Whole wheat bread pudding

Recipe for bread:
3 cups of whole wheat flour ( I used Annaporna atta)
2 1/2 tsp of active yeast
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Salt
2 cup warm water

Add all the dry ingredients and slowly start adding warm water. Mix and form the dough. Do not knead at this stage. The dough should be more like a poori dough. Knead it to activate the yeast.
Keep aside for about 20-30 mins till the dough double its size.
Knead the dough until its soft  in a gentle way . Place on the baking pan and bake at 230C for about 30mins.

Recipe for pudding
Bread
2 cups of milk
2 large eggs
1/4  of sugar
1 tsp of Apple spice mix
1/4 cup of ghee (clarified butter)
hand full of raisins


In a small cake pan place the bread in such a way there is no gap. I  used half of the bread I baked for this pudding. Drizzle 1/8th of the sugar on the bread and some raisins. Generously brush the ghee all over the bread. Now mix the milk, eggs and apple spice mix well and pour over the the bread mix. Add the remaining raisins and sugar over the pan . Preheat the oven @  200 for  5mins. Now place the pan and bake @200C for 30mins. The top of the pudding should form a golden crust and inside of the pudding should not be soggy.
Cool the pudding for 5mins before serving.

Banana bread with choco chips

I always love to have a biscuit or cake for my cuppa tea/filter kaapi.. So decided to do a banana bread. Have been having in my mind for sometime now, I can't stop myself from trying this today morning. Also, I am little concerned these days for having more buttery sugary items. So, I tried my best to go less with fatty items still do not want to miss the moisture content. After giving some thought, tried to do it this way.

5 small bananas mashed

1/2 cup tightly packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

2 small quail egg

1 tsp butter

1/4 tsp salt

Mash the bananas and add sugar. All I used was a fork to mix. I did not use a beater this time. Mixing of banana and sugar release some water. Beat the eggs and melt the butter. Now to the sugary bananas add the melted butter, milk and eggs. Mix well. Mix the dry ingredients separately and slowly add in batches. Keep mixing well. 

Finally pour the batter to the pan and throw some handful of chocochips on to the top. I really like the taste of chocolate in my bread. 

Now bake at 375 F for 45mins or until the bread is completely cooked (use a tooth pick to test).

The bread tasted yummy, moist and delicious.

Mini cake pans

When I first saw a picture of a mini cake in one of my favorite baker's page, I simply couldn't stop myself from knowing more about it. After searching for a while came up with full details and went straight to Micheals to buy my new pan set. Very happy to buy my own mini cake pan sets and didn't stop there.

I tried a deliciously awesomatico cake. A vanilla cake with vanilla frosting in the center and completely covered with  yummy chocolate frosting.

Black forest cake

Few years back on an usual weekend, my bro took me to Sathyam Theater, chennai to watch a movie. It was he who first introduced me to a black forest cake. I had no idea what kind of cake it was. All I knew was, it tasted yummy.. 

Now, after I started learning baking and made a few cakes for trial, it was time to surprise my hubby. He was out of town for a conference for about one week. So that weekend, when he was returning home, I tried to bake a Black Forest cake for him and it came out pretty well. 

Eggless Ragi cake

"Eggless" tag is something I always wanted to try from the time I started baking. Never had the guts. Always felt nervous to try something without egg ( I really donno an exact reason for this fear). So finally threw all those silly fears only after I came across this recipe. I really wanted to try it once I saw this name "Ragi". I knew the starchy stuff will for sure give a good shape. So tried and tasted.

For recipe, click this link http://litebite.in/ragi-cake/

Indian butter biscuits

I never thought one of the things I would miss after coming to US would be the tea kadai butter biscuits. Every time I land home, the one thing I crave for is these biscuits. I completely spoil myself but eating packets and packets of this biscuits with my everyday coffee/tea. I try to compensate all those days of not having this biscuit. Yes, back at home we call these biscuits and not cookies. Finally, I can prepare some in my oven, I am simply loving this.


For the recipe please check the link below.
http://edivyaraj.blogspot.com/2010/05/nankhatai-indian-butter-cookie.html

Chocolate Pine nut cookies

My first from the scratch cookie. Not a bad idea!!

Everytime I buy one of those ready made cookie powders and bake them. I always wanted to try it from the scratch. Most recipe mentioned brown sugar as the "sweet" ingredient. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy brown sugar. Instead I used these
1/3 cup of powdered jaggery
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tbs of sweetened condensed milk.
I love all these three source of sweet ;)

Or simply use 1 1/2 cup of tightly packed brown sugar.

After watching so many baking shows, I learnt my first lesson. Always mix the dry and wet ingredients separately. Then mix them together in batches.

Dry ingredients
1 3/4 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 cup of Hersey cocoa. ( I chose the bitter one)
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 cup of sugar

wet ingredients
1/2 of powdered jaggery competly dissolved in 1/2 cup of water.
2 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
3/4 cup of oil
2 tablespoon of milk

Make sure the jaggery is completely dissolved. Remove the excess lumps of jaggery before mixing all the wet ingredients to the dry mix.
Beat the wet ingredients to mix well.
Now in batches, add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix well without any lumps until the entire dry ingredients are completely blend.

Do taste you mixture for sweetness. This will help you to know how sweet you want your cookie to be.

I prefer medium sweet.
Finally to add a little crunch, I added a hand full of pine nuts. You can add almond, walnut or cashew nuts too.

Now baking time.
Preheat your oven to 375 and raise it to 425 bake for 10-13 minutes to have your cookies little crispy. If you want them soft bake for just about 8-10 minutes.
Remember not to pour too much of you cookie on your baking sheet. Else you end up getting pancake sized cookies. :)

Rava Ladoo

From this post, I am going to add yet another hobby of mine - Cooking.

I am little lazy and always want things to be fast. Like wise I love to cook fast. Sometimes it favors and sometimes it goes against my taste buds.

But here all that recipes will for sure yum your taste buds.

Rava Ladoo

Ingredients :
Rava/Sooji - 1cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup

Grated  coconut - 1/4 cup

Cashews - 5-10(according to your love for cashew)

Raisins - hand full

Ghee - 2tbsp

Procedure:

For the entire procedure keep you stove in medium flame.

1. In a pan roast the cashews and Raisins with ghee until they become golden brown
2. Add the grated coconut and fry till you smell the coconut and ghee (not more than 1-2mins)
3. Now add the rava/sooji and keep tossing until the rava turns slightly brown. 
4. Add the sugar and keep stirring until the rava,sugar and coconut along with the cashew and raisins mix well.
5. Its now time to add the milk. The caramelized sugar would have already helped the ingredients to mix well. So add milk appropriately so the mix is in a consistency of making ladoos.
6. Now switch off your stove and allow the mixture to cool.  At medium heat, start making the ladoos. Never let the mixture to cool down completely, then its not possible to make ladoos.

PS: Consistency of making ladoos means, when u take a little amount of the mixture and try to make a ball, it should not fall apart.