I hate missing my workouts and last night it was a forced rest day. I reached home late from work and then you know its a chain reaction.  So I decided to take the day off and relax. I looked in the fridge for possibilities and was super excited to see a jar of Pumpkin Puree.

I don't think that I’m ready for this Oh-My-God-it's-Fall attitude The internet has suddenly adopted this theme and like every year is going ga-ga over pumpkins. I am not a fan of Indian Pumpkin recipes. I think as a kid I opposed every gooey vegetable. So if the pumpkin is hidden well in the dish I have no issues eating it. We all have our quirks. Maybe, someday I will start eating like a grown-up .

I have incorporated pumpkin in to my breakfast and before you roll your eyes let me tell you that it tastes divine. I will share that recipe soon. So I normally make pumpkin puree at home for my weekly usage. Meal prep rocks!

I finished 1/4th of the cake before realizing that I needed to click a picture

For now, let me share this beautiful pumpkin cake recipe which I developed last night:

Ingredients:
1 Cup White Flour
1/3 Cup Ragi Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
1.5 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup milk
2/3 Cup Cane Sugar
1 Cup Pumpkin Puree
1 Tsp Cinnamon powder
1 pinch of Nutmeg
3 eggs

Note: The idea was to use 1.5 Cups of White flour but I ran out of supplies. I decided to do some modifications and used 1/3 cup Ragi flour. You can use 1.5 cups of white flour or maybe mix and match with some wheat flour.

I had cane sugar available at home. You can use brown sugar, white sugar or jaggery sugar.

Method
I greased the pan and allowed the oven to pre-heat for 10 minutes.
In a bowl I mixed Flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and baking soda. Whisk well.
Mix  eggs, milk, sugar, pumpkin puree in a separate bowl and whisk well
Add the dry mixture to the wet one in 3 parts and mixing well after each addition.
Pour the batter (Will be quite runny) on to the greased pan and put it inside the oven and bake until a toothpick when inserted comes out clean.

Tip: I baked the cake on the highest setting (250 Degrees C in my case) for the first 15 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 200 for 20 minutes. 

Overall I was quite happy with the texture and taste. You can even add pumpkin spice to your cake. It is not easily available in India though.

Do you have any other cool pumpkin recipes?
Ciao..
P.S: I am starting a new Pumpkin series and will post quite a few pumpkin recipes with time

***************** Edited to Add*****************************************

Pumpkin Puree
This is in response to Sonal's comment. Check the simplest ways to make pumpkin puree:

Method 1:
Peel pumpkin 
Soak it in little water (1/4 cup water for 1 cup cut pumpkin)
And boil. You can pressure cook pumpkin too.. I prefer doing without it (Because I hate cleaning pressure cookers). Drain excess water and puree the boiled pieces using a blender/ processor

Method 2 (Only when I am in good mood):
Cut pumpkin (with skin) to small square pieces (1-2 inches)
Grease a tray with little oil and arrange the pieces upside down on it
Bake for 20-25 minutes. The pumpkin pieces will become tender and it will be easier to cut them with the skin on. 
When cooled remove the skin and puree the pieces using a blender/ processor 

 
 

A slice of cake, a good coffee and a good song. You just need simple things to get you started. 
Sometimes you just need a cake. On that note let me tell you that I love coffee cakes. 
Give me a light fluffy cake and I am the nicest person on this planet. I am really a cake person. 

Today morning I realized that I haven't had any cake in a while. So I looked around in my fridge and felt like a winner when I spotted two Valencia Oranges sitting prettily. A friend of mine got me a bag of Valencia Oranges from his farm. I love these oranges. They are so packed in flavor and are so sweet and refreshing. There is a little bit of tartness but it wakes you up. I have used them for salad dressings, as a snack, for chicken marination and I think it was time to use them in a cake. 

I looked around for a recipe and then decided to create my own. 

Upside Down Valencia Orange Cake

Ingredients:

1 orange thinly sliced (with the peel)
2 Tbsp Jaggery Sugar (Can use brown sugar)
2 Tbsp Butter
1.5 cups flour
1.5 tbsp baking powder
0.5 cup Jaggery sugar (Can use brown sugar)
0.25 cup white sugar
0.5 cup oil (I used rice bran oil)
0.5 cup thick yogurt (I used store bought)
Juice of 1 orange 
2 Tbsp orange zest
0.25 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 eggs

Note: I make my own zest. I peel the skin off and cut it in small pieces. In a pan I heat 2 tbsp water and 1 tsp sugar. I then add the zest to it and cook it for a minute. The zest becomes sweeter due to the mixture in which it is cooked

Method:


Brown the butter in a thick bottomed pan and then add 2 Tbsp Jaggery sugar when the mixture turns thick add the round slices of orange.

