My Christmas special eggless moist chocololate cake

This festive season of christmas & new year ahead is just feels like incomplete without home-made cakes , is not it ? The aroma of the fruit cakes, cookies in the house these days is just awesome & lifts up your mood. I am always very very fond of cakes and I cant sit eating just one piece of it. This time though little late , I baked a tea time  eggless chocolate cake on Christmas, 25th being a Thursday this time I went the eggless way. It was super moist and every one at home just loved it.


Ingredients:
Flour/Maida: 1 & 1/2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Vinegar/Lemon: 1/2 tsp/1-2 drops
A pinch of salt
Cold milk: 1 cup
Vegetable oil: 1/4 cup
vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Oil & some flour to grease and dust the cake tin

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.

In a mixing bowl, beat well the oil, sugar, milk, vanilla essence. Now add the vinegar and beat again. Remember the milk used should be really cold so that it wont get curdle as soon as you add the vinegar.

In another bowl, sift flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and fold this mixture into  the wet mixture above. Always follow the cut and fold method to mix the mixture while preparing for cake. Over mixing or over beating would release the air pockets that forms and cake wont rise up and wont get fluffy.

Grease and dust the baking tin with oil & flour. I used my loaf tin , you can use your round or other shaped cake tins as well.  Pour in the mixture and tap the tin a little. Bake this in the preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. Baking time depends on the  types of ovens we use. So do keep an eye while its under baking process. Mine took exactly 40 minutes.

Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. Slice it and enjoy with your hot cup of tea or coffee. Kids too love this chocolate cake with their hot glass of milk. I baked this cake without any fruit/dry fruits as my kid loves her chocolate cake this way. You can add as per your choice. Just dust the dry fruits you are using with some flour before mixing in the batter.

Enjoy !!

 

Mutton Curry my style

For me mutton is THE most tastiest meat of all if you cook it with strong spices, lot of oil and in a slow cooking process. Be it mutton keema , curry or even a mutton chop tastes heaven. Though we don't eat this meat more often due to health reasons, this sunday we decided to cook mutton curry almost after 5 years. And we realised we still love to eat this meat a lot. House was smelling great with the aroma of all spices and the curry tasted just finger-licking  with the awesome colour. Once in a month or two this kind of indulgence is definitely allowed irrespective of my health issue ;)

I am definitely very happy today to share my recipe of mutton curry with all of you dear friends.

Ingredients:

Mutton: 500 gms evenly cut pieces cleaned and washed properly
Onion: 5 medium sized roughly chopped
Garlic: 1 whole medium sized
Ginger: 1 pc medium sized
Dry chillies: 2-3
Bay leaf: 3
Cinnamon stick, Cardamom & clove:: 4-5 of each pitted a bit
Turmeric powder: 2 tsp
Red chilli powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Cumin Powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Coriander powder: 1 heap tsp
MEat Masala : 3 tsp
Garam masala powder: 1 heap tsp
Salt to taste
Mustard oil: 1 tbsp. for marination & 4 tbsp. for the curry
Fresh coriander leaf: add as much as you like once it is ready. I was out of stock that day :)

Method:

In a bowl take the washed mutton pieces and marinate with 1 tbsp. mustard oil, salt & 1 tsp turmeric and keep aside for about half an hour.

Grind the onion, garlic, ginger in a grinder . Don't make a runny paste.

Heat a deep bottomed kadhai/pan. Put the marinated mutton in it and mix well and keep it on medium flame stirring in between until and unless all the water from the meat dries out and  the mutton gets dry & take a dark brown colour. Once done keep this in a bowl.

In the same kadhai/pan, heat the mustard oil. Add dry chillies, bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and allow them to splutter. Now add the onion  & ginger-garlic mixture into this. Fry  them until they become brown in colour. Don't skip this step please. Start adding the dry masalas - turmeric, coriander, cumin, red chilli powder and mix all well. Fry them till they release oil. Now add the marinated mutton, combine all well keeping the flame from low-medium. Cover with lid and let it cook slowly. Keep checking & stirring in between so that the mutton doesn't get stick to the bottom of the pan. This will really take a lot of time so you need to have patience at this stage, so don't add water to fasten the cooking process. After some time add the meat masala and mix all well. This will take you about say 15-18 minutes. This slow cooking process will help all the masala to go inside the meat and also slowly gives that colour to it.

