Category Archives: Desserts

Rainbow Cake

Posted on May 13, 2014 by | 2 comments

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake can be made in two differet ways . One is the classic method , where you bake seven different colors of sponge cakes separately and then assemble them with frosting . The other is swirl or zebra cake method !! I used this method but the cake I prepared is the sponge one !! Ideal for kid’s birthday !!! Believe me , so easy to make but the happiness you will experience among the kids is priceless !!!

Ingredients :

4 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour + 1 tbl spoon corn starch or cornflour
1/2 cup of caster sugar ( powdered sugar)
Food colors ( yellow , orange , red , green)
Vanilla essence

I made three 6″ small cakes to make the whole cake . If you want you can double up the amount .

For Frosting :

2 stick or 1 cup of butter ( softened)
3/4 th cup icing sugar
Vanilla essence , few drops
1 tbl spoon of milk ( if needed)

Other ingredients :

Fruit juice or Sprite for soaking the cake .

Procedure :

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 Fh and grease 2 same sized pan with oil .

2. Sieve the flour and corn starch .

3.Separate the egg yolks from white . Careful , there should be no single bit of yolk to the whites . The whites should be kept and beat in a dry , non-greasy bowl . If any trace of oil , yolk or water is in the bowl of egg whites , no meringue will form .
Now beat the whites with electric hand beater until reaches the firm peak stage , that your whites are fairly firm and holds the beater without falling from it . Add half of the sugar, slowly and continue beating until reaches the stiff peak stage,that is when you turn over the bowl the meringue will not fall from the bowl . Don’t add the sugar at a time , slowly add and beat .

4. Beat the yolks with remaining sugar until light and fluffy . It will get little thick too . Now mix it with the egg white mix and beat slowly until incorporated well , add few drops of vanilla .

5. Now fold in the flour with egg mixture in three bathes . Don’t add the flour at a time . Fold in clock wise motion until mixed well . Now separate the batter evenly into 4 bowls . Mix the colors .

6. Now the fun part . Assembling the cake batter in a baking pan . Take any colored batter and scoop into the middle of the pan . That will spred on it’s own . Now scoop same amount of another color of batter just in the middle of the previous batter . Keep continue with other batters . Prepare 2 cake pans like this .

7. bake immediately in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes or until if toothpick inserted comes out clean . Don’t over bake . Cool in a wire rack .

8. When cooled down a bit but still little warm soak the cake into the fruit juice or sprite , that would help the cake to be moist as sponge cakes tend to be dried out soon . How to soak ? very easy , just like the wheel , go on rolling round and round in the juice to keep the sides of the cake moist , then soak the bottom and top into the juice . You will see , the cake will take good amount of juice . It is the characteristics of a good sponge . If your sponge is a good one , it will definitely absorb good amount of juice without making it soggy . This would help the sponge to be very moist ,even after keeping the cake in the fridge . But careful , don’t use too much juice to soak it . Just enough to keep it moist . Now cool completely before you apply frosting .

For Frosting :

Use softened but not melting butters !! Beat the butter until creamy , add icing sugar slowly and beat . Use few drops of vanilla essence . Now Divide the batter and add food colors of your choice . Decorate the cake .

Assembling the cake :

Don’t try to layer the cake by cutting them in halves . You won’t get the effect then . So take one cake , apply some frosting and put the other cake on it and cover the whole cake with frosting .

Tips For frosting the cake :

1. The cakes should be completely cooled at the time of frosting .

2. Before you start cover the cake with frosting , lightly brush the cake to get rid of any crumbs . Now thinly frost with the cream . This is called crumb coat . Now put it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to set . Now apply the final coating , that would help smooth frosting all over the cake without any crumbs . 🙂

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Boondia-maowa Laddu

Posted on April 28, 2014 by | 1 comment

Boondia-maowa Laddu

Boondia-maowa Laddu

For Boondi-maowa laddu , make boondi first . For boondi recipe plz click the link below

https://khadizaskitchen.com/2014/04/28/boondia/

Now the additional ingredient I need is maowa or khoya . If you don’t have maowa at home , make it at home by using powder milk , little ghee and heavy cream / evaporated milk / regular milk .

