A New Venture & Few Awards

I was away from active blogging for one week and sorry friends that I missed out many of your recipes. Trying to get hold of everything very soon.

I just forgot about facebook n blog n twitter n orkut and was completely into my new project - Crocheting. The craziness that we show, when we re-start doing something  after a long time. I am pretty sure that I'll be back to my routine, of course charting a separate slot for crocheting too. Just can't wait to show you few pics of my project on its way - The clicks are not up to the mark as I shot them late night. Shall have a detailed post with the guide and measurements and better clicks as soon as I finish it.

It is so sweet of my friends, that they passed me few awards. Thanks a lot dear friends, for choosing me. Ayesha of  'Taste of pearl city' passed me the "Loving Blogger Award "

As per the rules I have to share this with three other fellow bloggers. I've chose
1. Adukkala Visheshams : They have a wonderful blog with variety of recipes. I love the way they explain each recipe
2. Shab's Cusine: Whenever I visit Shab's, I bookmark one recipe there. There are many in my bookmarks and I'll be trying out each and everyone. Her recipes reminds me of the food I used to have from friends place (May be nadan muslim food) and I love them. She has a wonderful space with amazing clicks. I love the initial write up there and the way she explains the recipe with exact measurements. 
3. Collaborative Curry: I started following them very recently and I am really sad that I missed it till now. But I am now browsing through their archives for the wonderful and delicious recipes they have in their space. I love their simple template and their awesome clicks get a great background there.

Neethu of 'Kitchen Express' and Sree of 'Sree's Recipes' passed me the versatile blogger award. 

As per rules I have to pas sthis on to next 15 fellow bloggers. I would like to pass this awards to :


Sarah of Vazhayila
Maya & Lakshmi of Yummy Team
Suji & team of Kairali Sisters
Suja of Kitchen Corner
Mallugirl of Malabar Spices
Nisha of Look who's cooking too
Maria of Maria's menu
Manju of Mirch Masala
Beena of My kitchen
Suhaina of My Singapore kitchen
Pan Gravy Kadai Curry
Vrinda of Sankeerthanam
Varsha of Will-O-The Wisp
Priya of Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes
Chaithra  of Aadhithyam

I would have listed all the fellow bloggers if I had an option.

Beef Pickle

I am not a person who is fond of pickles. I do not like the hot tangy taste of it. But when it comes to something non-veg, the story is different. If I have a bottle of pickle on my dining table, then why should I worry about another non-veg dish for the meal? That makes my work easier.

When I came here in Dec, I had loads of fish pickle which we finished in a month and from that day onwards AJ was asking me to prepare some pickle – either fish or chicken or beef.  Every time I get something for the pickle and end up in preparing something else with that. Finally we got some beef, and I grabbed a bigger pkt so that I don’t miss the pickle this time J

Ingredients:

Beef                                       --   ½ kg

Chilly powder                        --    3 tsp (adjust according to the hotness required)

Garlic                                    --    10 – 12 cloves

Ginger                                   --    1 big piece

Fenugreek                             --    ½ tsp

Asafoetida                             --    ½ tsp

Curry leaves                           --   2 springs

Mustard Seeds                       --   ½ tsp

Vinegar                                  --    5 tbsp

Sesame Oil                            --    7 tbsp

Salt                                        --    to taste

Preparation of Beef Pickle:

Cut the beef into cubes and wash them at least 5 – 6 times under running water.

Marinate the beef with salt, ½ tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp chilly powder, 2 tsp coriander powder, 2 tsp of garam masala and ½tsp ginger garlic paste. Keep aside for 15- 20 minutes.

Pressure cook it for 5 -6 whistles without adding water. Water will ooze out of the meat.

Empty this into a pan and cook on a low flame until all of the water evaporates. Add 2 tbsp of oil onto the beef and fry well. Keep aside

 

Crush the ginger and garlic and keep aside. Make sure u doesn’t grind them.

Add rest of the oil in a pan and splutter the mustard seeds. Add the crushed ginger garlic and fry until they turn light brown. Add the chilly powder and turn off the flame. 

 

Then mix the vinegar and the curry leaves. Add the fried beef and mix well. Powder the fenugreek and the asafoetida and add to the pickle.

Let it cool and store in an air tight container.

Chocolate Almond Layer cake

I am so happy to present my 50^th post. Never thought I could achieve this in 5 months. I would like to thank all my fellow bloggers, friends and family for your continuous support and encouragement.

Here is the other cake which I had made to celebrate the birth of our nephew. This is also from Passionate about baking, with a lot more changes from the original recipe.

