Dessert Planning

I am having guests again this year for thanksgiving and I have been so happy the last couple of weeks since finding out! And of course, trying to figure out what to make for the big dinner. So many different dishes are being considered and finally I decided on the dessert today! Yay!

I made this Coconut - Orange -Caramel flan in 2012 April for a party. Version 1 was made in small ramekins in the microwave. It was slightly dense as I forgot to add the milk, but still very delicious.

 

The bigger piece was made in a quiche plate in the oven and was perfect. Almost everyone had at least 2 pieces and one friend had 5 :) Hopefully it will turn out as well when I try it the week after next! Now I have just got the soup and a couple more dishes to decide...

 

Chocolate Mini-Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I had the opening reception for my biggest show of the year last night. The Gallery at Yahara Bay Distillers was a wonderful venue with gracious hosts and we all had a great time. The best part was when three of my paintings found a new home and I hit the big 100 (# of paintings sold/donated since I started showing in Feb 2012). 

As usual, I made the hors d'oeuvres for the evening. I spent a good chunk of time on Wednesday in the kitchen and all four items were baked (three of them in mini muffin pans)! At least the weather was a little cooler to manage having the oven on for a good 2-3 hours.

One of the dishes I made was chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting. The batter was adapted from a cake recipe and improvised quite a bit.

Ingredients (For 48 cupcakes):  All-purpose Flour - 1 1/2 cups; Cocoa Powder (I used Dagoba drinking chocolate with spices) - 1 cup; Sugar - 3/4 cup; Butter - 2 tbsp; Vanilla - 1 tsp; Salt - dash; Baking soda - 2 tsp; Baking Powder - 1 tsp;  Eggs - 2; Yogurt - 1/2 cup;  Water - 1/2 cup.

• Pre-heat the oven to 350F
• Line muffin pans with baking cups
• In the mixing bowl add all the dry ingredients, mix them quickly
• Add the wet ingredients and mix well with an electric mixer
• Pour the batter into the baking cups, about 3/4th full (about a tbsp)
• Bake for about 20 minutes! 

For the peanut butter frosting, I whipped together 1 cup of creamy peanut butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, milk  2-3 tsp - as needed. Once mixed to the desired consistency, I used a ziplock bag to pipe some on the cupcakes!

I am sending this to Cupcake Fest, hosted by Sreevalli.

Cherry Almond Pie

Last weekend S and I were in Oshkosh, for the Paine Art Center's Faire on the Green. We had a good time with friends and a good day with our little booth at the fair. One of our friends has a cheery tree - and a couple of our other friends were gracious enough to share some of their pickings with us. So I spent a good chunk of time today pitting them and the first batch I pitted were used for a cherry pie.

I just mixed 3 cups of pitted tart cherries with 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp Almond extract and 1/2 cup chopped almonds for the filling. Poured the filling in a pre-made crust from Trader Joe's and baked for 40 minutes. Now I am ready for an early dinner and dessert.

Mini Mango Tartlets

I made these for my last Art Show reception. It was an easy recipe and the tartlets tasted great!

Ingredients: Pie Crust -1 (I used one from Trader Joe's); Cream Cheese - 8oz; Mango pulp - 1/2 cup sweetened; Sugar - 4 tbsp; Cardamom - 1/4 tsp powdered; Corn Starch - 1 tsp.

• Set oven to bake at 400F.
• Cut the pie crust to lay inside a regular or mini-muffin pan. I made the mistake of pre-baking them inside the pan and the sides kind of collapsed. To avoid this, invert the muffin pan and bake the shells on the outside. Bake for 8 minutes till slightly brown.
• Mix the rest of the ingredients well with an electric mixer.
• Now put the shells inside the pan, add a table spoon of the cream cheese mixture and bake again for another 15 minutes or till the cheese is set. 
• Let cool for at least 10 minutes and move to a cooling rack.
• Enjoy :)

Easy Breezy Dessert

On the day of Thanksgiving, while my guests were still on their long drive, I cooked and prepped a few things. I made a quiche for breakfast on Friday, made the Cheesy Jalapeño Garlic Bread, made a couple of Indian sweets to send to my brother and I was planning on making a flan for dessert. I ran out of time / got tired and eventually just made this for dessert. It was still yummy - used up left over stuff and was done and in the fridge before the guests arrived. And it was perfect timing for me when they got home to boil some pasta and make a quick garlic alfredo and poach some eggs for the fettucine. 