For home made maowa :

1/2 cup powder milk
1/2 cup heavy cream/ evaporated milk / regular full cream liquid milk
2 tea spoon ghee

Mix them all together and cook on the stove , until everything comes together and forms a dough or microwave it for 2 – 3 minutes or until it becomes a paste like thing , keep stirring and checking after every 1 minute . Cool it down before you apply it .

Procedure for laddu :

1. While the boondis are hot , take half of the boondis and smash it in the food processor . Add little boiling hot water to smash it easily . Add the water little by little .

2. Now add the remaining intact boondis with it and add the maowa , mix everything together and while hot shape them into the size of laddus . Wash your hand after every few minutes , or else you will find difficulty to shape the boondis .
If you find your boondi mixture little unstable and the laddus fall flat . Don’t worry , keep them in the fridge for a while to get them little stable and shape again .

Making this laddu , I mistakenly blended 2/3 rd of the boondis , so it looks more like mihidaana laddus , but if you use the amount I mentioned now, that is blend half of the boondis and keep half of the boondi intact, you will see the boondis more prominently . 😀

Enjoy !!!!

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Boondia

Posted on April 28, 2014 by | 3 comments

Boondia

Boondia

For making boondia a special kind of perforated ladle is required to get that round small colorful boondis . Here’s the picture of the boondia ladle for making boondis . This picture I collected from the net , as I don’t have any boondi laddle .. 😦

As you see carefully , the holes of this laddle have the same effect as the pucker style holes of the grater , that is sharp spiky edges all around the holes, like this pic ;

This pucker style or spiky edges around the holes help the boondis to fall in exact round shape . 🙂 Most of us complain that our boondis are not that round , rather they became cones like shape . 🙂 The secret being there in the pucker style holes of the ladle . Now it’s hard to get that kind of ladle and for people who doesn’t have that ladle can try with the grater too . Just put the grater , the pucker style should face down over the oil , and put some batter over the smooth portion of the grater . But the boondis fall from this grater is comparatively small . So you can try it for mihidaana or motichoor .
For making boondi , I had no choice but using my perforated spoon to make the small round drops .

But I tell you one secret to make the drops as round as possible . Put the spoon very close to the oil and don’t make the batter too runny or thin . The Batter should be like when you put the batter over the spoon , it does not fall to the oil on its own and immediately .You using your hand rub over the spoon and the drops fall into the oil . If you keep the spoon higher to the oil , the boondis will not drop as round as you want .

Ingredients :

Ingredients :

For Batter:

1 cup besan/ Benglam gram flour , sifted
3/4th cup -1 cup water ( room temperature) + 1 or 2 tbl spoon more ( if needed)
1/4 th teaspoon baking soda
1/4 th tea spoon baking powder
Little food color
Little salt

For Sugar Syrup :

1 cup + 2 tbl spoon Sugar
1 and 1/4 th cup of water
2 green cardamom and a small stick of cinnamon
1 tea spoon ghee ( add at the end)

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a karahi on medium flame . Boondis need to be deep fried . In the mean time , start making the sugar syrup with the ingredients mentioned . The sugar syrup must me medium thick . It must not be thin . It must be like that , when you touch the syrup with finger , your finger sticks. But don’t make it too thick that it crystallizes . The syrup is very important for the boondia . If it’s thin , your boondis will be soggy and if your syrup is too thick the boondies will not absorb the syrup .

