Confessions of a Bake-a-holic!

When it comes to topics that interest me like Baking and Painting,I have a strong sense of perseverance.I began my journey with an unpredictable oven that my Mom had. Those days my experience was limited to few cookies/biscuits.Reading helped me a lot, I learnt different techniques and methods.Baking Breads is something I enjoy the most because I feel they are more challenging when compared to baking cakes/cookies/flans/tarts.Making the right dough,Fermenting and Proofing…..ahh there is so much to it.In general, if Breads turn to have a course texture it means the dough was too soft ,wasn’t kneaded well or it may have been over proofed.In the same way,if you had cracked crust that’s because of the dough being too stiff or underproofed.The more I bake the more I know, how satisfying it is.These days I have been working a lot with whole grain baking too and am thoroughly impressed as to how healthy baking can get.

For now its “Tomato and Onion Cottage Bread” which I had made few days back.When I baked this for the first time I felt the top was a li’l soggy compared to the one I made the second time as it was underbaked.So by trial and error I work things out. If I am not sure of any recipe,I work with small portions first to ensure I don’t waste much.

Photo Courtesy – Friend R,who is an amazing Photographer,you may check his site here
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Recipe Source - The complete book of Home Baking by Heilie Pienaar, gifted to me by my cousin H.

Preparation Time 1 hr(including one hour of baking)

Makes one large round Bread

Filling:

1 tbsp Olive oil

1 Medium onion,finely chopped

1 clove garlic,crushed

3 medium tomatoes,skinned and chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano or a tsp ground black peper to taste

A tsp salt

Bread:

4 C bread flour

1 tsp salt

A tbsp caster sugar

2 tsp easy blend yeast

A tbsp olive oil

200 ml warm milk

Method: For Filling – Heat oil in a heavy sauce pan and Saute onion and garlic until soft.Add tomatoes and seasoning.Simmer for ten minutes or until tomatoes have softened and most of the liquid has evaporated.Leave it cool slightly.

For Bread: Sift flour and salt into a bowl.Add sugar,yeast and one third of the tomato filling.Mix,Add oil and enuf milk and mix it to a soft dough.Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic.Place dough in a oiled bowl,cover and leave it to rise in a warm place until double in size.Turn dough into a lighly floured surface and knead until smooth.Shape into a round and place on a greased baking tray.Cut a large cross in top of the round and fill with remaining tomato filling.Leave to prove in a warm place to double in size.Bake in preheated oven at 350F for 40-45 mins, or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on base.And here it is:)

And a small piece…

Verdict: This one is a perfect for an evening snack or morning breakfasts.Usually breads are too plain,the Onions and tomatoes in this recipe surely adds a zing to the taste.These breads taste bests when eaten the same day its baked.

It’s the holiday season everywhere.I so very wanted to have a Christmas Tree at home,somehow it just didn’t happen.I was happy to at least make the Gingerbread House and enjoy the festive mood.I wasn’t too confident when I read the Daring Baker’s Challenge for this month,wasn’t sure if wud be able to go with it.Finally made up my mind and decided to make it well in advance and there I go ..hell,the roof broke into two. I was thoroughly disappointed. Later,used royal icing to stick them togetherand hurray it worked. Luckily the shapes where not as bad as I had anticipated, after baking they had increased a lil in size but I cud easily trim them down.I wanted to make a very small house so used up a lil bit of batter to make cookies.Though the house looks good I had to hide a lot of cracks and cuts,to cover these up I brushed them with melted white chocolate.I cant think of anything other than chocolates for decoration so used a lot of chocolate morsels,sprinkles and M&M’s.Here I present my Gingerbread House.

The December 2009 Daring Bakers? challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers, everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I used Y’s Recipe ?
Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas http://astore.amazon.com/thedarkit-20/detail/0816634963

1 cup butter, room temperature [226g]
1 cup brown sugar, well packed [220g]
2 tablespoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
? cup boiling water
5 cups all-purpose flour [875g]

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until blended. Add the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Mix the baking soda with the boiling water and add to the dough along with the flour. Mix to make a stiff dough. If necessary add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Chill 2 hours or overnight.
2. Cut patterns for the house, making patterns for the roof, front walls, gabled walls, chimney and door out of cardboard.

