Mango Cream

Like most Marwaris, I also grew up eating Fruit cream as a fast and go to dessert. As much as its an easy and impressive dessert to impress your guests and loved ones, its not everyone who can make it the authentic way. Now, every time I use the word authentic for “Fruit cream”, people usually give me a very confused look. But what they fail to understand is its not just mixing in fruits, sugar and cream.

A fruit cream is best when the cream is whipped with sugar making those stiff peaks and making it fluffy at the same time. Your fruits should always be fresh and the additional sugar should be based on the fruits you are using and how sweet they are. Small little things and make big changes to your dish.

But here, we aren’t making fruit cream, I am making Mango cream and that too with a little twist. My first time trying to make Mango cream was whipping the cream and mixing in a few mango pieces. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t nice but it was definitely not satisfying as a chef.  Instead of making the whole serving with just mango flavor, I divided into half vanilla and half Mango.

The recipe below might remind you of Mango Panacotta, though similar but its very different. Panacotta requires a little more effort and cooking time where as this is you to go recipe and can easily be made in a rush with almost no prep time.

Lychee Heart Cake

Some recipes are a complete fluke and some recipes are born out of disaster. This recipe is  the latter category. I was trying to cook something and it turned out bad, but I just couldn’t give up and throw away. Instead I came up with these amazing burfis, which weren’t just a life saver but also tasted delicious. Not to forget, a great invention too.

I have always loved Lychee. They are one of my most favorite fruits. Every Lychee season, my father would make sure he gets more than enough for me to enjoy and I believe the whole season I wouldn’t touch any other fruit besides Lychee. With so much love for a fruit, its pretty evident that once I start cooking and inventing my own dishes, I will give something with Lychee a try.

This is how the story goes. So, during my Kulfi making season, I thought of trying to make Lychee Kulfi. And, it was one of those times when after successful attempts made me over confident and without thinking of the consequences I went on with the process resulting in failure. The milk mixed with lychee and its syrup [I used canned lychee] curdled the milk.

There was this milk in front of my eyes, that had Khoya and sugar added to it and gone sour and I was left in a puzzle and guilt of throwing away this food. As they say that Necessity is the mother of all inventions, I believe some inventions are failure/ guilt driven too. The feeling of not succeeding also makes you think outside the box and attempt harder.

I decided to hang the curdled milk, as what we do in the process of making paneer. Later I added some sugar and dry milk powder to it and whisked the whole mixture really well. Further, crushed some butter cookies and layered it as a base and put the mixture on it and bake.

The cake came out fabulous. Since I start taking pictures of the process from the first step, I have the pictures from the time the milk went bad while boiling. You could add the syrup from canned lychee and it will surely do the trick.

If not, add 2 tsp of vinegar, but in that case wash the curdled milk with ice cold water while you hang it in muslin cloth.

This cake has mild Lychee flavor and the cookies add a little crunch to the cake as well.

 

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ice creams are my first love. I love ice creams so much that I can wake up at 2 AM for this awesomely delicious frozen treat. Never imagined as a kid that one day I would making my own and loving them so much. When I started making bread at home, Mr. Parveez couldn’t bear to see his dear wife struggle with the dough to make it perfect for the bread and got me a Kitchen aid dough maker. Now I am so lazy that even if I have make chapati dough, I use my Kitchen Aid.

My better half, Mr. Parveez loves shopping for his wife. I know, I am really fortunate. So, he love shopping for add ons too. Like when he buys me a dress, he would look around to see if there is a jewelry piece that might look great or a pair of shoes. He kind of does something similar with Kitchen gadgets as well. The appliance was originally bought for mixing, whisking and kneading. The add ons brought in attachments for salad chopping, meat grinder and an ice cream maker.

Mr. Parveez and I loved having the frozen desert every night. I don’t remember a single night not enjoying the yummy treat while I was pregnant. In fact, I ate my hubby’s share too and the poor guy never complained. And, then came the kids loving the treat as much as us.  The boys were always branching out to whatever new flavor was at the our favorite ice cream store. So when I got my first ice cream maker, I knew I could push my frozen treat boundaries even further and experiment my heart out. To start with, Vanilla had to be the base. I just had to make sure that I knew the basics correctly.

My first try with the vanilla Ice cream was something with eggs. Now, I am not too sure ho many people enjoy vanilla ice cream with eggs, but being from India and eating ice creams that are basically vegetarian, and I could smell the eggs in my ice cream and I wasn’t too happy with experiment.