2. Sift the gram flour or besan . Make batter with the ingredients mentioned for batter . Add water little by little , so that there is no lump . Don’t add extra 1 or 2 tbl spoon of water unless needed . The batter should be medium thick . It must not be thin or else you won’t have the perfect shape . And if you make it too thick , it won’t pour into the oil through the strainer or spoon . It should be just like the cake batter . Separate the batter into three bowls . I kept the batter in one bowl more than the other two . Put yellow color in the bowl which has more batter . Put orange and green in another two .

3. When the oil is ready to fry , hold the strainer just 2 inches above the hot oil . If you hold it above this height you won’t get the perfect round boondis . Hold it as near as possible to the oil . Now pour a little amount of batter onto the strainer with a spoon and from the back of the spoon press a little . You will see small balls r dropping in to the oil . It should fall with intervals , then the perfect round shape will come . But if it falls like a line , you won’t have the shape . So little amount of batter one at a time . Must not be thin and press the batter with spoon once at a time gently . Don’t press it too hard , then too much will be poured in the oil ruining the shape . always put little batter on the spoon or strainer otherwise you won’t get the shape . After the first gentle press with the spoon , don’t press any more , rather give small strokes with the spoon on the strainer without touching the batter over it . 🙂

4. Fry the boondis until little crispy . Not too much , but yet crispy . remove them from the oil with another spoon .Put the boondis in the hot sugar syrup until they get soft . Remember the syrup should be boiling hot . Now take them out from the syrup and spread them on a serving dish .

Enjoy . If you wish you can make laddus with the boondis and instead of soaking them in sugar syrup , you can always make savory dahi boondi or boondi chaat . I will post these savory boondi recipes very soon , in sha Allah .. 🙂

Notes :

1. While using three different colors of batter , fry each color separately .otherwise the color will mingle making it look a mess .

2. Try to wash the spoon after 2nd or 3rd time you put the batter over it . Otherwise the holes will get obstructed and round holes will not appear.

3. Use different spoons to pour over the batter and to collect the boondis .

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Cake Rusk / Dry Cake

Posted on April 11, 2014 by | 1 comment

Cake Rusk / Dry Cake

Cake Rusk / Dry Cake

In Bangladesh cake rusk is known as dry cake . Cake rusks are made of sliced plain pound cake or Victoria sponge , baked until golden and crispy . So the slices of cake are re-baked to get that biscotti effect . So sounds pretty simple ; bake a cake and then re-bake . But this re-bake part is very important . The common mistake we do is to re-bake the slices at high temperature . That causes browning of the cakes soon , rather then being crispy . Most of the time we end up with very dark colored cake rusks for this reason . But the secret is , if you want that golden color , re-bake it at low temperature . 🙂

Recently while making meringue cookies , I had two extra egg yolks . So wanted to make the best use of it , thought to apply these yolks to make cake rusks . Result is awesome . The cake is super soft , super yummy and so good are the cake rusks . The egg yolks helped the rusks to get that yellowish golden color more than the other recipe . I’ll share both the recipes as I love them both . 🙂

Recipe #1:

Ingredients:

3 Eggs , room temperature
2/3 rd cup of Butter+oil ( 1/3 rd cup butter, softened + 1/3 rd cup oil)
2/3 rd cup caster sugar ( powdered sugar)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 tea spoon of baking powder
Little yellow food color ( optional), though I never used , but many like the store bought yellowish rusks .

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 FH . Grease a square / loaf or any baking pan .

2. Sieve the flour and baking powder together .

3. Cream the butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy . Add in the eggs , one at a time and beat . Add the vanilla and food color . Now fold in the flour mixture to the cream mixture . Pour into the greased pan and bake immediately for 25- 30 minutes or until done .

4. Cool the cake completely before you cut it into slices , other wise you will find difficulty to cut the cake without breaking the slices .

5. Pre-heat the oven to 325 FH after 10 minutes you take out the cake from the oven . Pre-heat for 15 -20 minutes . In the mean time your cake will cool down , and you will be able to cut it into slices and arrange it on a baking tray . You don’t need to grease the baking tray , just place a parchment paper on the baking tray and arrange the slices of cake .

