Re-posting Banana Fruit Cake and Banana Chilli Spirals for Krithi's Event

Hi Friends,

I'm re-posting two recipes from the Archives for Krithi's 'Healing Food- Banana' Event:

Banana Fruit Cake

Banana Chilli Spirals

Sending these to Krithi's Healing food - Banana ,started by Siri

Eggless Brownie/ Coke Brownie

My tongue is almost rolling and my salivary glands watering to the thought of posting this one....ohhh, I deeply, madly, devilishly love Brownie, and believe me, this one is an Egg-less version of the rich, chocolaty Brownie. 

Without engaging you much in my words (let's keep it for some other time; my daughter won't let me finish this post otherwise), let me directly take you to the cooking journey of this tempting delicacy.

EGG-LESS BROWNIE/ COKE BROWNIE

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Baking Time: 25-30 minutes

Serves: Aaaah, for a person like me, it can serve just one, and the taste buds will still crave for more...

Ingredients:

1. Maida/ All Purpose Flour: 1 cup

2. Butter: 50 gms ( half a stick)

3. Cocoa Powder: 3 tbs

4. Powdered Sugar: 3/4 cup

5. Baking Powder: 1 tsp

6. Baking soda: 1/4 tsp
7. Coke/ Pepsi/ Thumps Up: 100 ml

Method:

1. Sift the maida/all purpose flour with the Cocoa Powder, baking powder and baking soda.
2. Grease and dust the baking tin and keep it aside.
3. Pre-heat the oven on 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes.
4. Take the butter and beat sugar with it till it goes light and fluffy. Do not melt the butter, rather keep it at room temperature.
5. Add the flour mix to the butter slowly. 
6. Now add the coke towards the end, applying the cut and fold method.
7. Make sure you get a ribbon consistency while folding it.
8. Now transfer this mixture into the greased pan and bake it on 200 degrees for 20-25 minutes.You can add walnuts to the mixture if you wish.
9. Check the cake after 22-25 minutes by seeing if the cake edges have left the corners; if so, then insert a tooth-pick and see if it comes out clean. When this happens, your cake is ready. 
10. Take the tin out and let it cool for 10-15 minutes. Once it has cooled down, invert the cake on a plate, making sure it doesn't break.
11. Now turn the side and cut it into slender slices. The brownie slices will have a crunchy crust on the top and the moist, rich, chocolaty taste will linger within.
12. When ready to eat, microwave this for 20 seconds, top with Chilled Chocolate Sauce or Vanilla Ice-cream and serve it hot n cold.

Suggestions:

1. Always cut and fold the mixture in a single direction. Cutting and Folding is nothing but mixing the cake in a circular fashion (like how you make a circle) and then cutting this circle into half and again circling.
2. In some cases, the cake shrinks in the middle and doesn't come out puffy; this happens either when the mixture is too loose or when you keep pricking the cake too often to check if it's done, out of anxiety. So, please be careful with this.
3. Do not invert the cake before it cools down else it would break (I know you just can't wait to taste it, but take a deep breath and hold on for some time. ;)) 
4. You can add nuts of your choice, like Walnuts, Almonds or Apricots for a Nutty feel.
5. This cake can be used as a base for Egg-less Black Forest Cake as well.

The recipe goes to:

Cooking Made Easy With Chocolates/Cocoa 

Bake Fest at The Pumpkin Farm

Eggless Potato Cheese Balls/Croquettes

Potato croquettes have been my favorite snack for some 4 years now. When I had them for the first time (I still remember that day), they were almost melting in my mouth after I chewed the outer crispy layer. I didn't know how they were made, but all I knew was that I was in love with them. When I looked for recipes, I found most of them with eggs and bread crumps, but  I eventually came up with was an egg-less, less oily recipe. This is an extremely simple recipe and you could try it even today with ease.

POTATO CHEESE BALLS/ CROQUETTES

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes (boiled and mashed): 4 (medium sized)

2. Cheese Cubes (grated): 2

3. Corn Flour: 2 tbs

4. Salt to taste

5. Oil: for deep frying

Method:

1. Boil the potatoes and then peel off their skin on cooling. Mash them well (actually, very finely, so that there are no lumps left).
2. To the mashed potatoes, add the grated cheese, corn flour and salt.
3. Now make small balls out of these and keep them aside. I actually did a trick here; I prepared two mixtures: one with grated cheese and the other without (i.e. only mashed potatoes, corn flour and salt). I made balls out of the potato mixture and filled potato-cheese mixture inside, to avoid cheese to layer out and melt on the surface.
4. Heat oil in a pan and deep fry these croquettes till golden brown. Keep the flame on medium.
5. Serve them with green chutney, tamarind chutney or mango chutney.

