Christmas Rum cake!

Ingredients-
1 cup chopped dry fruits ( I have used Raisins, Dates,Almonds, cashews, Ginger,  Orange peel)
1/4 cup dark rum

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1/4 teaspoon clove powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

Soak all the above ingredients in rum  for at least 24 hours. Stir them once in a while. Use a large jar, because the fruits more than double in size.

When you are set to bake your rum cake, get the following ingredients together.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tbsps milk 

Directions-
Butter your bake pan pan and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt,  mix this into butter and sugar mix, alternate with milk and do it in 2-3 batches. 

Drain the rum from the fruits, roll the fruits in some flour to prevent sinking. Add to the batter.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons rum. Else the cake is rum-doused enough!! Enjoy :)

This is going to -
Srav's Holiday Baking

Ramya's Cakes for Christmas

and to Christmas Delicacy

Wish you all a Merry Christmas! :)

Baked vegetables with Couscous

Ingredients-
1 Cup couscous
1 cup water or veg stock
1 tsp parsley

1 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1/2  lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Method-

Boil water, add couscous, stir for a minute and remove from heat. Let it stand covered for 4-5 mins. Transfer to serving bowl. Add olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well. Stir with a fork, the grains should separate.

Serve with baked vegetables.

Ingredients for baked vegetables-

Finely chopped veggies of your choice (cabbage, cauliflower, beans, carrots, peas, corn, capsicum) - total of 2.5 cups

1 onion, 1 tomato chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tbsp Olive oil

1 Knorr soup packet- I used corn masala

Method-

Wash all veggies, in an oven-proof dish, add the veggies, mix salt, pepper, olive oil, micro for 5 mins. Veggies will turn soft.

Mix the soup mix with lukewarm water and pour over the veggies. Bake at 180 deg for 15 mins.

Serve!

I am sending this to Global food festival at Momchef's blog.

Crunchy baked namakpara!

Baked Namakpara
I have this recipe from Sanjeev Kapoor. In Bihar, this snack is always made deep fried and with Maida (AP Flour). My MIL is here and she made this some days back, with whole wheat flour and we baked one batch. Here is our recipe for namakpara / nimki as it is called in Bihar!

Ingredients-

Whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Ghee - 2 tbsps (you can increase this to upto 1 cup also, but we chose not to)
Salt to taste
Ajwain / carom - 1 large tbsp (You can reduce this, but the namakpara is delicious with this taste)

Method-
Mix the flour, ajwain, salt and baking powder. Add ghee and rub till it has a crumbly texture. Add water to make dough (Like I have said, it should be as tight as J Lo's ass!). Make 5 portions of the dough and roll one of these out to make a chapati, a very thick one. Cut the dough into diamond shaped peices. On a greased baking tray, place the pieces separately and bake them in the microwave at 180 degrees for 20 mins. You can turn them once in a while. Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.

Alternately, these can be deep-fried. The whole-wheat namakparas do not absorb as much oil as the ones made with AP Flour. And they are a very good tea time snack!

This is going toNutan's MEC- Tea-time snacks. Also check Srivalli's page.

This is also going to Diwali Special - Sweets and Savories.

Paneer-stuffed cabbage rolls

This is a Nita Mehta recipe, which I made ages ago, and never got a chance to post it. This is from a book that a dear friend, Sherly gifted to me when I was shifting from Delhi to Bangalore. Memories!
The recipe is a bit different from the original one, but it is tasty nevertheless!

Here's the recipe-

Ingredients:

From left- cabbage rolls, veg au gratin, corn bread

For filling-
1 packet paneer crushed
1 onion chopped
1/4 bunch spring onions chopped (roughly 1/2 cup)
1 cup cooked rice
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp cumin
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 head fresh cabbage
Salt to taste

For sauce:
1 cup chopped onions
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 cup chopped tomatoes / can use puree
1 tsp cumin
1 cup water
2 tbsp oil / butter
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method-
Remove the larger leaves from the top of the cabbage, remove the veins if they are thick. Clean them and micro them for a couple of mins so they are soft and half cooked. Keep aside.

Prepare the filling-
In a wok, heat butter, add cumin and onions (both onions), cook. Add the ginger garlic paste, salt and rice. Cook for a couple of mins. Add paneer, combine well. Cook for another couple of mins and remove from fire. Let cool.

