Melt in your mouth Doughnuts

My little one is a crazy fan of doughnuts. Our Apartment complex was having a small fair for Durga Puja and there was this do-nut guy whom my son gave continous business for those 4-5 days. Once the fair was over my son decided it was best to get mamma to make it for him.

I was flabbergasted. I have never made them. No clue about how to make them. Non-baking recipes is not my forte as you know! But this request had to be met :)

So I set out and googled, got some good recipes and made them. They were liked both by my hubby and my son alike!! So I want to share this simple recipe for making doughnuts.

You will need:

Warm water - 1/4cup

Yeast - 2 1/4 tsp (1 packet)

Warm milk - 1/2-3/4 Cup

Butter - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 2 tbsp

Egg - 1

Wheat flour - 2-3 cups

Oil for Deep frying

For the glaze:

Powdered Sugar - 1 cup

Water - 3 tbsp

Butter - 2tbsp

Vanilla - 2 drops

Method:

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Set aside till froths.

Now take the milk and add the sugar, butter and mix well.

Add the egg and mix again.

Now add the Wheat Flour slowly little at a time and keep mixing.

If the batter is a little watery you may add some more wheat flour.

Once the batter is ready let it rest in a warm place covered with a muslin cloth in a well oiled bowl.

After an hour take this out and knead for a couple of minutes and using a rolling pin make a round circle of the dough. You may need to use dry flour generously before rolling in order to avoid the dough from sticking.

Using a Coffee mug and a small bottle cap shape the dough in to D0ughnuts.

Let them rest for another 45 minutes or so in a flat plate till they are well risen.

Prepare the glaze by dissolving the sugar, water, vanilla and butter in a bowl.

Now fry these in oil on medium heat, in a pan with say 2" of oil till golden brown. Drain and keep aside.

Now dip one side of the doughnut into the glaze and keep aside for the glaze to set.

Enjoy your doughnut with milk, coffee or tea!!

Cooking with Leftovers - Part 2 - Bread Pudding

For all those vegetarians out there here is an easy and quick dessert to cook up and with leftovers. Some cold milk straight from the fridge and some stale bread is what you need to whisk this dessert. By stale I mean the last few pieces that keep lying there waiting for salvation :) not knowing whether they will end up in the dustbin or will be given away to the maid. These pieces tend to be a little harder and are best suited for this recipe.

Without writing my usual stories this time I just want to get with the recipe for a change :)

You will need:

• Bread - 2-3 cups, cut into bite sized pieces


• Cold Milk - 2-3 cups


• Sugar - 3/4 cup


• Raisins - A handful


• Ghee - 2-3 tbsp

Method:

1. Take a pan and rest the bread pieces on the bottom of the pan.


2. Add the cold milk on top of this bread pieces. Basically the bread peices should be completely immersed in the milk. Else you can add some more cold milk.


3. Let the bread pieces soak in this milk for an hour or so.


4. Now turn on the heat and let the milk simmer slowly. This may take some time and you may have to stir it once in a while.


5. Once the bread and milk are all combined add the sugar.


6. Keep stirring at this point in time and add the ghee.


7. Continue stirring and ensure that the pudding does not get burnt.


8. Finally add the raisins into the pudding.


9. The Bread Pudding is ready to serve. Although I must say that it is better eaten cold then warm.

An interesting thing to note that this pudding is somewhat similar to the baked version except that this does not have any eggs. Enjoy your Pudding!!

P.S: You do not need to cut the sides of the bread.

Urad Dal Laddu

Diwali is a time when I try Indian sweets!! As you all know I am a baker at heart and do not like the no-baking sweets so much since most of them are laden with ghee or are fried.

But during Diwali I let go of all my calorie consciousness and gorge on all the yummy sweets!! Once a year I guess its okay to indulge!!

This year I was contemplating on what sweet to make. Last year I started this blog with the oh-so-sweet Rasgulla and it started my journey in blogosphere. This year I wanted to do something different.

I finalized on two interesting recipes that I had never tried before. And I must say they were quite a success with my family.

One of them is the Urad Dal Laddu. My MIL says that this laddu is traditionally made and consumed during the winter season. Since Diwali marks the onset of Winter I thought there can't be a better choice.

Urad Dal is considered a highly nutricious among lentils and is used in combination with rice to prepare a variety of breakfast dishes like dosa, idli etc. But this recipe breaks the barrier of this lentil into the dessert arena :)

It is an easy to make yet yummy mithai to adorn your Puja Thali..So here goes the recipe!

You will need:

1. 2 Cups of White Lentil/ Urad Dal(split and dehusked)
2. Fistful of Rice
3. 1 1/2 cup of sugar (Powdered)
4. 1/2 cup Ghee
5. 1/2 cup of Cashews (broken)
6. 1/2 cup of Raisins

Method:

• Dry Roast the Urad Dal and the Rice till the Dal is medium brown. You can see the raosted Dal in the photo below.