Add about 1 & 1/2 cup of water, stir and cover with the lid. Bring it to boil, add the garam masala , salt, mix and keep on medium flame for about another 7-10 minutes. Now transfer this to the pressure cooker . Add some water again if you find it dry or thickened up. This will require around 7-8 whistles in the cooker depending on the quality of the mutton. Mine took exactly 10 . First I allowed it to whistle 6 times. As it was not cooked properly I put it back on the flame again for another 4 numbers of whistles.  Once done, allow the pressure to release on its own. Now if you want to thicken your gravy more, then transfer it to the pan/kadhai and keep on flame, keep stirring in between till you get the desired thickness of the gravy. We like it as curry only so I didn't thicken it. 

Serve this delicious mutton curry hot with rice or chapati and enjoy.

Eggless Moist Chocolate Cake with chocolate ganache

It was a very dear friend/neighbour's wedding anniversary and I got to know about it that very morning when we went to drop our children at the bus stop. Though I had very little time in my hand still thought what is better than baking a cake for such a beautiful couple to share our love and affection. Only challenge was they are vegetarian so obviously I cant use eggs. Normally when I decide to bake an eggless cake I use curd/banana as egg replacer but that day nothing was available in the pantry. So I searched in net and found that in few cake recipes people uses milk as well, so I went the milk way  this time :) .. Trust me it came out well with the sponginess, soft, and risen perfectly as well. Next challenge was the icing/frosting part as I did not want to give them a plain chocolate cake. So decided the easy and fool-proof way of using chocolate ganache as icing and sprinkling some grated/finely chopped white chocolate. Arranged the stuff quickly through home delivery option that we have available in every locality in Mumbai. And finally I finished preparing the cake just on time. I am so happy that they liked it very much. What else I could have asked for being a beginner at icing / frosting cakes. Their appreciation was so encouraging for me that now I really want to excel in this.
As I was left with a small portion of the batter so I made two cupcakes  with that. I & my kid quite liked the taste.

So here is the recipe of the cake for you all. Do try and send your feedback too.

Ingredients:

For the cake
Flour/Maida: 1 & 1/2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Vinegar/Lemon: 1/2 tsp/1-2 drops
A pinch of salt
Cold milk: 1 cup
Vegetable oil: 1/4 cup
vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Oil & some flour to grease and dust the cake tin

For the chocolate ganache
Dark Chocolate: 1 cup chopped
Heavy cream: 1/2 cup
Sugar: 2-3 tbsp.
Butter: 2 tbsp.

For decorating the cake:
Grated or chopped white chocolate: 1/2 cup
Black grapes: 5 numbers I used

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.

In a mixing bowl, beat well the oil, sugar, milk, vanilla essence. Now add the vinegar and beat again. Remember the milk used should be really cold so that it wont get curdle as soon as you add the vinegar.

In another bowl, sift flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and fold this mixture into  the wet mixture above. Always follow the cut and fold method to mix the mixture while preparing for cake. Over mixing or over beating would release the air pockets that forms and cake wont rise up and wont get fluffy.

Grease and dust the baking tin with oil & flour. Pour in the mixture and tap the tin a little. Bake this in the preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted comes out clean. Baking time depends on the  types of ovens we use. So do keep an eye while its under baking process.

Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack.

In the mean time, prepare the chocolate ganache. Take the cream in a sauce pan and put it to boil. In a mixing bowl take the chopped chocolate. Now pour the hot cream onto the chocolate and let it remain like this for about 4-5 minutes. Then beat this so that everything mixes well, add the sugar and butter and beat again so that no lumps remain. Once ready keep it in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes before using for frosting.

Assembling the cake:

Take the cake on a cake stand. If you don't have a stand, invert any bigger sized bowl and keep a dish on it & place the cake on the dish for icing/frosting. What I do is I cover the dish with aluminium foil from all sides, then keep four pieces of paper to make a square structure above which I place the cake and remove them by pulling out once the icing/frosting is done. This is to get a clean end product after frosting the cake :). I saw this in a video in youtube. With a flat spatula spread evenly the icing on the top & cover the cake from all its sides. Apply a generous coat of icing. Once it is done keep it in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes.


I put 5 numbers of black grapes on the centre of the cake and spread the chopped/grated white chocolate on the border of the cake making a circle as you can see in the picture. Then dust some icing sugar on the whole cake with the help of a strainer. Keep it once again in the refrigerator for about half an hour.