Now prepare the sauce-
Heat the butter, add the cumin and let splutter. Add onions and saute till they brown. Add ginger garlic, salt, tomatoes and fry. Now add water, salt and pepper. Cook till the tomatoes are done and you get a thick sort of sauce.  This would take around 10-12 mins. Turn off flame and keep aside.

Prepare the rolls-
Spread a cabbage leaf , place 1 large tbsp of filling, fold sides, and roll. To hold the rolls in place, you can insert toothpicks or thread. Toothpicks are easier. Make all rolls till the filling is all used up.

Prepare to bake-
In a baking dish, place the rolls side by side. Pour over the sauce. Add the cheese cubes on top. Bake at 180 deg for 20 mins till the cheese melts and begins to brown. Serve with rice or pasta.

I feel this recipe makes for a good Friday dinner, hence sending it to- What's for Friday Dinner!

Eggless mango bread

Inspired from Delhi Belle's Eggless Mango bread, my recipe is a bit different-

Ingredients-

1.5 cups Whole wheat flour

1/2 cup rice flour

2 tbsps sugar

2 1/2 cups fresh mango pulp coarsely done (I used Sindhuri mangoes available around this time in Blr)
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp baking powder
0.8 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
2 tbsp flax meal
1 cardamom powdered (I was in half a mind to skip it, because I totally hate them, but it added a lovely twist to the taste!)

(I added 1 very very ripe mashed banana too)

Directions-

Sift the WW flour, rice flour, baking powder, soda, salt together. Keep aside. 

In a bowl, mix together- Oil, Pulp, flax meal, sugar and cardamom powder.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients, combine well. 

Bake in a greased loaf dish, for around 40 mins at 180 deg or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Mine turned out denser than Delhi Belle's because I used WW Flour, but the aroma of this bread baking in my oven was matchless! And so was the taste!!

Eggless date cake with sour cream

I had always wanted to bake this ever since I read about it on Bong Mom's cookbook. Yesterday I got a chance to.. What better day than your parents 45th Anniversary to bake an eggless cake. Though they aren't here with us in Bangalore, we thought it was a good idea to celebrate the day.

I mostly followed the recipe here, except that I used sour cream instead of oil and reduced sugar to 1 tbsp and I felt I could reduce it ever further. I also used whole wheat flour instead of AP and even Yashi got to taste them!

Recipe-

Ingredients-

Dates seeds removed- 20

1 cup hot milk

Soak the dates in the milk for about 15-20 mins. 

In the blender, make a smooth mix with-

The dates soaked in milk

1 tbsp sugar (reduce sugar if you like your cakes less sweet)

My mix was a bit coarse, and I loved the taste of chewy dates in between my cake bites.

Sift together 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda.

To this add, the blended mix and 1/2 cup sour cream

Optional- add nuts (I skipped this)

Combine all ingredients together. 

Grease a baking dish, pour batter into it and bake at 180 deg for 25-30 mins. Serve as is, Bong Mom suggests serving with icecream. But we had this for breakfast and it tasted good with a cup of warm milk :)

Posting pic soon!

Edit- 30 May 2.54 pm
Pic- One of the many servings of this cake that we had-

Topless Tart- It's lemony too!

I read about the monthly mingle events while blog hopping and chanced upon this event hosted by Cooksister.
I always wanted to make lemon tarts and then I read about this, and saw some lemons getting stale in the fridge. (Lemons are becoming increasingly expensive, now they are priced at Rs 5 each!! And Guavas at Rs 15!! )
And presenting before you is my topless lemon tart :o)

Recipe-

Ingredients-

For the crust-
1/2 pack of digestive biscuits crushed
1/2 cup butter at room temp

Mix the crushed biscuits and the butter well, press into a dish which is atleast 2 cms deep. Keep in the fridge.

Now let's make the filling-
1 egg
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest (I used orange zest)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

Mix all these together in a saucepan. Put on stove on medium heat and keep stirring all the time till the mixture begins to thicken. At this stage, take it off and strain it, press what remains in the sieve on the crust and then pour the sieved liquid on top. (I didn't do this cos I didn't have the patience to :)) ) Keep in the fridge to set for an hour or so. Cut before serving.