Ingredients for cake:

All purpose flour                  --    ½ cup + 1/8 cup

Cocoa  powder                      --    ½ cup

Icing Sugar                           --    1 ½ cup

Eggs                                       --    6 big eggs separated

Vanilla extract                      --    1 tsp

Ingredients for filling:

Whipping cream                    --    1 cup

Icing Sugar                             --    4 – 5 tbsp

Slivered almonds                  --    100 gms. This would be sufficient to decorate the sides as well.

Ingredients for Ganache icing:

Whipping cream                    --    ½ cup

Dark chocolate                       --   150 gms broken into pieces.

Instant coffee                         --    1 tsp

Preparation of Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a 9 inch pan lined with butter and dusted with flour. You can either use 2 pans or prepare this in one single pan and cut horizontally. I had 2 pans and so baked together.

Sift the cocoa and the flour.

Separate the egg white and yolks. Beat the egg whites till they stand soft in peaks. Keep aside.

 

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until they form a thick mixture.

Gently fold a third of the flour mixture, then a third of the egg whites. Repeat until all the flour mixture & egg whites have been incorporated.

 

Divide the batter equally and pour into the prepared baking pans. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake.

If the cake has a bulge on the top, cover the cake with a clean, wet kitchen towel and gently press it downwards, so that u get a flat cake. This helps during icing the cake.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes and let it cool completely o a wire rack.

Preparation of filling:

Whip the cream and sugar until soft. Fold in almonds or nuts if you wish to. (I used plain cream and did spread the almonds over it on the cake.)

Preparation of Ganache:

Keep the chocolate pieces in a heat proof bowl. Boil the cream in a sauce pan. Do not let it foam and rise. Pour it in to the bowl with chocolate and mix them well using a whisk. Add the coffee powder and mix well.  Keep it aside and let it cool. This mixture thickens as it cools. If it thickens more than the spreadable consistency, slightly heat it in the microwave.

Assembling & Decorating the Cake:

Prepare a cake board. I used a card board, cut it into shape and covered it with foil paper.

Take a bit of the whipped cream filling on your knife (which I used instead of the angled spatula) and spread it in the centre of your board. This is done to stick the cake on to the board. Place the first cake on the board.

Evenly spread the whipped cream on the cake. Drop in few slivered almonds on the top of the spread cream.

 

Place the next cake over the icing. Now you have a sandwiched cake. Let it set for a while. You can keep it in the refrigerator for 15 – 20 min. (optional).

Now comes the decoration part. I spread the rest of the whipped cream on the sides of the cake using the spatula and stuck the slivered almonds on the sides using a fork.

Pour the Ganache slowly on top of the cake and let it slightly drip through the sides.

The light brown balls what you see on the sides are small meringues.

Ingredients:

            Egg white                  --   1 medium size

            Powdered sugar       --   ¼ cup

            Cocoa powder           --    1 tsp.

Preparation:

Beat the egg whites until they are soft. Add in the sugar a spoon at a time and beat until they are well combined and let them form stiff peaks.

Fold in the cocoa powder. Fill the mixture in the piping bag/ Ziploc cover and pipe out required shapes on a greased foil/parchment paper.

Bake in a preheated oven @ 200F for 45 – 50 min. Keep an eye and make sure they are not burnt. The time depends on the thickness of the meringues. 

            The next I did was spread some grated almond milk chocolate in between the  meringues.

Finally, made the rose in the middle of the cake. Mix icing sugar into the left over whipped cream until you get a dough consistency. Sorry that I did not notice the exact measure as I did not have an idea of making a rose. That was just a trial which was a success. Make petals out of the dough and let is set and cool in the refrigerator for atleast an hour.

Chocolate Orange Cloud Gateau

First let me share my happiness on winning the give away @ RV's Food for 7 Stages of Life. I never expected this and couldn't believe it. My first lottery  J

Now I am confused on what to get from CSN stores. Can anyone help me to choose something? I would like to get something into my kitchen and ofcourse something I can carry back to India. Have anyone heard/used the yogurt maker? We get atleast 1 qt of yogurt every week as AJ loves to have it with everything. So I thought this would be useful. Though I tried multiple times I was never able to prepare yogurt with the same consistency as the store bought ones. Does anyone has any other tips for me so that I can choose something else from CSN JJ Pretty confused right... Ok, now leaving these let me take you to today's post.

I prepared this cake to celebrate the arrival of our nephew (on 2nd July), a new addition to our family and of course the first one in the next generation. I prepared two cakes and did upload the pics in facebook and orkut. Was a bit lazy to work with the pics (as I had many of the same kind) and got delayed. Now decided to share something sweet for this sweet victory J

I adopted the recipe from Passionate about baking, where we have a number of cute cake recipes. With some modifications on the recipe and of course the decorations too, here it is.

