EGGLESS WHITE FOREST CAKE BAKED IN COOKER

EGGLESS WHITE FOREST CAKE IN COOKER

Since the last few months, I have been thinking of baking a black forest cake since we all like it a lot. However, recently, in a bakery I happened to taste a White Forest cake and it tasted so very good. 

Now because its Christmas time, I thought its the right time to try out this cake.

One big challenge I had in making this cake was preparing the whipped cream, which I had no idea how to prepare. I also don't have the electric whipper/whisk to prepare the cream. I somehow managed to make the whipped cream with the Amul fresh cream using a manual whipper . 

Another change I did this time was to use salt as the heating medium in the cooker instead of water. Hence this is not a steamed cake - a baked one :)

Enough of talk now...Lets get into the preparation..

INGREDIENTS

Maida- 1.5 cup
Baking powder- 3/4 tsp
Baking soda- 1/2 tsp
Sugar- 1 cup (powdered)
Butter - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1/2 cup
Thick Yogurt/curd - 3/4 cup
Vanilla Extract- 1/2 tsp(i used vanilla essence)
Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon
Sugar - 4 tbsn
Whipped cream - 500 ml
White chocolate - to make  flakes
Oranges - 2, peeled, deseeded and petals disintegrated 

PROCESS

Take a bowl and mix the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix it thoroughly  and keep it aside.

Take another bowl and pour the butter (make sure that the butter is soft - keep the butter out of the refrigerator for a couple of hours before you use), sugar powder and mix it thoroughly(it should be mixed very well). Add Lemon, Vanilla essence and beat well.
Add half of the curd into this and mix thoroughly. 

Then add 1/2 of the prepared flour into this, add the remaining yogurt, add milk and mix well. Add the remaining flour and mix thoroughly. The flour is added in 2 parts so that the batter is consistent and lumps are avoided.

Grease the inside of the cake die/vessel with butter or oil and pour the cake batter into it. This is now ready to be baked.

For baking, take a pressure cooker (without the whistle weight of course) or an idli cooker with a tight lid. 

Add 2 cups of salt into the cooker to make a layer of around 1 cm thick. Keep a plate on the salt layer for the cake mold to be placed on top of it.

Now place the cake mold containing the batter on the plate. 

Switch on the flame and after high flame for around 5 min, switch to low flame and bake for 45 min.

Switch off the flame and allow the cake to cool in the die. 

After that transfer it into a plate and let it chill in the refrigerator for 2 hrs. 

For preparing whipping cream:

Beat the cream in a bowl with a whipper (electric whipper is best for this though I didnot have one) until it becomes soft and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and whip it again till it becomes almost double of the original quantity. 
The whipping cream is ready if it stops moving/flowing on its own and stays still and doesnot fall even when you tilt or turn the vessel upside down. 

For making sugar syrup:

Mix 5 tbsp sugar with 5 tbsn water and warm it. Allow it to cool.

For making white chocolate flakes:

Peel the chocolate with a peeler to make the flakes.

Cut the cake into three layers using a knife. Mark the pieces with a fork (it helps the sugar syrup to settle more easily into the cake). 

Transfer the first layer into a plate carefully. Pour some sugar syrup and spread orange flakes into the cake. take a dollop of whipped cream and spread over the cake generously using a spatula or cake knife.

Place the second layer on top of this and repeat the same steps. 
Now, place the third layer on top of this and spread the whipped cream thoroughly and generously on the top. 
Also spread the cream on the sides of the cake and make it even using the spatula.  

Place the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Now is the last coating. 

Spread the chocolate flakes on the top and side layers of the  cake.

Place cherries on the top. 

White forest cake is ready.

Store in a refrigerator.

Peas Paneer Pulav - Sauteed Cottage cheese, Green peas mixed with Basmati Rice

PEAS PANEER PULAV

Peas Paneer Pulav is a very easy to make dish and takes just around 30 min to prepare.
Since it contains rich ingredients such as Paneer and peas, its nutritious too. 
Children will like it a lot. 

Ingredients for Peas Paneer Pulav

Basmati Rice-3 cups
Paneer - 200gm (small cubes)
Green Peas - 1 cup
Ghee - 2 tbsn
Butter - 2 tbsn
Cummin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1 tbsn
Pepper Powder - 2 tsp
Onion - 1, medium, finely chopped 
Chilli Powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 3/4 tsp
Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Lemon - 1/2 slice
Salt as needed

Steps to make Peas Paneer Pulav

Clean the rice and soak in water for 10 min. 