3. Roll the dough out on a large, ungreased baking sheet and place the patterns on the dough. Mark off the various pieces with a knife, but leave the pieces in place.
4. [I rolled out the dough on a floured bench, roughly 1/8 inch thick (which allows for fact that the dough puffs a little when baked), cut required shapes and transferred these to the baking sheet. Any scraps I saved and rerolled at the end.]
5. Preheat the oven to 375′F (190′C). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookie dough feels firm. After baking, again place the pattern on top of the gingerbread and trim the shapes, cutting the edges with a straight-edged knife. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

For the Roof-
1 cup white chocolate(bars/morsels)
Stirring in between, melt the Chocolate in the Microwave.Allow it to come to room temperature and gently brush it over the roof.Refrigerate,until use.Decorate it using Royal icing(recipe below)

Royal Icing:
1 large egg white
3 cups (330g) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat all ingredients until smooth, adding the powdered sugar gradually to get the desired consistency. Pipe on pieces and allow to dry before assembling. If you aren’t using it all at once you can keep it in a small bowl, loosely covered with a damp towel for a few hours until ready to use. You may have to beat it slightly to get it an even consistency if the top sets up a bit. Piped on the house, this will set up hard over time.

Assemble the house Place a thick Cardboard for the base.I filled my pastry bag with royal icing and generously applied it at the bottom of the wall and used cans to support the walls.Add a second wall securing it with syrup on top and on the sides touching the first wall.Repeat the same for other walls as well.Allow it to dry before working on the roof.Apply the icing generously on all sides and place the roof and again wait till it dries completely.Use chocolate morsels,sprinkles and M&M to decorate the house.

Tah dah.I MADE IT:-D

Verdict: Its one of the best things that I have baked this season…it was total fun.I am surely gona make them each and every year.Thanks DBC!

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate ? Oprah Winfrey.

In childhood we longed to grow up but now we want to be kids.Looking back at good old days, birthday’s wasn’t jes about the gifts…. it was more about celebrating it with my loved ones and yes how can I forget the yummilicious food that Mom made all the time.She used to give me a box full of chocolates to be distributed at school and neighbourhood.No uniform day-that used to be the best thing.Oh, I just wonder where those wonder years melted away?

Regardless of however it is now,Birthdays are special. And it was a special time for me too,as it was P’s birthday.I baked the cake as per his liking.He prefers plain simple cakes to anything chocolaty.So I ended up with a Vanilla Cake with Pineapple Cream filling and whipped cream frosting.I haven’t seen him like any frosting other than Whipped cream, so it was cream all over the cake.Since it had to be a special cake I made a 10 inched three layered heart shaped cake and decorated it with Basket weave technique which I learnt while doing my Wilton course.This is one of my fav techniques and works best with buttercream frosting.I knew it was gona be challenging working with whipped cream coz of the texture,however it came out surprisingly well and was appreciated by everyone.I tripled the quantity of the mentioned recipe.

Recipe Source – Serena Bass’s Book (only for the cake)

Prep Time – 25mins

Baking time – 40min

Ingredients:

A cup Sugar

Two tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Three Large eggs

a Cup Heavy cream

1 1/2 cup Cake Flour

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 C Granulated Sugar for dusting at the top(I skipped this one as my cake was well frosted)

Method: Preheat Oven at 350F.Grease a 10 inch cake pan.Beat Vanilla Extract,Egg and Sugar until its pale and thick.Separately beat cream in a bowl until soft peaks form.Turn this onto the egg mixture.Sift Flour,Baking Powder and salt,fold these together in the batter.Scrape the batter to the prepared pan ,sprinkle sugar on top and bake for 40mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.Once done,cool the cake on rack.

For the filling & frosting:

Ingredients:

Whipped cream – 1 1/2 pint

Crushed Pineapple – 4oz

Vanilla Extract – a drop

Powdered Sugar – 5tbsp

Method: Beat the cream along with the extract until soft peaks form.Just take 1 cup of this mixture and mix in the crushed pineapple,this would be used as filling .To the remaining cream add in the sugar and beat again till you end up with peaks(when u run it thru a spatula the peaks shud stand,thats the ideal consistency).

Assemble the cake: Cut the cake into two halves(using a cake leveler is the best way to do it,if not you can also use a serrated knife).Spread the filling generously on top of one of the halves.Place the second half on top of it and frost the cake using the cream.If you are good at decorating the cake,you may use your pastry bags and nozzles to do the same.Adding food colors to the cream is also an option.

