British Scones

Scones are one of the most delicious breakfast food in the UK. Actually, not just breakfast, its an anytime snack as well, quick to make, quicker to eat and hardly ever has any left overs.

Delicious, buttery, and airy, these little goodies of flavor make your kitchen smell like heaven, so even before you eat them and fall in love, the smell enchants you and keeps you entertained and impatient to try what ever the oven stores…wow sounds really romantic. I guess food brings the best out of me 😉

With maternal family in UK, I have seen my aunts and a cousin make them pretty often, and my mom was in love with them. As much as I wanted to learn how to make them, I was always the age where they felt either I would hurt myself or would mess something up, so kitchen was not the place for me, so this recipe is not from my maternal home, but something I found in some of my old notes taken during my college days.

Honestly I had no idea that scones had such a large variety, this happens to be the basic ones and the reason I tried them was to see if my boys liked them and they actually loved and I am determined on making more variety in the future. But, for now, serve these flaky and scrumptious goodies with some fruit, jelly and whipped butter.

Many scone recipes call for an egg, and that usually means a large batch of scones. Plus, it makes the dough kinda gooey. So I experimented with a batch, omitting the egg and increasing the amount of milk till I get the consistency required. And it worked! Taste wise, they are just as good too..

French Toast with Chocolate Chips

As a kid, I just loved French toast. I had a Master for Arabic and religious studies who would come every evening for an hour, but on Sundays, it was every morning and as much as it would never excite a 7 year old, it still had to be done and now I realize how important it was then. Anyways, my teacher or Maulana was always served a good breakfast every Sunday morning. My mom would mostly make the awesome French toast, or omelette or sunny fried egg with parantha for my teacher. My teacher was very found of his Sunday breakfast at our house, I could always make that out with the way he ate and I mom also made sure that the teacher was well fed… Something that we all have lost with time. Today’s time is so busy that feeling that way for a teacher or even the guests.

Now comes the fun part, my mom had a clear breakfast designed for us daily. It was a done deal and my mother wasn’t those who would cater our demands on daily basis. My Sunday class would be at 7 AM and I would usually have my breakfast after the class. the funny thing was that every time my mom would make French toast, I would ask my teacher to excuse me and run to the kitchen to ask my mom to make the same thing for me, because I always felt that if she can make it for him, she will gladly make it for me too, and she did. But now that I am all grown up, my mom laughs at the fact that she always knew that she will find me in the kitchen 5 minutes after the breakfast was served to my teacher. I guess some memories from childhood might be a little embarrassing to share, but almost all childhood memories are sweet and always bring a smile to your face.

French Toasts are easy to make with bread slices dipped in egg, milk and brown sugar mixed together. If you are a little more experimental like me, add a little cinnamon powder and cardamom powder to it and sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar to it. My boys like me serving the French toast with maple syrup and chocolate chips. You can always make a little change to it to suit your taste.

Chocolate Walnut Cake

Christmas always bring so much happiness. I just love this part of the year, which spreads wonderful positive feelings around, everyone is so busy shopping for their loved ones or people like me love their favorite brands going on sale. its just a great festive time.

I still like believing in Santa and as a season tradition, my kids always get a picture with him every year. The decorations around, the special cakes in Bake shop, the special food being served in restaurants that’s mentioned as holiday special make the season even more fancier.

My Christian friends in India always made something called “Plum Cake” and that was also a Christmas special in Bakeries in India. I usually make that at home, since it isn’t an American Holiday special, but considering an american special, and something that my kids like, I baked a Chocolate walnut cake for the holidays.

I have put some generous amount of chocolate sauce on it, since cakes with nuts are better when decently moist and since this cake has no icing. A little sprinkle of confectioner’s sugar give it a more holiday special look, which is completely optional and a little border of red and green m&m’s add to the season color.

Its always an instant hit, loved by people of all ages and just so delicious that honestly, you don’t need a reason to bake it, you just do.