In a cake tin arrange slices at the bottom. Sprinkle the leftover butter-sugar mixture on them.


In a separate bowl sift flour and baking powder. Whisk the dry ingredients together.

In another bowl - Add sugar, yogurt, oil, orange juice, zest, eggs, lemon juice and mix them well.

Add dry ingredients to the wet batter in batches and whisk well.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Bake it thoroughly, especially in the center, or it may settle when it cools. 

Once the cake is done, let it cool. Place a plate and place the cake tin upside down. Remove the cake tin slowly. 

Enjoy The Cake

Ciao..

I bought lots and lots of apples last week, 18 if you must know. This is what I am good at. The moment I spot seasonal fruit in the market I go C.R.A.Z.Y. Apples are not seasonal anymore but I refrain myself from buying them in the summer months.

I think at the back of my mind I just wanted to bake a pie. Sometimes you have that itch to get over with something and that's how it was with me. 

So I researched on the internet for the recipes and after an hour settled for this one. I adapted it a bit. Here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients

Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
0.5 stick tablespoons cold butter
2 Tablespoons milk
(The original recipe said 1 egg but I didn't have it)
1 tablespoon Refined Oil


Filling:
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Note: I was out of lemons so I just used half a lemon and 1 tablespoon Vinegar
4 apples
2/3 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling on the pie
Note: I used jaggery sugar here
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground nutmeg

Method:
Prepare the dough. In a bowl, whisk the flour. cut butter in to pea sized pieces and work the butter into the dry ingredients until it resemble crumbled meal. Knead the dough for a bit and add oil to pull it together. You can add cold water over the mixture.

Note: You can use the food processor to prepare the dough easily. I prefer using my hands.

Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least 1 hour.

Filling

Using my Instagram pic which I shared with my run

Slice and core the apples.
Note: I never peel my apples. I think thats just nutrition lost.

Cut each half into 4 wedges. Toss the apple with the lemon juice. Add the sugar and toss to combine evenly. Add lemon juice.


In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the apples, and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture begins to simmer, about 2 minutes. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until the apples soften and release most of their juices, about 7 minutes.

Strain the apples in a colander over a medium bowl to catch all the juice. Shake the colander to get as much liquid as possible. Return the juices to the skillet, and simmer over medium heat until thickened and lightly caramelized, about 10 minutes ( I added a bit of jaggery and the juice became quite thick).

In a medium bowl, toss the apples with the reduced juice and spices. Set aside to cool completely. (This filling can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated or frozen for up to 6 months.)

Cut the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half of dough into a disc about 11 to 12 inches wide. Layer the dough between pieces of parchment or wax paper on a baking sheet, and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes.

Place a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Line the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan with one of the discs of dough, and trim it so it lays about 1/2 inch beyond the edge of the pan. Put the apple filling in the pan and mound it slightly in the center. Brush the top edges of the dough with milk. Place the second disc of dough over the top. Fold the top layer of dough under the edge of the bottom layer and press the edges together to form a seal. Flute the edge as desired. Sprinkle with sugar. Pierce the top of the dough in several places to allow steam to escape while baking. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

Note: For the top dough layer I used the very rusty lattice pattern ( can't blame me it was 10:00 PM and I wanted to have pie for dessert)
There's a proper way to do the lattice pattern and next time I will follow that.



Bake the pie on a baking sheet until the crust is golden, about 50 minutes. Cool on a rack before serving. 


Ciao..

I had to come here and write today. I have had a good day in a long while. I am just fed up of heat, humidity and life in general. I have been taking all sorts of shortcuts while cooking. There have been no elaborate meals lately. Well, that's Dilli kii Garmi for you.  It rained beautifully today and I had to celebrate it. I was just too motivated. Nothing could stop me.. I went for a long run in the drizzling weather and it was beautiful. I came back home early and decided to bake the egg less marble chocolate mango cake. This cake is super simple and a total beauty to look at.. 