Cook the rice and keep aside. 
While cooking the rice, add a spoon of oil. This helps in giving a shine to the rice after its cooked and also, avoids breaking of the cooked rice.For cooking the rice, I DIDNOT use a cooker. I boil it in low flame for around 10-15 min and drain the water using a colander.

Take a frying pan and pour butter and ghee. After it becomes hot, add cummin seeds and fry.
When the aroma of the fried cummin seeds come, add the ginger-garlic paste, pepper powder and saute well for 1/2 min.

Add the chopped onion into the pan (if you capsicum @ home you can also add it, finely chopped).
Saute the onion till it becomes brownish. Add chilly powder and Garam Masala into it and mix thoroughly.

Now add the green peas and paneer pieces into the pan. 

Saute for some time till the paneer edges becomes slightly brownish.

Add the steamed rice into the mixture and mix it.

Garnish with coriander leaves and add the lemon juice into it.

Peas Paneer Pulav is ready. 

Serve hot with curd or raita

Khaman-Dhokla - A traditional Gujarati Dish - Split Chikpea flour mixed with curd, fermented, steamed and garnished

Khaman Dhokla

Next is a Gujarati dish named Khaman Dhokla. Its is a famous dish and anyone who has a Gujarati friend can relate to this dish... 
I came to know about this dish from my husband since he was in Gujarat for a few years and had eaten a lot of this... He used to tell me that this is the Gujarati equivalent of Idli since this is a steamed dish :)

I was not sure but decided to try it out since I wanted to prepare a Gujarati dish and since this was the Gujarathi dish one that my husband liked the most (apart from Thepla and Khakhra), I thought I must try this out.
I must admit that this dish tasted really good - I know that it has not come out the way a traditional Gujarati would make it, but still, the fact that I could make it itself is satisfying :)

Ingredients for Khaman Dhokla

Gram flour - 2 cups
Yogurt beaten -1 cup
Turmeric powder-1/2 tspn
Green chillies - 2 
Ginger Paste - 1/2 tspn
Cooking soda - 1 tspn
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
Oil - 2 tbsn
Mustard seeds - 1tspn
Fresh coriander leaves
Coconut Scrapled - 1/2cup
Salt as required

Steps to make Khaman Dhokla

Take gram flour in a bowl and add the yogurt and take one cup of warm water and mix it. Add salt and mix again.

Keep it aside for fermentation for 4 hrs. 

Take the green chillies and grind it. Mix with Ginger paste.

When gram flour mixture has fermented, add turmeric powder and green chilli-ginger paste. 

Take a vessel to steam the dhokla (a Idli making vessel or a pressure cooker w/o the weight can be used). 
Pour water in the vessel and heat in medium flame for the water to boil.
Take a thali/wide mouthed vessel and grease the inside of the vessel with oil.

In a small bowl, take lemon juice, cooking soda and one teaspoon oil and mix well. Add it to the batter and mix thoroughly. 

Now, pour the batter into the greased thali/vessel and place it in the steamer. 

Cover the thali/vessel with a lid and steam for ten minutes in medium flame. Turn off the flame and allow the steamer to cool.

When cool, take it out from the vessel and cut it into a squares and keep in a serving plate.

Heat one tablespoon oil in a small pan and add mustard seeds.
When the mustard seeds crackle, add sesame (til), slit green chillies and saute these.  Remove and pour over the Dhoklas.

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and grated coconut (grated coconut is optional). 
Dhoklas can be taken as such or with chutney such as coriander chutney or pudina chutney

#gujaraticuisine, #breakfast, #indianrecipes, #vegetarianrecipes

Sukhiyan - Cooked Greengram-Jaggery balls dipped in wheat flour batter and fried

Sukhiyan (Sugiyan)

I remember the days when every tea shop in Kerala had a few standard snack items - Puttu (click here to view Puttu recipe), Pazham Pori (click here to view pazham pori recipe), Parippu Vada, Uzhunnu Vada, Appam (click here to view Appam recipe) and of course Sukhiyan. 

Now we are able to see this snack only in tea shops in village areas or small tea shops in cities... 

Many children today dont even know what a sukhiyan is... they want only junk snacks such as Kurkure, Lays etc :(

In fact it is a very nutritious dish because it contains green gram, jaggrey etc.