I then started out with a simpler vanilla ice cream recipe, egg less. Its made with heavy cream and sugar. You can substitute the Heavy cream with milk if you are calorie conscious, but I recommend going all out, after all its a dessert.

Hot Milk Cake

Cakes are an integral part of our life. No matter which community, which country you belong to, cakes make a special place in our celebrations. I am not sure if I have mentioned in any of my earlier cake posts, but I belong to a house where baking kind of never existed. My mom never baked and always preferred the store bought cakes.

There was a local bakery that made super delicious cherry cake and Kaju cakes, which was very close to some branded cakes. We kind of always liked the locally made cakes better than the branded ones, reason was always the surety of freshness and not consuming preservatives. The bakery also made some wonderful plum cake for the month of December, making it a Christmas and New Year special. I have always loved all of them.

I admired some of my friends moms who would bake cakes at home. I still remember a friend whose Mom would bake cake for her birthday and she actually baked using a pressure cooker. As much as a lot of friends  felt that it is a money saving way, I always  felt that it added a very personal touch to the celebration. I always loved the idea of home baking. I believe they are fresh and taste delicious when warm with tea or coffee.

Bangalore has some lovely Iyengar bakeries and the cookies and cakes, also the buns that they make are equally scrumptious. After I got married, I was just in love with the wonderful goodies Mr. Parveez introduced me to. The wide variety offers everything for every taste bud and I have never met a person who has tried products made in those bakeries and not loved them. Hot Milk Cake happens to be one such recipe. Soft, scrumptious, not too sweet and just very airy and light. Its a perfect tea time snack.

So, With all love I have for home baked cakes, after trying the simpler cake, it was time for me to take a second step and nothing would be better then trying out one of the best recipes from an Indian bakery. And that how the Hot Milk Cake made its way to my Dastarkhaan.

The recipe is simple. Please follow the notes too before you start trying it out. There are ingredients that can be used for enhancing flavors but, using them would modify the recipe. Once you master this skill, please feel free to contact me for recipe modifications.

Fried Apple Pie

Apple pie is lovely all year round, but specially during winters, warm apple pies for breakfast or for that evening snack with a cup of coffee is my absolute favorite. Have you ever been for Apple picking in Fall? Its a pretty fun thing to do with your family and a popular one too, in many European countries and in United States.

Usually the farm for apple picking has a few activities for kids too, petting zoo and painting crafts being few among them. Another good part that I enjoy about Apple picking is that since its Fall, they always have little Pumpkin patches as well, which of course for people like me solves another purpose of picking a nice pumpkin for Fall decoration. So, basically its like killing 2 birds with one stone. A lot these places also have pumpkin carving which i believe is great for kids and adults, a pumpkin and a little fee is all you need to learn the basic carving skills.

Getting back to the story of the wonderful apples. So, all these farms also have a bakery that sells wonderful banana breads, pumpkin pies, cakes and Apple pie. So, once at one of our favorite farms, I came across a fried apple pie. I had to read the name again since I believed all the “pies” are always baked and have apples cooked like a thick puree. This was something new and we just felt that it looked tempting enough for at least a try. So, we got ourselves some pie and you know how they say that people meant to be together do meet up at some point of life, that’s exactly how I felt after my first bite.

For years we went to that farm during apple picking season and  always got some apple pie, till they stopped making them for reasons unknown. Well, I had to crack down the recipe and try making it myself. Food should not be bound by a traditional recipe. A bit of change always brings out great flavor and a new recipe.

This Apple pie, since it isn’t just plain Apple puree, but apples cooked in butter, its like no other apple pie you have ever tried. Its crunchy yet soft, perfect sweetness with a hint of cinnamon…and you hardly chew it, it spreads so much flavor in your mouth while it melts with the first bite.

Try the recipe and do let me know if you liked it. Its always nice to do something that gives you flavor, yet a new trend.

Cold Coffee

Coffee is an all times favorite. Some like it hot, others cold, some with milk and some Black. I usually enjoy my hot coffee Black but I love the frappuccinos and never miss a chance to buy them from my favorite coffee place.

I always loved making cold coffee at home since I was in my teenage. It was kind of one of the first few things I started making and it was always a family favorite, which of course continued after I got married and had my boys. My boys loved cold coffee as well. A hot summer afternoon and a chilled cold coffee was all one needs to cool down.

So, with time I started noticing a lot of difference between the frappuccino we had at our coffee place and the one I made home. As much as its acceptable to believe that there is always that difference between homemade and restaurant bought stuff, its also tough to give up without trying.

I got to trying to make the frappuccino restaurant style.  A few failures, not so good tries, loads of trials and errors  and I perfected the cold coffee and made a perfect Frappuccino. Creamy, chilled, thick , sweet and the perfect amount of coffee.

