Honey Sponge cake using Pressure Cooker

Got the idea of preparing this Honey Sponge cake after seeing one of the images of a cake in one of the mails that I got... Initially I thought that having an oven @ home is a pre-requisite for making cakes... later when I researched, I found out that I was wrong...
Cakes can be prepared with our good old friend - pressure cooker too!! And my earlier cake as well as this one is a testimony to that... 

You can click here to see my earlier cake - Eggless Pineapple cake prepared in pressure cooker

Lets get into the steps for making the Honey Sponge cake

INGREDIENTS:

DRY INGREDIENTS

All purpose (Maida) Flour - 150gm
Custard powder - 1 tbsp
Bicarbonate/Baking soda - 1 tsp
Baking powder - 1tsp

WET INGREDIENTS

Butter, softened - 50gm
Brown sugar, softened - 150gm
Coconut oil (you can use regular refined/sunflower/corn oil also) - 50 ml
Eggs - 3 nos
Honey - 1 Heaping tbsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

PROCESS:

In a wide mouthed bowl, add the all purpose flour, custard  powder, bicarbonate soda and baking powder. Keep it aside.

In another wide mouthed bowl, mix butter, brown sugar and oil. Break three eggs one at a time and whisk till well-blended. 
Add the honey and vanilla essence. Mix well.

Gradually add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix well.

Prepare the cake mold by oiling the sides and bottom of the mold with butter (this is to ensure that the cooked cake does not stick to the walls of the mold.)

Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake mold. 

In a pressure cooker/pan, add 300 ml of water. 

Place a separator plate in the cooker and then place the cake mold on the separator plate. The cake mold MUST NOT touch the bottom of the cooker and hence the separator plate. 

Donot put the whistle. Once the steam starts coming out from the cooker, switch to low flame and steam for 45 minutes in low flame.

Remove the cake from the mold once it cools down. 

Slice the cake as required.

Pour some honey on the sliced cake pieces and allow it to get absorbed into the slices...

You can  also decorate the cake with Chocolate or Vanilla creams at the top though I did not do any decoration since I felt this is good enough for now and did not want the taste to get altered... 

Lemon Rice

LEMON RICE

My next recipe is Lemon rice - one of TamilNadu's fav. rice dish...

The main ingredient is the lemon. 

Lemon, as we are aware is an excellent vegetable/fruit for our body due to the Vitamin C present in it. 

Before marriage, I had gone to Palani temple in TamilNadu and I could see many people bought this yellow coloured rice... Only after marriage when I came to Chennai I know that it is lemon rice that so many people used to buy and enjoy... 

I have tried to make it today... 

Ingredients for Lemon rice:

Rice - 1 cup
Lemon juice - 2 tbsn
Til/Sesame oil - 3 tbsn
Ginger paste - 1 tbsn
Chana dal (bengal gram split and skinned)  - 1 tbsn
Green chillies - 2 nos
Mustard seeds - 1 tsn
Curryleaves - 5-6 nos
Turmeric Powder-1 tsn
Red chillies - 2 nos
Coriander leaves - 3-4 leaves for garnishing

Process:

Wash and clean the rice. Cook rice and keep aside.

In a frying pan, heat sesame oil and put mustard seeds. 

When it splutters, add dry red chillies, chana dal. 

Fry the chana dal till in turns light brown. 

Add ginger paste, curry leaves, chopped green chillies and mix well. 

Once the ginger paste is mixed well and gets fried, add salt and lemon juice. Mix well.


Add rice and mix well.

Lemon rice is ready. Can be served with Potato fried or brinjal fried along with Pickle and appalam/papadam...

#lemonrice, #tamilrecipes, #kidsrecipes, #vegetarianrecipes, #ricerecipes, #indianrecipes

Paneer Pepper Fry - Cottage cheese fried with pepper in a spicy thick gravy

Paneer pepper fry

Ever since I started writing this blog, I read many magazines, recipe books and many other blogs too. It helps me a lot in making many dishes made in different parts of India.

I get a lot of north Indian dishes ideas from my husband!! When he was working in Gujarat a few years back he had the opportunity to have lot of north Indian dishes and tells me about such dishes. Since he was a bachelor in those times, he used to make a lot of such north Indian dishes...he likes Punjabi dishes a lot! From him I got to know the names of few North Indian dishes and their ingredients...That prompted me to refer other famous blogs and recipe videos... 

Recently when we went to a hotel and saw the menu we saw this dish called paneer pepper fry. My DH liked the idea and ordered it immediately, I also liked it very much.

I decided to make this dish @ home. 

When I tasted it, I could understand the ingredients that were included in it. 

So here we go!!

Ingredients:

Paneer - 200 gms
Onions - 4 nos
Tomato - 1 no
Green chillies - 3 nos
Ginger - 1/2 piece
Garlic - 3 small cloves
black pepper powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 4-5 nos
salt to taste

Process:

Cut the paneer into small cubes and keep it aside. 

After that, chop the onions into very thin pieces length wise. Also chop the tomato into very small pieces and keep it aside. Next chop the garlic and ginger into small sizes and keep aside. Also slit the green cillies length wise. 

Take a frying pan and  pour 3-4 tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot, add the sliced onions and add a bit of salt. Saute till they became brown. Add the chopped tomatoes and saute it for 5 minutes (tomato need to be chopped into very small pieces). 
once the tomatoes also cook, add the finely chopped ginger, garlic and green chillies and saute for a few minutes.

After that add turmeric powder, garam masala powder, pepper powder and salt. 

Mix thoroughly and saute for sometime. Once the water almost evaporates and oil starts leaving the sides of the pan, add the paneer pieces and and mix it well. Allow to simmer in a low flame for 10 minutes. At last sprinkle some more pepper powder into it. 

Paneer pepper fry is ready to be served. Serve it with chapathis, parattas etc.

#paneerrecipes, #vegetarianrecipes, #punjabirecipes, #indianrecipes, #paneer, #kidsrecipes