This is a typical tea-time snack... Children will also like it since its sweet too and hence can be given to school... 

Ingredients for Sukhiyan

Green gram/Moong - 1.5 cup
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Jaggery - 500gms
Cardamom - 4 nos.
Salt - 1/2 tspn

Process to prepare Sukhiyan

Clean the moogdal and cook in pressure cooker. Donot over-cook the moongdal. 

If the greengram gets overcooked, then it would become paste like while mixing and the sukhiyan would not come out well.

Powder the cardamom and keep it aside. 

Drain out the excess water (if there) from the moong dal.

Take a pan and heat in low flame. Powder/crush the jaggery and put it into the pan. Add 50ml of water into it and make it syrup-like. Add the cardamom powder into it.

Once it is ready, add the cooked green gram into it and mix it well. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes or until water vaporises and we get a dry mixture.

Allow it to cool down. Make small balls of this mix and keep them aside.

In a bowl, put the all purpose flour. Add salt and make a thick batter. 
I am sorry for not posting the pics of the batter...I could not take the photos since my hands were full of batter :(

Take a frying pan, pour oil (to fry the balls) and heat the oil in meduim flame. Once the oil is hot, dip each of the balls in the batter and fry them in the oil in low-medium flame.

Once the balls turn light brown, remove from the oil and drain the oil. 

Sukhiyan is ready... This is a typical tea time snack...

#sukhiyan; #keralarecipes; #teatimesnacks; #kidsrecipes

Indian Coffee House style Masala Dosa

Indian Coffee House Masala Dosa

Most women like Masala Dosa isnt it?? Most men dont!! There are many other things that men like!!
My mother's favourite is Masala Dosa and so is mine...

Click here to view my earlier blog post on Masala Dosa.

The Masala Dosa @ Indian coffee house tastes different since they use beetroot too in the masala...The way the masala is prepared is also different...

Unique ICH@Trivandrim

I heard about the Indian Coffee house (ICH) from my dad since this is his fav. hotel @ Ernakulam for snacks... My hubby also likes the ICH... 

In Chennai we used to go to the ICH @ T-Nagar often a few years back... Recently when we went to Pondicherry, we went to the ICH situated @  Jawaharlal Nehru Street (as shown on the right)... It was pure nostalgia...

Ingredients

Beetroot - 1 medium sized
Potato - 1 medium
Carrot - 1 medium
Onion - 1 medium
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tspn
ChillyPowder - 1/2 tspn
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tspn
Urad dal - 1tspn
Ginger - a small piece
Green chillies - 3 nos
Curry leaves - 8-10 small leaves
Salt - to taste

Process

Clean and wash the potatoes, beetrot and carrot. 

Peel them and cut it into 2-3 pieces and put them into a pressure cooker. Pour 200 ml of water and sook these in full flame for two whistles and in low flame for one whistle.

Once the pressure of the cooker is released, open the lid and mash the cooked vegetables. Keep it aside.

Chop onions and green chillies lengh-wise. Keep them aside.

Take oil in a frying pan and put the mustard seeds. once they splutter, put the urad dal. Once the urud dal turn brown, add the curry leaves.

Then add the chopped onions, add little salt for frying them faster. Once the onions becomes light brown, add the chopped green chillies and saute them for a couple of minutes. Then add turmeric powder and chilly powder. Mix these well.

Then add the mashed vegetables (potato,carrot,beetrot) into the sauteed onions and mix well... 

The masala for the masala dosa is ready.

Next we will prepare the dosa.

Take a dosa tawa and heat in high flame. Lightly brush it with oil preferably sesame (til/gingelly) oil. 

If  you are using a non-stick pan, do not brush the tawa with oil; if you do so you will not able to spread the batter on the tawa. 

Take a ladle (around 50 ml) of dosa batter and pour it into the dosa tawa. Spread it on the tawa to form a thin and large circle. Spread oil or ghee over the dosa. Ghee is more tasty and healthy.

When it is cooked, it starts to turn brown. Put 2 tablespoons of the masala prepared earlier and spread it on one half of the dosa. 

Fold the dosa in half to cover the masala... 

Indian coffee house Masala Dosa is ready. Serve with coconut chutney...

#indiancoffeehouse, #indiancoffeehousemasaladosa, #breakfastrecipes, #southindianrecipes, #dosarecipes, #vegrecipes