This one is my father's favorite ice-cream and when I was small, i never liked it that much. Then, it was always fig ice-cream which I ended up having. But last few years, I have started liking saffron for the flavor and color it gives, so when mom dad were here I decided to make it. Then I couldn't click the photo nor could i click after that around 4 times I prepared this one. So this time, i made sure to click one before the ice-cream got over :)


Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
1 Cup Pistachios
2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Spoon Saffron

Method

• In a half liter milk add in sugar and blend it in mixer.
• In a bowl take a cup of milk and bring it to boil. Add in saffron and mix well till the milk turns bright yellow.
• Mix remaining milk and the boiled milk with milk that was sweetened earlier.
• In a mixer make pistachio powder and mix it in the milk.
• Add in cream and mix well. Keep the mixture in the fridge for an hour.
• Add the mixture to the ice-cream maker and let it set.

Notes
Its important to boil the milk and add in the saffron for the flavor to mix well with the milk.
Also mixture needs to be kept in fridge otherwise it's warmth wont let it set in the ice-cream maker.

Last week I had got strawberries to make jam :) But the week was hectic and i couldn't get myself slogging for an hour or two in kitchen so instead yesterday i decided to make icecream instead. I was little skeptical for this was first time i was trying it out and serving without knowing how it is going to turn out added to the nervousness. Glad everyone enjoyed it and that surely calls for this post.


Ingredients
5 Cup Milk
3.5 Cup Cream
1.5 Kg Strawberries
4 Cup Sugar
1/2 Lemon

Method

• In a mixer, blend 1Kg of strawberries and sugar together till smooth. Transfer it to bowl.
• Add in milk and whisk till smooth.
• Add in cream and lemon juice and again whisk till consistent.
• In ice-cream maker pour this mixture in batches according to your ice-cream maker's capacity.
• Chop remaining strawberries, and when ice-cream is almost set ad them to the ice-cream and let the ice-cream maker set the ice-cream.
• Freez for another hour or two to get the best results.

Notes
I saved few strawberry pieces so I could add them on top while serving ice-cream.

At Hardik and Shweni's farewell party, there was this mango mousse cake that I liked a lot. The first bite into it and I wanted to make my own cake :) In fact the cake was such a hit that people wanted to leave Seattle so that they get farewell and this cake :) When everybody were talking about this, I was quite and when they turned to me, somebody mentioned: "No, Sheetal doesn't need to leave Seattle, she will make it herself :)". I thought the expectations from me are rising, so i didn't say anything that time, but that was the very moment I had decided to try this out over weekend itself. The one we ate had used artificial mango flavor, I decided to use using Alphonso mango pulp, the taste has come out really well. Now I just need to invite all the party attendees to validate if Cake is at least as good as the one they had got :)


Ingredients
1 Cup Maida
3 Eggs
200g Cream Cheese
3 Cup Whipping Cream
5 Cup Alphonso Mango Pulp
1 Spoon Corn Starch
2 Spoon Milk Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Powder
1.75 Cup Sugar
4 Spoon Gelatin
4 Spoon Lemon Juice
2 Spoon Oil
1.25 Spoon Vanilla Essence
1/4 Spoon Salt

