I made this ganache for yummy eggless chocolate cake. This is the easiest way to create this sophisticating and professional looking ganache.


Ingredients
2 Cup Semisweet Chocochips
1 Cup Cream
1 Spoon Butter

Method

• In a bowl add in 1 cup semisweet chocochips and butter. Microwave for 1 minute.
• Add in remaining 1 cup chocochips and 1/2 cup cream. Mix well.
• Microwave for another 30 seconds
• Add in remaining 1/2 cup cream and stir till mixed thoroughly and is glossy and shiny.

Notes
Instead of microwaving, one can always use double boiler to melt chocolate and butter but microwave is easiest and clean way to melt chocolate.

Atul's mom had asked me for egg-less cake recipe almost 6 months back but every time something or the other came up and I didn't get chance to try out anything. Today that we are going to his place for snacks I thought that it would be perfect time to try out and see how she likes it. The cake looks, tastes awesome. It is perfectly moist and fluffy, i think i like it better than this chocolate cake with the eggs or this birthday chocolate cake again with the eggs.


Ingredients
4.5 Cup Maida
1 Cup Coco Powder
3 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Oil
1 Spoon Baking Soda
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1 Spoon Salt

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C
• Sieve together maida and coco powder in a bowl.
• Add in baking soda and salt and mix well.
• In another bigger bowl, add in oil, 3 cups of water, Vanilla Essence and beat it together until frothy.
• Add in sugar and blend again.
• Sieve in the maida-coco mixture into it and beat till mixed well.
• Grease the baking pan and pour the mixture in it.
• Bake the cake for 50 minutes on 350F/180C, turning it after 35minutes.

Notes
I drizzled it with Chocolate Ganache and decorated it with the saved white chocolate cream cheese frosting.
If you are going to decorate on top of Ganache then let it set down for 3-4 hours because i didn't and the decoration kept sliding off the place i intended it to stay.

I have started liking the taste of cream cheese. I have used it in past with carrot cake and mixed indian spices to create floral taste for the icing. This time I decided to use the chocolate flavour given that i was making Red Velvet Cup Cakes which use the tinge of coco powder for chocolaty taste.


Ingredients
225gm Cream Cheese
225gm White Chocolate
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Icing Sugar

Method

• In a bowl microwave half of the white chocolate for 1 minute.
• Add in remaining white chocolate and mix well. Microwave for 15 seconds
• Stir the chocolate well till it is smooth and completely melted. Keep aside
• In another bowl beat the cream cheese till soft and smooth.
• Add in the melted chocolate and beat again till smooth
• Add in butter and beat again
• Add in icing sugar and beat till soft, smooth and fluffy

Notes
When adding the chocolate, it should have cooled off, if not wait till it cools down. Don't pour warm chocolate in the cheese.

I had made these when mom dad were around but they weren't perfect especially they were little on drier side. So this time I made little bit change in quantities and they come out perfect. I frosted them with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.


Ingredients
2.5 Cup Maida
1/4 Spoon Coca Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
1/4 Spoon Salt
1.5 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1.5 Cup Oil
2 Spoon Curd
1 Spoon Liquid Red Food Color
1/4 Spoon Vinegar
1/4 Spoon Vanilla Essence

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C
• Sieve Maida and Coca Powder in a bowl
• Mix in baking soda, salt and sugar in it
• In separate bowl add in egg, oil, red food color, vanilla essence and vinegar.
• In a cup add in the curd and fill it with water. Mix well with the fork and add it to the wet mixture (oil-egg mixture)
• Beat the mixture on low speed till smooth
• Add in sieved dry mixture of maida-coca powder a cup at a time and beat slowly till it accommodates in the mixture.
• Line the cupcake pan with the paper cups. Divide the mixture in 12 cups.
• Bake the cake on 350F/175C for 22 minutes

Notes
I normally turn around the cupcakes after 70% of baking time in this case around 15 minutes. It helps in even baking of the cakes.

I made these simple spice parathas today for dinner. They are very easy to make and taste yum.


Ingredients
2.5 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Maida
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• In a plate mix in maida, wheat flour, jeera, jeera powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt to taste.
• Add in 2 spoon of oil and mix well.
• Add water and knead the dough. Sprinkle 1 spoon of oil and knead again. Keep aside for at-least 30 minutes.
• Make lemon sized balls and roll the 3 fold parathas and cook them on the tawa, sprinkling oil.