The mango makes the batter super silky. The best part is that it is butter-less. It is a perfect tea-time cake. I was so anxious to see how it turned out that I made chai (It's the weather) after dinner and enjoyed it with a slice of cake. 

I am planning to freeze some Mango puree for the next couple of months. Let's see if I manage to do that.










Here's how I made it:

Ingredients: 

2 cups White Flour
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 cup Mango chunks
1/4 cup Milk (I used non-fat)
1/4 cup Yoghurt
1/4 cup fresh cream
3/4 cup Sugar ( Make it 1 cup if Mango is not sweet)
1/3 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup warm Water 5 tbsp. Refined Oil 

Prerequisites:
Set the oven to pre-heat for 10 minutes
Grease and line the  cake tin with parchment paper.

Directions
I then added all the dry ingredients, except sugar in a bowl.
In a large bowl, I then blended sugar, oil, mango, yogurt, milk, vanilla, cream and mix well. (If you are using mango puree then just whisk it)
I gradually then added the dry mix mixture (1/3rd at a time) to mango mixture and mixed it well to combine the dry & wet ingredients. 
I transferred one third of the mango batter to another bowl and mixed the cocoa paste until thoroughly incorporated.
Once the batters were ready I poured them alternately on to the cake tin. I used a fork to create the swirls..

Baked for approximately 45 minutes, The first 10 minutes at 220 degrees and the rest 35 minutes at 180 degrees. The settings might vary so bake until the cake is well risen and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Saturday: It was a lovely day today. I kick-started my day with a 16 km run. I was so excited and ready to just laze around and do nothing. I went off to sleep for a quick nap at 11:00 am which turned out to be a long siesta. I woke up at 3:00 PM to beautiful weather. My legs were all sore but I was too inspired. Can't blame me? So I decided to bake my version of sticky buns.

Before I type out the recipe let me tell you that it is a great in-between-meals-kinda snack.



















Ingredients:

Buns
425g Flour (Maida)
7gms Yeast ( approximately 1 Tbsp)
1 Tbsp Sugar
3/4 cup Milk
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup dessicated coconut (Optional)
1/2 cup nuts and seeds mix with 1 tsp sugar sprinkled
2 eggs lightly beaten

Syrup:
1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp Vanilla 
1/4 cup nuts mix

Method

Heat the milk to lukewarm. Mix the yeast and Sugar, and leave until frothy, roughly 15-20 minutes
Cut cubes of butter and mix it with flour in a mixing bowl. Use your fingertips to mix until it reaches the coarse breadcrumbs like texture
Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture and eggs. Incorporate flour in circular motion mixing at every turn.
Knead the mixture until smooth and elastic. Cover the bowl with a cling film and leave it to rise (2 hrs approximately)

Meanwhile, prepare the syrup by heating water, brown sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Bring the mixture to a boil until thick and syrupy. Sprinkle nuts and pour about 1 tbsp of syrup at the bottom of each of muffin cups.

Knock back the dough and roll out to a rectangle.
Sprinkle filling (1/4 cup nuts, coconut and sugar) over the dough in  an even manner

Roll up tightly forming a log. Cut the log in to even rounds and place them in prepared muffin cups.
Leave them to rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat the Oven for 10 minutes and place the prepared muffin pan to bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees or until golden brown.

Once done, remove from the oven and invert the muffin tin to remove the buns. 
















Sunday Morning: Enjoying this great weather with bun and jam with coffee. The music (The who) is playing in the background and I am already wondering about my next experiment :)

I haven't abandoned this space like my other food ventures. I am pretty sure that this blog is here to stay. I am battling heat in my part of the world. I am not a fan of summers (not Indian summers). They are too harsh for my liking. I am trying my best to stay hydrated and taking best care of myself.. My cooking is all about shortcuts these days and I am definitely giving my oven a break.
Today morning when I woke up it was relatively cooler. Well I don't know about you but over here 39 degrees feel cooler in the summer months. I instantly decided to bake something. The thought of baking a cake was tempting but then it gets difficult to store it. Leaving it out in open in this weather is not a good idea and I don't like refrigerated cakes. This reason was enough to get me back to baking cookies. It can be stored for longish time. It does not need enormous kitchen time and if you are bored you always have the option of freezing your dough and baking it later.

My cookies always used to turn out crunchy. I like chewy cookies so I decided to take the matter in my hands and get on with it. I researched every website, every recipe and every book and then came up with my recipe after a few rounds of trial and error..



