Warm chocolate pudding

Hello …

It has been more than three months since my last post, so I thought I should come back and say a quick hello to you all and wish you all a great festive season ahead!  Hope you all gearing up for Christmas and New Year. I am also looking forward to the school holidays and time off work.  

Today’s recipe is a hot chocolate pudding, perfect dessert to indulge during the festive time. It’s quick ad unbelievably easy. Two weeks back we went to a restaurant to eat some Chinese with friends and the kids ordered this chocolate pudding for dessert. I was trying hard to be good and made up my mind not to order any dessert for myself  but after tasting a spoonful from my boy’s plate I couldn’t resist it, so me and my friend had to order one for us ! It was a lovely dessert with gooey chocolate heaven in the middle…perfect dessert for chocoholics like me. The taste was still lingering in my taste buds so I had to recreate it as soon as possible. I checked few recipes online and all seemed easy, otherwise I wouldn’t have dared to make this on a Thursday night when I felt like eating a pudding after dinner! I whipped up everything before serving dinner and popped it in the oven and by the time we finished dinner pudding was ready. 

Ingredients

Caster sugar – 90 gm

Butter – 150 gm

Egg yolks – 3

Large Eggs -3

Dark chocolate – 150 ( I used 120 gm of dark chocolate  ( 70 % cocoa ) and 30 gm milk chocolate )

Plain flour – 1 tbs

Method

• In a heat proof bowl, melt chocolate, butter and caster sugar on top of a simmering pan of water.
• Add egg yolks, eggs and beat well. 
• Finally add plain flour and fold in. 
• Pour the batter into greased ramekin bowls and refrigerate for 25 minutes. 
• Put the bowls in a pre- heated oven at 180 degree C for about 12- 14 minutes. Let it stand in the bowl for 2 minutes. 
• Run a knife around the bowl, the pudding should easily come off the bowl. Serve it with some vanilla ice cream!

Before I sign of let me wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New year !

Fruit scones

I cannot believe the summer holidays are nearly coming to an end. 6 weeks has flown by and we had a great summer despite not going home this time.  The highlight of the summer holiday was our trip to Lake District, a trip to remember and cherish. A place surrounded by mountains, valleys and lakes, where beauty meets serenity. We could spend hours just sitting by lakes and doing nothing. It was one of the most relaxing holidays ever. I really didn’t want the holiday to end!  Sharing few picture of the holiday below.

Weather has been great this summer, the sunshine really uplifts our mood and spirit and I have done lots of baking this summer. Scones are something that we always like to order with our afternoon tea when we are out and about  and we love it so much so I decided to bake scones one day with  my little boy. We don’t compromise when it comes to taste, so I bought clotted cream and strawberry jam to pair with the scones and we relished it with our tea for 2-3 days.  It tastes better the same day but if using it next day, warm the scones in an oven at a low temperature.

Recipe source -  Mary Berry

Ingredients ( makes 11- 12 scones )

Self -raising flour – 350 gm

Cold Unsalted butter - 75 gm

Baking powder – 1 ½ tsp

Caster sugar – 30 gm

Raisins – 75 gm

Milk – 100ml

2 eggs

Method

• Place  self -raising flour into a bowl.
• Add butter cut in cubes and rub it until it resembles bread crumbs.
• Add baking powder, caster sugar, raisins, 2 tbs of beaten egg, 100 ml of milk and knead everything together to make a soft but not sticky dough. Add more milk if needed.
• Gently roll the dough into a 2 cm deep rectangle and cut out rounds with a 6cm cutter. Roll out the left over dough again and cut out rounds again.
• Place it on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving spaces between the scones.
• Brush the top of the scones with the reserved egg.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degree C for 10- 12 minutes or until golden brown on top.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• Serve with clotted cream and jam. Enjoy !                                                                                                
  
  
  

Swiss roll with strawberries and fresh cream

Baking is therapeutic to me, no matter however tired I am I can bake even from my sleep. Now that it’s summer holidays time is perfect, with lots of free time in hand and enthusiastic  boy  at home I look for any excuse to bake. He loves baking too, maybe more than baking he likes to eat what we bake :)

Whenever we go to friends place we take the opportunity to bake something to take with us. Since it’s summer and strawberries are in abundance in supermarkets I wanted to bake something summery yesterday to take to a friends and after brainstorming for a while we settled with this swiss roll.  It’s such an easy thing to whip up and tastes really awesome. Believe it or not, it was so good that I baked another swiss roll again today and that’s all gone too !