Method

• Preheat oven at 350F/175C.
• Sieve through Maida, corn starch 5 times. Add in milk powder, baking powder and sieve couple of times. Keep aside
• In a standing mixer whip egg whites and salt together till foamy.
• Add in 1/4 Cup Sugar and whip till peaks can hold. Keep aside.
• In a bowl whisk egg yolks, 1/2 Spoon Vanilla Essence and 1/4 cup Sugar and whisk till sugar dissolves.
• Add in oil and another 1/2 spoon Vanilla Essence and whisk for 30 seconds.
• Carefully fold in egg whites.
• Fold in Maida mixture 1/3rd at a time. Don't over stir.
• Line the springform or any 9inch round baking pan with parchment paper, grease it and pour in the batter.
• Bake the cake in oven at 350F/175C for 20 minutes.
• Immediately take out the cake on the wire-rack and let it cool down.
• In the mean time, in a pan heat 1/4 Cup Sugar and 1/4 Cup Water together with stirring till it boils. Let it cook for another 2-3 minutes and then take off the heat. Add in 1/4 Spoon Vanilla Essence and let the mixture cool down a bit.
• While the sugar syrup is cooling down, in a bowl whip cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and 2 spoon lemon juice together till soft.
• Heat 1/4 Cup Water in microwave for 1 minute. Add in 2 spoon gelatin and mix till it dissolves completely. Whip it in cream cheese mixture.
• In separate bowl, whip whipping cream till its fluffy and can hold peaks. Fold it in the cream cheese mixture.
• Fold in 3 cup mango pulp till mixture is smooth consistency.
• Now divide the cake into two layers. Put one layer at bottom of the 9inch springform pan. Brush 1/2 of sugar syrup over the cake. Pour in half of mango cream mixture. smooth it with spatula. Put the second layer of cake, brush it with remaining sugar syrup. Pour remaining mango cream mixture and smooth it with spatula. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
• After the cake has refrigerated for 45 minutes, take remaining 2 cup mango puree in bowl, add in 2 spoon lemon juice and heat it over medium flame. Cook the mixture till its hot, don't let it boil or you will loose the flavor. Take off heat.
• In a bowl microwave 1/4 cup of water for 1 minute. Add in remaining 2 spoon gelatin and let it dissolve completely. Mix this mixture in mango puree and stir thoroughly. Let it stand still so that its warm to touch. Stir the mixture again.
• Take off the cake from refrigerator and pour the mango puree over all over the cake. It should form uniform layer over the cake.
• Refrigerate for at least 8 hours before serving. Remove the ring, decorate with fruits and cut into pieces.

Notes
The second layer of cake if is of same diameter as the spring form cake, cut its side so that when you remove the cake there is only base layer visible. My cake was fluffy in the middle so when i cut it into two layers, the top one was automatically less in diameter so worked out perfect.
If you let the cake cool out in pan itself, it will stick to the pan so it is very important to flip it on wire-rack immediately.
I have used mango pulp which is sweetened hence if you are using fresh mango puree then sweeten it with sugar.
Even though process looks lengthy, after first try you will know that the process isn't tedious. Once you know what to do, it is easier and off course the end result is mind blowing :)

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.

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.

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.

Recently i started watching food network and some programs are really good.. One of them is Cup cake wars.. I was amazed at how people come up with their own recipe and create those beautiful cupcakes. So here i my share of mix and match inspired cup cake.


Ingredients
4 Cup Maida
3 Cup Dates
2 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
2 Cup Cream
1 Cup Icing Sugar
1.5 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Lemons
1 Spoon Baking Powder
1/4 Spoon Baking Soda
Salt to taste

Method

• Grind a cup of dates in with the milk to form smooth paste. Keep aside.
• Whip sugar and butter using hand mixer till mixture is smooth and fluffy
• Add eggs and blend well to get smooth mixture.
• Sieve Maida, Baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
• Add it to the butter, sugar - egg mixture in portions alternating with milk-date mixture, beating well with each addition.
• Add in remaining 2 cups of dates - chopped and a lemon's peel grated and as well as its juice. Mix lightly till combined.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Line the cupcake pan with the cupcake paper cups and fill each of them to 2/3rd with the cake batter
• Bake the cakes at 350F/180C for 25 minutes. Keep aside to cool down completely.
• Add cream in a bowl and mix it with the icing sugar.
• Whip it using hand mixer on low speed till the cream becomes fluffy and stiff
• Scoop it on each cup cake or decorate using piping bag. Garnish with grated lemon peels.

Notes
I created a cone that i made from the parchment paper and piped the icing on top of few cakes and scooped the icing on others. So making cone is alternate to using piping bag :)
While whipping the cream its better to use hand mixer as its easy, fast and reliable. :)

Since my childhood, we had been making ice-creams at home. It was one of my favorite activity back then. Sometimes to make it all by myself reading the recipe that mom had written or sometimes helping her. But we had huge share of homemade ice-creams back then. In fact we didn't even have ice-cream maker that time. We use to freeze, grind it in mixer, freeze, beat, freeze and so on. The recipe needed quite some work to make it soft. So when I came here, I really wanted to buy an ice-cream maker so that I can get rid of at least that process. Sunday when the day turned out cloudy and rainy, i decided to go for shopping and that's when I found this great deal on ice-cream maker. Instantly, I grabbed it, mailed mom for the same recipe. But to my disappointment, it turned out that not all ingredients were available here. I didn't have patience for getting information about the alternatives. So instead I did some research and came up with this alternative - quick recipe. The recipe is so simple and quick that I think I am going to serve this to lot of people in next few days :) Happy to eat delicious homemade Alphonso mango ice-cream