Note: Originally, these croquettes are dipped in/coated with egg white and bread crumps alternatively, but I personally prefer eggless recipes, and also I avoid bread crumps because they absorb a lot of oil, so to make the croquettes crispy, I have used corn flour as an alternative.

Tips:

1. You could use chopped parsley/coriander leaves and ground pepper for adding spice to them, though I prefer the cheesy, creamy taste.
2. If you wish, you could fill/stuff the balls with dry fruits (cashews and raisins) in the middle.
3. If the balls tend to split or break on frying, add in a little more corn flour for binding.
4. You could also dip the balls in a very thin corn flour batter to make them much crispier. 

Submitting this recipe to:
My event: Cooking Made Easy With Cheese/Paneer

Sinful Delights  by Vardhini's Kitchen

Kacchhe Aam Ki Chutney/ Lunji/ Galka ( Raw Mango Sauce)

For the last two weeks, I've been really busy; my in-laws were here, so I was all set to cook, serve and also learn a lot from my mother-in-law. I have a lot of bookmarked recipes to follow for the coming weeks, because this whole while I was trying to learn all authentic Lucknowi cuisines from her. Here's one of them, which is called 'Galka' in Lucknow. This is a recipe that I bookmarked from my mom 4 years back, and again I'm bookmarking the same from my mother-in-law, with a slight variation.

In Rajasthan, this is called 'Lunji', and 'Galka' is a Lucknowi version of the same, with the only difference that 'Lunji' is made from raw mango cubes, whereas, 'Galka' is made from grated raw mangoes.

KACCHE AAM KI CHUTNEY/ LUNJI/ GALKA

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1. Raw Mango (cubed/grated): 1

2. Sugar: 2 tbs or as per taste

3. Oil: 2 tbs

4. Mustard Seeds (rai): 1/2 tsp

5. Cumin Seeds (jeera): 1/2 tsp

6. Aniseed (saunf): 1/2 tsp

7. Salt: 1 tsp

8. Red Chilli Powder: 1/2 tsp

9. Turmeric Powder: 1/4 tsp

Method:

1. Cut the raw mango in small cubes or grate it. I prefer the typical green raw mangoes, but even if you have the slightly yellow ones, they'll do good; just add a little less sugar if they are already sweeter. 
2. Take oil in a pan and heat it on high flame. Once hot, switch the flame to low and add jeera
   (cumin seeds), followed by saunf and rai. Let the rai splutter.
3. Now add the mango cubes to it and mix well.
4. Add all the spices and salt and cover the pan for 5-7 minutes, keeping the flame on low.
5. By this time, the raw mango cubes would be optimally cooked; if you feel they are still not soft, cook for 2-3 minutes more, adding 1 tsp of water. 
6. At last, add sugar to it and mix well. 
7. Put off the heat and let it cool.
8. Relish this with Parantha or any snacks.

Tips:

1. You can even make this with ripe mangoes if they are a slightly sour and tangy; just add less sugar and cook for lesser time.
2. This can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

 Submitting this to:

"Every Tuesday " event started  by Priya and Aipi. 

 

Milk Cake/ Kalakand/ Malai Barfi

Malai Barfi....have you ever heard of this?

I'm sure you must have, if you love sweets to the core like me. Malai Barfi aka Kalakand aka Milk Cake is a Rajasthani dessert prepared from freshly home-made paneer and Khoya/Mava. 'Mishri Mava' is a slightly softer and wet version of this with more quantity of milk added. I remember how I used to love all these since childhood but never even thought of making them by myself. After marriage and coming to a place where you hardly get to see the real ones, I was highly inspired to try them and to my wonder, I successfully made them and gulped the whole plate. :))

 Do try this if you love Khoya/Mava Barfis and love the authentic milky taste. Also, if you have some extra paneer and looking for an easy dessert, this could be the one you'd like to hit upon.