Ingredients

Self-raising flour – 100 gm

Caster sugar – 100 gm
Butter – 100 gm

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Salt – pinch

Eggs – 2 large

Vanilla extract- 1 tsp

 To spread

Strawberry jam – 2 tbs

Double cream 250 ml

Icing sugar – 2tbs or according to your sweetness

Strawberries – 150 gm

Method

• Beat butter and sugar until mixed.
• Break eggs and beat for a minute or so.
• Add vanilla extract and beat.
• Finally add the dry ingredients and beat until mixed.
• Spread the batter evenly in a Swiss roll tin/ bakeware and bake at 160 degrees for 15 minutes.                                                                                      
  
• Invert the Swiss roll onto to baking paper and roll it tightly while it’s hot.                                                                                                                                      
• Let it cool down
• Once it’s cool, unroll the cake from baking paper.
• Spread jam evenly on top.
• Beat the cream with sugar and spread it on top of jam.
• Finally chop strawberries and sprinkle it on top of cream layer and then roll it back again.                                                                                                                                                                                                         
  
• Chill it in the fridge until it’s ready to be served !   

Nankhatai/ Indian short bread cookie

Hope you all are doing well. I haven’t disappeared anywhere, I am very much here. As much as I want to share recipes here, I really can’t fit in time for blogging. But rather than abandoning the blog forever I would try and update it whenever I can.

It’s finally summer holidays here and unlike every year we didn’t go to India this year but stayed back hoping to enjoy British summer. It’s a shame that the school holidays is in July -August, so past few years we have been missing  British summer and  in India it’s Monsoon time. So basically we never get to enjoy summer at all, by the time we come back it’s almost autumn again. So I really hope British summer won’t let us down! So far we did get few glorious days and we have been enjoying the sunshine. I hope it continues like that.

Today’s recipe is Nankhatai, believe it or not   I had serious troubles to get this cookies right. I followed many recipes but my cookies always came out flat ! It tasted nice but I didn’t get the nice dome shape. When I was almost about to give up on this cookie I remembered that one of my friend has baked this cookie before and it was perfect. So I rang her and got  the recipe. I was still apprehensive about how it’s going to come out, I watched like a hawk near the oven door and voila my cookies came out perfectly. It not only tasted nice but had the beautiful shape I wanted.

Ingredients( makes 16-18 cookies)

Plain flour – 1 cup /120 gm

Baking soda – ½ tsp

Salt – a pinch

Ghee/clarified butter – ½ cup /100 gm

Powdered sugar – 60 gm

Cardamom powder – ½ tsp

Pistachios – few ( crushed)

Method

• Sieve flour, baking soda, cardamom powder, salt and keep it aside
• Mix ghee and powdered sugar in a bowl.
• Add the dry ingredients and mix. Knead it with hands into a smooth dough.
• Let the dough rest for ½ an hour for the flavours to mingle
• Scoop out small balls from dough and make small balls ( 16-18 balls)
• Place them on a baking sheets few inches apart 
• Press the crushed pistachios gently on top of it
• Bake it an preheated oven at 180 degree C for 15- 17 minutes.

Orange drizzle cake

It’s June now and it’s supposed to be summer here, but weather has been so depressing and cold since the last 3 days. This always happens when the school breaks up for half term thus making our holidays miserable. But when weather doesn’t agree, there is always one activity we both (my 7 year old and me) enjoy doing at home, baking! Since it’s summer (well at least it’s June) we choose this Orange drizzle cake this time which screams summer . This time I had another little helper an enthusiastic 5 year old who came for a play date. They did almost everything independently. I only gave instructions and supervised! Once the cake was out of the oven they were so impatient so I had to cut the warm cake and half of the cake was gone even before I took descent pictures.

Ingredients

Plain flour - 150 gm

Baking powder - 2 tsp

Salt - a pinch

Orange zest (unwaxed oranges) - 1 tsp

Orange extract - 1 tsp

Unsalted butter - 150 gm

Caster sugar - 150 gm

Eggs (large) - 3

Orange juice - 2 tbs

For Drizzle

Orange juice - 75 ml

Icing sugar – 125 gm

Method

• Sift flour, baking powder and salt.
•  Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
• Add eggs one and time and beat well.
• Add orange extract and beat until mixed.
• Add the flour, orange juice, orange zest and fold in gently.
• Transfer the batter into an 8 inch greased cake tin.
• Bake it in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for about 35 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
•  Meanwhile make the orange syrup by mixing orange juice with icing sugar and mixing until sugar is almost dissolved.
• Once the cake comes out of the oven, puncture all over the cake with a skewer and pour the orange syrup.
• Let the cake soak the orange juice and let it cool down in the tin.