Ingredients
1 Liter Half and Half
5 Cup Sweetened Mango Pulp
2 Cup Whipping Cream
1/2 Cup Corn Syrup
1 Cup Sugar

Method

• In a bowl mix in mango pulp and sugar. Let sugar dissolve completely.
• Add Corn Syrup and half and half in it and stir well.
• Add in whipping cream and stir lightly till the mixture is well blended together.
• Add this mixture to the ice-cream maker bowl and start the machine.
• In 25-30 minutes the ice-cream would be ready. Scoop out and serve.

Notes
I chilled all the items except corn syrup and sugar ;-) before the processing itself, but if you like you can make the mixture ready and then chill it for and hour at least. The mixture can also be stored in glass container for future use later.(that's what I have done)
I used half and half so that i dont have to boil the milk to half and then chill it. So in case you don't have half and half you can boil the milk until halve and let it cool.
You need to freeze the ice-cream maker bowl a day in advance as per the instructions of the machine.

I was looking for variations in paneer and came across Paneer Pasanda Recipe on youtube. I really liked the way the dish was done, especially paneer stuffing and hence I came up with this one after few alterations to the recipe.


Ingredients
400gm Paneer
2 Spoon Raisins
1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves
2 Green Chillies
1/2 Spoon Maida
1/2 Spoon Corn Flour
2 Tomatoes
1/2 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Mustard
1/2 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Kasuri Methi
1 Cup Cream
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Cut the paneer into triangle shaped pieces - medium sized
• Grate 3 pieces and rest keep aside
• With the grated paneer mix, finely chopped corriander, finely chopped green chillies and raisins. Keep aside
• For the other traingle shaped pieces, slit the paneer from diagonal side such that it gives little butter fly shape when slightly opened
• Fill-in the stuffing of -paneer and raisins that we kept aside.
• Mix maida, corn flour and water in a bowl to form paste
• Dip the stuffed paneer pieces in this mixture and keep aside.
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the stuffed paneer pieces in a pan over medium flame to light brown colour. Keep aside
• In same oil, let the mustard and jeera splutter.
• Add finely chopped tomatoes to this
• Add red chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala to this and cook till tomatoes are completely done.
• After the above mixture cools down, add kasuri methi and grind it in mixie to get smooth paste with fine particles of black mustard, jeera and kauri methi visible.
• In same pan add this paste and enough water and the fried stuffed paneer. Bring it to boil
• Add the salt and cream to this and cook for another minute or two.

Notes
I didnt cook kasuri methi before gridning, and kept its quantity little higher which gave the gravy very unique taste.

This is another dish to make ajoy eat palak apart from palak puri. I make it frequently but never thought of posting the recipe. But this time since ajoy suggested of same, I am posting it here.


Ingredients
2 Spinach
200gm Paneer
2 Tomatoes
5 Spoon Cream
1/4 Spoon Corn Flour
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1/4 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Kasuri Methi
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Boil around 4-5 cups of water and keep spinach leaves in it for couple of minutes.
• Drain the water and grind the leaves in mixie and keep aside.
• Heat little oil in a pan and let jeera splutter in it.
• Add ginger and galic paste, turmeric powder followed by finely chopped tomatoes
• Saute for a while and add red chilli powder, corriander powder, jeera powder and kasuri methi
• Cook on low flame till tomatoes are completely done.
• Grind this tomatoe gravy along with palak paste prepared earlier adding enough water.
• Boil this mixture and add the paneer cubes in it. Cook till paneer is completely cooked.
• Add cream to this mixture.
• Mix corn flour with 4 spoon of water and add it to the boiling palak paneer and its ready to serve

Notes
Adding cream and corn flour gives the thickness to the gravy. I didnt add only cream because then there wont be palak taste left in the gravy and only corn flour because then it would turn gravy very bland. Adding both gives the right flavour and thickness to the gravy

This is one of my favourite in the restaurants, Standard recipy, less spicy and yet delicious.. I had tried this a month back and it turned out amazing, but had not been keeping enough enegry to take up pics and post recipies, so when yesterday when I prepared this, I thought of posting this here.


