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.

 

Til Gur Ladoo

Lots of childhood memories are attach to the festival of Markar Sankrati. As childhood was spend in Maharashtra, all memories are also based from there.  This season was the time of kite flying, crushing glass to make manjaa (sharp thread), kite flights etc. Evening were time for haldi-kunku (literally meaning turmeric and vermillion) where the married women were invited to one house. The lady of the house would apply small bindi’s of haldi and kumkum on every women’s forehead, who is visiting her house and would give handful of goodies which include a peas, ground nuts,  popcorn, and a small utensil (like a steel spoon, steal box, etc). We as kids would accompany our mothers and wait for our turn.  The excitement was all about the gifts which normally was a handkerchief, hairclips, hairbands etc.

 People and traditions were so simple those days.  I miss all of this in today’s metro life.

Finally we were served til gud’s ladoos the highlight of this festival. Small ball made of crushed til and jaggury, with a flavor of cardamom.  The ladoos melted in the month. It felt heavenly. I have tried to make it in a similar ways but no comparison to those maharastrain aunties (kaku).

 Ingredient
White til/ sesame seed – 200gm
Gur/ jaggery – 150gm
Cardamom powder – 1tsp

Method

1.     Roast til it is lightly brown in a low heat. And cool it.
2.     Grate the gur.
3.     In a mixture coarsely grind til and keep adding little gur at a time so that it mixes well.  ( I mix it in a vegetable cutter, it mixes perfectly)
4.     To this add the cardamom powder, mix well.
5.     Take lemon size portion and bind it into small balls.
6.     Make similar ladoo’s with the rest of the mixture
7.     Note: if the mixture is not binding together, you can just heat the mixture and shape it. Don’t over heat the mixture and the jaggury will melt.