Notes
The turmeric gives them awesome yellowish tinge and they look awesome. I also cooked them with very few drops of oil and that helped in retaining the yellow tinge
Maida helps getting crisp parathas.

Ajoy likes to eat french fries once in a while. We get those frozen ones and fry them as and when needed all the time. But i had been thinking of making them at home given that they are so simple. Always read about freezing them and keeping them cool before actually frying adding to the preparation time which off course i never had, given a sudden demand of french fries :) So last Saturday i decided to try them without refrigeration and all and worked out fine. So here is the quickest french fries recipe.


Ingredients
2 Potatoes
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Peel of the potatoes and cut them in small rectangular pieces.
• Keep them under running water and wash them thoroughly till the water is clear.
• Keep them in cold water for 5-10 minutes.
• Take it out of water and spread them on kitchen towel so that they are dry.
• Heat oil and fry them till light golden in color. Spread on kitchen towel
• Just before eating, fry the fries again till golden brown in color.
• Spread on kitchen towel, sprinkle salt and serve.

Notes
If you are making them for party, you could fry the fries for the first time and then store them in refrigerator. Fry them second time just before serving.
Two times frying is necessary as it helps in taking out moisture, cooking the potato and then making it crisp.

Mom had made these yummy aappe few times and we all liked it a lot. So this time i told her to show me the recipe. The aappe are easy to make and really healthy and tasty.


Ingredients
1.5 Cup Mung Daal with peel
2-3 Green Chillies
2 Garlic Cloves
1/4 Spoon Ginger piece
1/4 Onion
Two pinch Garam Masala
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Soak mung daal in water overnight.
• In the morning take out all the water from the daal and add it in the mixer.
• Add in green chillies, garlic and ginger. Grind to fine paste
• Add in finely chopped coriander leaves and onion
• Add in salt and garam masala and mix well.
• Heat Aappe Pan and grease it well. Add in spoonful of mixture in each, sprinkle drop of oil on each aappe and cook covered for 2 minutes on medium flame till the sides separate from the pan.
• Flip the aappes and cook without cover for another 2-3 minutes till the other side is done too. Serve while warm.

Notes
The daal can be soaked for couple of hours as well, so if making it for evening snack you need not have to soak it in the morning itself and these can be made on few hours notice.

I like Indian style Chinese a lot and I make it very regularly. But after loosing Kitchen to Mom :), it was while since we had Chinese. So on Friday, I decided to take the kitchen in control and make Chinese menu for dinner. I have made Veg Machurian so many times but every time I had trouble with photo, so this time since the photo also came out okayish, here is the recipe.


Ingredients
2 Cup Cabbage
2 Cup Carrots
2 Cup Beans
1 Bell Pepper
1 Green Chilli
3 Spoon Corn Flour
5 Spoon Maida
1 Spoon Garlic Paste
2 Garlic Cloves
3 Stems of Spring Onions
1/4 Cup Sweet Chilli Sauce
1/4 Cup Soy Sauce
2 Spoon Hot Chilli Sauce
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Chop cabbage, carrots, green chillies, beans and pepper into fine pieces.
• Add in salt to taste and mix well.
• Add in garlic paste, 4 spoon of Maida and 2 spoon of corn flour. Knead well to make the dough
• Make small balls from this dough and roll each of them into the remaining Maida and fry in the medium hot oil till golden in color. Keep aside.
• Heat oil in pan and add in finely chopped garlic cloves, spring onion's white part and fry till light brown in color.
• Add in sweet chilli sauce, hot chilli sauce, soy sauce and mix well.
• Take 3 cups of water and mix in 1 spoon of corn starch. Add it to the sauce that is boiling in the pan. Mix well
• Add in the Manchurian balls made earlier and cook for couple of minutes. Garnish with spring onion's green part and serve.

Notes
Normally I add in salt and keep aside the mixture of finely chopped vegetables aside so that i don't need to add extra water nor do the dough loosens after a while because of all the water that salt would come from the vegetables.
Instead of using sweet chilli and and hot chilli sauces, I have also used 3 spoon chilli flakes, 1/4 Cup Vinegar and 2 spoon sugar instead.

