Christmas fruit cake

Ingredients:
Orange juice 1 cup
Chopped dry fruits, nuts, fruits, candied fruits
Whole wheat flour 2.5 cups
Sugar 1.5 cups
Milk 1 cup
Vinegar 2 tbsp
Baking soda 1tsp
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp
Vanilla essence 1tsp
Oil 1 cup
Cardamom powder

Method:
Soak the dry fruits,nuts etc in orange juice and refrigerate in airtight container for 1-2 days

Sieve the wheat flour, baking powder, cardamom powder, cinnamon powder and keep aside. Add the soaked nuts asking with the orange juice to the dry sieved ingredients and mix
Add sugar and oil and mix
In the bowl where nuts were soaked in orange juice, pour the milk. Add vinegar to it and then spread baking soda on it. Mix thoroughly then add it to the cake mixture.
Combine the ingredients very well making sure no lumps are left

Pour the mixture half at a time and bake 2 separate cakes. 

Carrot cake

Ingredients:

Grated carrot 3/4 cup
Milk 1 cup
Sugar 1/2 cup
Oil 1/4 cup
Vinegar 1tbsp
Salt 1 pinch
Vanilla essence 1 tbsp
Baking soda 3/4 tsp
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
Wheat flour 1 cup
Nuts and tutti frutti
Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp

Method:

Mix sugar , milk, vinegar, vanilla and oil. Beat them properly. Sieve the dry ingredients together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon powder and salt. Combine the dry ingredients to the wet ones and then add the grated carrot. Mix well but not too much
Pour the batted in the cake mould.
Bake the cake at 180° for about 35 mins.

Home made pizza

Ingredients:

Pizza base
Fun foods pizza pasta sauce
Cheese spread
Cheese cubes
Veggies (onion, American corn, Bell pepper, cottage cheese)
Salsa sauce (optional)
Table salt
Black pepper
Oregano
Red chilli flakes
1 tbsp oil

Preparation for toppings:
Peel the onions and cut them, don't chop. Cut the bell peppers length wise but not too long.
Put a pan on flame, add 1 tbsp oil and let it get hot. Add the kernels of American corn and a bit of salt and saute the corn for a few minutes. Add the bell peppers and onion and saute. Add Salsa sauce, black pepper , salt and pizza pasta sauce. Put off the flame.

Method:
Preheat the microwave at 180°

Take a pizza base, cut open the base into 2 halves, not completely. Spread some cheese spread in the open pizza base. Spread the pizza pasta sauce. Then spread the vegetables topping made in the pan. Grate generous amount of cheese and put it on a high stand in preheated microwave for ~10 minutes.

Custard fruit cake

Ingredients:
Sugar 1/2 cup
Thick Curd(need not be hung) 1/2 cup
Oil 1/3 cup
Wheat flour/Maida 3/4 cup
Baking powder 1 tsp
Baking soda 1/2 tsp
Custard powder 1/4 cup
Milk 1/4 cup
Tutti frutti

Method:
Add sugar and curd in a bowl to mix. Add oil to it.
Seive atta/maida , custard powder, baking powder and baking soda together and mix it with the curd mixture in the bowl.
Add milk gradually as needed to get the required consistency.
Fold in tutti frutti.

Pre-heat the microwave at 180°
Pour the batter in the mould and bake it for around 35 minutes.

Super delicious, soft and spongy cake is ready to be savoured.

Orange pound cake

Ingredients:
Hung curd 1 cup
Sugar 1/2 cup
Orange 1
Maida(refined flour) 1 cup
Baking powder 1 tsp
Baking soda 1/2 tsp
Butter(melted) 1 cup
Tutti frutti

Method:
Mix the sugar and hung curd till the sugar dissolves in the curd. Add melted butter and mix.
Grate some orange rinds and mix them in the curd mixture.
Squeeze the orange to take out the juice and keep aside.
In a sieve, pour maida, baking powder and baking soda. Sieve them together and add them to the curd mixture.
Mix the ingredients.
Start to pour the orange juice gradually to make a cake batter. Add tutti frutti and fold in the batter.
Pre-heat microwave at 200°.
Pour the batter in a silicone mould and keep it in the pre-heated microwave for 35-40 minutes.

Mango ice cream

Ingredients:

1litre full cream milk

4 tablespoons sugar

Vanilla essence

Mango puree

Corn starch

Cardamom powder

Fresh cream

Method:

In a thick bottomed wide pan/kadahi, pour 1l milk and keep it cooking till it reduces to half the quantity. Put some cornstarch to thicken the milk, some cardamom powder to give it a nice flavour. Switch off the flame, put a few drops of vanilla essence, 4 spoons of sugar, mix properly and keep it aside to cool.