6. Reduce the oven heat to 300 FH and put the tray into the oven . Bake for 20 minutes . Now turn over the rusks and bake for another 20 minutes . Depending on the oven , the time may vary . Check after every 15 minutes . After completing 20 minutes and 20 minutes for each side , if you find them still not crispy , then take out the baking tray and increase the heat of the oven for 10 minutes . Then again put the baking tray into the oven and reduce the heat to lowest . After 10 minutes . Turn off the oven and keep the rusks few more minutes or until the oven cools down , depending how much heat is needed .

Recipe#2:

Follow the same method in making cakes and rusks , just the ingredients are different .

Ingredients:

1 egg + 2 egg yolks ( room temperature)
1/4 th cup oil+ 1/4 th cup butter
1/2 cup sugar, powdered
3/4 th cup + 2 tbl spoon all purpose flour ( if needed , other wise 3/4 th cup is fine)
1 tea spoon baking powder
2 tbl spoon of condensed milk
3 tbl spoon evaporated milk / regular milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Look at the color of the cake and trust me even if you don’t make cake rusks, this cake tastes just great as it is . 🙂

Tips/ Notes:

1. Try to make a dense cake to get that smooth texture of rusks . If the cake is airy and light , you will see many holes in the rusk , that doesn’t look good at all . To make the dense cake , your cake batter need to be bit heavy than regular . 🙂

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Sooji-narkel Barfi ( Semolina coconut barfi)

Posted on April 8, 2014 by | 4 comments

Sooji-narkel Barfi ( Semolina coconut barfi)

Sooji-narkel Barfi ( Semolina coconut barfi)

Was craving for something sweet ,made with semolina or sooji . Basbousa and sooji barfi were playing in my head !!! Finally decided to make sooji-coconut barfi and turned out not only satisfying but it is toooooooooo goooooood !!! I made a smaller quantity , for 4 people may be , though I gulped almost half of it .. 😀 If you want to make it for larger batch just double the amount .

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sooji or semolina
1/4 th cup grated or desiccated coconut
1/3 rd cup ghee
1/2 cup sugar ( you may adjust according to your taste )
1/4 th cup maowa/ khoya * ( for the substitute see the note)
3 green cardamoms , 1 small cinnamon stick ( 1″ long), 1 bay leaf
1 cup water
1/4 th cup of sliced almond , pistachio , raisins , cashew
Rose water ( optional)

Procedure :

1. Grease a serving dish with little ghee .

2.Heat ghee in the pan and add the sooji .Don’t add the whole garam masala now . Fry the sooji on medium low heat until light brown and you can smell the fragrance of fried sooji . . Add the coconut , cardamom , cinnamon and bay leaf.Fry until the sooji gets reddish-golden brown . Don’t make it too dark .

3. Add the maowa/ khoya and sugar in it . Mix well . Now Add 1 cup of water and keep stirring until everything comes together and you will see the oil separates . You may sprinkle little rose water now .Immediately transfer the halwa into the prepared dish. Take out the whole garam masala and smooth the top of the halwa with a spatula . Spread the sliced nuts and raisins over the halua and level with the spatula . Cut the barfi after an hour or until the halwa sets .

Notes:

1. If you don’t have maowa , don’t worry . Take 1/4 th cup of powder milk with 1/4 th cup of heavy cream or regular liquid milk . Add 1 tea spoon of ghee in it . Now microwave for 50-55 seconds . Check after 40 second , because depending on the microwave and electricity time may vary. You can do it in the regular stove top too . 🙂

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Red Velvet Cheese Cake Brownie

Posted on April 7, 2014 by | 1 comment

Red Velvet Cheese Cake Brownie

Red Velvet Cheese Cake Brownie

Ingredients:

2 eggs , room temperature
3/4 th cup sugar , powdered
1/2 cup oil+ 2 tbl spoon butter ( softened)
1 cup of all purpose flour
2 tbl spoon Cocoa powder
1/4 th cup of semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1/4 th cup of butter milk + 1 or 2 tbl spoon more if needed
1 small bottle of red food color
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the cream cheese layer :

1 package or 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 egg
1/3 rd cup sour cream
1/2 cup caster sugar / powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 FH . Grease and line a square cake pan with parchment paper keeping the edges little higher than the pan , that would help to pull out the cake from the pan without distorting the cheese cake layer .