Nutella Danish

Our favorite Bakery/ Breakfast Restaurant in Manhattan serves these amazing baked goodies. From Muffins to croissants, cakes to cupcakes, pies to sandwiches and of course Danish. Pineapple, cranberry and Nutella.

Now, if you are a chocolate lover, you will love the hazelnut chocolate spread Nutella. I am not running an advt for Nutella. In spite of all the words I hear about the high sugar, I still do not like using any other chocolate spread besides Nutella, when I need to. One thing I did do is get my little one off it. My little one could just never have enough of Nutella Sandwiches and with time, I felt using Nutella once in a while was fine, but feeding it daily to kids wasn’t a very good idea.

These Danish were shaped like a heart, following the demands of my boys. These Danish are crunchy from the outside and sweet chocolaty from the inside. This yummy crunchies are easy to make and super easy to please. They are a super good addition to surprise breakfast or play dates and even for guests, who fail to inform before ringing the door bell. The Nutella can easily be substituted for a fruit based spread. If you need more details, Please feel free to ask.

New York Style Crumb Cake

We are big fans of cakes, along with a million other things. Basically, we are foodies and love everything that’s edible for us and delicious. New York style crumb cake tops the list. The bad part is that now that we moved from being 10 minutes away from NYC to being an hour away from NYC. That makes us kind of deprived of eating our favorite cake as much as we would like to.

Therefore, the lady, that is me decided to give it a try. It came out fabulous and very close to what we like. Easy and not too time consuming either. The best part that I like about crumb cake is that it requires no icing, so you save all that extra time and tastes great.

It’s best for evening snack & tea parties . It also tastes fabulous on those special Sunday breakfasts or holiday breakfasts, when you feel like cooking the one dish and serve it with hot milk and coffee. I find this cake a better alternative to creme cupcakes and Donuts, at least for mornings, that need to be sweet and less guilty, if not guilt free.

Carrot Walnut Cake

There was a popular supermarket near our apartment. Mr. Parveez and I would buy our regular grocery from that supermarket. During the winter season, a baker in their bakery made carrot cake, with walnuts/ without walnuts, sometimes with raisins. Every winter, also known as “holiday season” in USA, we would look forward to the carrot cake. We even served it to our guests, took it for friends.

And one day the baker left the store. We only found during winter when the carrot cake was being sold but something changed. On trying to figure out, we questioned the Manager and found that the baker was from another country and has left for good. Even the manager agreed that the though he left the cake recipe, it just didn’t come out the same. Eventually, the store stopped keeping carrot cake.

But, we looked everywhere with our taste buds craving the same flavor. 10 years of search and over 100 stores and supermarkets, different towns, different bakeries but it was just not the same. One day I came across a recipe for Thanksgiving carrot pudding and reading that I felt, it wouldn’t be that tough trying it out. I also realized with times that there was some spice that was missing in the normal carrot cake. That spice was nutmeg. Isn’t it funny, that a pinch of a spice can change the complete taste.

I first tried the basic cake without frosting and once I perfected the basic cake, I tried the frosting and both together make a super excellent Carrot Walnut Cake. Its exactly like the cake we liked, probably a little better. This will bring you loads of praises on your parties and get together.

Malai Chum Chum

Bengali sweets happen to be one of the best sweets in India. They offer a wide variety from Rasgullas to Mishti Doi and most people who like Indian sweets always love these sweet sugar dipped treats.

Malai Chum Chum is a very popular Bengali sweet made with Paneer or homemade Cottage Cheese. It is a delicious Indian dessert that cannot be resisted since they are amazingly delicious to look at and delectable. These chum chums are soaked in sugar syrup and in between are filled with rich and creamy Khoya filling.

Mr. Parveez loves Malai Chumchum and he would always buy them from his favorite Indian sweet shop here. There were few other ones as well and he loved them all. Few years  back we moved houses and we went pretty far from the area of our favorite Indian area. So, the visits to the sweet shop weren’t as frequent and Mr. Parveez though deprived never complained and neither did he ever ask me to try.

