Strawberry Sauce

Have you ever compared any dish that you make at home with the same dish you get in a restaurant? Do you feel that your dish even though tastes better than the restaurant's doesn't look that tasty? Have you ever analysed the reason why? Yeah, you guessed it right! Its all about the presentation.

Restaurant chefs use a lot of sauces, purees to make their dish look more presentable or should I say more appealing that you can't resist yourself from eating it. How about taking that extra step to make homemade dishes look more presentable, taste much better and present your dishes to your family with an edge. The good news - its very simple to do!

With strawberries still in the season, lets make some strawberry sauce and preserve it for summer when we won't get this juicy fruit.

Here's what you would need to make Strawberry Sauce:- 

• One 500 gms pack of fresh or frozen strawberries (I used fresh strawberries)
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup (50 - 65 gms) of sugar, or to taste
• Freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)

Makes - 1-1/4 cup 

Preparation time - 10 minutes

Here's how you can make Strawberry Sauce:-

• Place the unsweetened frozen strawberries in a large bowl and thaw. This may take a few hours. Once thawed, put the strawberries and their juice in the blender. If using fresh strawberries like me, wash and cut the strawberries in pieces and place it in the blender. Process the strawberries until they are pureed. 
• Pour the puree in a jar. First add 1/4 cup of sugar and stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Taste and add more sugar, if required. 
• Add a little (about 1 tbsp) of lemon juice to taste.
• Your sauce is ready.

Storage: 

You can store the sauce in refrigerator for about 1 week or this can be frozen. You can pour the sauce in an ice tray and make the ice cubes of the strawberry sauce for freezing.

This sauce works best as a filling for your cakes, cheesecakes and roulades. Or else, drizzle it over vanilla ice cream for a great flavour or fold it in some whipped cream for a fruit fool or as part of an Eton Mess. 

Hope you also would add a tad bit of sauce to your life and make it look more delightful!

DIY: Homemade Almond Flour

One thing about baking in India is that you don't get a lot of base ingredients for most of the recipes. This leaves you with no option but to make the base ingredient all by yourself. However, once you make the base ingredient, you realise how easy it is to Do It Yourself (DIY). Not to mention its so much lighter on your pocket and also in its purest form.

I searched for almond flour at all the places I could from the next door grocery store to the local baking supplier to the best super market; but could not find it. Considering the kinda person I am, if I gotta do something, I will find a way to do it. I couldn't find the ready made almond flour to make the French Macarons. I decided to make my own. 

Whenever I want any help in the kitchen, the first thing I do is to call my mom and ask her how to go about doing it. And there it was, the recipe to Almond Flour at home and I couldn't imagine it would be so simple.

And all you need is plain raw almonds with the skin on. Do not use almonds which are roasted or fried or salted.

Here's how you can make Homemade Almond Flour:-

Step 1 - Blanching of almonds:-

• Put almonds in a microwave safe bowl. 
• Add water to the bowl so that almonds are completely immersed in water. 
• Place the bowl in the microwave for 5-8 minutes. 
• Take the bowl out of microwave, rinse the hot water and run the almonds under cold water in order to stop further heating. 
• Drain and put them on a flat surface.

Step 2:- Take off the skin

• Once the almonds have been drained and rinsed, you can see the skin of almonds beginning to shrivel.
• Take off the skin of the almonds by placing the almond between thumb and index finger. Gently apply the pressure between the thumb and finger and the skin will begin to pull away. 
• This process does not take time; you can peel off the skin of one bowl of almond in less than 5 minutes.
• Let the almonds completely dry on a kitchen towel.

Step 3:- Grind the almonds to flour

• Once the almonds dry completely, grind them in a grinder until it becomes a medium fine textured flour. Don't grind it too much else you will get almond butter. 
• Sift the almond flour through a fine flour sifter. In case any big pieces are still left, you can grind again and sift it. So now, you are ready to use this almond flour.
• Refrigerate the flour if not using immediately. It is best to use the flour within 2 weeks of making.
  
  
  Your almond flour is ready for use.
  

How to Temper Chocolate

Melted Chocolate...
Woooowwww...
The word is enough to make your mouth water and bring out the child in you. This is the one single thing which can bring smile on children, teens, adults or even the elderly. The one reason I understand for this universal appeal of chocolate is that it melts at very low temperature (30° C - 32° C), which is very close to human's body temperature.

Being a home baker, there would be several occasions when you would need to temper (i.e. melt the chocolate) the chocolate to make chocolate ganache, chocolate brownies or even making chocolates.