This is going to the Topless Tarts event at Cooksister's, also check the official Monthly Mingle page.

My lemon tart looked like this. I couldn't get around to clicking a pic before it was eaten!

Beetroot cake with chocolate frosting

The benefits of beets are many! Beetroot has a lot of antioxidants which prevent heart problems and cancers. It has very high levels of betaine, which has anti-cancer properties. It is high in fibre, reduce cholestrol levels and has iron, which helps in blood creation and folic acid too. Same goes for cocoa, which has anticarcinogenic properties. And what better than beetroot cake with chocolate frosting to enjoy these benefits :))

I always wanted to make beets cake but never got around to doing it. I baked it some days back with very good results. I sent some over to my office as well, and colleagues loved it too!

Recipe for beets cake-

Ingredients-

2 cups flour (I use WW flour)

3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp soda bicarb
1 tsp baking powder
2 medium red beetroots -pressure cooked with a bit of water for one whistle and coarsely blended with the same water)
1/2 cup oil
1 egg

1 cup thick curd

Directions-

Sift together flour, baking powder, soda bicarb. Keep aside.

Beat together- egg, oil, sugar and add curd after sometime. Whisk some more until airy.

To this add the flour mix and beets and combine. Combine. Combine :)

Pour batter in a greased dish and bake at 180 deg for 25 mins or so till springy to touch. Let it cool.

For the chocolate frosting - I used this recipe-

http://www.ehow.com/how_4821510_chocolate-frosting-unsweetened-cocoa-powder.html

I skipped the milk and added butter. It was really chocolate-y :))

This is going to Food Palette series Pink by Torview

Corn Muffins- World Cup Semi Special!

India was playing Pak in the semis, and it was like a World Cup Final. I didn't mind them losing the real finals, this match was to be won! Manoj was coming down, and Niket too was back from office early. Niket said their office premises had projector screen, and the whole junta was there with face painted n all! The roads were jammed with traaffic at 2pm, as if it was 6 pm already. Everything was going to stop till the match was on..

We finally won the match, though Misbah made it really exciting!

I made corn muffins, aloo gobhi sabzi and bread-butter pudding for dinner. (Weird combo you would say, but I wanted to spend minimum time in the kitchen) I knew India was winning and this was in celebration of our victory.

Savory Corn muffins

Ingredients

2/3 cup corn flour or makki ka aata
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp Baking powder
a pinch of Salt
1 Egg
2 tbsp refined / veg oil
2/3 cup curd
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup Fresh corn
2 tbsps coriander / dhania
1 chopped onion
2 tsps garlic chopped

Directions-
Grease your dish and keep aside. I used my glass dish (I am yet to get a muffin tray, i haven't found it anywhere around)

In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder). In another bowl. whisk together egg, oil, sour cream and curd. Add this to the flour mix. Combine. Add the corn,onion, garlic and the coriander. Mix gently, do not overmix.

Pour into your baking dish, bake at 180 deg for 30-35 mins, brush with butter. Serve warm.

If you use wheat flour, your muffins will turn out dense and firm. You can subb it with all purpose flour, if you want a softer but not so healthy version.

This is going to Show me your Muffin by Divya of Dil Se

Eggless Pineapple and coconut cake

This recipe is almost a copy of Dr Sameena's cake. Mine is eggless, and with a few changes.

I was slightly worried about using coconut, because Niket hates it. But I think he didn't even know abt the secret ingredient! The cake was over amongst the two of us in 2 days! It was good warm as well as after a day.

I didn't have any eggs at home so I subbed egg with soy flour, baking soda and sour cream.

For flour, I used 1 Whole wheat flour, 1/2 oats and 1/2 all purpose / maida.

I didn't have pineapple juice, but about 3/4 cup of chopped pineapple.

Ingredients-
1/2 cup Butter
2 cups Flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup grated fresh Coconut
Pineapple - chopped - 3/4 cup
2 large tbsps soy flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 large tbsps sour cream / curd
1/2 cup milk / buttermilk
1 tsps baking powder

Directions-
Cream butter and sugar. Add sour cream/ curd and combine. Add the coconut and pineapple pieces and stir to combine.

Sift together flour, soda, baking powder, soy flour and add this to the butter-cream mixture in parts, along with milk.