To make this dessert (I am sure there is a South American version of this somewhere) - I simply sauteed a couple of ripe plantains and a couple of bananas (did not have enough plantains on hand), moved them to the bowl, coated with a sauce of dulce de leche + coconut milk boiled together, grated some dark chocolate on top. Voila! Yumminess :)

An Easy Crowd Pleaser

Sometimes even failed experiments can turn into something wonderful! That's certainly the case with this crowd pleasing Almond Cookies I made for Shankar's birthday party. I was going to make a meringue, but over-beat the egg whites. So, I added ground almond and powdered sugar with the egg whites and baked it as cookies. They were a huge hit at the party, as they were gluten free too. We used the frosting (coconut + pecan + sugar + cream cheese) to sandwich the cookies and it was yum!

 

Sweet Plantain Treat

When we were in India, we never used ripe plantains for anything and I feel like I missed out on the deliciousness of the ripe plantain all those years! Even when we moved to the US for the most part when I didn't get a chance to cook the plantains and they get ripe, we have thrown them out. Oh my! Now I look for the ripe with darkening skin plantains in the grocery store. 

Here is a simple yet rich sweet treat made with ripe plantains. Simply slice the plantains, pan fry them in a little oil or if feeling adventurous - in ghee or butter. Arrange on a plate, drizzle some sweetened condensed milk on top and enjoy. I had left over sweetened condensed milk and it came in handy to use up a ripe plantain! If not, simply boil a little milk with sugar and pour on top. Super rich & yummy!

Yummiest Brown Butter Cookies

If you ever find yourself on the Central Coast of California, make sure you make a trip out to beautiful Cayucos and stock up on the yummiest Brown Butter Cookies. Or simply place your order online at http://www.brownbuttercookies.com/. These are some of the best cookies I have ever had, with a slight sprinkle of sea salt that is so satiating. My favorites were the Original and the Espresso - till I tasted the Bourbon one. And Shankar loves their slightly chewy Honey cookies. And their granola is an indulgence for me. The best part about these? My dear friend Carolyn is the Dough Master. All the cookies are wonderfully hand rolled to perfection, and baked. And she has been sending us these wonderful packages for our birthdays and we are so grateful to get these little delights! These cookies are incredibly delicious and we can never stop with just eating one. Better pay attention to their tag line and "Take Three, Honey" :) 

Thank You, Carolyn!

Daring Durian Cake

This year for Shankar's Birthday, I didn't have time for an elaborate celeberation. With about three hours left between his annoucement of change in dinner plans to making his birthday dinner and a cake to go with, I somehow managed to bring together a bunch of ingredients in the kitchen to taste delish! The picture doesn't do much justice to this wonderful cake with Durian as the key ingredient with vanilla and coconut finishing the explosion on the palate. I am so proud of this cake for the simple reason that I had the food processor running and added things that would normally go in a cake (butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, vanilla, coconut) without any real measurements or a recipe to go by. I cut down the volume of butter by a lot and added the frozen and slightly thawed Durian. I adjusted the sugar level as I went along. I was a little skeptical as the batter hit the baking pan and when I decided to run the spatula randomly on top of the batter and sprinkle a handful of coconut on top. But needless to say, the daring moment in the kitchen turned out to be a delicious hit. I was planning to serve the cake with whipped cream, but when it was time for dessert, just the aroma of Durian was so luring that we didn't wait for the cream. I do belong to the "baking is a science" camp, but oh well, science is also about experimenting, right? This cake is by far my most daring experiment in the kitchen!

Banana - Rum Torte

I love cookbooks. I generally tend to borrow them from the library and avoid buying new cookbooks. I don't however mind buying used cookbooks, and sometimes find good ones at the Goodwill store --one of the most unlikely places to find cookbooks :). I once bought a barely-used copy of the Sundays @ Moosewood Restaurant cookbook for 6 dollars! One of my regrets is not buying the entire collection of 20 series of cookbooks for 15dollars at a Salvation Army store when I was a student. And in my odd-collection is a book published in 1976 called the Southern Living - Desserts Cookbook. I really like this  book as it is mostly a collection of recipes sent in by various folk. And they are simple. Most recipes are like 6-7 lines of instruction. For example - a Charlotte cake - one of my favorites - is like 2 pages of instruction by Julia Child. In this book - it is exactly 6 lines. Even complicated desserts look much less intimidating. 