There are two ways to temper the chocolate:-

1, Using a double boiler

2. Using a microwave

Here's how you can temper the chocolate using either of the ways depending on what suits you:

Double Boiler Method:

1. Place a saucepan, half filled with water, over gas until the water starts to boil. 
2. Keep the cut pieces of chocolate in a bowl. 
3. Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water, but creates a seal with the bottom of the pan to trap the steam produced by the simmering water. 
4. Turn the heat to low so that the boil becomes a slow simmer.
5. Continue stirring the chocolate until the chocolate completely melts.

Microwave method:

This microwave method is the easiest method for me. Its quick, its easy without the risk of burning, doesn't require too many utensils to clean up later (a big plus for me). I have a 3-2-1 step which works well for me all the time I temper chocolate in microwave. 

1. Place the chocolate (at room temperature) in small chunks in a microwave safe bowl. Plastic or glass bowl, both work well.
2. Place the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds.
3. After 30 seconds, take the bowl out and stir. Stirring helps in distributing the heat evenly, so it melts evenly.
4. Place the bowl back in microwave for 20 seconds. Take out and stir again.
5. Place the bowl in microwave again for 10 seconds. Take out and stir.
6. By step 5, you will find the chocolate is melted completely. If not, repeat step 5 until the chocolate is completely melted and running.

So, now you are ready to use your chocolate for making several things. Use this for making chocolates, chocolate ganache, drizzling the chocolate over cookies or cakes.

Happy Baking!

DIY: Homemade Ricotta Cheese

When it comes to baking, I always try to experiment with new recipes and with exotic ingredients. One among them is Cheesecake. On my random visit to Godrej Nature's Basket, I picked up a packet of Ricotta Cheese. I was looking for recipes to use this Ricotta Cheese and a perfect time to make it. It took more than couple of weeks as some renovation work was going on at home and all I could see around was a mess, including me. Coming back to my cheesy affair, when I actually opened the can of ricotta cheese after 2 weeks, it was spoilt by then. Yes...ricotta cheese is highly perishable.

With a broken heart (the cheese had cost a bomb!) and desire to make a Cheesecake, I decided to go easy on my pocket and make the Ricotta Cheese at home.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Making Ricotta Cheese at home is very easy, the ingredients would always be available at home. Ricotta Cheese can be used for making Cheesecakes, lasagna or as a side serving with sliced fruits along with a drizzle of honey.

Recipe adapted from simplyrecipes.

Here's what you need to make Homemade Ricotta Cheese:

• 2 quarts whole milk
• 1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (you can use low fat yogurt)
• ½ cup heavy cream (optional)
• 2 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp salt

Here's how you can make Homemade Ricotta Cheese:

• Add the ingredients in a large sauce pan. Put the pan on a medium flame until the milk curdles. This would not take more than 5 minutes.
• In the meanwhile, line a of cheesecloth on a strainer and keep the strainer over a deep bowl/ jug. 
• Pour the milk mixture through the strainer and let it drain for 15 minutes. Gather the cheesecloth around the curd and squeeze gently to drain the excess liquid.
• Use the ricotta cheese when it is slightly warm or you can refrigerate for 2-3 days.
• You can even use the whey (the liquid from the cheese) for preparing dough for chapatis (Indian Flat breads). The whey is rich in proteins and minerals.

Yield - 2 cups

French Macarons

Here I am, after a break for a long time... almost couple of months. I have been coping up with some health issues, traveling and engaged in refurnishing of house. With everything done now, I am back with full energy, enthusiasm, a newly furnished house and loads of recipes to share with you all. All this while, even though I was not writing I did a lot of baking and just can't wait to share with you all the different things that I have tried my hands at. One of the various things I tried for the first time in these past couple of months is French Macarons. Yes... maiden attempt and fairly succeeded!

Making perfect French Macarons is the dream of every baker. I started, keeping my fingers crossed, hoping to make my first Macs perfect.

My First French Macarons

These are the best cookies to have with some of your favourite frosting (the filling in the macarons) for those moments of perfect indulgence. Here, I have tried dark chocolate ganache, white chocolate ganache and nutella frosting. Other great options to frost these cute little macarons are swiss buttercream, lemon curd, dulce de leche, jam of any of your favourite flavour-starwberry, raspberry, orange and the list just goes on....

I know these pictures are enough of temptations and now you would also like to try it out by yourself...... so what are we waiting for? Lets get to the work...