Ingredients for cake:

All purpose flour              --    1 ¼ cup

Baking powder                   --    2 tsp

Corn Flour                           --    4 tbsp

Icing Sugar                          --    1 ¼ cup

Salt                                          --    a pinch

Eggs                                        --    3 big eggs separated

Water                                     --    5 tbsp

Oil                                            --    5 tbsp

Orange Juice                       --    1 tbsp

Zest of orange                     --    1 orange

Ingredients for filling:

Whipping cream                --    ¾ cup

Icing Sugar                          --    2 – 3 tbsp

Ingredients for Ganache icing:

Whipping cream                --    ½ cup

Dark chocolate                   --    150 gms broken into pieces. Keep an extra bar to garnish the sides.

Preparation of Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare an 8 inch pan lined with butter and dusted with flour. You can either use 2 pans or prepare this in one single pan and cut horizontally. I neither had 2 pans nor wanted to take the risk of cutting the cakes and hence baked it twice in the same pan.

Separate the egg white and yolks. Beat the egg whites till they stand soft in peaks. Keep aside.

Mix the flour, corn flour, baking powder, salt and icing sugar. Sift the mix 3 -4 times. Sifting helps to mix the powders thoroughly. Keep it aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with water and oil.

Add this to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

 

Stir in the orange juice and the zest.

Fold the egg whites gently into the mix.

Pour the mix into the prepared tray and bake 15 to 20 minutes (Mine was done in 15 min). Check if a tooth pick comes out neat.

If you feel that the cake turns too much brown on the top, slide a sheet of foil on the pan.

If the cake has a bulge on the top, cover the cake with a clean, wet kitchen towel and gently press it downwards, so that u get a flat cake. This helps during icing the cake.

 

Leave the cake in the pan for 10 min. and let it completely cool on a wire rack.

Preparation of filling:

Whip the cream and sugar until soft. Fold in almonds or nuts if you wish to. (I used plain cream)

Preparation of Ganache:

Keep the chocolate pieces in a heat proof bowl. Boil the cream in a sauce pan. Do not let it foam and rise. Pour it in to the bowl with chocolate and mix them well using a whisk. Keep it aside and let it cool. This mixture thickens as it cools. If it thickens more than the spreadable consistency, slightly heat it in the microwave.

Assembling the Cake:

Prepare a cake board. I used a card board, cut it into shape and covered it with foil paper.

I did not have a turn table. It’s always easy to work with the cake keeping it at a certain height from the table. I used my trivets and steel plates to form the cake table J

Take a bit of the whipped cream filling on your knife (which I used instead of the angled spatula) and spread it in the centre of your board. This is done to stick the cake on to the board. Place the first cake on the board.

Fill the whipped cream into a zip loc cover. Push the cream towards the bottom corner of the bag. Using your scissors cut a small hole at that corner. Here is your piping bag.

Pipe the whipped cream on the cake and then spread it well using your spatula. You can directly apply the cream on to the cake with you spatula. I did it this way just to ease the spreading work and as a practice to pipe the cream to decorate the icingJ.

  

Place the next cake over the icing. Now you have a sandwiched cake. Let it set for a while. You can keep it in the refrigerator for 15 – 20 min. (optional).

Pour the Ganache over the cake and spread it well on the top and the sides. Decorate the cake as per you likings.

I did do a small piping work on the sides with the left over cream. Grated the chocolate bar and spread the chunks on the Ganache using a fork. Also placed few orange pieces in the centre of the cake.

I was so excited to finish the cake and was totally concentrated on the work I did and forgot to click snaps at each step. I shall definitely do it next time and have more steps shown.

As mentioned before, I have one more cake to present before you, and let me reserve it for my 50^th post.

Potato Bajji

Ingredients:

Potato                                     --   3 small size

Besan flour                             --   2 cup

Red chilly powder                  --   1 ½ tsp

Turmeric powder                   --   ½ tsp

Asafoetida                              --   ¼ tsp

Oil                                           --    to deep fry

Salt                                          --    to taste

Water                                      --    as required

Preparation of the Bajji:

Mix the besan flour, salt, red chilly powder turmeric powder and asafoetida. Add warm water to make it a thick batter.

Slice the potatoes.

Heat oil in a pan for frying.

Dip the potato pieces in the batter; let the pieces be well coated with the batter and deep fry until they turn brown.

Serve hot with ketchup or any chutney.