Combine well. Pour into greased baking dish and bake at 180 deg for 25-30 mins. Let cool for 12-15 mins before you savor!

The pineapple chunks add moistness to the cake.. So good :)

Sending this to Priya's Crazy for Cakes

This recipe is also for my friend and blogger Soni who wanted eggless cake recipes, check out her recipes at veggiefoodie!

Whole Wheat Garlic Breadsticks

This is our favorite from Papa John's pizza. Tried to recreate them, with whole wheat flour. We cut back on a bit of cheese, else they were as good as if not better than the ones we order (and not to mention healthier, with whole wheat flour!)

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chopped garlic (can use roasted garlic or garlic powder)
1/3 cup oil or butter
1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp honey

2/3 cup water

Directions-
Sift the flour, salt, garlic powder (or mix in the garlic) together and keep separate. Combine honey/ sugar, yeast and lukewarm water and let the yeast bubble up.Stir in flour mix into the yeasty mix and knead into a dough. Keep it in a well greased bowl, covered with a damp cloth and let it rise for an hour or so in a damp place.
Knead again and roll out into breadsticks. I separated them into 7-8 portions and shaped them such. Let rise for another half an hour.
Bake in oven at 180 deg for 20 minutes or so, they will be brown and crispy when they are done. Brush with butter. (Or spread grated cheese and let bake for 5 mins or so till the cheese browns.)

Oat-ey lemon bars

This is the first time I made lemon bars. And why did I think of it? Cos it had been so long I had baked, and I had some lemon at home. We get lemon cos Niket prefers lemon tea (I hate it). We got some Navadarshanam lemon-grass, and I found out that if I use lemon in lemon-grass tea, it becomes really tangy. What better use for the lemon than to make some lemon bars (I have to try tarts next)
This recipe is adapted from Joy of Baking

For the crust-

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour  (I used mix of oats, flax seed flour and whole wheat flour)
pinch of salt

Beat the butter and sugar, sift the flour and salt and add, beat together and combine to form dough. Press this onto the bottom of your greased baking dish and bake for about 18 - 20 minutes at 180 deg. Let cool. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

Lemon Filling:
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (I used 3 lemons)

1 tbsp lemon zest (My lemons had dried up and I had some orange zest so I used that instead)
2 tablespoons flour (I used oats)
1/4 cup milk

For the Filling: Beat the sugar and eggs along with the zest. Add the lemon juice and combine. Fold in the flour. Pour the filling over the crust and bake for about 20 minutes at 180 deg. Remove from oven and cool.

 

Serving suggestion- dust with powdered sugar, cut into squares and serve.

This is going to Dr Sameena's event for Oats recipes. She has some very easy and tasty recipes. Check out her blog.

posted from Bloggeroid

Baked samosas

Samosas are Niket's favorite snack. I had tried them quite a long time back but never got around to retrying or posting them. This time I made them again, with a different recipe and even clicked good pics (Atleast I did better than quite a few other pics, see!)

My recipe-

Ingredients-
Whole wheat flour
Oil - 2 tbsp
Water
Pinch of baking soda

Make a tight dough and keep aside.

Stuffing-
2 medium Potatoes boiled and mashed
1 cup grated Carrots
1 cup peas
Capsicum 1 medium sized chopped
1 onion chopped / spring onions - 1 cup
1 tsp each of coriander, all spice and turmeric powder
Cumin / ajwain - 1 tsp for tempering
Oil for cooking



Tips-
1 tsp of whole coriander will make the stuffing tastier, I didn't have any. Also some ajwain / carom to the dough will make it all the more delicious

Directions-
Heat oil in a kadahi. Temper the cumin and add onions. Fry till they turn pink. Add peas, capsicum and carrots, cook covered. Now add the dry spices and fry a bit. Cook till the veggies are done. Add the potatoes and mix well. fry for a couple of mins and remove from stove, let cool.


From your dough, cut into 10-12 portions. Roll out into chapatis, cut them into semicircles. Form a cone and fill in the stuffing with spoonfuls, sealing the side with a little water. Repeat with all portions of dough.

Brush each samosa with oil. Put them into the oven at 180 deg, making them stand on their base. This way you wouldn't have to turn them midway. Bake till they turn brown, it takes about 25-30 mins.


