at 22:32

Itsy bitsy Teeny Weeny Red Polka Dot Cake

18 year ago, on this day in Hindu college, I was gifted a lovely brown teddy bear & a lovely card. And to make excuse to give me gifts, my friends received gifts as well.  After all this years, I came back home to red hearts, cards and silver chain with dangling teardrop pearls. This time the man did not have to make excuses. I am married to him for the last seven years. So many things changed yet some things remained the same. We remained the same.

This cake is for us. And it is named after one of our favorite songs called Itsy bitsy Teeny Weeny yellow Polka Dot bikini.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you my dear friend!

Ingredients for Red polka dots:

2- Eggs
1 and ½-cup flour
½-cup sugar (in case you do not want to use sugar then soak3-4 stone less dates in little milk and later blend it and use it as sweetener)
2-tablespoon of vegetable spread or ¼ cup of oil or 2-tablespoon of butter ( I used speard)
1-teaspoon baking powder
Vanilla essence
Natural red food color or use beetroot juice to make red color. Do not give too much as it might change the taste

Method:

1.  Pre heat the oven at 150C ( fan oven)

2.  Combine the sugar ( or the pulp of dates), vanilla and spread (butter) and mix well using  egg beater. Say for 5 mins

3.  When the color had changed and sugar almost melted, add one egg at a time and beat for 5 mins

4.  add flour, baking powder and the food color ( or little juice of beet root)

5.  line a cake tin and spread the cake mix on the tin

6.  bake for 35/40 mins or until when inserted a skewer it comes out dry

7.  Now cool it and cut rounds like balls from the red cake for the red polka dots. Now your polka dots are ready

Note: if you notice the photos you would realise that my polka dots are not totally round as I had cut them with hands from a big round cake. However, if you have cake pooper you would be able to bake absolutely round cakes in it

Ingredients for final cake:

2- Eggs

1 and ½-cup flour

½-cup sugar (in case you do not want to use sugar then soak3-4 stone less dates in little milk and later blend it and use it as sweetener)

2-tablespoon of vegetable spread or ¼ cup of oil or 2-tablespoon of butter ( I used speard)

1-teaspoon baking powder

Vanilla essence

 Method:

1.  Pre heat the oven at 150C ( fan oven)

2.  Combine the sugar ( or the pulp of dates), vanilla and spread (butter) and mix well using egg beater. Say for 5 mins

3.  When the color had changed and sugar almost melted, add one egg at a time and beat for 5 mins

4.  add flour, baking powder

5.  line a cake tin and position the red polka dots on the baking tray

6.  pour the cake mixture over the tray covering the polka dots

7.  bake for 35/40 mins or until when inserted a skewer it comes out dry

8.  Cool it and turn over

9.  Serve to your love one as I did

Any happy valentine’s day to you all of you!

at 20:17

Fruit and Walnut Cups: Dessert made Easy and Healthy

This is a very simple dessert and it would never fail you. Many times, it rescued me from my last minutes dessert disasters.  I usually make this dessert when I invite many people over for lunch and have gone overboard with main courses or too tired to make any puddings. Basically when I am too deep into showing off!!!!  This light dessert is full of goodness of walnuts, freshness of seasonal fruits and healthy oat biscuits and decadence of whipped cream. So after too much eating, it sort of gives a break to the over eating and fills you up with freshness of fruit and nuts.

I have also tried this one for breakfast and it was an instant hit with kiddos and adults alike. You get to feed oat, walnuts and fresh fruits minus any sugar- without any fuss to any age group. It takes about 30 minutes to make for 10 people. What more do you want?

This is my all time favorite. I hope you like it too! Enjoy making this wonderful dessert by me!

 

Ingredients (to make for 10 to serve in small dessert glasses)

30-walnuts (3 for each person but you can add more) broken you can use a blender to make dust as well. I made dust of the walnuts

15-oats biscuit (1 and ½ for each person, but you can add more) made into crumbles (I used Mcvities digestives full fat version)

10-strewberry, thinly slices

1-orange, skin off and made in to dices

7/8-any other berry

2-sharron fruit, thinly sliced

Sufficient sweet mango, small diced

1/4-cup orange juice (or any other fruit juice)

Little vanilla extract

20/25-tablespoon fresh whipping cream (homemade or store bought. I used homemade. Ideally 2 table spoon for each glass/person)

 

 Method:

1.    Mix the broken/dust walnuts with oats biscuit crumble. Combine well

2.   Add little orange juice with the walnut and biscuit mix to make it little moist but not soggy. It should remain loose and crumbly. Keep aside

3.   Mix all the mix fruits together

4.   Add vanilla with whipping cream or add vanilla in fresh cream and whip until soft peak rises. Do not over do it and make it hard

5.   Now the layering for the dessert

6.   Take a dessert glass or anything tall ( bowl would do too but for layering something glass like is nicer and easy)

7.   First layer : make with walnut and oat biscuit mix

8.   Second layer:  Top the first layer with one tablespoon of whipped cream and spread the cream around the glass

9.   Thirst layer : Top the second layer with fruits

10.                Fourth layer: top the third layer with again walnut and biscuit mix

11. Fifth layer : Top the fourth with one tablespoon of whipped cream and spread the cream around the glass

12.                Sixth layer: top the fifth layer (of cream) with fruits. Add the fruits nicely as this would be your last layer

13.                Chill for 1 hour before serving

14.                Serve as dessert or breakfast or even for picnic

Note: Layering is done to make it look beautiful. If you are eating at home on a Friday night while watching a movie, you might want to just put all ingredients together and combine and just enjoy the dessert without the hassle of layering

For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page pet pujo and adda and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at my blog here . I am featured at Networkedblogs.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!

 

at 02:28

A Decorative Swiss Roll filled with whipped Cream and Strawberry!!!!!!!

A Self Decorative Christmassy Swiss Roll !!!!!!!

I have been meaning to bake this awesome decorative Swiss roll even since I saw them at N’s facebook page. N is my little sister who is amazing at baking. Please visit her page at  Bake Bar

Then of course, I did a search in Google and found that  decorative Swiss rolls are actually very popular in Japan and it was made popular by a Japanese blog writer whose name I cannot remember ( will add later) . However, most of the recipes of the roll on the web were also in Japanese. Therefore, I mixed and matched recipes and baked my one. You can also visit,

As you can see that, my Swiss roll is not perfect.  I made few misjudgments.  First of all my baking tray was small for the amount of sponge cake mixture I had made, so the cake become little too thick, hence difficult to roll.  So keep that in mind. The cake needs to be thick enough so that you can roll it and the roll stays intact.

Secondly, I used brown sugar, which made the cake look yellowish. Had I used white sugar, the cake would have looked much better.  

Thirdly, it is easy to make this cake but little patience will result in heavenly looks. I was too fast in getting the parchment paper off the cake, resulting is pilling of the decoration in many places.

Fourth, it fell off my hand. So be careful.

Now without much ado, let’s get baking this beautiful Christmassy Swiss Roll

By the way, I also have a Facebook page    Pet Pujo and Adda Please like my page and follow by blog.

 Ingredient and method for decoration:

1 egg white
40 g flour
30 g sugar
30 g butter
few drops green color
Few drops red color

 Method:

1.     Beat  sugar and butter until smooth

2.    Add egg white and beat until soft and fluffy

3.    Add the flour and combine

4.    Separate the mixture in two bowls

5.    Add green color in one and red in other bowl for decoration

6.    Now cut a parchment paper  of the baking tray size

7.    Draw  Christmas tree  and sweet sticks alternatively all over the paper

8.    Butter the baking tray and lay the paper  making sure that no air in trapped

9.    Now using a icing tube first fill the trees with green

10. Wash the tube

11.  Now add red batter in the icing tube  and fill the red color sugar sticks with the batter

12. Freeze the tray for 30 mins so that the decoration is solid

Ingredients for Sponge Cake and method for making the Swiss Rolls

6 eggs
6 tablespoons sugar
8 tablespoons flour
Pinch of salt

 Method:

1.     Pre heat the oven at 170c

2.    Separate the egg whites and beat until fluffy, stiff and glossy

3.    Add sugar, little at a time beating in with the egg white

4.    Then add  egg yolk one at the time with the egg white- sugar mixture and beat the cake mixture

5.    Sieve  the flour with a little of salt

6.    Add the flour and salt to the cake mix and combine well

7.    Do not be too harsh on the mixture so as to lose all the air

8.    Take the baking tray out of the fridge

9.    Pour the sponge cake mixture over the decoration and bake immediately

10. Bake for 10 mins and then check if it is done.

11.  If not done in 10 mins, then cover the cake with foil and bake for another 5 mins or until done

12. Do not over bake, as it will be difficult to roll the cake and also make sure top does not become too brown

13. Let the cake cool down and then turn he cake

14. Pill the parchment paper carefully from the cake, taking care that you do not fill the decoration

15. Now turn the cake ( decorative side down)

16. Layer the cake with whipped cream and add any fruits you like. I used strawberry

17. Roll the cake

Here is your Decorative Christmassy Swiss Roll filled with whipped cream and Strawberry

