Back with loooottttts of excitement and Magic Squares :)

Hellooooooooooooooooo Everyone... How are you all doing ? Its been a long long time for me since my last post. I was busy with my Masters and a good news is that I have finished everything and I am a graduate now :B. Another great achievement is I got a job in one of the biggest software companies and I am extremely happy to share this with you all.... :)

Well I am sure you all had a great 2011 year and I wish all of you a fantastic year ahead.
May the year of 2012 bring variety of food to you life, spice up your days and sweeten your moments.

Since this is my first post after the long gap I though I should start it with some sweet.
While I was at Kansas State University for one of my semester I got to know new people and yes new recipes. One of my friends their shared me the recipe of Magic Squares which truly are magical :). I tried these couple of days back and guess what everyone liked it a lot. I enjoy making such sweets which take little time and are different than the traditional once.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup melted Butter
2 Cup graham crackers crumps
14 oz Sweet Condensed Milk
Semisweet mini chocolate chips as per requirement
Butterscotch chips as per requirement
Shredded dry coconut as per requirement
Coarsely crushed Nuts (I used almonds) as per requirement

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.

2) Make crumps of graham crackers and melt the butter in microwave.

3) In a rectangular baking pan, mix graham wafer crumbs and melted butter. Press evenly and firmly over the bottom.

4) Pour some part of condensed milk evenly over the base.

5) Sprinkle the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut, and almonds evenly in layers on top of the base layer. Pour the remaining condensed milk on evenly on top.

6) Bake for about 15-20 minutes but keep an eye.

7) When the coconut turns brown take the pan out. Make the cuts with a knife but do not take out the pieces of it.

8) Cover it with a cloth or paper and let it cool entirely. Then cut into squares and store them in a container or you can even refrigerate.

Tips:

• You can press the foil paper on the baking pan and then put the base layer so that the magic squares do not stick to the pan.

This recipe enters the
 Choclate Mela event
Kid’s Delights : for this month’s theme ‘Something Sweet’

Til Vadi - Sesame Seeds Squares

Makar Sankranti is a festival which is celebrated in many different ways in all parts of India. In Maharashtra (the state from where I come) it is celebrated by exchanging the sweets made out of Sesame seeds. "Take sweet, be sweet and talk sweet" is what people greet each other while exchanging these sweets. In Marathi it is called as "Tilgul ghya god bola".

At my home we make a "Tilvadi"  which is made out of Sesame seeds and Jaggery. This year I tried my hands on this vadi which is really easy to make. The vadis can come out perfect given that you follow all the steps correctly.

Happy Makar Sankranti to all and enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 Cup Sesame Seeds (Til)
1/4  Cup coarsely crushed roasted Peanuts
1 1/2 Cup of Jaggery (Gud)
2 tbsp Clarified Butter (Ghee)
Grated Dry Unsweetened Coconut as per requirement

Method:

1. Heat a skillet and roast the Sesame seeds till they turn crisp, little brown and you get a nice aroma. Let them cool and then grind them coarsely (do not make it fine). Meanwhile prepare a shallow plate (thali) or a kitchen top surface by greasing it with some clarified butter. We will use this to spread the vadi mixture.

2. Heat the same skillet again, add the clarified butter (ghee). Once the butter melts add the jaggery (Gud)  to it. When Jaggery melts and when the bubbles start to pop up, remove the skillet from above the burner and add the sesame seeds and crushed peanuts to the jaggery syrup.

3. Mix everything fast.

4. Spread the mixture evenly onto the plate and garnish it by sprinkling the  dry shredded coconut. To spread everything evenly use your hands or a bowl with flat surface to apply pressure on the hot mixture.

5. Now make the vadis by cutting the mixture into diamond shapes. Let it cool before you take out the vadis.

Tips:

• The color of the vadi depends on the Jaggery used. Prefer the darker jaggery. Also the Jaggery should be not too sticky and not dry at all.
• Make sure the Jaggery syrup is not too liquidish before you add mixture. It should be thick enough to glue up everything in one whole piece.
• Jaggery and Clarified butter, both can be found in any indian store.

Birthday Cake and 'Crisp n Heavenly' Shahi Tukda

Happy new year to all the foodies and friends. I hope you all had great time on 31st evening and 1st January with everyone preparing there delicacies to start the year on a sweet note. 1st Jan is always special at my home as its my hubby's Birthday and a start of the year.

This 31st we went to see the fireworks at Space Needle. It was just heavenly. The space needle looked like a spaceship with all the smoke of the fireworks in its background. If any of you visits Seattle, do visit this attraction, you sure will love it.

This time on his birthday I decided to try icing for the cake. I was searching for various egg less recipes for icing. I got many recipes of whipping cream but in the grocery store which are near to our homeI could not find a whipping cream which is heavy in fat. They say the fat content of the cream should be 35% to 40% for the icing to become creamy and thick. So I found another recipe which uses Condensed milk. This icing is easy to make but quickly hardens as it cools. So you need to be very fast in spreading and decorating your cake. Taste wise it was really good. I spent almost 5-6 hours playing with this icing. There were many new things and I learnt a great deal about them. The end product was good and all the hard work was successful..:)

Other special and the simplest sweet dish I made for this special occasion was "Shahi Tukda". Many must be aware of this dish. Its a dessert made out of bread. Some call it shahi pudding. There are various variation of this. Everyone should sure try out this dish as its going to be liked by everyone. It looks very appealing (really Shahi) and tastes very refreshing. Good one to impress guests and family.