Here's what you would need to make french Macarons:- 

All the ingredients here are given by weights. It is important for a successful macarons to have all the ingredients measured with a digital weighing scale. Believe me, this investment would be worth every single penny.

100 gms of almond flour (click here to know How to make Homemade almond flour)

180 gms icing sugar

100 gms egg whites at room temperature

1/4 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

35 gms superfine sugar/ castor sugar

Output: 30 macarons

Here's how you can make the perfect French Macarons:-

1. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper and draw a template of 15 circles (3X5) of 1.5 inches or 3 cm in diameter each on parchment paper the size of your baking sheet.

2. Sift together icing sugar and almond flour in a medium size bowl and keep it aside.

2. In another clean and dry bowl, add egg whites and cream of tartar (optional) and beat with your hand beater or stand mixer using whisk attachment until foamy. 

3. Gradually add caster sugar in the egg white mixture while beating it. 

4. Once all the sugar goes into the egg whites, beat the egg whites for 3-4 minutes until you get stiff straight peaks. Care should be taken not to over beat the egg whites. Keep checking for the stiff peaks and stop once u get the straight peaks like shown in the picture above.

5. Add the dry ingredients i.e. mixture of almond flour and icing sugar into egg white mixture in 3 additions. Mix the dry ingredients well after each addition. Do not worry if the air incorporated in egg whites is vanishing, you want some of the air to go off the egg whites. At the end, you will get a paste like mixture smiling back at you with a gloss. And yeah..... you are done!

6. Time to tint the batter with you favourite food colour. I divided my batter into 3 parts and coloured them blue, yellow and pink respectively. This step is absolutely optional. Add the food colour drop by drop and see if you are happy with the colour. You simply need to follow your instincts for this step. Cool.. ..isn't it?

7. Pour each of these different coloured batter into three disposable piping bag or ziplock bag and snip off the end of the bag. Put the template below the parchment paper on your baking sheet and pour the batter into the circles drawn on template. Try to pour the batter within the circle as the batter has some tendency to spread. 

8. Remove all the air bubbles from the batter by either tapping the baking tray or break the bubbles with the help of tooth pick. Let the macarons sit in the baking tray sit for 30 - 60 minutes. In the meanwhile, pre heat your oven to 160° C/ 325° F. Bake the macarons for 14 - 16 minutes, rotating the sheet front to back about halfway through the baking.

9. The macarons are done when you can barely remove the macarons from the baking tray. There will be a little browning on the corners of the macarons. If you see the bottom of the macarons brown too much, you can line baking tray with sheets of two parchment papers.

10. Remove the macarons from the oven and let it cool completely on the baking tray kept on a wire rack. 

Assembly:-

To assemble the macarons, take two similar size of macarons and sandwich them together with your favourite filling. The best choices of filing are lemon curd, chocolate ganache, swiss buttercream, nutella or jam.

While the macarons can be served the day they are made, the best of flavours come out the next day. These cookies need to mature for a day or two in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.

                                     

I filled my macarons with dark chocolate ganache, white cocolate ganache and nutella. Everybody simply loved it.

                                        

Hope you also making macarons as much as I did! Don't forget to share your experience with me, leave your comments in the comment box below. I would love to hear back from you all.

Happy Baking!

Orange Marmalade Coffee Cake

I had a new bottle of Orange Marmalade lying in my fridge for quite some time which I used once for breakfast on toast and didn't like it much. I know a lot of people who would go crazy for Orange Marmalade on their toast, but its just not my thing. Hence I thought of adding it as a flavour to the cake and searched for a recipe to use Orange Marmalade and voila! I got the most amazing coffee cake I ever tasted. For those of you who know I am a huge fan of citrus fruits, (did u check my post on Orange Chiffon Cake??) the orange flavour brings unbelievable freshness and tangyness to taste. This is yet another perfect cake to have at breakfast with your morning cuppa tea or any other time of the day for that matter.

The Orange marmalade I used was without sugar. To compliment the taste, some sugar has been added in the middle of the cake to provide a sweet, crunchy taste. 