• Now cool this mixture in a plate and grind this into consistency that is not fine but not coarse. Probably like of chiroti sooji or fine semolina consistency.
• Now take little bit of the ghee in a pan and once the ghee is hot add the broken cashews and the raisins and fry till they are brown.
• Switch off the gas and remove the cashew and raisins from the pan into a plate. You may coarsely grind this so it can incorporated into the laddu easily.
• Now in this pan add the urad dal and rice mixture. Add the powdered sugar and the rest of the ghee.
• Finally add the cashews and raisins and mix well with hand.
• Try taking fistful of this mixture and test if you can make a round ball out of it.
• If you can then make laddus of the same size. If you can't you may need to add some more ghee.
• Once all the laddus are done you need to store it in air tight containers for them to last for a long time. Enjoy!!

This is my first time making laddus with help from my MIL of course who has the patience to answer all my crazy questions and thanks to her I guess I have to a certain extent mastered the trick to make laddus!

Dual Celebrations - Festival of lights & First Birthday of my Blog

Happy Diwali to one and all!! May this year bring you closer to achieving your dreams :)

Diwali is all about celebrating with family and friends
Over crackers and
On shopping for gold and silver
On decorating the home with flowers and rangoli
On lighting up your home with little diyas
On making homemade goodies with your family...

Talking about which I just completed celebrating Diwali with my family. It was amazing. They say reaching a destination is not half as good as the journey itself.

It holds so good when it comes to preparing for Diwali. It literally tires you out. But once the puja is done and the house is sound asleep the only thing that I can remember is not the Puja itself but the painstaking flower rangoli that we manage to come up with every year, the night out to make those mithais and namkeen that are needed for the Puja..The list is endless..

I do not want to post any recipe tonight since I am really tired, but just want to wish everyone out there a great year ahead!!

Although my next post will have the details of the mithai that I made along with my MIL!!!

Oh!! and also I am so excited to have been completed one year of successful food blogging and am thrilled!! Dual celebrations indeed!!

Amla Pickle

I have now officially graduated to make more sophisticated stuff that moms are famous for!! I made some pickle and surprise, surprise. It did come out very well to my amusement!

It all started during lunch time when S had got some homemade andhra style amla pickle made by her aunt. I was smitten!! I told her to give me the recipe and she promised to do so. Little did she know how much adament I am when it comes to getting hold of traditional recipes :) When she was visiting her hometown I called her and got the recipe thanks to her co-operative aunt who told all the little details.

Next stop was the Supermarket and I was all set. I was warned that this is not the season to make pickle but determined I was!!

Amla or Hogplum or the Indian Gooseberry is an amazing fruit with extraordinary benefits. You can read all about it here. This pickle made of Amla is very easy to make and tastes so good.

You will need:

• Amla - 1 kg



• Groundnut Oil - 1 1/2 cup (for frying)



• Groundnut Oil - 1/2 cup (for tempering)



• Salt - 4-5 tbsp



• Chilli Powder - 4 tbsp



• Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tbsp



• Tamarind - 1 ball the of meduim apple



• Mustard Seed - 2 tbsp (tempering)



• Jeera - 1 tbsp



• Methi or Fenugreek Seeds and Mustard seeds- 1 tbsp each (Dry Roast)



• Chana Dal - 2 tbsp



• Water 2 cups



• Garlic - 4 whole (peeled and minced roughly)

Method

1. Cut and de-seed the Amla.



2. Dry it in the sun for about a couple of hours till the moisture has been removed.



3. Dry roast the methi and mustard. Once done, cool it and powder it. Set aside for later use.



4. Heat the groundnut oil for frying and fry the amla for 5-10 min till Amla is brown.



5. Strain and cool the Amla.



6. Take salt and haldi in 1 cup of water and bring it to boil. Once bubbly, simmer it for about 5 -10 minutes. Set aside to cool.



7. Take the tamarind and bring it to boil in 1 cup water, simmering when the mixture thickens, for about 10 minutes. Cool it.



8. Once the tamarind paste is cooled extract the paste through a sieve removing any seeds impurities. Set aside.



9. Now add the tamarind paste and the salt-haldi mixture in a dry bowl. Add the chilli powder, Amla and the raosted and ground methi-mustard seed powder. Mix well with a dry spatula.



10. For the tempering, heat the oil. Add Jeera, Mustard, Chana Dal and Garlic and fry till the spices and garlic are well browned.



11. Cool this mixture and then add it to the amla mixture.



12. Transfer the amla pickle into an air tight container.



13. If you find that the pickle is dry, add some oil (boiled and cooled) to the mixture.



14. Enjoy your pickle with Rice or Rotis!!

P.S: Mine didn't last for a long since it got over :) I am making some more right now!!!