2. Melt the chocolate morsels with 2 tbl spoon of butter . I microwaved them for 20 seconds . Stir and if needed microwave for another couple of seconds .

3 .Cream the 1/2 ( half cup ) oil with sugar . Add the melted chocolate and beat . Add in the eggs , one at a time . In another bowl sieve the flour and cocoa powder together . In this recipe no baking powder is used . So don’t put any baking powder . Mix the red food color with the buttermilk . If you don’t have buttermilk , take 1/4 th cup of milk and add 1 tea spoon of vinegar in it .Rest for 10 minutes and buttermilk is ready .
Now fold in the flour mixture with cream mixture alternately with buttermilk . That is fold half of the flour mixture , then add buttermilk . Fold in the remaining flour mixture . If you find your cake batter too thick , you may add 1 tbl spoon of more buttermilk to it . But the batter supposed to be little thick , don’t make a runny batter . Take 3 tbl spoon of batter from it and keep aside . Pour the remaining batter into the pan .

4. For the cream cheese layer , beat in all the ingredients mentioned for cream cheese layer until smooth . Don’t overbeat so that it becomes runny , just enough to get everything incorporated well without leaving any lump . Pour it over cake batter . Now dollop the cake batter on the cream cheese layer and make swirl with a toothpick .

5. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until if toothpick inserted comes out clean .

6. Let it cool completely before you cut into pieces .

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New York Style Cheese Cake

Posted on March 17, 2014 by | 3 comments

New York Style Cheese Cake

New York Style Cheese Cake

NY style cheese cake is my daughter’s favorite one . But I was too scared too make them . While researching a bit , often found people complaining about so many things , from crack to taste . And yes , not to mention ,too many recipes and almost all the recipes call for too much quantity of the ingredients, which is bit uncomfortable for a beginner like me who hates to waste !!! So I researched a bit with almost every good recipes and updated my version for the beginners . My version is just perfect for a 8″ round springform pan . I used two smaller pans for this . One for Chocolate Swirl and another for orange marmalade swirl . I’ll share the both swirls .

Ingredients :

For the crust :

1 cup any digestive biscuits like Graham crackers or Marie , crushed ( I used half cup oreo cookie crust for chocolate swirl and half cup graham crackers for the other)
5 tbl spoon melted butter

For the filling:

1 package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese ( 8 oz) , room temperature
1/3 rd cup of sour cream , room temperature
2 tbl spoon of heavy cream, room temperature
1/2 ( half) a cup of sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tea spoon of vanilla essence

Procedure:

1. Pre heat the oven to 350 FH .

2. In a bowl combine the crushed cookies and butter . Now press onto the bottom of the springform pan . those who are not using springform , line the pan with aluminium foil or parchment paper then press the cookie crust . The foil or parchment paper should have the height higher than the pan , so that when you will try to unmold , u can take it out easily without ruining the cake . But please try to use springform .

3. Bake the crust for 10 minutes . Turn off the oven . Let the crust cool down .

4. Preheat the oven to 300 FH. Now for the filling , beat the cream cheese , sour cream , heavy cream , vanilla essence and sugar together until incorporated . make sure there is no lump of cheese . Add the egg and beat in medium speed until incorporated . Don’t over beat , that might cause to crack the top of the cake . Specially when you add the egg , don’t beat too much .