Here's what you would need to make this Orange Marmalade Cake:

Ingredients:

For the Bundt Cake:

325 gms/ 2 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour

2 tsp of Baking Powder

½ tsp of Baking soda

¼ tsp of Salt

120 ml/ ½ cup of Vegetable Oil

3 eggs

225 gms/ 1¼ cup of Granulated Sugar

240 ml/ 1 cup of Vanilla Yogurt

½ cup of Orange Marmalade

Zest of One Small Orange

2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

For the sugar mixture for the center:

¼ cup of Brown Sugar

¼ cup of Granulated sugar

2 Tbsp of Raw Sugar

¼ tsp of Ground Cinnamon

2 Tbsp of Cold Unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the glaze:

¼ cup of Orange Marmalade

¼ cup of Fresh Orange Juice 

¼ cup of Confectioner's Sugar (powdered or icing sugar)

Process:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan with non stick cooking spray and set aside.

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and keep it aside.
• In another large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, oil, orange marmalade, orange zest and sugar.
• Add the flour mixture into the wet mixture and mix to combine well but don’t over mix.
• Pour half of the batter into your prepared pan and set aside for just a few minutes. 
• For Sugar mixture: In a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the sugar topping and mix it with your fingers until it gets a nice crumbly texture, spread it evenly over the cake. 
• Pour the remaining batter over the top of the sugar topping and make sure the top is nice and leveled. 
• Bake for about 45 to minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before inverting onto a platter.
• For the glaze: Add the orange marmalade in a microwave safe bowl and pop it in the microwave for about 30 seconds or until its nice and runny. Whisk in the orange juice and powdered sugar, pour over the coffee cake and let it set for about 15 minutes before serving.

Hope you would also enjoy making and eating this cake as much as I did. Don't forget to share your experience with me by way of comment below or on FB. I would love to hear from you guys.

Happy Baking!

Apple Rum n Raisin Cake

Here we are, in the last month of the year...December 2012. The month which gives the whole world all the reasons to celebrate, dress up in great colours, eat the best of the food, spend some quality time in the warmth of their loved ones in spite of the freezing cold weather. With the whole world in the celebration mood, this gives a great opportunity to make something really warm and nice for your family. 

Continuing my quest to bake with fresh fruits of the season...today I am picking up Apples. Apple is one fruit which is available in thousand different varieties, all looking so pretty, delicious to eat and needless to say sufficient enough to keep the doctor away. There are so many different things which can be made using Apple as the main ingredients including cakes, breads, pies, sauce etc. This is the first time, I am baking something with apples. Hence I decided to go conventional and make an Apple Cake, adding the twist of rum and raisins to complement the festive season celebrations.

Okay, I just can't wait to show you my Apple, Rum and Raisin Cake...

Apple, Rum and Raisin Cake

I know, looking at the pictures you would also want to go straight to baking...

Here's what you gonna need for making Apple, Rum and Raisin Cake

• 226 gms (1 cup) unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 200 gms (1 cup) granulated white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ cup rum
• ½ cup raisins
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt (omit the salt if you are using salted butter)
• 1 tsp lemon xest
• 390 gms (3 cups) all purpose flour
• 4 apples, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
• ¾ (180 ml) cup milk

Here's how you can make it

Preheat your oven to 180° C/ 350° F. Line an 8 inch round cake pan with baking parchment paper.

• Soak the raisins in rum for a day or heat the raisins and rum in a saucepan over a medium heat for 10 minutes.

• Add 2 tbsp of all purpose flour in apples and toss it so that apples get coated in flour. This helps apples to stick to the flour and avoid apples setting down in the cake pan while baking.

• In a bowl, add all purpose flour, baking soda, salt and lemon zest and give it a stir so that baking soda and salt gets mixed properly in the flour.
• Add apples in the dry ingredients and mix it well.

• In another large bowl, all butter and sugar and beat it using your electric beater or stand mixer until nice and creamy.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrap down the sides of the bowl whenever required. After adding all the eggs, the mixture will turn very soft, smooth and light lemon in colour.
• Add vanilla essence and beat until incorporated.
• Add raisins soaked in rum and mix it well with the help of your rubber spatula/ spoon.

• Add the flour mixture (in three additions) alternatively with milk (in two additions), starting and ending with flour mixture. Fold the mixture after each addition until dry ingredients are completely incorporated into the wet ingredients. 
• That's it. The batter is ready to go into the baking pan 

• Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for about 60 minutes to 1 hour 10 minutes. I initially baked for 50 minutes, checked and again baked for another 15 minutes i.e. a total of 65 minutes.  

• Place on a wire rack to cool completely (about 20 minutes) before taking our from the pan. Serve hot or at room temperature.
• Store in an air tight container at room temperature.

Want a Slice of this yummylicious delight...???

Hope you would also enjoy making this delight as much as I did!

Cheers!!!