Ingredients
1 Cup Flour
1/4 tsp Baking soda
2 eggs (or 1 large)
50gms Amul Butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cane sugar ( Use Brown sugar if not available)
1/4 cup Chocolate chunks (I prefer chunks over chocolate chips)
1 tbsp Black strap molasses
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Method
Set your oven to preheat at 200 degrees and prepare your baking tray with well greased butter paper
Sift flour and Baking Soda together and keep aside

In a pan brown your butter on a low heat. When the froth appears and the color changes to pale brown switch off the gas. It gives a very nutty flavor to the batter

Let the butter cool down, add sugar, cane sugar, molasses and vanilla and whisk them together, add eggs and whisk until mixed properly

Add the flour mixture in 3 parts mixing well each time. DO NOT OVER MIX

Add chocolate chunks

Put the batter in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Use a tablespoon to scoop out batter and place it in the tray (You can use an ice cream scoop as well).
Tip: Form dough balls and leave enough space in the baking tray to allow them to expand
Once inside the oven, after 7-8 minutes I tapped the balls with the back of a tablespoon to flatten them (Read: No patience)

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Take the tray out and let it cool for a couple of minutes. Take the cookies out gently and place them in the oven on the wire rack directly for a couple of minutes.
(The cookies become crunchy if left for too long)

 It feels so good to be back..

•  Preheat oven for 7-10 minutes at 200 degrees and prepare your cake tin by lining it with a butter paper, greasing and flouring it well
•  In a separate bowl sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda. Mix them well
•  Melt butter (I also added chocolate at this step). Add sugar and cream the mixture
•  Add eggs one at a time and beat the mixture thoroughly  
•  Mix vanilla 
• Add dry mixture 1/3rd at a time and beat well. The mixture will be very thick
• Add zucchini and mix well. The water content in zucchini will set the batter consistency right 
• Pour the batter into prepared cake tin and bake for 30-40 minute until the cake is well risen and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

Ciao..

I am fascinated with color yellow. I just love the way it makes everything look so bright.
The mood changes in a matter of seconds. I never had any yellow color food related issues while growing up. I happily binged on kadhi chawal. There is something about this color. I connect it with happy times. I like yellow in food, songs, clothes etc.. I definitely don't like yellow in spreadsheets because that usually brings bad omen but lets not digress from happy things.

When I first came across this recipe I was immediately drawn towards it.. Yes, I admit it was the color. I noticed the word - "eggless" and closed the page immediately..  Those who know me know my love for eggs, butter and flour in every possible combination. Majority of our problems can be sorted with these three beautiful ingredients. Yes, I try to healthify my recipes every now and then but the core remains the combination of these three ingredients.

It was a long weekend and I wanted to bake something. Something different. My parents gave up non vegetarian food before I was born. We were raised as vegetarians with eggs making appearances in the pantry every now and then. Every time I bake for my parents I am always asked if I could try the vegetarian version of this recipe for them. So I decided to give it a shot. The previous attempts were not fruitful at all. I recalled seeing this yellow colored cake and decided to bring out my armor..

This recipe uses only 4-5 ingredients and the best part is that prep time is only 10 minutes. also, it is a one pot cake which makes things even simpler.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1.5 cups flour (Maida)
3/4 cup  Vanilla Custard Powder
2.5 Teaspoons Baking Powder
150 gms butter
1 cup milk
1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar ( or Plain sugar if not available)

Variation: I added pineapple chunks to make an egg-less pineapple fruit cake

                                                                    Steps


1. Preheat your oven at 180 degrees.
2. Line a cake tin with butter paper, grease and flour it well
3. Sift Flour, Custard Powder and baking powder together
4. Cream Butter and sugar together until it is soft and fluffy
5. Add the dry ingredients one third at a time alternating with milk
5. Whisk everything together well until it is yellow and creamy in texture
6. Pour the batter on the cake tin. If making a pineapple cake spread the chunks on the cake batter
7. Sprinkle brown sugar
8. Put it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes (at 180 degrees)
or until the cake is well risen and toothpick when inserted in the center comes out clean

In my excitement I forgot to take the picture when it came out of the oven. The cake was nice and moist. Just while writing the post I decided to take a quick picture of the leftovers
*Make a mental note of religiously taking pictures*

Lessons Learnt

Click better pictures