Creme brulee

I am obsessed about making new desserts whenever I get a chance. Having a sweet tooth doesn’t help it either. When I plan a dinner party first thing I think about is the dessert and most of the time I will go for a new dessert and my guests become the Guinea pigs J I do revisit some of the classic desserts, especially for blogging purpose and this crème brulee is one such. I have tried this before but I didn’t have a blow torch then, so for this year’s Mother’s day  when  I got a blow torch ( upon demand ) I knew I will be making crème brulee soon. So when we had friends over this time I planned cream brulee . I even got S ready  to click a shot when I caramelise sugar with blow torch! I took the dessert out and pressed the button..nothing happened. I was so frustrated beyond words. Asked S to check it, he looked it over few times and but he couldn’t fix it either. After all that planning,it was so disappointing. I had no option rather than using the grill again. Grill does a decent job, only thing is you have to watch like a hawk or you might burn your caramel. I stood by the oven door and evenly caramelised it. I didn’t bother to take any picture yesterday after that. When I served this yesterday to my guests, they all loved it so much, so I saved one bowl of crème brulee for today to click it during daylight.

This is such an easy dessert to make but at the same time an elegant one.

Ingredients (Serves 6-8)

Double cream- 450 ml

Milk – 150 ml

Egg yolks – 8 number

Caster sugar – 75 gm

Demarara sugar – 6 tbs

Vanilla bean – 1

Method

• Place 6-8 clean ramekins in the fridge for couple of hours before you plan making it or put in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
• Measure milk and double cream in a thick bottomed saucepan .Slit a vanilla bean into it and heat it until it’s about to boil. Remove from fire when it is about to boil.
• Place the egg yolks in a large bowl, add sugar and beat it. Add the warm milk – cream mixture to it very slowly while it’s beating.
• Wash the saucepan quickly and pour everything back into the pan and cook on a low flame stirring continuously for about 10 minutes or until custard thickens.
• Pour the custard into the chilled ramekins and when the custard cools downs a bit put in the fridge for 2-3 hours to set.
• Take it out of the fridge and sprinkle demarara sugar on top of the custard. If you have a blow torch caremelise it using a blow torch.If not, place it under a hot grill until the sugar caramelises evenly. Be careful not to burn it.

 

Paalak dal /spinach dal/ parippum cheerayum

Dal/Parippu is an absolute comfort food for all of us here. Even when we go on holiday the first thing I want to eat when we get back is some steaming hot rice with some dal. It’s pure bliss.

Many years ago when we set out to Switzerland for  our first holiday together I was so excited to see the places and to try new food. I enjoyed the food the first two days, trying out new food was really great but after that it became a bit less enjoyable and  I was desperate to eat some rice.So out we went for an indian  restaurant hunt but couldn’t find any restaurant nearby but instead found a Chinese. I didn’t even want to look at the menu , all I wanted was some rice. I can never forget the pleasure I got from eating that bowl of rice. Rest of the days we were automatically drawn towards that restaurant . After our holiday we came back hungry and tired, still I didn’t want to order a take away or eat out. I dragged myself to the kitchen and cooked some dal and rice. The taste of that dal and rice is still in my mouth, it was a pure comfort meal and we ate as if we haven’t seen food in many days J

Ingredients

Green gram lentil/ Mung dal – ¾ cup

Onion – 3 medium

Tomato – 2

Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp

Green chillies – 4

Cumin seeds – 1 heaped tsp

Turmeric powder – ¼ stp

Spinach – 100 gm

Coriander leaves – few (finely chopped)

Oil

Salt

For tempering/ tadka ( optional)

Oil/ghee

Mustard seeds

Whole red chilli - 2

Garlic minced – 1 1/2tsp

Curry leaves

Method

• Pressure cook the dal adding enough water.
• In a pan add oil and sputter cumin seeds.
• Add chopped onions and saute until light brown.
• Add ginger garlic paste and saute until raw smell goes.
• Add chopped tomatoes, green chillies and cook for few minutes until tomatoes are mushy.
• Add turmeric and saute until raw smell goes.
• Finally add cooked dal, chopped spinach , add enough water and cook for 5-10 minutes.
• Remove from fire and add chopped coriander leaves.

Tempering/tadka

• Take oil in a small pan and sputter mustard seeds.
•  Add minced garlic and fry till  it’s brown.
• Finally add split whole red chillies and fry until dark. Add in curry leaves and to tadka and remove from fire.
• Add the tadka to the curry

Gingerbread man cookie

I have a 3 year old Nephew who is crazy about this gingerbread man story. He likes to tell this story to everyone he knows which meant every time he comes on skype we get to hear the story too, he has his own version though, which changes every day. One day during our skype call I promised him that when they visit us next time I will make him some ginger bread men. He couldn’t hold in his excitement. He couldn’t wait to board the plane to visit us. He started counting days. Every morning when he wakes up he asks his mum “ Are we going to London today ?” bless him ! Days passed and his fascination for ginger bread man grew stronger every day. Finally the day came and I baked it well in advance to welcome him. Even before he stepped inside our home he asked for ginger bread man!  The expression on his face when I gave him one was really priceless!