5. Pour the batter over the crust . Dot the top of the batter with melted chocolate or slightly warmed orange marmalade . Now with a toothpick or the sharp edge of knife swirl the surface of the cake to have that marbled effect . Now cover the bottom and sides of the pan with aluminium foil to avoid leaks .

6. Take a baking tray and pour some water now place the cake pan over it and place it in the pre heated oven . Reduce the heat to 250 FH and bake for at least 55 minutes . It may take more or less depending on the oven . But don’t open the door of the oven at least before 40 minutes that may cause sink in the middle .
A perfectly baked cheesecake will be puffy around the edges but will still wobble or jiggle in the center about 1 inch or so if shaken . So don’t try to over bake . Cool it completely before you put it in the refrigerator . When cooled down keep it in the refrigerator for at least 4/ 5 hours to set nicely .
Enjoy!!!!

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Black forest cake , Bangladeshi bakery style

Posted on March 14, 2014 by | 10 comments

014 1

Black forest cake , Bangladeshi bakery style

“Black Forest gâteau (British English) and Black Forest cake (American English and Australian English) are the English names for the German dessert Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (pronounced [ˈʃvaʁt͡svɛldɐ ˈkɪʁʃˌtɔʁtə]), literally “Black Forest cherry-torte”. Black Forest cake originated in Germany.
Typically, Black Forest cake consists of several layers of chocolate cake, with whipped cream and cherries between each layer. Then the cake is decorated with additional whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and chocolate shavings. In some European traditions sour cherries are used both between the layers and for decorating the top.[1] Traditionally, Kirschwasser (a clear liquor distilled from tart cherries) is added to the cake, although other liquors are also used (such as rum, which is common in Austrian recipes). In the United States, Black Forest cake is most often prepared without alcohol. German statutory interpretation states Kirschwasser as a mandatory ingredient, otherwise the cake is legally not allowed to be marketed as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.” – ( Source – Wikipedia)

But in Bangladesh , the black forest version is of course without liquor and no matter what, this version tastes better than any version of the world!!! Anyone who tasted the famous Sumi’s Hotcake’s black forest , will definitely agree with me . Just wanted to give a try . Most of the home made black forest I tried are not even closer to the original recipe , since most of them are with chocolate sponge !! But the taste I remember , is not from regular chocolate sponge . The cake base Sumi’s bakery uses for black forest , is more kindda moist chocolate cake !! Keeping the taste on mind and in heart , just invented this recipe !!! 😛 “necessity is the mother of all invention” indeed !!!! :O

Ingredients :

2 eggs , room temperature
1 cup of all purpose flour + 2 tbl spoon of cornstarch/ cornflour
1/2 cup of Cocoa Powder
1 and 1/4 cup of sugar ( powdered)
1/3 cup of vegetable oil+ 1/4  cup butter
1/3 rd  cup of hot coffee ( just take 1/3 cup of hot after and mix 2 heaped tea spoon of coffee in it )
1 cup of buttermilk ( look the note for substitute)
1 tea spoon vanilla essence
1 tea spoon of white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Other Ingredients:

Canned cherry and syrup from that can ( go through the note for cherry syrup substitute)
Whipped cream

 

Procedure :

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 6 ” round pans and line with parchment or wax or butter paper  . This cake tends to stick on the bottom, as it is very moist , so don’t forget to use parchment , wax or butter paper . I have seen spring form pans work better in this type of cake .

2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour , cornstarch , and cocoa powder. Sift twice . Don’t use the baking soda now . We will use it later .

3. Beat vegetable oil , shortening and 1 and 1/3 rd cups of caster sugar( powdered sugar) with the electric hand beater until very light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the vanilla essence .

4. Now alternately add the flour mixture , hot coffee and buttermilk to the butter mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour and mixing with a spatula. That is , put some flour , mix , then add buttermilk , mix . Continue like this . Flour , then coffee . Don’t over mix .