Now that mom is here, she made this awesome pachadi two days back. I loved it so much that I asked her to show me how to make it the very next day when we were actually going to eat Paani Puri for the dinner :) Nevertheless we had this pachadi after eating paani puri with excuse that something healthy after something chatpata :)


Ingredients
2 Cup Cabbage
1 Cup Carrot
1 Tomato
3/4 Cup Onion
1 Spoon Groundnut Powder
1 Spoon Sugar
1 Green Chilli
Handful of Coriander Leaves
1 Lemon
1/4 Spoon Mustard Seeds
A pinch of Asafoetida
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Finely chop cabbage and add it to the bowl
• Add finely chopped tomato
• Add finely chopped onion
• Add in finely chopped coriander leaves and green chilli
• Add in grated carrots
• Add in groundnut powder, sugar and salt to taste
• Squeez lemon juice in it and mix well.
• Heat a spoon of oil in the small pan and add in mustard seeds and Asafoetida and let the mustard splutter.
• Add it to the mixture and mix well.

Notes
If you are going to serve it to guests, you could finely chop all the veggies and then at the last moment just before serving, mix in sugar, salt and add in heated oil-mustard. It would be much more fresh and would taste better than the complete procedure done in advance.

Pakoda - Bhaji is quite famous in Maharashtra. All weddings must have these, when guests are invited, you have to have this item. Its been quite long time since we had bhaji so i decided to make them on Monday but decided to give it a twist. Given that eggplant is so easily available here i thought why not use it. The experiment was quite successful so here is the recipe.


Ingredients
2 Cup diced Eggplant
1 Onion
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Coriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Cup Besan
Handful Coriander Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix in diced eggplant, diced onion, chilli powder, besan, turmeric powder, jeera powder, coriander powder, finely chopped coriander leaves and salt to taste. Add in some water to make the paste.
• Heat oil. Add couple of spoon of oil to the paste and mix well.
• Take a small lemon sized ball from the paste and flatten it a bit
• Fry on medium heat till done on both sides. Serve immediately

Notes
Normally i would wait around 5 minutes after mixing all ingredients but before adding water. The salt with all the veggies secrets water so if you wait your paste doesn't end up loosing consistency later on while you are in the middle of frying.

This is Ajoy's favorite flavor in ice-cream which i finally made last Saturday. This is so easy and tasty flavor that i wonder why i didn't make it earlier. The texture of the ice-cream came out so well, so much better than the store bought ice-cream.


Ingredients
1 liter Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Vanilla Extract

Method

• In a mixie blend sugar and 1/2 liter of milk together till sugar completely till it dissolves.
• In a bowl mix the milk-sugar mixture, cream and vanilla extract and whisk with fork till everything is combined.
• Set the mixture in ice-cream bowl according to the ice-cream maker's instructions.

Notes
I used heavy whipping cream instead of light whipping cream so if using light whipping cream, you may need to use 4.5 cups of cream instead for the smooth flavor.

I had made this earlier too but today i thought i would make this for milind and ajoy. Its one of ajoy's favorite sweet dish and so easy to make.


Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
3/4 Cup Rice
1.25 cup Jaggery

Method

• Boil the milk and reduce to 3/4th.
• Wash rice and and add it to the boiling milk. Let it cook completely.
• Take off the heat once the rice is cooked completely. Add in grated jaggery
• Mix well and let it dissolve completely. Chill and serve.

Notes
Cook the milk and rice over medium heat with constant stirring so as to avoid burning.

I made this for taking with us to trip tomorrow for memorial day weekend. Perfect snacks for travel. Its inspired by the short bread Ajoy got from Costco couple of times.


Ingredients
3 Cup Maida
2 Cup Butter
1.25 Cup Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
2 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1/2 Cup Cashews
1/2 Cup Pistachios
1 Cup Semi-sweet Choco Chips
1/4 Cup White Choco Chips
5 Spoon Shortening

Method

• In a bowl cream butter and sugar together till fluffy.
• Add in egg yolk and vanilla essence and cream again
• Grind the cashews to fine powder and add it to the above mixture
• Sift in maida and mix together till nice stiff dough is formed.
• Form the lemon sized balls and store them in fridge for around 1 hour
• Preheat oven to 375F/190C
• Chop the pistachios
• Press each dough ball using palms to thick discs. Sprinkle the pistachios on half portion of each cookie disc and press lightly to secure the pistachios in the cookie
• Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and grease it. Transfer the discs on to the baking pan keeping an inch of distance between each of them
• Bake at 375F/190C for 12 minutes
• Let the cookies cool for 5-10 minutes.
• In a bowl mix in semi sweet chocochips and 4 spoon of shortening and microwave for 1 minutes stirring once after 30 minutes. Mix till nice glossy.
• Line the baking sheet with fresh parchment paper. Dip each cookie's part which isn't covered by pistachios in the chocolate and set it on parchment paper.
• Mix white choco chips and remaining 1 spoon of shortening for 30 seconds and stir in till smooth and glossy. Fill it in a piping bag and make zig zag lines over the semi sweet chocolate on the cookie. Let the chocolate set for an hour.