Actually there is a funny story to him asking too. As a newly married wife, every now and then I would try to make dishes that we have tried at different restaurants. I still don’t know why I did that, probably just wanted to amaze my husband …LOLzzz. But instead of impressing him, he asked me to stop. The problem was that making the dishes we eat at restaurant would be close to what we eat outside, but the charm of enjoying a meal outside would be lost. So, as much as I wanted to try making some of these sweets, I would not attempt and just get the sweets from the sweets store whenever we would be in that area. Few years ago we moved to our new house, and the house is pretty far for us to visit that sweet store as often as we would like to, and the closest Indian market does not sell sweets of the same quality unless we buy frozen and we all know frozen loses the taste.

And that’s how I decided to make my own. Initially when I started making Rasgullas because that makes a base for all the bengali sweets, or most of them. The Rasgullas need a little tactic that makes sure they are spongy and can absorb the sweetness from the sugar syrup. That’s the first thing you need to master and as easy as the recipe looks and seems, they aren’t that easy. It took me around 5 trials to master them.

For Malai Chumchum, make rasgullas and once done have to be cut into half and add khoya mix . The middle part is khoya mixed with sugar and a little spice to enhance flavors. You can always a little bit of food color to make the dish look nicer. Garnish with silver leaf and crushed nuts.

You can always make them 4-5 days in advance. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

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 Banana Split

Banana split is always a special treat for Ice cream lovers. When we talk of Ice cream and children, chocolate flavor is the first thing that comes  to our mind.

Mr. Parveez and I loved taking walks to a wonderful Ice cream shop near our first home and that’s when we got the hang of Banana split. Though our life before children, we would get a scoop of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. After our boys joined our Ice cream lovers club, the scoops changed to chocolate only. Usually, the chocolate Ice cream would be finished by my boys, and Mr. Parveez and I would enjoy the Banana…I guess joys of Parenthood…LOLzzz. Now, this was only when we went out for ice creams. At that time, I couldn’t even imagine that I would be making so many varieties of Ice creams myself, some day.

And, then one day I started with my Ice cream experiments. Initially my Ice cream recipes contained egg. Though the Ice creams came out fantastic, but somewhere I felt they weren’t just as good as I desired them to be. Also, the fact that I knew they contained eggs made me feel that I was eating raw egg…LOLzzz. Not just that, I could never decide if I could actually smell the egg or was it just in my mind. So, with all that confusion, I decided my Ice creams had to be egg free. I started experimenting more, and after numerous failures came up with a recipe as good as store bought. I did come down to the conclusion that for that perfect creaminess Gelatin or Agar Agar has to be used in the recipe. I used Halal Gelatin, but if you are using the vegetarian substitute, Agar Agar can be used in same amount as Gelatin.

After that, one day I felt the mom in me felt that my kids weren’t consuming enough fruits and I started coming up with various ideas of making them eat more fruit. This is when I decided that I should serve then Banana split when I give them Ice cream on weekends. And thus, this Ice cream recipe. Enjoy!!!

Almond Choco Bar

My family and I love homemade chocolates…From Atlantic city, New Jersey to Ooti, India… any place that said homemade chocolates, we were there . We would try almost all kinds, cashews, coconut, caramel and our most favorite Almond. I would always look forward to our trips or spend a fortune online to have them shipped to us.

Finally, one day I got down to trying my own and Oh boy! They were out of the world. And since then, everything changed…These chocolates were made on different occasions along with making them for my kids schools . The best part was everyone always trying to find out the name of the store [since I used colored wrappers from amazon with no names].

 

The recipe makes chocolates that melt in the mouth. I made these and cut them uneven like homemade chocolate bars. Later, I got chocolate molds and  they look super delicious and beautiful.