I don't even remember now how I came up with this, may be it was when I was trying to come up with lighter cake, but it was instant success. I have made this so many times and recently almonds with white chocolate with lemon cream I got from Costco reminded me of this taste. Cant wait to make this one again. One of the lightest and fluffiest cake I have made.


Ingredients
1.5 Cup - 1.5 tbsp. maida
1.5 tbsp Corn Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1.5 Cup + 1 tbsp Sugar
2 Lemons
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup Oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar

Method

• Preheat oven to 325F/165C
• Sieve through maida, corn flour, baking soda, salt and 1.5 cup of sugar together
• Separate egg whites from yolk.
• Beat egg whites till they are foamy
• Add in cream of tartar and beat till soft peaks are formed
• Add in remaining 1 tbsp. of sugar and beat till hard peaks are formed. Keep aside
• In a bowl beat egg yolk, zest of both the lemons, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, oil, vanilla essence and 2/3 cup of water together.
• Add in the sieved flour mixture and beat till smooth
• Fold in egg whites 1/3 at a time very gently till all the mixture is incorporated.
• Grease 8.5inch loaf pan and pour the cake batter in it.
• Bake in oven at 325F/165C for 45 minutes. Take out of oven and let it cool.

Notes
To measure maida and corn starch, first measure 1.5 tbps of corn flour and add it to the bottom of the cup and then add in more maida till it is 1.5 cup. You can instead use cake flour 1.5 cup instead of these two ingredients but maida and corn starch mixture is replacement for the same.

When it came to making something quick and delicious for our home's ground breaking ceremony last year, I made these. What another way to revive the blog than to post this one :)


Ingredients
12 Oz Khawa
1.5 Cup Sugar
2.5 Cup Milk Powder
1/2 Cup Milk
Pinch of Cardamom Powder
Pinch of Saffron
2 Spoon Pistachios
Ghee

Method

• Grate khawa and mix it with sugar, milk powder and cardamom powder.
• Heat milk with saffron for 20 seconds in microwave.
• In a thick pan add ghee and khawa mixture and cook on low heat with constant stirring.
• Add in heated saffron milk after a minute or two.
• Cook the mixture till its semi solid with constant stirring
• Take it off the heat and let it cool for 5 minutes.
• Slice the pistachios
• Make small balls of the mixture and press each ball with pistachio slice on its top.

Notes
When making pedhas from the mixture, it should be warm. If its too cold, it might be difficult to make the smooth shape.
Stirring the khawa mixture continuously while cooking is important as the mixture is susceptible to sticking to the pan and burning.
Also I used anodized pan as it was easy to keep the mixture from sticking.

Recently I discovered magic and power of library system here. The minute I stepped into library I knew I am going to pick lot of books and variety of topics. I must have spent more than 5 hours that week just browsing through books and selecting what all I like. I got this book on the desserts and it had this recipe. First time I made, I tried word to word with few changes in ingredients but this time I changed the proportion of butter, maida as well. I loved how nice and crispy it turned out. We are now set for atleast a week of 4pm snacks :)


Ingredients
3/4 Cup Butter
2.25 Cup Sugar
6.25 Cup Maida
2 Spoon Baking Powder
2 Lemon's Zest
4 Eggs
1 Cup Almonds
1 Cup Pistachios
1 Cup Craisins
2 Spoon Fennel Seeds
1 Spoon Salt

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
• Beat butter and sugar together until combined, about a minute.
• Add in Maida, baking powder, salt and lemon zest and beat again till mixed well.
• Add in one egg at a time and beat till mixed well.
• Add in chopped almonds, pistachios, craisins and saunf and again mix well.
• Dust the flat surface with little bit of maida and pull out the mixture and knead and shape it into two 12 inch logs that are just over 1 inch in height.
• Line a baking pan with the parchment paper and transfer the logs into it.
• Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Pull the logs out of oven and let them cool down for around 10 minutes
• Using sharp knife, slice the log diagonally around 1/2 inch thick slice.
• Transfer the logs into pan with cut side facing up, bake at 350F for another 25 minutes.
• Let the biscotti cool and then transfer into the container.

Notes
I used almonds, pistachio and craisins but really you can use any nuts and dry fruits. In fact this time I forgot to add saunf but last time I made this, I had added it and it gave nice taste and everyone loved it :)
I used my kitchenaid standing mixer to beat in everything, as it was much easier that way than the hand mixer. But if you don't have it, you can use hand mixer too.

I was looking to bake something new and yet something that would be ready in couple of hours. This turned out amazing twist to the lemon bars I had made last month. Since with lemon bars I felt the presence of egg was too strong for my liking, I was interested in something that would use less egg and that's when I decided to create these using fusion of cheese cake and bar. I cant believe that this was my so far the most bold *experiment*given that I was to serve the friends who were coming over for dinner right away without any margin to recover but thankfully this turned out really great.


Ingredients
1 Cup Butter
2.25 Cup Sugar
1.5 Egg
1.5 cup Maida
2.5 Spoon Vanilla Essence
2.75 Cup Pecans
12Oz Cream Cheese
2 Pears
1/2 Spoon Cinnamon Powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
• Using handheld mixer cream the butter till very fluffy and light.
• Add in 2/3 cup of sugar and cream further.
• Add in 1 spoon of vanilla essence, sieved Maida and cream further.
• Mix in the coarsely chopped nuts.
• Grease two baking pans of 6inch in size and spread half of mixture evenly in each pan.
• Bake in oven at 350F/175C for 22 minutes.
• Let the base layer cool down in the pan itself for about 30 minutes
• After 30 minutes, with the handheld electric mixer cream the cream cheese till soft and even.
• Add in 1.5 cup sugar, egg and remaining 1.5 spoon of vanilla essence in the cream cheese and cream till soft and even.
• Cut the pears such that their center is removed and then slice them. Add in 1 Spoon of sugar and mix well. Keep aside.
• Preheat oven to 375F/190C.
• Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly in both the baking pans half in each.
• Spread the pear slices on top of this mixture.
• Sprinkle cinnamon and remaining (around 1 spoon of) sugar evenly on top of pears.
• Bake in the oven over 370F/190C for about 35 minutes.
• Take out of the oven. Let it cool for 30 minutes and then transfer it to fridge for at least another hour and then serve by making square pieces.

Notes
I know 1.5 egg is hard to measure :) but I tried using the mixture with 1 egg and 1 cheese packet but it wasn't enough to cover both pans. For the next egg, I beat the egg and took half the quantity. But in case you are baking this in single pan you could use 8-9 inch pan and use 1 egg with 1 packet of cream cheese. Note you would need to use 1 cup of sugar in that case.
I used pecan nuts because I had them available at home, but you can theoretically use any nuts, they give nice crunch and crisp taste.
I used little overripe pears so they turned out nice tender and I didn't have trouble while making pieces of the dessert.
When you take out the final bar out of the oven, there might be liquid on top, don't worry about it, it sets after the bars cool down.