Icing Ingredients:

Find the recipe of egg less chocolate cake here.

For Icing/Frosting:

14 oz tin of Condensed Milk

4 tbsp unsweetened Cocoa powder

1 tbsp Butter
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence (optional)
White and Brown chocolate cubes to make curls

Icing Method:

1) Heat sauce pan on medium heat and add butter, condensed milk and sieve cocoa powder in it.

2) Continue to cook for 7 to 8 minutes stirring continuously.

3) Once it becomes thick (spreadable consistency) add vanilla essence, mix well. Frosting is ready. Quickly spread it over the cake using a spatula. If you want to decorate with the design do it real quick. If the icing hardens heat it a little again.

4) To make chocolate curls, melt the chocolate in a pan. On a flat platform spread this chocolate and cool it a little in a freeze. After a while using a cheese slicer draw a straight line down the cooled chocolate platform and get curls. If they are breaking it means the chocolate needs to be heated a little so that it molds into the curls. My curls where not perfect but with practice I will sure get them more curly :).

Shahi Tukda Ingredients:

Serves 8

4 Bread loaves
About 750 ml Milk
3-4 tbsp Custard powder
3/4 Cup Sugar (adjust as per sweet taste)
1 tsp powdered Cardamom (Elaichi)
Shvings of Pistachios and Almonds ( Badaam, Pista )

Shahi Tukda Method:

1. Make equal halves of all the bread loaves. Now to make them crisp there are two options.
Either you can deep fry them in oil  or make toasts in the oven. I made toasts and they taste exactly same as the fried one. So oil conscious people should go for toasts :).

2. Heat milk in a sauce pan and add custard powder and sugar to it. (Make the custard the way we make it for fruit custard / fruit salad). Keep stirring till the milk thickens a little. Care needs to be taken as there are chances that the milk sticks to the bottom of the pan. Hence continual stirring is important. Once done adjust the sweetness and cool it in a fridge. When in fridge you should stir it every short time intervals for some time.

3. To make almond and pistachio shavings, soak them into water for a while. Take the almonds and turn them so the widest point faces parallel to the cutting implement (knife). Cut the almonds into wafer thin slices and repeat same with pistachios.

3. Keep one piece of toast in a serving dish or a bowl is preferred. Add custard milk on top of it so that the piece of toast gets covered. Now top this with almond and pistachio shavings.  Sprinkle this with Cardamom (Elaichi) powder.
Shahi Tukda is ready....:)

I am sure everyone at home will like this. For people who do not like sweets but need to be specially treated this is the perfect dessert.

Tips:

Condensed milk is sweet in taste so there is no need to add sugar in icing.

You may add some water to frosting to make it easy to work on. You may also deep spatula in cold water, this will help to spread frosting easily.

The Icing Method may not be the perfect one but it was sure a nice learning experience.

Chocolate Cake....First Dessert recipe on my blog !!!

For so many days I missed enjoying this homemade chocolate cake. Mummy always made one for us whenever we went home. I made this and figured out that its quick, easy and now I want to make one for my mother when I visit her next time.

Ingredients:

2 cup all-purpose flour (Maida)

1 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup Plain yogurt

1 - 1 1/2 cup Sugar (Depending upon the sweetness you want)

1 cup Butter, softened, plus butter for the pan
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking Soda

Method 1 (Oven):

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease one 6-8 inch layer cake pan with some butter. Grease the baking pan with butter and dust it by sprinkling some all purpose flour over greased surface evenly.

2. Mix all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and sieve with a fine mesh sieve for 2-3 times so that all the little lumps are removed.

3. In a separate bowl mix yogurt and sugar and beat until it's well blended. Then add softened butter to it and blend again until creamy. (This will take 5-7 minutes).

4. Now add the dry mixture, mixing until smooth. Add the milk and mix slowly until well blended. Make sure all the lumps , if present , get removed while blending.

5. Turn this batter into the prepared pan, let it settle for few seconds and bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting it.

Method 2 (Pressure Cooker):

1. Heat the pressure cooker on high heat for 2 minutes.

2. Use a ring or something which will lift the baking pan and will avoid baking pan's direct contact with the cooker's base. (If it comes in direct contact it may harm the cake).

3. Prepare the batter the same way as explained in method 1 and pour it into prepared baking pan.

4. Put the baking pan inside the cooker on top of the ring.

5. Close the cooker by a Indian flat pan (or with cooker's lid; but make sure to remove the whistle). Let the high flame continue for 2 minutes.

6. Now lower the flame and let it cook for 25-30 minute. Check once in between that water is not formed on the inner surface of the lid. If it is present just wipe it with a cloth.

Let the pressure cooker cool for 5 minutes.

How to check weather cake is done

Open the lid and check with Skewer if the cake is done or not. Insert the skewer inside the cake. If no particles stick then the cake is done...:)

Sending this Cake to Taste buds Choco-delight event