Bhoondhi Laddoo - A Diwali Treat

Made these yummy ladoos for Diwali from my mother's recipe. Though there are different forms of ladoos, bhoondhi ladoo has been my favorite, especially I love the ones from Adyar Ananda Bhavan... I didnt have any special laddle for making them, so used the regular slotted laddle (Jalli karandi) a slightly bigger one. The initial rounds of bhoondhi came out just fine but the final three batches got messed up, as they began to clog together. Probably the heat got reduced or the batter became too thin/thick , I am not sure, but who cares I got enough bhoondhi's to make 25 ladoos. I added chopped almonds and raisins instead of the traditional cashews, not that I dont prefer them , I realised that I ran out of cashews at the last minute, but the almonds tasted equally good and balanced out the sweetness of the ladoo.

The recipe is very simple and it hardly took 1 hour for me to finish . Hope you all give it a try.

Ingredients:

2 cups gram flour

a pinch of salt

a pinch of cooking soda

for the syrup :

3 cups of sugar (for each cup of flour 11/2 cup of sugar)

1 cup of water ( for each cup of flour 1/2 cup of water)

few cardomom pods

1 drop of yellow food colour (optional)

1 cup chopped almonds/cashews

1/2 cup raisins

Method:

- Take few tsp of ghee and fry the almonds and raisins as we do for payasams. Keep aside.

- Take enough oil in a wide bottommed vessel(atleast an inch thick)

- Mix the flour soda and salt with enough water , just enough to resemble Idli batter.(The batter should not be either too thick or too thin).

- Once the oil is hot(keeping the slotted laddle over the oil) , spread a laddle full of batter over the slotted laddle in circular motion. The bhoondhi's will fall in the oil.

- Fry them for 2 mins , take them out and drain in a paper towel.The bhoondhi should not become crisp.

- Repeat the same with the remaining batter.

- Switch on the other stove and heat the sugar and water in parallel. Add the smashed cardomom pods to it.

- Allow it to boil and reach the single string consistency i.e., if you touch and release the liquid between your fingers it should form a string.

- At this point switch of the stove and mix the bhoondhi, and fried almonds and raisins.Give it a stir with a wooden spoon, close with a lid and allow to cool for few minutes.

- While its still warm , make it to lemon sized balls.

Note : If the mixture gets cooled after sometime heat for a minute in a a Microwave.

If you do not have a microwave, Sprinkle some warm milk as you make the balls

This recipe makes 25 - 30 medium sized ladoos.

Sending these yummy laddoos to the following events:

Sweet series host at Mom's recipes

Diwali Dhamaka event at Purva's blog

Sweet Celebrations HOsted by Mansi at Fun and Food Cafe

FIL - Ghee Hosted at Sanghi' Food Delights

Pineapple fresh cream cake

I have been planning to make this cake ever since I saw the recipe in "Passionate about baking". The fear of Icing the cake with whipped cream or for that matter any Icing has kept me away from these kind of cakes. Finally I mustered my guts and baked this cake for my Husbands birthday who is an ardent lover of pineapple desserts.
The cake turned out soft and spongy, but the Icing scared me Initially.I baked the sponge at 2.00am in the night (wanted it to be a surprise you know!), and thought of Icing it early in the morning. But when I started Whipping cream, dont know what happened, the cream started to curdle after 6 mins, probably because I whipped it at high speed. I was totally disappointed as I didnt have any more cream left in the fridge.

With few adventures later somehow made the Icing and decorated the cake by evening. The cake tasted too good , and I have already made plans for making it again.The step by step proceure and the tips in the recipe helped me a lot.

Update : Check out the base recipe for this cake at  Strawberry fresh cream cake.Just substitute strawberries with Pineapple.

Yummy Vanilla Cupcakes

Iam back from a month long break...We had three good weeks of vacation in India, and then back here I had to prepare for my kids second birthday.It went on very well last week, though hard to believe that my tiny one is growing so fast.Will post the pictures of the menu in the next post.But before that I wanted to publish this post that was sitting in my drafts for a long time.The auto scheduler didnt work for me !!!