Notes
If you dont have microwave you can heat chocolate and shortening in a bowl set over the boiling water. Stir till the mixture is smooth and dont let the chocolate burn. Microwave is really easy method and one doesnt need to worry much except to check it every 30 seconds so I prefer to temper the chocolate in microwave.

Here almost all stores sell the canned lychees but never the fresh ones. Last month I decided to give it a try especially for ice-cream. It turns out that if you use the syrup you get pretty good flavor from one can


Ingredients
1 Can of Seedless Lychee
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
1 Lemon

Method

• Take out lychees from the syrup and put the syrup in the mixie.
• Add in sugar and milk and blend it till the sugar is disolved.
• Mix in cream and lemon juice and whisk a bit.
• Add it in ice-cream maker and let it set.
• Fine chop the lychees and mix that in the ice-cream around 3-4 minutes before the setting is complete.

Notes
If using fresh lychees just use around 30 lychees. Puree around 15 of them with 2 cups of water and use that instead of lychee syrup and finely chop remaining lychees. You might need to use probably 2/3 cup of sugar.
The lemon helps in bringing out the taste from the lychee.

Today before meeting everyone were discussing about the barbeque and since then i couldn't stop thinking of making tandoori something. With gobi in the fridge i decided to go for it. The dinner was yummy just because of it.


Ingredients
1 Cauliflower
1 Cup Curd
1.5 Spoon Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Chaat Masala
2 Green Chillies
2 Spoon Ginger
10 Garlic Cloves
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Cut the cauliflower into medium sized florets and add it in water. Add salt and microwave for 7 minutes. Separate out from water and keep aside.
• In a mixer add in ginger, garlic, ginger and 2 spoon of curd. Make fine paste.
• In a bowl add the above made paste, remaining curd, chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste. Mix well.
• Add in the cauliflower florets in it and mix well. Keep in fridge for atleast 2 hours
• Heat the pan and add in oil. Spread out cauliflower florets and cook on medium heat till one side is completely done. Flip and cook the other side. Cook from all sides possible and then take out.
• Garnish with chaat masala and serve with mint chutney, onions and lemon

Notes
I had cooked cauliflower for 5 minutes but i think 7 minutes would be perfect to make it nice and soft.
You can grill the cauliflower on barbeque, if doing use skewer to pierce through 3-4 cauliflowers.

Yesterday I was going to prepare Chocolate Macaroons for which I had to powder the almonds but when i made the almond powder it was little moist and not a fine powder that i needed for the macaroons. That is when I sent Ajoy to get more almonds and i made these laadus. They are very yummy and sugar free is bonus :)


Ingredients
2 Cup Almonds
1 Cup Dates
3-4 Spoon Raisins

Method

• Powder the almonds.
• Divide it in two batches. In each batch add 1/2 cup dates and make a thick paste in mixer.
• Knead the mixture. Make small round balls inserting couple of raisins in each of them. Serve.

Notes
I decided to use sweetness of raisins and dates to complement Almonds instead of adding sugar or jaggery which really worked for me as I don't like items too sweet. You can add couple of spoon sugar in case you feel it lacking sweetness.

These days the paneer quality that we are getting here isnt that great. It almost makes the paneer as my non liked item which is not the case. Ajoy and me both like paneer a lot so that is unacceptable.. Its not like i never made paneer, I had been making this for sweets regularly but didnt make it for vegetable for the good quality paneer was always available.. But since now that is not the case I decided to make this for adding it to the vegetables too. Turns out i was missing so much for last few years that I didn't make it at home.


Ingredients
2 Liter Whole Milk
3 Spoon Vinegar

Method

• Bring milk to boil.
• When it almost comes to boil add in vinegar mixed with cup of cold water and stir well.
• Milk will cuddle and separate from whey.
• Pour this into the cheese or muslin cloth and let water drain out.
• Run in cold water through it to let it come to room temperature. Tie the muslin cloth tightly.
• Fill in the cooker fully with water and keep it on top of the paneer. Let it rest overnight.