Cinnamon Rolls with cream cheese icing

These cinnamon rolls aren’t just easy to make but, are also super fluffy and light, better than any store bought roll…Trust me. These would melt in your mouth and melt you heart too…

Honestly, yeast and I aren’t very good friends. It actually used to scare me to use yeast and I have had so many failures with yeast, that I have lost count. But then, I couldn’t give up my love for baking breads and decided to get to know “Yeast” better and learn to work cordially. We’ve been best friends since then….LOLzzz. I know my stories are sometimes too long and some of you might just want to jump to the actual dish than to play around and read the stories. But you know what, this is what would connect us. Every food has a story and mostly, its worth remembering and sharing, even if the dish is a disaster.

So, this is the story to this wonderful dish: I realized that would see cinnamon rolls EVERYWHERE. We go to the mall and Mr. Parveez would buy them. I see my boys head over heels in love with them. I see my little one craving for more….and sometimes all these are signs that you have to be on a mission and make your own. So, I start my search to get an authentic recipe  and found some wonderful recipes, all very different from the other. I decided to pick and choose and make my own. First Batch, a BIG disaster  and I made changes. Second Batch, a few more changes…a few more after the third. Fourth batch, the cinnamon rolls were perfect but the icing messed it up and finally, fifth batch, they came out perfect. This recipe is fool proof and something that you will save and love and pass on.

 

With regular cinnamon roll recipes, there’s so a lot of waiting time for the yeast to rise and to be sure that the dough would turn out perfect. Honestly, as much as I enjoy cooking, I do not have the time and energy to wait that long. I love making things that can be served in less amount of time. Something, that’s clean, cooked with love and effort without wasting too much time. But, that doesn’t mean I would try a recipe where cinnamon rolls are made within an hour. I like to give my food flavors time to mingle too.

I’ve managed to meet these soft cinnamon rolls in a little prep time with a faster procedure and made sure that they stay soft, fluffy and wonderful.

P.S. Don’t let the yeast scare you. It takes time to open, but once you know it well, you will love it just like me.

Choco Milkshake Waffle

A family who loves Chocolate would go to any extent to have chocolate in different forms…LOlzzz. Trust me, I try to make chocolate in all ways and forms possible. One of the best creations I ever did was making my own chocolate Ice cream which didn’t just make an excellent dessert by itself , but a perfect base for so many different desserts.

Chocolate Milkshake is super easy if you have chocolate Ice cream and want to serve your guests with something fancier, this is your go to dessert drink. My Boys love it as an after school snack or to entertain their friends on a play. Honestly, I have never seen an adult leave even a sip behind when served, so basically, its just a super fab Chocolate shake.

I used my home made chocolate Ice cream, little heavy cream, little sugar and milk. I made sure that the milk and cream were chilled before using. Blending the ingredients together, not only turns them into more liquid but also brings them to room temperature. Therefore, its important that cream and milk are chilled. Blending Ice cream with milk and cream and adding the chocolate syrup makes it more chocolaty and yummy.

This was my Chocolate Milkshake and then came along my boys one day asking to have a special Milkshake with waffle… I made chocolate Milkshake, and added some milk chocolate bites, some chocolate syrup and some oreos…Only for the brave of hearts…LOLzzz.

Super chocolaty and super amazing flavors…Hard to resist and much harder to not finish. The recipe for the waffles can be found in the Bread section. You can make the waffle in any of your preferred flavor. I picked Belgian waffles, since I felt they would go best with chocolate milkshake.

Avocado Ice cream

We love avocados…healthy, fresh and tastes great. Most of the times, we used them as a part of a salad, or make guacamole and serve it with tortilla chips.

So, taking a step ahead I tried the avocado ice cream. Mr. Parveez thought I am taking it a little too far, but it ain’t gonna hurt trying, Right??? So, I decided to try. Like all fruit based ice creams, this too has very strong Avocado flavor. I was surprised when I had some friends over as guests and I served them the Avocado ice cream and one of them said, “The taste of Avocado is pretty prominent”. And, I said to myself, “mmmm, did I say mango ice cream while serving, No, it is Avocado so it will taste avocado too.”…LOLzzz

Nevertheless, I love all my friends, with their great tastes and weird tastes. Some spice lovers, some sweet lovers, some generous with compliments, other prove it by over eating. But in all, they all are lovely and wonderful.

It is pretty simple and easy to make and is perfect for beginners. Its creamy, fresh and the taste of avocado makes it even more delicious.