Peel a big ripe mango and puree it.

once the milk cools off, refrigerate it to solidify.

Bring it our after 4 hours.... Blend the mango puree in the solidified vanilla ice cream, blend in some cream as well and put it back to refrigerate.

Finger fries

Finger fries looks like a quick to do task, but if you need the restaurant style fries, it needs some efforts.

Ingredients:

Potatoes : peeled and cut

Oil to fry

Spices

Cold water

Method:

Wash potatoes and peel them. Cut the rounds from the top and bottom of the potatoes to have proper rectangular shape fries. Cut the potatoes into oval disks by the length of the potatoes. Cut rectangles of equal size from these disks.

Put them in cold water and refrigerate for some time. Take out the container from the fridge. Drain the water and thoroughly wash the cut pieces in running water to remove all the starch.

Spread the potato pieces on a clean piece of cloth and let them dry.

Put oil in a wok and let it heat till medium hot. Put the potato pieces in medium hot oil and keep stirring them to fry them uniformly.

Remove them from the wok as soon as they have a very light crust on them. Let the fried pieces cool down to room temperature.

Now let the oil to very hot and put the pieces that have been cooled down to room temperature to fry them for the second time.

Keep stirring continuously to uniformly fry. Once fried, remove them on kitchen towels so that the excessive oil is absorbed. But the fries in a bowl, sprinkle with spices(table salt, black pepper, chaat masala, oregano) and serve

Kofte

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd (ghiya/kaddu)

Gram flour (besan)

Oil

Salt

Red chilli powder

Method :

Grate the bottle gourd , add some salt and keep aside.

Take small quantity of grated bottle gourd in between both the hands to squeeze the extra water and put the squeezed bottle gourd in a big bowl. Once all the extra water is squeezed out of the grated bottle gourd, put a little salt, and chilli powder and mix well.

Then add gram flour to this mixture slowly to make sure the mixture binds well, but doesn't get too dry.

In a pan/kadhai, heat oil on high flame for frying. Make balls out of the bottle gourd mixture prepared above and put them in hot oil one by one. Deep fry till they turn golden brown.

Naan

Ingredients:

Maida (Refined Flour)

Curd

Baking soda

Salt

Warm water

Sesame seeds (til) - black & white

Method:

Take maida in a big open bowl, add salt and baking soda and mix well. Add a few spoons of curd and mix with the maida. Slowly start adding warm water to knead a smooth dough.

Once the dough is done, keep it aside for sometime.

To make the naan, make balls out of the maida dough. Take a mix of white and black sesame seeds in a dish plate.

Roll out one ball at a time and make a circular chapati out of it. Keep it a bit thicker than the wheat chapati. Sprinkle sesame seeds on one side and roll it a bit again so that the seeds get stuck tot he flour. Turn it upside down, apply water on the complete chapati and then put it on the tawa with the water applied side facing downwards in the tawa.

When bubbles start appearing , take the tawa and put it upside down to roast the naan while still ont he tawa. The water on the one side will help the naan to be stuck to the tawa and not fall on the gas flame.

Once roasted properly, take off the naan from the tawa, apply ghee and serve.





Goes well with daal makhani, shahi paneer

Chocolate banana cake

Ingredients:

1 banana

25g cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

60ml ghee

130 gm maida (refined flour)

1/2 tbsp vinegar

90g sugar powder

Around 200ml milk

1/2 tbsp vanilla essence

Method:

In a mixer, puree the banana. Add sugar powder to it and mix well. Pour it in a bowl. Sieve the maida, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder and add it to the banana puree. Add to it ghee, vanilla essence, vinegar and mix well. Keep adding milk in batches to make a smooth and thick flowing batter.Grease the mould. Preheat the over/microwave at 180°c. Pour the mixture in the greased mould and bake it at 180° for 25 minutes.

Rabdi - Dessert

Rabdi is a thick dessert relished in Indian households.

Ingredients:

1l full cream milk (I prefer Amul gold)

Chopped nuts

Cardamom powder

Few strands of kesar

4 tbsp sugar

Method:

In a pan/kadhai, put the full cream milk to boil. Powder the cardamom and add it to the milk. Put the strands of kesar and chopped nuts. Keep stirring the milk once in a while till it reduces to almost 1/3rd of its quantity. Turn off the gas and add 4 tbsp of sugar and mix it properly so that the sugar completely gets dissolved. Let it cool down, then refrigerate.