Notes
Lot of people use lemon juice but i like to use vinegar as it is easy to remove the sour taste that it brings in and paneer gets its own taste.
Don't use half and half for this, the paneer would be too creamy and wont give you the texture you need in the paneer. Whole milk or reduced fat milk would be perfect for this.

Since childhood my favourite fruit was Fig more than even mango.. With known love i share for mango it would be hard to believe but its true :) Whenever i had to choose something while playing i would always pick fig.. Then as i grew up i was introduced to Sujata's (the famous ice-cream parlour in pune) fir ice-cream... Even till date whenever I go to pune i have atleast a tub of fig ice-cream.. So now you might wonder how come i waited so long to make this ice-cream then, but the thing is it was so hard to find dried figs here that I had to get them from India :) So now that I have it I couldnt wait but make this awesome gelato..


Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
250g Dried Fig
3/4 Cup Honey
1 Spoon Lemon Juice

Method

• Soak the figs in two cup of milk. Keep aside for atleast two hours
• In a mixie grind the soaked fig to paste, keeping aside 4-5 figs.
• Add in lemon juice and honey and blend again.
• Add this paste to remaning milk and stir well.
• Set the ice-cream as per ice-cream maker instructions.
• Dice the remaining figs and mix it in the set ice-cream.

Notes
I dont like to wait after i start making ice-cream, so I use chilled milk. Also while soaking figs, i keep them in fridge that way they chill too and i dont need to wait for the mixture to chill before i put it in ice-cream maker.

Its been a while since Seattle saw sun barring couple of days last week so having barbeques in patio is long gone time. But this is my effort to feel like those beautiful sunny evenings.. I came up with recipe on my own as I started adding spices but the taste was so good that i cant wait to fry remaining prawns tomorrow night.


Ingredients
3/4 Kg Prawns
1 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Cup Thick Curd
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Clean the prawns shells and marinate it with salt.
• Add in ginger paste, chilli powder, corriander powder, jeera powder, garam masala, turmeric powder and mix well. Keep aside for atleast half an hour.
• Add oil to a pan and heat it really well.
• In the earlier marinated prawns, add in tandoori masala and curd. Mix well. Add this mixture onto the heated pan.
• Let the prawns cook on medium heat without flipping or stirring them till the side is completely done. Then flip them and cook the otherside too. Take of the heat and serve.

Notes
Cooking on medium heat and not flipping the prawns serves as great trick to get that tandoori-charred-smoky flavour that any authentic tandoori dishes have.

Kadboli is Maharashtrian faral dish. You might wonder why am i posting this after so many months of diwali. But given that world cup has started in full swing, i thought it would be good to have some crunchy home made snack instead of just plain chips. So late on sunday I decided to make them whole lot of kadbolis and soon realised that it is too much of work to shape them. Thats when I came up with the idea of using chakali gun with this disc to shape them instead. With these they are bite size and make perfect snack for movies or games :)


Ingredients
4 Cup Rice Powder
3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix rice powder with butter and salt really well
• Add in milk and make the dough
• Take a small lemon sized balls and roll them with hand and make a long rope shape. Give it in a shape of circle. Fry in medium hot oil till pink in color
• Alternately, put in the dough in the chakali gun and press the circular shapes in the medium hot oil and fry till pink in color

Notes
Dont fry till brown in color as the color darkens a bit after a while.

To all the blogger readers Happy New year. After rejuvenating holidays this is my first post of the new year. Well I had made these parathas the day Ajoy came from India but its today I finally get to post the recipe. The parathas are very simple easy, using whatever I had in fridge but the end product was very tasty.


Ingredients
2 Cup Corn
2 Cup Wheat Flour
Handful of Coriander Leaves
5 Garlic Cloves
2 Green Chillies
1/2 Lemon
Chaat Masala
Salt to taste
Ghee
Oil

Method

• Add in a spoon of oil in the wheat flour. Add water and knead the soft dough. Keep it aside.
• Microwave the corn for two minutes.
• In a mixie add in garlic, coriander, green chillies, corn, lemon juice and salt and make a smooth paste.
• Make lemon sized dough balls and roll two rotis.
• On one roti, spread the corn-coriander paste, roll over the second roti and close the sides.
• On hot tawa, cook it over medium flame with ghee and oil.
• Sprinkle a pinch of chaat masala on top and serve with pickle and cold curd

Notes
I microwaved the corns instead of boiling them as its quick and easy but if you don't have microwave you can always boil them with water and then let the water drain out.