Ingredients
300gm Boneless Chicken
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
1.5 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1 Spoon Kasuri Methi
1 Spoon Jeera
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
A pinch of Orange Red Color
1/2 Spoon Sugar
1/4 Spoon Tomato Ketchup
1 Cup Cream
4 Spoon Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Cut the chicken into rectangular pieces
• Marinate them with salt, 1 spoon red chilli powder, 1 spoon corriander powder, 1/4 spoon garlic paste and 1/4 spoon ginger paste
• Heat oil and fry the chicken pieces for 4-5 minutes. Keep them aside
• In same oil, add jeera and let it splutter.
• Add chopped onion, kasuri methi and remaining garlic paste, ginger paste, red chilli powder, corriander powder to this.
• Add water and let it boil.
• Add the finely chopped tomatoes and cook till tomatoes are completely done
• Grind this to paste in the mixer and keep aside
• In a pan, heat butter and add this paste and salt to it
• Mix 1/2 cup of water and orange color and add it to the gravy.
• Add sugar, ketchup and fried chicken pieces and bring to boil
• Switch the flame to low and add cream and cook for 4-5 minutes

Notes
While adding the cream dont forget to switch the flame to low as otherwise it wont mix properly

I really love methi malai muttor. Since long time I was trying to get the exact taste which i like of this vegetable.. Then I talked to Shrinkhla and she gave her authentic punjabi recipe of methi malai muttor. And it worked out amazing for me. So here is the recipe :)


Ingredients
2 Bunches Methi leaves
1 Cup Fresh Cream
2 Cup Muttor
1/4 spoon Jeera
A pinch of Asafoetida
A pinch of Cardamom Powder
A pinch of Cinnamon Powder
A pinch of Cloves Powder
1 Onion
1/2 spoon Khus Khus (poppy seeds)
1.5 spoon Sugar
5-6 spoon Curd
15-20 Cashews
1 Green Chilli
1/4 spoon Ginger paste
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

• Boil 4-5 cups of water with salt
• Add the finely chopped methi leaves in this hot water and keep for 5 minutes
• Remove the Methi from water and also remove the excess water and keep aside the methi.
• Boil the muttor and keep aside
• Grind the onion, khus khus, sugar, curd, cashews, green chillie and ginger paste together
• In a bowl beat the cream to smooth consistency
• Heat ghee in a pan, add jeera and let it sputter. Add asafoetida
• Add the grinded paste in this ghee and cook on low flame till the ghee separates out
• Add the beaten cream, methi, muttor and salt to taste
• Cook till gravy takes desired consistency

Notes
Squiz out the water from methi as much as possible, otherwise the gravy becomes little greenish(thats what happened to the one I cooked)
I think soaking cashes and khus khus for some time before grinding it would help in making fine paste. (thats how i do it for other recipies) I am going to try this one.
If the gravy is too thin, then mix 1/4 spoon of corn flour with water and add it to gravy to get the desired thickness. If the gravy is too thick you can add little milk to make it thinner.

For Ajoy's Bday I planned to prepare Pineapple Pastry.. Earlier since I had 'not so good' experience with the cream I did quite a lot of R&D before preparing this one. And the end result turned out quite good :)


Ingredients
1.5 cup Maida
2 spoon Baking powder
1/2 spoon Eating Soda
1 cup spoon powdered Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
2 spoon butter
4 Eggs
1/2 spoon Pineapple Essence
1 cup Fresh Cream
1 cup tinned Pineapple
2 spoon Pineaaple syrup
1/4 cup tinner Cherries
Icing Sugar
A pinch of Salt

Method

• Sieve maida, baking powder, eating soda and salt together around 8-10 times to form properly mixed flour
• Heat milk in a pot, when it boils mix butter with it and keep aside
• Prepare the pan for baking the cake by coating it with butter, puting a butter paper of the size of the bottom of the vessel on it and applying butter again to the paper
• Heat the oven to 200C
• Now separate the egg white and yellows
• Beat the egg white till it thickens
• In a egg yolk, mix powdered sugar a spoon at a time till sugar is completely mixed with the yolk
• Now mix the maida flour sieved earlier with this egg yolk mixture, spoon by spoon
• Add the pineapple essence to the mixture and mix well
• Add egg white and mix well
• Add milk and butter mixture to this and mix well
• Add this mixture to the pan that was earlier prepared for baking
• Bake the cake in microwave + convection mode at 180W and 180C for 15 minutes
• Keep aside for cooling
• Whip the cream well, first slowly and then increase the speed.
• When the cream becomes about double the original size, mix icing sugar and whip well
• Cut the cake into half to get the 2 round cakes of half the thickness of the original cake
• Spread the syrup on both the halves
• Spread half of the cream and half of pineapple pieces (finely chopped)on one portion of the cake
• Keep the other portion of the cake on top of it and spread remaining cream all over the cake including its sides. You can form texture on the cake or keep it plain. I made texture using fork.
• Spread the pineapple pieces and cherries on top of the cake to decorate it