Serve hot with ketchup.

Sending this to AWED Indian Cuisine hosted by Umm Check DK's page as well.
Indian cuisine would be incomplete without samosas!


This is also going to Fast food not fat food, even though it is not really fast, it is one of the hot selling ones! I am also going to send another one here soon!

Banana Cake

I made this quite a few days back. Rahul Kakkar is in Bangalore and I wanted to bake something for him. I haven't met him after he has come back from Bbay but I met Kumar some days back when I was taking Yashi for a walk.

I am a frequent visitor of Nags' blog and have bookmarked quite a few recipes from there. I wanted to try the banana cake since I had a few over ripe bananas that become too soft and mushy for eating.

I followed the same recipe, except a few changes-

Ingredients-
1 cup/ 160 gms whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed banana (I used 3 medium sized ones)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
50ml sour cream (or buttermilk, I used sour cream because the recipe says using sour cream makes the cake moist and softer)
1 tsp vanilla extract (I omitted this cos mine was over!)


Directions-

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and soda, keep aside. Now use a food processor or mix by hand-
 Banana, Sugar, egg and butter. Add the sour cream/ buttermilk and the essence, mix again and then add the flour mixture. Fold and combine well.  Do not overmix!
Bake at 180 deg for 35 mins or till the cake is done- check for doneness with a toothpick.
I did not do the frosting part, you can check it up here. Also check the pics and the step-by-step recipe process with pics. The cake looks awesome! Mine isn't as good to look at but it was delectable nevertheless. 

I sent some over to office for Rahul and friends, and they loved it!

Apple and breadcrumbs layer cake

I had some stale bread in the fridge, and some apples which both of us love best baked :)
My recipe for a tasty apple-y breakfast-
4 medium sized apples - chopped
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutmeg / cinnamon
6 tbsps sugar / honey
6 tbsps butter
1 tsp orange zest (use lemon zest if you have, i didn't)
Combine well and keep aside.

Stale bread- 10 slices crumb-ed
4 tbsps sugar
4 tbsps butter

Combine well in a bowl and keep aside.

Take your greased baking dish, I used a square one. First layer with the apple mix adding the juice also. Now add the bread crumbs layer softly pressing on top of the apple mix. Repeat this, with the crumbs layer on top the last. (I made 2 apple layers and 2 crumb layers)

Bake at 180 deg for 35-40 mins till top has browned. Let cool.

It tasted really nice out of the oven, the crispiness of the bread and the gooey apples :)

Serve for breakfast with a glass of hot milk or serve as dessert with icecream :)

While browsing through blogs, I noticed this event, with its last date today. Sending it here. "Lets Celebrate Sweets- Warm Desserts"

Fulori

Learning-to-cook: Event: Dish Name Starts with F
Fulori is a deep fried snack served in Bihar and is the same thing as pakoda except is is made with veggies (and not plain besan or gram flour) I didn't deep fry but baked them in the oven. My recipe is here-

Chopped veggies (i used cauliflower florets and potatoes)

I boiled some water and put the veggies in it and let stand for 5 mins before straining and marinading.

Marinade-
1 cup besan
1/2 cup sour curd
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp ajwain/ carom (I used powdered cumin)
Salt to taste
1 tsp turmeric

Mix these together, it gives a paste like mixture.
Dip veggies in this paste and keep on a greased baking dish. Rub veggies with some oil. Bake in oven at 180 deg for 35 mins, turn in between for crispiness on all sides.

With this I am reminded of Darbhanga when I was there for my wedding. Only a couple of days were left for our wedding. I was in the city (our wedding was held in a small village, Rampura) for shopping and was talking to Niket. Nket was still in the US then. I crossed a rickshaw with a loudspeaker attached to it and playing the song, "fulori bina chatni kaise bani" and Niket was laughing aloud!

To serve, serve hot with ketchup / green chutney and can also be an accompaniment to rice and dal.

Sending this dish to dish name starts with F

Here's a pic of the deep fried Fuloris or Pakodas !

posted from Bloggeroid

Apple upside down cake

After the diabetically sweet pineapple upside down cake, it was time to try something pleasing. Manoj had come over last Sunday and got us lot of oranges, apples and grapes. Niket and I love oranges and grapes, but apples for breakfast is something we detest. It made me think of trying the upside down cake because the apples were tart and would taste good baked in honey / sugar. And no doubt they did!