One of the first few recipes I tried from this book is a Banana - Rum Torte. Make two layers of rum cake and an easy filling & you get a party pleaser! Here is how I made it:

Rum Cakes: Sugar - 1 cup; flour - 2 cups; butter - softened 3/4 cup; eggs -3; baking soda - 1 tsp; vanilla infused Rum - 2 tbsp; salt - 1/4 tsp;

• Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.
• Sift in the baking soda, flour and salt.
• Stir in the rum and the eggs (one at a time). Mix well.
• Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.
• Bake at 375F till the cakes are done. 

Making the Torte: Bananas - 3 large; Lime Juice - 1 tbsp; Rum (vanilla) - 3 tbsp; Whipping Cream 1 1/2 cups; sugar 3 tbsp; Instant Coffee -1/2 tsp; Pirouette cookies - pepperidge farm - 8 or more;

• Peel and slice the bananas - 1/4 inch thick
• Combine 1 tbsp rum + lime juice and pour over the bananas
• Beat the whipping cream, sugar, coffee and remaining rum till stiff peaks form.
• Place cake layers together with half of the whipped cream, and half the banana slices.
• I also added the syrup from the banana slices on the top layer of the cake before spreading the remaining half of the whipped cream. 
• Refrigerate for about about 30 minutes.
• Top with the remaining banana slices; arrange the pirouettes. 

I am not a big fan of frosting on cakes and hence love this whipped cream topping! This cake was very textural and we loved it :)

Creamy Dreamy Crunchy & Sweet: Daring Bakers' Challenge

February has been a busy month - with a little travel, meeting new friends, new foods & new adventures!  The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies. Though making Panna Cotta is not new for me, I was excited for the opportunity to make the dessert again, playing with different flavors. When we decided to have a few of our friends over last weekend, it seemed like a perfect day to get the challenge done. And as always, it is so wonderful to have friends for dinner who are willing to be a part of my kitchen experiments!

For this challenge, I made a Coconut - Cardamom Panna Cotta with a Blueberry Coulis. For the panna cotta, in addition to the cream and sugar, mine is a vegetarian version with agar instead of gelatin. I also added about a cup of coconut milk and a couple of pinches of cardamom when the cream was cooking. In hind-sight, the flavor was not strong. Our friends could make out the coconut only after I mentioned it and the cardamom was kind of lost. Next time, I will have to use equal amounts of coconut milk & cream. Also, I started making the dessert only around 3 pm for a 7 pm dinner, that led to a little bit more anxiety. I added more agar than needed, which made the panna cotta a little bit more heavier than what I think it should be. I would have preferred a little bit fluffiness in it. No questions about the deliciousness of the dessert though :) 

For the topping I made a blueberry coulis, with heating together blueberries and sugar. The color was so beautiful. 

And finally for the Florentine cookies, I used almond meal, left out the oats, and added a lot of lemon zest. Can any dish go wrong when it has copious amounts of butter & sugar caramelized together with more delectable ingredients? They turned out to be perfect - a little chewiness from the honey, and crunchiness from the brown sugar + butter. I made two dozens of these for the 6 of us and none was left at the end of the evening!

The recipes for the Panna Cotta & Florentine Cookies can be accessed from the pdf posted here.

Daring Bakers: Biscuit Joconde Imprime / Entremet

Its the middle of February and I finally manage to make and post my creation from January's Daring Baker's Challenge. The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog Accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a “Biscuit Joconde Imprime” to wrap around an Entremets dessert. The recipe & instructions can be found here. I used a strawberry mousse and a banana mousse as filing. I topped off the entremet with a red wine gelee, garnished with strawberries dusted with chocolate. It was definitely a dessert that took a lot of work, but the result was so yummy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlova from New Zealand

After missing a couple of the Daring Bakers events, I managed to participate in this month's challenge. The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard. The recipe for the wonderful dessert is here.

I followed the recipe pretty closely. I didn't make the mascarpone cream for drizzling though. I mixed a syrup of horlicks in cream for a malty drizzle. Yesterday I served them with bananas and with blueberries today. A special thanks to Aakriti for helping with the free-form pavlovas. Having never tasted a pavlova before, I am definitely hooked to them now. And I am ticking off New Zealand from my Cooking the World!

