Mini Vanilla Sponge Cake

My mom and dad are visiting us and my girls are getting spoilt rotten.

With Mom around, the kitchen is abuzz with her favorite recipes.

Here's a sponge cake recipe that I would like to share with you all that Mom usually made for us back when we were growing up in India. I just improvised the recipe by converting it to mini sponge cakes.

Mini Vanilla Sponge Cake Recipe

Makes about 12 mini cakes

Ingredients

2 Cups All purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp melted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla essence


The HOW TO:

Pre heat oven to 350 def F.  Use a cupcake mould for 12 cakes. Line cupcake moulds with cupcake wrapper of your choice.

Sift Flour, salt and baking powder and set aside.

Separate the white from the egg yolks. Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg whites until it is really foamy. Add sugar and mix until it is white and forms a peak.

Whisk the egg yolks in a separate bowl and then gently fold into the egg white mix.

Gently fold the egg mix into the Dry mix of flour salt and baking powder.

Mix well.

In a sauce pan, heat the milk, butter and vanilla essence until you see the butter has melted and slowly add into the batter.

Slowly pour the batter into each mould. Pour until it reaches 3/4 of the way for each mould.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

A Berry Summer Pudding

Here is a great recipe I tried over the weekend.

A Berry Summer Pudding 

adapted and inspired by Anne Wilson's Summer Pudding

You will need- 

150 g black currants
150 g raspberries
200 g strawberries (hulled, quartered or halved)
1/2 cup (125g ) caster sugar
8-10 slices of white bread, with crusts removed


The How to
Put all the berries except the strawberries in a large pan with 1/2 cup of water and heat gently for 5 minutes until the berries begin to collapse. Then add the strawberries and remove from heat. Add sugar and cool.

Line a bowl with the bread.  Use a bowl that measures about 1 litre. The bowl I used happened to be a bit larger. You may need more bread slices depending on the size of your bowl. 
Keep the slices snug. Dip one side of each slice of bread in the juice before fitting it on the bowl. Try not to leave any gaps. Do not squeeze or flatten the bread else it will not absorb the fruit juices.

Now fill the centre of basin with the fruit and addd a little juice. Cover the top with the remaining dipped bread and add all the juices.

Cover with a plastic wrap and place a small plate which fits the bowl onto the plastic wrap then weigh it down with cans.

Refrigerate this overnight.

Now once the above is done, carefully turn over the pudding in a tray and serve with any leftover fruit mixture and cream.

Well, as you can see, the bread took in as many juices it could have. I think my bowl was  a bit too large and hence the quantity of bread slices was more. Keep the bowl smaller and you will see a brilliant red pudding!

Nevertheless, this is indeed very yummy!

Beetroot Raita or Beetroot dip

For Indians the world over, Raita is something to relish. Raita is an accompaniment to any main dish for an Indian lunch or dinner setting. 

Its summer and what a better way to beat the heat with dollops of yogurt to cool you down

Today, I share with you a very simple but yummy dish - the Beetroot Raita or  beetroot dip. This is a dish which has to be served chilled! You may add the beetroot raita as a side dish to your barbeque preparations, bread or chips.

Ingredients

1 Large beetroot
2 cups of Greek yogurt
1 tsp cumin powder
Salt to taste

The how to:

Boil the beetroot until it is cooked. Cut the roots and top off. After its cooled, cut off the top and roots. Grate the beetroot or julienne it.
Now add yogurt, cumin powder and salt and gently whisk all of it. It will turn a beautiful pink!

Serve chilled as a dip or as a side dish.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Its raining today and my kids were bored. So to liven up the atmosphere, I decided to charge them up and do some baking with them. I had this huge box of blueberries lying in the fridge so decided to make blueberry  streusel muffins.

Here's the recipe

Makes 24 small muffin bites

Preheat oven to 350 deg F

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup butter softened

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups fresh blueberries

Method:

Combine the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Stir. Add in the butter and mix it well. Remove almost 3/4 of this mixture and keep aside. To the 1/4 mixture, add cinnamon powder and mix. Leave it aside.

Combine milk, eggs and vanilla essence and add to the 3/4 mixture. Stir until its smooth. Now add in the blueberries very gently and mix.

Spoon in this batter onto your muffin moulds. Sprinkle the cinnamon powder mix.

Bake for 30 mins.

Voila you are done. Cool on rack.

Its ready to be eaten!

