and mix well.
6. Fold in 3/4th of the flour.
7. Toss the socked fruit in the remaining 1/4th flour. (This will prevent the fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake and would be evening spread).
8. Fold the tossed fruits to the cake mixture.
9. Grease a 9inchs baking dish with butter and dust the entire dish with dry flour and tap of the access flour.
10. Pour the batter to the prepared dish.
11. Bake for 50 min at 180degree C or until the skewer inserted comes out clean.
12. Remove and cool it completely, before tossing it of the tin.