Boondhi Laddu

There are a few times that I take on a challenge of making something that even my mom hardly makes in the kitchen. Given the childhood memories of my parents inviting a couple of "chefs" to come help in preparing the sweets and snacks for Diwali, somehow making the traditional laddus and jelebis seem to be a big challenge to take on by myself. Trying to make boondhi laddu by reading recipes on food blogs and cook books definitely falls under the challenge category. Especially after it involved calling my parents for troubleshooting in the middle of their night :)

Here is how I made them: I whisked together about 1 cup of besan flour (chickpea) with water to make a thick paste. I warmed a few tsps of milk and soaked a few strands of saffron in it for a few minutes and added the milk to the besan batter. I then fried the boondhis by sending this batter through a ladle with holes in it over hot oil. The boondhis don't have to be fried crisp. In a separate pan, I made sugar syrup by boiling together 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water. I also added a 1/4 tsp of cardamom powder, about 1/4 cup of broken cashews and raisins fried in ghee to the sugar syrup. The final step is adding the boondhis to the sugar syrup, let them soak and after cooling for a little while, mold them to laddu shapes. 

The hard part for me was getting the boondhis to be perfect pearls. Mine turned out to be teardrops, of spheres with a tiny tail, no matter whether I diluted the batter or thickened it. Or whether I moved a little higher from the oil or closer to it. I have not made the laddu again to figure this out. I was simply joyed that the laddu was not breaking apart and held its shape. Overall, the taste was perfect and the kitchen was filled with the sweet aroma of ghee and cardamom :)

Mango Peda for a crowd

For a recent get-together at one of my colleague's house, I had to make dessert and with the little time I had, needed to put together something quick and easy, but that can serve abut 40 people. Hence I adapted the Mango Peda recipe from Red Chillies and changed the quantity to make about 40 pedas. They were yummy and were such a big hit for the evening. However, it was not a quick recipe though. Next time, if I am making this, I would opt for a stove-top version than the microwave version. 

I used about a pound of ricotta cheese and whisked into it 5 cups of sweetened mango pulp. I also used about 1/2 cup more powdered sugar [my husband didn't think it was sweet enough, so may be add more sugar as per taste]. I also used 1 cup of shredded coconut, 1/4 tsp of cardamom powder, a pinch of saffron and some finely chopped pistachio nuts. Basically you have to cook all this down (under high heat) to a consistency where it can be molded. It took a lot longer in the microwave, as mine is a 1000 watts one and couldn't run for longer than 10-15 minutes without taking a small break. Also, the quantity made a big difference for the cooking time. Anyways, once they were shaped, for the final garnish instead of using nuts, I melted a portion of a mango-chili chocolate bar with a little bit of milk and used the coulis. They were perfect for the potluck!

I am sending this to Nupur's Blog Bites #3: The Adaptation Edition.

Almond Crescents from Morocco ~ Kab el ghzal

I made these Almond Crescents for a crunchy something to go along with the Venezuelan Coconut Rice Pudding a couple of weeks back. This was another recipe from Global Vegetarian Cooking by Troth Wells. The recipe was simple, but the only problem was the baking times from the actual recipe that called for 40 minutes. When I took them out in about 20, they were already getting burnt on the bottom. Anyways, if anyone is going to try this, please make sure you keep an eye on the timer. In spite of the little darkness, I scrapped the bottom burnt part and they tastes delish. I have to try them again with only 10-15 minutes of baking.

Preheat the oven at 375F. In my food processor I basically added about a cup of blanched almonds, about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and ground the almonds. Then I added about 1/4 cup more sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4tsp almond extract, 4 tbsp rose water and processed to a dough like consistency. Then roll them out into desired size, shape to a crescent on the baking sheet. Brush egg-wash on top of the cookies and sprinkle some sesame seeds. Bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden. 

Venezuelan Coconut Rice Pudding

A dessert from the coastal regions of Venezuela with an abundance of fresh coconut ~ this rice pudding was another recipe from Global Vegetarian Cooking by Troth Wells. I made this pudding last night, when I had my lab mates over for dinner. I veered away from the original version a little bit. The pudding turned out to be awesome: not too sweet, smooth and with a little bite from grated lemon rinds. Everyone had seconds and made me happy :)

I used one cup of parboiled rice, and cooked it with one cup of water till the water is almost used up. Add about 1/2 cup of fresh grated coconut. Then I added 1/2 a can of sweetened condensed milk (instead of regular milk & sugar) and a 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. I let the mixture boil and let it cool. I pureed it coarsely in a blender and poured the mixture back into the pan, mixed with about 1/2 cup of milk and the rest of the sweetened condensed milk, cook for a few minutes. Mix in a 1/4 tsp of grated lemon rind, saving a little for garnish. Chill & serve!