Watermelon Salad with Feta cheese

via 

Its just days away from the first day of summer... 

And I found this fantastic Watermelon Salad with feta cheese recipe to cool off the summer heat. Get it Here 

Dark chocolate and orange mini muffins

Dark Chocolate Orange Muffins

Recipe from Dairy Goodness

Today, at the behest of my daughter M I tried this recipe out - Dark chocolate with orange muffins

Luckily, we had all the ingredients at home and since its bite size, we gobbled quite a bit in a jiffy! So while the younger one was at play school (she's away for an 2 and a half hours) M and I got cracking and tried this for breakfast today. This recipe makes about 24-30 mini muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup (250 ml) all-purpose flour

1 cup (250 ml) whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp (7 ml) baking powder

1/4 tsp (1 ml) each, baking soda and salt

2/3 cup (150 ml) granulated sugar

1/3 cup (75 ml) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups (300 ml) milk

1 egg

2 tsp (10 ml) grated orange zest

1/3 cup (75 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 cup (50 ml) melted butter

1/3 cup (75 ml) miniature chocolate chips

The How to:

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Butter nonstick miniature muffin pans or line with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine all-purpose and whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together sugar, and cocoa; gradually whisk in milk until blended. Whisk in egg, orange zest, orange juice and butter. Pour over dry ingredients and sprinkle with chocolate chips; stir just until moistened.

Spoon into prepared muffin pan filling 24 deep cups or 36 shallow cups. Bake, in batches as necessary, for about 15 min or until tops are firm to the touch. Let cool in pan for 5 min. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Let me know if you tried it! And how many you ate within 45 secs!

Spicy Salt and Pepper cookies

So how have you all been doing? I've been busy and have been away from my blogging and its been a good reason. Having custom orders and sales at my online store Ahkriti.

Anyways, happy to see you here and I gather you are all busy cooking or crafting this holiday season!

Well, I had this recipe tucked away and wanted to try it out with my girls. So we got started this morning and luckily we had all the ingredients (except for one ingredient) to make these yummy cookies.

So here goes

Spicy Salt and Pepper cookies

(Adapted from Marguerite Henderson's - Small Sweet Treats )

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Directions
1 I used a kitchen aid mixer to beat the butter and sugar until light yellow and fluffy for about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat for a minute.

2 In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. Gradually add this mixture to the butter mixture which is in the kitchen aid bowl, beating until well blended. Add the mixture slowly so that it does not spread around. Divide the dough into four portions. Wrap each section in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 1 hour.

3 On a floured board, roll out each section of dough to 1/8-inch thickness and cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. I had flower, hearts and star shaped cookie cutters and hence I used them. Bake on the middle rack of a preheated 375-degree-F oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack.

Marguerite Henderson says to use a tsp of gray sea salt before you place the cookies in the oven,  but since I didn't have gray sea salt, I had to bake them without it. Nevertheless, it turned out yummmm!

Makes about five dozen cookies.


And for those who do not like it very sweet...you will love these cookies! Great to dunk it with your coffee!

Let me know if you have tried this!

Linking this to Patty's Weekly Story 60

Spicy Tangy Plum Sauce

The family went to the local Farmers's Market on Sunday. The weather being good, the girls really had fun walking and looking around at the fresh vegetables and fruits. I decided to buy some juicy orange plums.
The plums were over ripened and hence I decided to make some spicy plum sauce out of this.

Here is the Recipe for Spicy and Tangy Plum Sauce
1 kilo whole orange plums
Paanch Phoran (Bengali spice mix)
Oil for seasoning
2 tsp crushed red pepper
2-3 round red chillies
1/2 tsp salt
Sugar as needed


Wash the plums. Deseed the plums. I just used my bare  hands to do it. Place the plums in a saucepan. Keep on a low flame until the skin bursts.
On a different pan, heat the oil and add the paanch phoron mix and round red chillies. When  the spices crackle, add this to the sauce.
Add salt, crushed red pepper and sugar.
Bring the mixture to a low boil until it has thickened and almost half and mushy. (Mine took nearly 20-25 minutes). Taste to see whether it is sweet or tangy enough.

Use warm or refrigerate it for use later.

Being from India, I used it to eat with dal, rice and dollops of this spicy sauce.
Try and let me know what you think of this recipe.


This recipe is linked to coloursdekor.blogspot.com The Weekly Story Linky party!