Enjoy baking it and then eating it together

By the way, I also have a Facebook page    Pet Pujo and Adda  Please like my page and follow by blog

at 13:50

Durga Puja 2012: Aam Sondesh (Mango Sandesh)

Aam Sondesh/Mango Sandesh

Tomorrow is the last day of Durga Puja-Bijoya Dashami. The wait for puja seems so long and when the day of celebration finally begins, blink of an eye and it is gone. Durga Puja commemorates the annual visit of the Goddess with Her children to Her parents' home, leaving finally on the Dashami to be re-united with Shiva. This leaving ceremony is symbolised by the immersion of the idols on Dashami (called Bhasan in Bengali).After Bhasanthe day is celebrated by visiting friends and relatives with sweets, paying respect to elders by touching their feet ( pronam kora) and embracing friend and people of similar age group ( kolakuli).

Whatever we do, eating and give out sweets makes a major part of the celebration. I am making Aam sondesh or Mango Sandesh for the tomorrow.  “Sandesh is an Indian dessert. It is popular in Bengal and rest of India. Some people in the region of Dhak, Bangldesh call it Pranahara (literally, heart 'stealer') which is a softer kind of sandesh, made with mawa and the essence of curd. The most common way of making the sandesh is with the use of Chaana or cottage cheese. Chaana is the solid form which is separated by curdling milk, and it has wide application in sweet-preparation in Bengal” (straight from wiki)

Here is the recipe for mango Sandesh.

Shubho Bojoya r shubhecha sobar Jonnye! Bijaya wishes to everyone.

Mango Sandesh

 

Ingredients:

4- Litre full fat milk (makes around 20 good-sized Sandesh) (you can also use good quality ricotta)

1-cup sweet mango pulp

2-tablespoon sugar, dust

4-lemon, juice

 

Method:

1. Boil the milk, curdled it using juice of lemon
2. Drain the water and hang the chana/cottage cheese
3. Knead the chana / cottage cheese with the heel of your palm for 10 minutes until it become soft and smooth.
4. Add little sugar and knead for sometime more
5. Take a pan and add sweet mango pulp.
6. Warm the pulp and add kneaded chana
7. Keep stirring the chana until the pulp is mixed well with mango and it has become slightly dry. But do not keep it on heat for long as the chana will become very hard ( kora pak)
8. Mould them off when they are still warm. Make round shape and make a hole in the middle
9. Add some more mango pulp in the hole
10. If the chana becomes too dry, warm them up again
11. Serve at room temperature.

 

at 00:18

A Dark Chocolate Ganache Cake with Chocolate caraque and a little bit of French desire

Sunday was a great day. We started the day with lovely parsi breakfast, akuri with bread followed by fried chicken sausage, English breakfast tea and finally scones and cream. That does not end there. We had dal paratha with yoghurt and coriander chutney for lunch. All thanks to J. And then the icing on the cake-watching English Vinglish. Well no, not the movie but it is the French man (actor Mehdi Nebbou) I am talking about. Suddenly that good-looking man (ohhhhhhhhhhhJ) , his attraction towards the main protagonist, a married Indian woman and her trying best not to get attracted brought back a lively discussion that we used to have so often: women’s boundary and  pressure of being sati savitris. The movie is handled very well until this love angle comes in and then suddenly, I do not know why the director feels the need to restrain the flow- fall little in love but never cross the boundary, give dialogue like “I do not need love I need respect” and of course the perennial funda on importance of family. Well maybe I should not blame her. The film needed to be mass accepted without stirring too much commotion.

Would the film be differently accepted had the married women left the house or had a sexual relationship with the French man, crossed her boundary? Although lot of people say that we have matured as audience, I am not sure whom are they talking about: the urban multiplex viewer, or the intellectuals who only goes for film festivals or rest of janta? Why do I say so? I work with women who have experienced violence (domestic or other form) and most form of violence revolves around women’ role and expected boundary. 90% women I work with fails to come out of the relationship breaking the boundary and end up reconciling, most of them does not recognize violence until they have been almost killed, emotional and psychological violence are yet to be even established as violence ( in the movie sridevi is cleary  violated emotionally by husband and children). And these women I work with come from families who are multiplex viewer, or the intellectuals who only goes for film festivals or rest of janta.

