Easy Kaju Pedha

Kaju or cashews are a favorite in our house. Specially the li'l one's "favorite nut in the whole wide world", as she says. And the only sweet she'll eat is Kaju Katli - the diamond shaped dessert made from cashews. I looked up many recipes but none seemed easy. Then one day my good friend told me about this recipe. I found it at priyaseasyntastyrecipes.blogspot.com and want to say thanks to Priya for this recipe. Now I can make it whenever my daughter feels like eating kaju katli. And that too in a matter of minutes. So here goes.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup cashew powder
1/2 cup almond powder
1/2 cup milk powder
3/4 cup sugar (or castor sugar if you have some on hand)
2 tsp water



Garnish:
Star sprinkles or,
Raisins or,
Pistachios.

Put all the dry ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Mix well with a spatula. Then put the 2 tsps of water and mix well again. Now microwave for 2 minutes ( adjust the time based on the microwave wattage). Stir a couple of times during that time. Now let it cool down. The mixture resembles chapathi dough and you can shape them as you desire. Garnish with the sprinkles or any of the other garnishes you might have available. Enjoy homemade kaju pedha.

Tips
#1 - Do not heat for more than 2 minutes or the mixture turns out dry.
#2 - You can make your own cashew and almond powders by pulsing the nuts, seperately, in a food processor. The powder need not be super fine. It resembles coarse semolina.
#3 - You can use all cashew or almonds instead of half and half. Make sure the almonds are blanched and peeled.

Homemade Chocolate Cake

This is a 'from scratch' recipe for homemade Chocolate Cake. Generally, I use the store bought mixes, follow the instructions on back and make cake "at home". I even perfected the recipe to the correct level of moistness and lightness that we prefer. But it did not satisfy me. I believe what Marie said in Everybody Loves Raymond - she looks at a log of refrigerated cookie dough that Debra gets and says " Well that's almost baking, dear!". A typical Marie statement. But I felt the same when using the mixes therefore I tried it from scratch.

And here is the recipe.

Homemade Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Mix all dry ingredients except cocoa. Beat the eggs in a seperate bowl. Add the oil, milk and vanilla to it. Incorporate the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Dissolve the cocoa into the water and add it to the batter. Put in two 8-inch pans. Bake at 350 F for about 40 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For added flavor, you can put 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts to the batter. Enjoy.

recipe and pictures courtesy of google search and google images. No copyright infringement intended.

Strawberry Gelatin Salad

For our New Year's eve party, I wanted to come up with something light and healthy. And this was the idea, though not totally healthy, it is a better option compared to the regular desserts. It's a strawberry gelatin salad. It looks even prettier if you happen to have fancy molds or a flexible bundt pan.

Gelatin Salad







Ingredients
1 package (6ounces) strawberry gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 package (8ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges, drained
1 can (8ounces) crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup apples, peeled and chopped
1 cup strawberry or lemon-lime soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 carton (8ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed

Dissolve gelatin in water. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Stir in gelatin mixture and beat until smooth. Stir in vanilla, oranges, pineapple, apples, soda and walnuts. Chill until mixture mounds slightly when dropped from a spoon. Fold in three fourths of the whipped topping.
Pour into 13in x 9in x 2in dish. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours or until firm. Cut into squares; garnish with the remaining whipped topping.
Yield: 16-20 servings

The second picture in this post is the original recipe (lime gelatin salad). Bu we prefer strawberry jello, hence the change in the recipe. Pecans can be substituted for walnuts. And the cream cheese should be beaten well till fluffy otherwise the final product might turn out dense.

pictures courtesy: google images. no copyright infringement intended

Cranberry Bread

Black Friday dawned nice and bright this year. But we were inside malls and missed dawn. For the rest of the family left at home, I prepared Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread. I baked it the previous day. So, it was well rested and room temperature, in short, ready to be devoured when they woke up. This is again a recipe from Taste of Home's Best Holiday Recipes (2004) and I have no complaints with that. Correct measurements with excellent results. Here's the recipe



Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread







Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup orange juice
grated peel of 1 orange or
1 tsp orange extract
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp hot water
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup chopped walnuts

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. in a small bowl, beat the egg; add the orange juice, peel/extract, butter and water. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the cranberries and nuts. Spoon into a greased 9in. x 5in x 3in. loaf pan. Bake at 325 F for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
Yield: 1 loaf

Serving suggestion: Serve warm with cream cheese or honey butter.

picture courtesy: google images, oceanspray.ca
no copyright infringement intended.

Sweet Potato Bake - Thanksgiving Dessert

Last year we started a tradition for Thanksgiving, even though we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in India. But who can resist the idea of a table laden with luscious seasonal foods, all very yummy in the tummy of course. Not to mention that friends can wake up the next morning and run to stores to get the Early Bird Specials on Black Friday. Well that's what our tradition is in a nutshell - our family friends come over for dinner, we peruse the Thanksgiving day newspaper and maybe see a family movie that night. The next morning me and my friend run off to the stores on our list and 'shop till we drop'. Sounds therapeutic, doesn't it?
Well, let me get to the recipe now. This year my Thanksgiving day dinner had as many vegetarian elements of a traditional dinner as possible. And for dessert we had a delicious Sweet Potato Bake. It was a universal hit. And here's the recipe.



Sweet Potato Bake

Ingredients
3 cups cold, mashed sweet potatoes (prepared without milk or butter)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter softened
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp cold butter

In a mixing bowl beat sweet potatoes, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, salt and vanilla until smooth. Transfer to a greased 2-qt. baking dish. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, pecans and flour; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over potato mixture. Bake uncovered, at 325 F for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown.
Yield: 8-10 servings

recipe source: Taste of Home's Best Holiday Recipes 2004. Thanks to Sandra Pichon of Louisiana.

Caramel Flan

This blog is explicitly for recording any new recipes that I try out. And the start of something new with something sweet is tradition in India. So I'm going to start with this easy recipe for flan. I made it for Christmas eve 2009. We had our family friends come for a sleepover and dinner was a mexican fiesta. So what better than flan as the dessert.
Flan, also called Creme Caramel, is a spanish dessert and hence a mexican dessert too. It is a rich custard dessert topped with a layer of soft caramel. And the easy recipe for this yummy stuff follows




Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 pckg (8 ozs) cream cheese, softened
5 eggs
1 can (14ozs) sweetened condensed milk
1 can (12ozs) evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Heat a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat and cook sugar until melted and golden brown. Keep stirring often and do not add any water to the sugar. The end product after about 15 minutes will be a golden brown liquid. Quickly pour this into an ungreased 2-qt baking dish. Tilt the dish to coat the bottom and let stand for 10 minutes.
In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Now add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour this mixture over the caramel in the baking dish. Place this dish in a larger baking pan. Now pour boiling water in the larger pan, upto half the height of the baking dish.
Bake in the oven at 350 F for 50-55 minutes. The center will be just set and the mixture will jiggle. Remove the dish to a wire rack and cool for 1 hour. Refrigerate overnight ( or at least for 5 hours). Run a knife along the edges and invert onto a rimmed serving platter. Cut and serve on dessert plates with some sauce spooned over each slice.

Yields 10-12 medium or 14-16 small servings.

recipe courtesy: Taste of Home's Best Holiday Recipes 2004.