 The next day we were going on a road trip to Devon and I packed this for us to munch. It was a long drive and even before we got there half of them were gone. It didn’t last the whole trip so when I came back I promised him that I will make more for him. Poor little one fell ill with high temperature when we came back so I didn’t bother to make any but yesterday when he was clinging on to his mum just to cheer him up I asked “shall we make some ginger bread men” ? I couldn’t believe that it was the same boy crying on mum’s lap who jumped out and said “yes”! He walked before me to the kitchen. He sat on the chair and even helped me in measuring and mixing. He couldn’t wait to put it in the oven. When we opened the oven he came running. I asked him“ Is it going to run” ? He was anxious too. We opened the door and out came the ginger bread man! Before it ran he wanted to eat one J . I had to blow on it to cool it slightly and he happily gobbled 1-2 straight away. I have to say this is the best thing I have ever baked!

Recipe source – BBC good food

Ingredients

Plain flour – 350 gm

Salt – a pinch

Baking soda – 1 tsp

Cinnamon powder – 1 tsp

Ground ginger – 2 tsp

Egg – 1 large

Golden syrup – 4 tbsp

Softened butter – 125 gm

Light brown sugar – 175 gm

For icing
Icing sugar - 1 cup
Milk - few tablespoon

Vanilla extract - 1 /4 tsp

Method

• In a bowl measure flour, add in baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder, ground ginger and sift.
• Add softened butter and mix /beat until it resembles bread crumbs.
• Add sugar and mix well.
• In a small bowl break one egg and add golden syrup. Slightly beat them.
• Add this to the flour mixture and mix/ beat for a minute or so and then using hands knead until it’s a smooth dough.
• Wrap it in cling film and keep it refrigerated for 15-30 minutes.
• Roll the dough dusting some flour( if required) and cut ginger bread man ( 1 inch thickness) with cutters.
• Place the ginger bread man in a baking tray leaving space between them and bake it in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for 12-13 minutes. 
• To make icing,mix icing sugar with milk and vanilla until it fall likes thick ribbon. Add more sugar/milk to get the consistency right. Pour it into a piping bag and ice the cookies.

Hot cross bun

It’s officially spring now! Weather in this part of the world is still chilly but we are getting more daylights which make it feel a lot like spring. Alarm doesn’t go as siren waking me up from middle of a deep sleep, In fact some days I am up before alarm ! Ah the joys ..Such small small things definitely make me happy :)

Every year closer to Easter I see Hot Cross buns floating around in the blogs. So last weekend I decided to bake some with my little baker. He enjoys every bit of baking, sometimes a bit over enthusiastic which drives me crazy! He did pretty much everything expect the kneading. Waiting for the dough to proof is something we need to work on as he kind of lost interest after that. I baked it in the night and went to bed letting it to cool down and next day morning it was ready to get iced with a cross. It was a special weekend treat for our breakfast and we enjoyed every bite of it!

Before signing off let me all wish you a Happy Easter and a Happy Holi. It’s Easter break for us for the next two weeks so hopefully I will be back here soon with another post soon, until then bye!

Recipe source- Joy of baking

Plain flour - 500 gm

Instant yeast – 2 tsp/7gm

Granulated sugar – 1 tsp

Milk – 400 ml ( luke warm)

Light brown sugar -  ¼ cup (55gm)

Ground cinnamon – 1 tsp

Ground cloves – 1/4 tsp

Ground nutmeg – ¼ tsp

Ground all spice – ¼ tsp( optional)

Salt – ½ tsp

Melted butter – 70 gm ( 5 tbsp)

Egg – 1 +1 (large)

Candied fruit and peel – 1 /4 cup (80 gm)

Raisins – 1/2 cup( 100 gm)

For glaze

Icing sugar – ½ cup /60 gm

Milk/cream – 1 1/2 tbsp

Method

• Dissolve yeast in lukewarm milk. Add a teaspoon of sugar and keep it aside for 5 minutes.
• In a mixing bowl measure the flour. Add the spice powder, sugar and salt. Mix until combined.
• Add the yeast solution to the flour and mix until moistened.
• Gradually add the melted butter and mix.
• Lighlty beat an egg with fork and add it to the dough, mix /beat until it’s incorporated.
• Add the raisins and candied fruit peel and mix. Knead the dough until it’s soft.
• Place the dough in a slightly greased bowl and loosely cover it with a cling film (greased) until its double in size. Takes might take about 2 hours. It depends on how hot your kitchen is.
• Punch the air from the dough and divide it into 14  -15 equal size balls in a baking tray leaving enough space between them.  Allow it to prove for another one hour covering it with a cling film.
• Before baking make an egg wash with 1 egg and I tablespoon of milk and brush it on top of the buns.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees until its golden brown or a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Allow it to cool completely.

For Glaze

• Combine icing sugar and milk until smooth (it should be thick). Pour the glaze in a piping bag and pipe a cross on top of each bun.