5 . Now in a small cup combine baking soda and vinegar and quickly mix in the cake batter . Don’t beat or overmix now . Just fold in to the cake batter. This is the trick that would make your cake softer and very moist . But you have to work quickly , so divide the cake batter into the greased pans and put them immediately inside the pre-heated oven to bake . If you don’t bake them immediately , the cake will fall flat and the trick will fail . So if your oven is not big enough to put two cake pans at the same times, a little trick to share with you . When your cake batter is ready , before you put the vinegar-soda mixture , divide them equally in two bowls , and mix half of the vinegar and soda ( half teaspoon each ) to one mixture, pour into one greased pan and bake. After taking them out from the oven , take remaining batter and add vinegar-soda mixture , that is half teaspoon of vinegar and half teaspoon of soda ( since the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of soda and vinegar) and pour it into the greased pan and bake.

6. Bake the cake at 350 FH in a pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes clean . Don’t over bake . I always cover the pans with aluminium foil like tent , so that the top must rise evenly and without crust .

7. Cool the cakes completely and then cut them into halves horizontally . Now you have four layers of cake . Moisten each layer with cherry syrup. Don’t use too much , just enough to moisten . Keep it in the fridger before you apply whipped cream over it .

After assembling keep it in the fridge at least 5/6 hours . It tastes better the following day !!! 🙂

Notes:

1. If you don’t get buttermilk , take 1 cup of luke warm or room temperature milk . Add 1 tbl spoon of white vinegar and keep it aside for 15 minutes . After 15 minutes the thing you get is your buttermilk .

2. I used the cherry syrup in this recipe . This is the syrup from the can of the cherries . If you don’t use canned cherry , you can substitute this syrup with cake syrup or any juice . For the cake syrup add some vanilla into thin sugar syrup and your cake syrup is ready . But to get the flavor , please try to use the canned cherry and the syrup .

3. For whipped cream , beat the heavy cream until thickens , then add icing sugar and beat until stiff . For 1 cup of heavy cream , use 2 tbl spoon of icing sugar . Always use stainless / metal or glass bowl to make whipping cream and before you whip the cream , keep the bowl into the fridge to chill . 🙂

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Profiterol / cream puff / choux à la crème

Posted on March 11, 2014 by | 6 comments

Profiterol / cream puff / choux à la crème

Profiterol / cream puff / choux à la crème

A profiterole, cream puff or choux à la crème is a French dessert , crisp , hollow round choux pastry ball , that are split in halves and filled with whipped cream or ice cream and topped with ganache or chocolate sauce !!! They are very easy to make and the same choux pastry dough can be used to make eclairs , that are oblong in shape !!!

Ingredients :

2 eggs
1/2 cup of milk+water ( 1/4 th cup milk+ 1/4 th cup water)
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 th cup of butter
A pinch of salt
1 tea spoon sugar

Other ingredient :

1 egg for egg wash
Whipped cream
Chocolate Sauce

Procedure :

1. Pre-heat the oven at 400 FH.

2. Boil water+milk with a pinch of salt, sugar and butter. With a spatula quickly mix the flour until everything comes together and forms a dough .

3. Immediately transfer to a bowl and beat with the electric hand beater to release some hot air . Now while luke warm, add eggs one at a time and beat very well until you get a smooth , thick mixture . Don’t add the eggs at a time or until one is completely incorporated . The consistency should be as such , so that you can spoon them on the baking tray .

4. Line a baking tray with parchment paper . You don’t have to grease them . Now pipe with piping bag or spoon them onto the baking tray . Moist your finger-tip with water and press the top slightly to smooth the top. Now brush gently with beaten egg .

5. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes at 400 FH , then reduce the heat to 375 FH and bake another 1o- 15 minutes or until done !!! Sit in the hot turned off oven for another 5 minutes . The puffs should be light , airy and hollow if you tap with the finger . Let them cool completely .