KALAKAND/ MILK CAKE/ MALAI BARFI:

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 60 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients: 

1. Home-made Paneer/ Chhaina: 1 and a 1/2 cups (prepared from 1 litre milk)

2. Milk: 3/4 litre (standard one)

3. Sugar: 5 tbs or as per taste

4. Rose water: 1 tbs

5. Almonds, Pistachios: for garnishing

6. Ghee: for greasing the plate

Method:

1. Prepare paneer at home by adding some curd/lime juice to the milk and boiling it. Do not add too much else it will turn sour. Add just that much as is required to curdle it slightly and get finely granular paneer.
2. Separate the paneer from the water by hanging it in a cloth and holding on for an hour. I usually use a steel sieve to do so and it is quite helpful, too. Also, I prefer to rinse the paneer with cold water before use to avoid any sour effect that might be lingering upon.
3. Now take this finely granular paneer in a heavy bottomed pan and add milk to it.
4. Bring this to a boil and then simmer it.
5. Let this boil till the milk and paneer blend well and the milk is almost reduced to 1/5 of the original quantity. By now you can see a granular creamy texture which is a little wet in consistency. 
6. Keep stirring in between to avoid any paneer/milk sticking at the bottom.
7. When you see that the milk has almost all evaporated, infact has turned to rabdi/khoya, add the rose water followed by the sugar. This should be slightly soft/wet if you want tender barfis.
8. Mix them well and turn off the heat.
9. Now grease a plate with ghee and pour this mixture on it.
10. Embellish with almonds and pistachios.
11. Refrigerate/freeze this for 4 hours (suggested only when you have kept the mixture a little wet).
12. After taking out, wait for 5 minutes for it to get soft and then cut into small cubes. Serve chilled if you like it like candy/kulfi. If you serve this after keeping out for some time(some 15-20 minutes), it will start leaving milk and will become extremely soft and tender; will actually go tit bits in your fingers.
13. Enjoy the ultra-soft, melting sweet in your mouth. ( This will taste half the way like 'Chum Chum'.)
14. If you want perfectly hard barfis, then heat that mixture for some more time till it almost forms a lump and leave the sides, then cool it in the greased plate and there's no need to freeze.You can cut them in cubes/pieces on cooling.

Tips:

1. Avoid the market paneer as it is harder than the required consistency.
2. If the paneer looks sour and coarsely granular on curdling, rinse this with water and knead it with your palms to make it softer and fine. 
3. Keep it a little less sugary to enjoy the original milky taste.
4. If you don't have rose water, you could also use some cardamom powder.

 Submitting this recipe to:
My event: Cooking Made Easy With Cheese/Paneer
Cakes, Cookies and Desserts 

Diwali Special Sweets by Tickling Palates,
Serve it - Festival Potluck by Krithi's Kitchen,
Diwali Sweet Recipes by Sameena
Diwali Event  by Anu's Kitchen

Multi Grain Cookies/ Biscuits

I remember the time when I was expecting and the way I used to be so careful about what all I was eating. My hit list always had multi-grain biscuits and my bag used to be stuffed with them, especially at times when I traveled. I'm an amateur when it comes to baking, and in this run I keep trying everything new, so of course it had to be multi grain cookies some day and that day finally came. The cookies came out really well, and here I am with the recipe.

MULTI GRAIN COOKIES:

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Baking Time: 12 minutes

Health Meter:

The name speaks for itself: It's a healthy amalgamation of Wheat Flour (Aata), Ragi Flour, Rice Flour, Corn Flour, Gram Flour, and Sooji/Rava. All purpose flour/maida is the base for most of the biscuits available in the market, but with the changing time and trend, other grains are taking over owing to their goodness and better calorie and nutrition structure. You'll simply love these cookies, just the way I did. :)

Ingredients:

1. Wheat Flour/ Aata: 1/2 cup

2. All Purpose Flour/ Maida: 1/4 cup

3. Sooji/ Rava: 1/4 cup

4. Makki Ka Aata (Corn Flour): 2 tbs

5. Rice Flour: 2 tbs

6. Gram Flour: 2 tbs

7. Ragi Flour: 2 tbs
8. Milk Powder: 2 tbs
9. Finely grated coconut: 1/4 cup
10. Cardamom Powder: 1/4 tsp
11. A dash of salt

12. Butter/ Ghee (Melted) : 1/2 cup

13. Baking Soda: a pinch

14. Baking Powder: 1 tsp

15. Powdered Sugar: 3/4 cup

Method:

1. Grease the baking tray and keep it aside.
2. Pre-heat the oven on 160 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes.
3. Sieve the flour and mix all the above ingredients forming a soft dough. 
4. Now take a small part of it and make a round ball. Flatten it between the palms of your hands and keep placing on the baking tray.
5. Keep a gap of 2 cms after each while placing them.
6. Bake on 160 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes. You'll see the cookies swelling and emitting an aromatic flavor after a while.
7. Once they are baked, transfer them on a cooling rack and wait for your turn to just grab them.

 

Tips: 

1. If you are worried about the butter/ghee part, just change it with Canola Oil/ Sun Flower Oil which is Cholesterol free, but the taste will differ for sure. 
2. You could also add almonds or other dry fruits as per your wish.
3. These can be stored in an air-tight container for 4-5 days.