The recipe is here for you to try.
For the topping-
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp honey (can be subbed with sugar and can be upped to 3 tbsps totally if you like it sweet!)
1 apple sliced (I dont peel them, you can if you like to)
1 tsp nutmeg / jaiphal ( I didn't have cinnamon)
1 tsp lemon juice
3 tbsps butter
Mix sugar , honey and butter in the greased baking dish. Mix the other ingredients with the apples and decorate them over the butter-sugar mixture in the dish.

For the cake batter-
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
add 1 tsp cinnamon if you like the flavor

Sift these together and keep aside.

1 egg
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp sugar
1 chopped/ grated apple
1/2 cup milk
roasted and chopped walnuts a handful

Beat the egg, sugar and the butter. Add the grated apple, mix. Add the flour in 2-3 additions mixing well. Add walnuts and milk. Combine well.

Pour this batter over the topping. Bake at 180 deg for 30 mins or until knife inserted comes clean or till the top browns.

Let it cool, run a knife to loosen the cake. Turn the cake on the serving plate and let the baking dish rest there for a bit to let the sugar topping come on top of the cake.

Serve warm or re-heat before serving. Feel the cake tasted best warm. Also feel will taste very good with cream or vanilla icecream!

My first upside down cake - Pineapple!!

I was thinking what could I make for the Cooking with Fruits event. I always make banana muffins, strawberry muffins etc and I wanted to use a different fruit this time. We went to Namdhari's and got pineapple. I asked Niket what did he want me to make, was it strawberry muffins or this, and he immediately said upside down cake! And so here it is-
I have taken the recipe from here- Allrecipes
But I altered it quite a bit. This is what I did-

Ingredients-

1/2 cup refined oil / butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 fresh pineapple sliced

Melt the butter in a baking dish after greasing it. Press sugar on top and decorate with the sliced pineapples. Keep aside.




1 cup flour (I used half Navadarshan WW flour and half AP)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sift these and keep aside.

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon refined oil
1 teaspoon almond meal
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Cream the egg, sugar, oil . Add sifted flour and almond meal. Mix the milk and mix enough to fold in the flour. Pour and spread evenly over the pineapples.
Bake at 180 deg for 30 mins. Check for doneness. Let it cool, scrape sides and turn on a serving plate. You can leave the dish over the plate to let the sugar drip on top of the pineapples. (I was scared of too much sugar, and I removed it)

This cake is heavenly! I feel the cake is a tad toooooo sweet for my liking (and I am saying this inspite of loving sweets so much!) but the taste is really good, whether right out of the oven or otherwise.

And I am really happy to have experimented with Pineapple, it is in the spirit of my blog (isn't ambrosia a dish with coconut and pineapple?)

Ebony and Ivory- Bitter chocolate American Walnut Brownies!

Our nephew and niece love anything that has chocolate and anything that has icecream! Who doesn't! My younger bro, who is not a kid anymore, was here last week and he wanted me to bake brownies.
This is my entry to the Kid's delight Restaurant recipe. Check the event details here.

I made Walnut brownies. I always follow the recipe from a the Savvy Cookbook March 2007 issue. This time I altered it a bit. My version-

Ingredients-
190 gm butter
1 egg
310 gms sugar powdered
190 gm flour (I used 150 gms AP flour, and the rest wheat flour)
30 gm cocoa
280 gm bitter chocolate
7 gm baking powder
100 gm walnuts chopped

Directions-
Melt the chocolate in a bowl on top of hot water (This is something I didnt do this time, which gave the brownie a bitter and burnt taste)
Beat butter and sugar, add the egg (The original recipe calls for 3 eggs).  Mix the chocolate and the walnuts. Sieve the dry ingredients together. Fold this into the batter. Pour and scrape this mix into the glass dish and bake at 180 deg for 30 mins. Cool, cut and store. Using the wheat flour makes it firmer than using AP flour. When serving, heat a bit in the micro and serve with vanilla icecream.

Bitter chocolate brownie

this is made especially for chandan and my friends, shu n rahul :)
Recipe soon!

posted from Bloggeroid