6. Cut the each profiterol crosswise and fill with whipped cream or ice cream and top with chocolate sauce or ganache .

Notes:

1. For Ganache ,melt the chocolate using double boiler method . Now beat with heavy cream .

2. If you want to make small batch just cut the ingredients to half , like 1 egg , 2 tbl spoon of butter , 1/4 th cup of water+milk , 1/4 th cup of flour . This cut down recipe is going to make at least 6/7 small profiterols . 🙂

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Shahi Tukra

Posted on March 8, 2014 by | 2 comments

Shahi Tukra

Shahi Tukra

Who doesn’t love Shahi Tukra ?? That velvety , soft Indian bread pudding having it’s roots in Mughlai cuisine . For me it’s absolutely a dessert which I without any hesitate can call ” Beheshti” or “heavenly” in English!!! I have two different versions of making Shahi tukra . But the recipe I’m sharing today is the most authentic and easiest of the two . The other version includes making sugar syrap and rabri ( milk sauce ) separately . You have to soak the fried bread into the sugar syrup first , then the milk sauce is poured over the fried breads . But that process seem unnecessarily time consuming and laborious to me . So here you go with my super easy shahi tukra without compromising it’s shahi taste at all !!! 🙂
In the original recipe the breads were deep-fried into pure ghee!!! We just can’t think of that !!!! But to get that authentic “ghee flavor “, I mentioned a little trick in my recipe and who are health conscious and doesn’t want to deep fry the breads can go for toasted bread too . I’ll share the recipe in notes too . So please go through the notes after going through the recipe .

Ingredients :

4 slices of bread
2 cups of regular whole milk + 1 cup of evaporated milk ( see the note for the substitution)*
Sugar to taste ( around 1/2 a cup , you can always adjust the sugar to your taste)
3 cardamoms
1 small stick of cinnamon
Saffron
Rose water
Malai/ maowa / khoya
Dried nuts
Saffron food color ( optional)
Ghee 2 tbl spoon
Oil for frying the breads

Procedure:

1. Remove the crust edges from the bread and cut into any shape of your choice , rectangular, square , circle , triangle or even round .

2. Put milk in a deep bottomed pot , add cinnamon, cardamom in it and bring it to boil . Add the sugar and turn the heat to low .

3. The same time heat oil and add two tbl spoon of ghee into the oil . That would make the shahi tukra smell like fried in ghee . Deep-fry the bread slices until dark golden and crispy . The color should not be light as the color gets lighter if soaked in milk.

4. Now immediately put the fried breads into the milk . Milk shoud not be thick . Just a little reduced . that would help the fried breads to soak the milk . Remove the breads from the milk after 40 second to 1 minute or until little soft . the breads should be soft but firm . If it is too soft , it will break apart and will get mushy after final pouring of the rabri over it . so just a little while to get the breads little soft and soaked completely .

5. Arrange the soaked bread pieces on to the serving dish .

6. Now reduce the milk until thickens . You may add saffron and little food color at this point .Don’t thicken it too much because it will get thicker after cooling down . Nor it should be liquidy too . Sprinkle some rose water and take out the cinnamon, cardamoms from it . Let it cool a bit . Don’t pour the hot milk over the breads . It often makes the shahi tukra too mushy !! I like a little crunch with softness . So pour the luke warm milk over the breads . It helps to retain the good texture too .Garnish with khoya , chopped nuts , dried fruits . You can use some silver edible foil paper to get the Shahi look !!

Notes:

1. If you don’t have evaporated milk , just use 3 cups of regular whole milk with 1/4 th cup of powder milk .

2. Some use condensed milk too . If you wish , you can put condensed milk too . But then adjust the sugar .

3. Those who are health conscious can toast the bread in the oven until brown and then follow the other steps . If you toast it in oven , just apply butter or ghee over the slices of bread and then toast .

4. For the homemade maowa , khoya , you can check this link of kheer kadam, where I explained , how to make khoya at home .
https://khadizaskitchen.com/2013/11/16/kheer-kadam-an-exotic-bengali-sweet/

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