Now slice a real big piece and take it on a dish, grab a fork and prepare to experience this chocolaty heaven & enjoy !!




 

Popular Indian sweet Peda

Peda needs no introduction when it comes to popular sweets of India, served during festivals mostly and otherwise as well and loved by all. We all in the family are so fond of this sweet. In Assam there is a place called Bokhakhat which is actually famous for their awesome melt in mouth pedas. People buy kilos and kilos of pedas whenever they visit that place. I miss them so much here and never tasted any peda like the ones of Bokakhat. You ask any one from Assam about this place and you will get to know how famous their pedas are !
Pedas are made from milk by cooking it till it thickens. But I wanted a recipe which is easy and less time taking. So when I saw one of my friend in US preparing this sweet during Diwali and posted few pictures , I asked her to share the recipe. She then sent me this link for this easy microwave pedas of Show me the curry http://showmethecurry.com/desserts/peda-indian-sweet.html. Tried and tested this in my kitchen and a sure shot hit recipe it is. Though only variation I did is the measurement as per my number of servings. You can follow the exact measurements as given in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

Dry Milk Powder: 1 cup
Sweetend condensed milk:1/2 cup
Butter: 50 gms
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp
Chopped Pistachios: for garnishing

Procedure:

In  a microwave safe dish melt the butter and keep aside. Add the milk powder, condensed milk and mix well with the help of a spoon. Now cook this mixture in the microwave for 3 minutes (for beginners for a better understanding microwave for 3 minutes means you have to cook the mixture in microwave mode  ). Stir the mixture after every one minute by putting the microwave off , taking out the dish, stir and putting it back in the microwave and cook. again 

After cooking for 3 minutes, take this out and mix it once again and keep aside to cool down enough so that you can mix with you hands. Once the mixture is cooled down, sprinkle the cardamom powder and mix with your hands nicely.  Now divide this mixture into small equal sized portions and make balls and flatten the balls in the center by pressing gently with your finger and arrange them on a dish. Garnish with chopped pistachios in the centre of the pedas as shown in the pictures. Keep them aside to set and cool down. Serve them , enjoy them whenever you get the craving for these delicious sweets ..

You can also give different shapes to this sweet by rolling out the mixture and cut with different cookie cutters and also by serving in beautiful decorative cup cake liners.

Til aru maasor anja - fish cooked with black sesame

Here is an absolute authentic Assamese dish Til aru massor anja - fish with black sesame paste curry. I too have learnt to prepare this awesome dish very recently. Thought I should share with you all as its very easy to cook and tastes delicious.

Ingredients:

Rohu Fish: 2-3 pieces (you can take any other fish)
Black sesame seed: 2tbsp
Coriander seeds, Cumin seeds, black pepper: 2 tsp of them mixed
Paanch Phuron: 1 tsp
Onion: 1 small roughly cut
Ginger: 1 small piece
Garlic: 3-4 cloves
Dry red chilli: 1-2 numbers
Bay leaf: 1-2
Black pepper powder: 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp
Salt  to taste
Mustard oil: 1 tbsp. for the gravy & 3-4 tbsp. for frying the fishes
Fresh coriander leaves for the gravy: about 2tbsp roughly chopped
& few for garnishing

Process:

Clean and wash the fish pieces properly and rub salt & turmeric on them and keep aside for about 5 minutes. Fry these pieces in hot oil and keep aside.


Heat a pan and dry roast the sesame , coriander seeds, cumin seeds, pepper till the aroma of the spices comes out. Once done, let them cool.

In a mixer, take the above roasted masala, onion, ginger garlic, a handful of coriander leave, dry chilli  and few spoons of water and make a paste out of it.

Now heat oil in pan, add panch phuron, bay leaf and allow them to splutter. Pour the above paste into the pan. Keep stirring in low to medium flame and let the sesame gets cooked. After 1-2 minutes, add a cup of water and mix well. Cover with the lid in medium flame and bring it to boil, keep on checking in between. Add the fried fish pieces , combine everything well and once again cover with the lid in low to medium flame. Do keep your eye on it to avoid burning . In another 2-3 minutes , the gravy will start thickening. Immediately put the flame off. Your fish cooked with black sesame is now ready to be served.

Transfer it to a serving bowl, garnish with coriander leaves or a coriander twig and serve hot with rice.