Notes
While mixing the egg white and milk in the cake mixture, mix it slowly and with care.
Cover the cakes with moist tissue paper or moist cloths so that the cake remains moist.
Also I found that the Amul Cream I had used earlier wasn't good enough for preparing the cream. It has very low contents of fat. I got the cream from the mithai shop this time and it was quite thick. One needs thick cream for whipping the cream. The cream is available in local mithai shops or dairies.

Last sunday i desperately wanted to prepare black forest at home. But we didn't have proper glassware for baking cake and i wanted to prepare it in the nice new glassware. So at around 12noon we started with the search for the glassware. It was 10pm when we actually got the stuff after going to every other shop. Weekdays had been little busy so i couldn't try my hands on the cake during week.. So today the first thing i did after the breakfast was preparing the cake.. Now comes the flop part, when i was ready with two cakes, I had put the cream on them and cream was so thin that it just slipped from the cake. So it was ajoy who kept on adding the cream in the dish on the cake and we came up with this delicious cake :)


Ingredients
3/4 cup Maida
2 spoon Coca powder
1 spoon Baking powder
1/4 spoon Eating Soda
1/2 cup + 4 spoon powdered Sugar
1/4 cup Milk
1 spoon butter
2 Eggs
1/4 spoon Vanilla Essence
1/2 cup Fresh Cream
1 medium sized Cadbury bar
1/4 cup tinned cherries
2 spoon cherry syrup
A pinch of Salt

Method

• Sieve maida, coca powder, baking powder eating soda and salt together around 8-10 times to form properly mixed flour
• Heat milk in a pot, when it boils mix butter with it and keep aside
• Prepare the pan for baking the cake by coating it with butter and puting a butter paper on it
• Heat the oven to 200C
• Now separate the egg white and yellows
• Beat the egg white till it thickens
• In a egg yolk, mix 1/2 cup powdered sugar a spoon at a time till sugar is completely mixed with the yolk
• Now mix the maida flour sieved earlier with this, spoon by spoon and then vanilla essence.
• Add egg white and mix well
• Add milk and butter mixture to this and mix well
• Add this mixture to the pan that was earlier prepared for baking
• Bake the cake in microwave + convection mode at 180W and 180C for 15 minutes
• Keep aside for cooling
• Mix the cream and 4 spoon sugar well
• Grate the Cadbury bar and keep aside
• Cut the cake into half
• Spread the syrup on both the halves
• Spread half of the cream, half of cherries and half of grated chocolate on one portion of the cake
• Keep the other portion of the cake on top of it and spread remaining cream, grated chocolate and cherries on top of it
• Cream might flow down into the dish, put it back on the cake till cake is completely sinked in the cream

Notes
I had prepared oval shape cake so the final version looked like sinking boat.
Also While mixing the egg white and milk, mix it slowly and with care.

This one is the another item we had from the bottle gourd we had got. The parathas were amazing and tasted good..


Ingredients
2 cups grated Bottle Gourd
Wheat flour(around 6-7 spoon heaps)
1 cup corriander leaves
2 spoon fresh cream (malai)
1 spoon garlic ginger paste
1 spoon turmeric powder
2 spoon red chilli powder
Salt
Oil

Method

• Cook grated bottole gourd in cooker without mixing water with it
• Grind cooked bottle gourd, ginger garlic paste and turmeric powder
• Mix finely chopped corriander leaves, red chilli powder, salt to taste, fresh cream and a spoon of oil
• Add wheat flour that the mixture can take to form the dough for parathas
• Keep aside the dough for around half an hour
• Roll parathas and heat on tawa on medium heat

Notes
You can optionally add around half cup of finely chopped methi leaves as well