Was the protagonist’s not knowing English the only reason for her to be belittled all the time? What about other hidden method: laddo making not as important as office going husband’s job, not knowing English equal to not having confidence, little importance of women’s household work, father vs mother ( men vs women). The typical conformation that we all accept every day- leave your tea and serve other, who gets the newspaper  first thing in the morning and all this which should have changed with English learning does not really change. So what was the point of learning English? So learn English or not, our fate is really sealed- be in the boundary! Either you do it yourself or we will make you do it. And if nothing works we will bring in children and family value in good measure. Can we think about a movie where the man is ridiculed for not knowing English? Well there are serials which shows unsuccessful husband but then there the wife is a bitch who is working and villainous. At the end, we do not like women beyond the boundary after all.

Well my mind is very convoluted now. Best I get back to it at a later time. For now, let us bake the cake!

I baked it for R to celebrate his homecoming. I usually like being alone and take the time as an occasion to celebrate myself. However, this time, it was difficult without R. with a horrible work and house hunting got the best of me. I could not wait for R to get back home. Hence the cake: he loves dark chocolate cake and is an easy substitute for black forest.

 

I hope one of you would bake it and share the photo at my Facebook account www.facebook.com/petpujoandadda

Ingredients for the Cake

 2-Eggs
170gm-Flour
100gm- Light muscovado Sugar (or brown sugar or plain sugar)
100gm- Light vegetable spread (I used flora pro cholesterol)
100 gm- dark Coco Powder
1-teaspoon baking powder
1-teaspoon granulated coffee
75ml buttermilk
¼-teaspoon salt

Ingredients for the Ganache

200gm-dark chocolate
200ml double cream
2-teaspoon castor sugar (optional)

Ingredients for whipped cream filling

600ml-Fresh double cream

 

Method for the cake:

 

1.    Pre heat the oven to 170c
2.    Lightly butter loose bottom (spring form cake tin) and dust it with little flour. Line the tin with baking paper
3.    Shift flour, baking powder,coco powder and salt together and keep aside
4.    Place the vegetable spread (or the butter or oil), sugar in a bowl and beat with a electric mixture until light and fluffy.  Beat in the egg one at a time
5.    Fold in the flour, baking powder coco powder  and salt mixture in the egg, butter and sugar mixture.
6.    Add butter milk
7.    Fold carefully not to disturb the air bubble in the cake mixture
8.    Shift the mixture in the prepared cake tin
9.    Bake for 40-50 mins until firm and springy.  Insert a screwier in the middle of the cake. It comes out clean, that means cake is done. The timing might vary depending on oven used 
10. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for five minutes before turning out onto a wire rack

11. Once cold, cut the cake horizontally into two separate rounds  and spread them on two different places

Method for whipping cream:

12.  Whipping Cream: Pour the cream in to bowl, add bit of powdered white sugar (optional but very little sweetness in cream tastes wonderful) and whip either by hand using a balloon whisk or hand mixture.  Whisk them until they form a soft peak (Lift the mixer and if the little peaks gently curves that is soft peaks)

13. Place the last layer of the cake on a cake base or wherever you want to have the cake on. Spread the cake discs with whipped cream.

14. Top the first layer of cake with another layer of the cake.

15. Keep it in refrigerator to cool it for while. Put the cream in fridge as well in the fridge
16. Mean while prepare to make chocolate caraque for decoration and Ganache for covering the cake

Method for chocolate caraque:

 1.    Melt the chocolate and spread it in a thin layer on a cold clean and plain surface like a plastic chopping board.

 

2.    Leave it to cool until the chocolate is set but not brittle
3.    Push a clean scrapper or a thick knife across the surface of the chocolate holding it about 30 degree so that chocolate starts to roll in loose curls. Transfers the caraque to a baking sheet and chill in the fridge before you use it

Method for Chocolate Ganache

1.    Put the chocolate in a bowl. Heat the cream and sugar in a saucepan until beginning to bubble around the edges ( but not boiling)

2.    Pour over the chocolate
3.    Leave to stand, stirring frequently until the chocolate has melted and the Ganache is smooth and glossy.

4.    It can be used as soon it is cool enough to hold its shape

 Finally:

5.    Use the Ganache to cover the cake.

6.    Decorate with chocolate caraque
7.    Add some pink rose petals or eatable rose petal on the cake

8.  Enjoy