Mango & Banana Bake from Guyana

Here is yet another simple and hearty dessert recipe inspired from Global Vegetarian Cooking by Troth Wells. Looks like before I finish this Cooking the World Challenge, I would end up trying all the recipes from this book! I had one mango left from last week and 3 bananas that were begging to be used soon and hence this wonderful dessert from Guyana. I feel guilty in indulging when Shankar is away during the week, but who can resist the temptations of a banana+mango combo?

Heat the oven to 400F. In a small buttered baking dish, add some sliced bananas, followed by a layer of sliced mangoes. A mandolin slicer was very handy with the mangoes. Add another layer of sliced bananas. Sprinkle the juice of a small lime or lemon. I also added abut two tbsp of Ginger Cognac (The original called for a little rum). Sprinkle generously with sugar (Demerara if you have some ~ thats from Guyana) and a pinch of cinnamon and cardamom. A  few nuts (toasted almonds) on top made it even better. Bake for about 20 minutes. And I served it with yummy banana mango yogurt. The dessert was heavenly :)

I am sending this dish to Anupama's Mango Moods!

Daring Bakers Challenge (March 2010): Orange Tian

For the first time, I participated in the Daring Bakers challenge in March. And that was from St. Louis! It was a big deal since Shankar's kitchen is the most basic, with only the stuff that comes with a corporate rental. Hence, I had to buy even the cookie cutters and a blender for this challenge. Anyways, coming to the challenge, I really didn't have the patience to work on this recipe over a few days, and did everything on the same day. I have to say the Orange Tian turned out great!

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris. As the recipe is posted in detail on the Daring Bakers website, I am not repeating it here. Please click here for the recipe: Orange Tian

As I was making it only for the two of us, I reduced the quantity, mostly by ball-parking it. I started with the orange marmalade. It turned out really good and the Pate Sablee was so rich, we had to try hard to not just eat them together. 

And as a vegetarian, I couldn't use gelatin for the whipped cream and hence substituted with agar. I also added quite a bit of Cointreau (orange liqueur) when whipping the cream and also soaked the orange slices in a mixture of orange juice + cointreau.  

After freezing the assembled Tian for about 20 minutes, we were gonna share just one, but couldn't hold off of pulling out another too! Though the dessert seemed really hard from all the detailed instructions and the idea of doing it over multiple days seemed tedious, but I am actually glad I did it and the end product was awesome!

A New Experience!

For the first time in my life, I got to taste Durian this weekend! I have read and heard so much about the King of Fruits and was really excited to taste it. I bought frozen durian during my last visit to St. Louis and was actually surprised to find fresh ones in Madison. Alfred Russell Wallace said "to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience", though I am glad that I didnt have to travel all the way to Indonesia / Malaysia to eat them, the experience has been wonderful nonetheless! And no, my kitchen nor my fridge is stinking.

I have been holding the durian for a while now, waiting for a good recipe, in which I can cook the durian, instead of having it raw and have issues of odor. Finally this week I decided to go for a jelly instead of a pastry cream on my first attempt. I am saving the pastry cream recipe for the second durian still in the freezer. Here is my recipe for the jelly: Defrost the durian in a plastic bag, mash it to a smooth paste in the food processor along with coconut cream and a little milk. In a separate pan, bring to boil - water, milk, powdered sugar and agar (proportions will vary with amount of durian used). Once the mixture starts to thicken, add the durian paste, bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes. Then, either whisk the mixture over an ice-bath for a couple of minutes before pouring into a mold or pour directly into a wet mold. Let it set in the fridge, and serve the next day! I sprinkled a lot of shredded coconut in one of the molds.

For the first serving, I made a watermelon jelly and poured it one top of the durian jelly after it had set a bit. And for tonight's dessert, I tossed together strawberries, walnuts, almonds, raisins, cranberries in ginger honey & agave nectar and plated this along with the durian jelly. It was so yummy!

I am total durian fan now. And I love that my Cooking the World challenge is motivitaing me for a lot more new experiences with food, right from the comfort of my kitchen.