Have tried several recipes for vanilla cupcakes from diferent sources, but didnt quite turn out well. So I stopped making them for a while until I saw this recipe from "Passionate about baking" . Made it thrice since then , and every time it baked beautifully and was yummy.

Without taking much of your time here is the recipe:

I didnt make any changes to the original recipe, just made them with large muffin pan instead of the mini ones. Made 12 cupcakes.

Source: Passionate about Baking

Ingredients:

Flour – 2 cups

Baking Powder – 2 tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Butter – ½ cup

Sugar 1 ¼ cup

Eggs – 2

Milk – 1 cup

Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190deg C.
Grease well muffin trays.
Sift together flour + baking powder + salt 3 times. Keep aside.
Cream the butter and sugar well on high speed until light and fluffy.
Beat in vanilla essence, followed by eggs beaten in 1 by 1.
Now beat in flour and milk alternatively till well incorporated.
Put about a tsp full in each muffin casing, about ¾ full, as it will rise.
Bake at 190deg C for 10-15 mins till golden brown.
Remove immediately and cool on racks.

Apple cinnamon muffins

I had bookmarked this recipe from Baking bites long back but didnt get to it.Whenever I think of trying this recipe either I will be short of apples or the apples will not be fresh.Since Iam travelling to India on a three weeks vacation Iam planning my menu everyday such that no vegetables or fruits are left out in the refrigerator.Veggies I can manage, but fruits ! with only three days left there is a lot of fruit (peaches,cherries, pears, apples)to be finished thanks to the visit to the farmers market..So dont be surprised if there is an other post on something with peaches.(ya I have a bookmarked recipe of peaches too..)

I didnt use the recipe as such, made a few changes like avoided eggs and used milk instead of buttermilk.I also used whole wheat pastry flour.The result was soft moist and delicious muffins.

Recipe adapted from Baking Bites

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract ( I used vanilla sugar)

1 cup milk

2 cups diced apple

3 tbsp coarse sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnomon

Method

Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.

In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar , melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla.

Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and milk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter.

Stir in diced apple.Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each to the top, or slightly over.

In a small bowl, stir together coarse sugar and additional 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Sprinkle generously over muffins.Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Mine made 9 large Muffins.



The theme for this month's Think Spice event hosted by Sunita herself being "Spiced sweet treat" these gorgeous Apple Muffins spiced with cinnamon and ginger makes their way to the event.



Sending these healthy muffins to the "Show me your muffins " event by Divya at Dil-se

Easy breezy salmon curry

I try to cook fish almost twice a week.Mostly it is salmon and rarely it is some other white fish. We all know that Salmon is one of the richest source of omega 3 fatty acids and it reduces bad cholestrol.

But Salmon doesn't fit in the usual south Indian 'meen kulambhu ' that we prefer (somehow it makes the fish rubbery) I reserve that dish for some trouts or any other fish from the market. So I always make this quick and delicious curry to be relished with white rice or roti's.

Its a must try recipe for people who love to eat salmon.Even if you dont like (like I used to be ) you will start liking it after this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 - (15 oz) salmon strips cut into cubes.(you can also use frozen ones)

3 cloves of garlic finely chopped.

1 onion finely chopped

1/2 cup of tomato paste

1/2 tsp turmeric power

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp whole peppers

1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds(optional)

1/2 tsp fennel seeds/powder(optional)

curry leaves

Method:

Take 2 tblsp of olive oil in a flat bottommed vessel.

Add the curry leaves, whole pepper, fenugreek and the fennel seeds when the oil is hot.

Add the chopped garlic and onions and fry till the onion turns translucent

Now add the tomato paste, turmeric powder, coriander powder , chilli power and salt.

Add half cup of water and mix well.Close with a lid and allow it to boil for 10 mins in a medium flame.

After the raw smell o the tomato paste disappears, add the salmon pieces , gently give it stir, reduce the flame to low , cover and cook for 10 more mins.

Note:

The gravy should be thick. So cooking in the low flame after adding the fish is a must to avoid burning. Adjust the salt and spice to your taste, before adding the fish.

Other Salmon Receipes:


Salmon Curry with Coconut

Baked Salmon Cubes


Meen Kuzhambhu - Tamilnadu style