A closer look at the Basket weave technique

Verdict: It was a well crafted cake,which tasted as good as it looked. Perhaps my best attempt in frosting so far. Instead of using any techniques jes a simple layer of frosting wud be great too.

This is off too Mahimaa’s Contribute your Cakes and Cookies event.

Of late I have been busy with too many things.Apart from the regular work,I have one or the other classes everyday – swimming,painting and what not. I am tired.Mind want’s to rest but heart doesn’t agree. I haven’t even had time to watch any of my fav serials on TV,missed so many episodes of Criminal Minds,Fringe and CSI.Unfortunately hulu doesn’t play Criminal Minds online,huh!.God,24hrs aint enuf for me. Weather is getting worse day by day,its abt 0F now.We already had our first major snow storm warning last week,gosh three more months to go.Oh lemme stop cribbing.This is how the entrance to my house looks….fully covered with snow!

Its P’s birthday tomorrow,I need to bake his Birthday cake.I have too many things in mind,hope all materialize well.For now,I logged in to post ICC?s Nov Challenge ? Chegodilu.I’ve never heard about this,though I have had similar ones called Kodubele(not sure if they are the same).It was nice to munch on these cute li’l rings.Srivalli had suggested two recipes,I tried the second one.

Ingredients :

Rice flour – 3/4 cup
All purpose flour/ Maida – 1/4 cup
Ghee – 2 tbsp
Ajwain – 1/4 tsp
Red chilli powder – 1/4 tsp
Turmeric really a pinch
Salt as per taste
Oil to deep fry

Method:Boil 1 cup water in a bowl, add salt to it.

When the water starts boiling, remove from stove, add ajwain, red chilli powder, turmeric and flours. Stir with a ladle to make sure it is mixed well. Pour ghee on it and cover.

Once it cools, knead it to form smooth dough.

Pinch out small balls of dough and roll them like threads between your palm, bring the ends together to form into small rings

Fry them in hot oil til they turn golden in color.

Verdict: P finished it all in a day,he loved it. Its definitely a great snack to munch on.

Or shud I say,Masala Puri without the Puri?

Last month at the Hindu temple here,along with four other friends I cooked for 400 people.Each one was supposed to take up a dish and make it in three hours time,set the buffet table,serve the food and the proceeds went to the temple. It was a different experience handling huge vessels and spoons/spatulas(some which I wasn’t even able to hold).I had made Shahi Dum Aloo(recipe to follow shortly).The Original idea was to make Poori’s to go with the Aloo,but making it for so many was certainly a challenging task.At the last minute we got to know about frying Flour Tortillas instead of making Poori’s.After trying it at home,i realized how perfect they were.On the menu the Tortillas by itself was a hit. A friend of mine had mentioned about using corn tortillas for masala puris.I thought even Flour ones would do good.Making small Puri’s (for all chats) is again a painful job.So to make things easy,I baked these Tortillas until crisp and used them instead of Puri’s

Being here,so far from India I miss eating so many variety of food,especially chats.Who doesn’t like them??? The only way I can relish is by making them at home.Masala Puri is a very popular street food/chat found in Bangalore. Small Puris are crushed,topped with the Masala ie., nothing but a semi gravy made with few spices.The Puri’s which either get crushed or broken( the ones which cannot be used for making Pani Puri )are used to make Masala Puris.For the Tamarind Dates Chutney you can either settle for the store bought ones or make it from scratch(Cook 5-6 roughly chopped dates in Tamarind water.Once done,use a mixer and grind them well,sieve it.Add 2 tbsp of jaggery and allow it to boil until it thickens).

Preparation Time: 20mins
Serving – 4

Ingredients:For the Masala
1 Cup Frozen Peas(boiled and mashed)
1 medium sized Potato (boiled and mashed)
A tsp chilli powder
As per taste,Salt
A pinch,sugar
2 tbsp Tamarind Dates Chutney(recipe above)
1/2 Cup grated Carrot(optional)

Grind to a smooth paste-
an inch cinnamon stick
3 Red and 2 green chillies
4 -5 Mint leaves
1 tbsp coconut(optional)
A tbsp chopped Cilantro
A tsp of each – cumin seeds,coriander seeds,poppy seeds
4 tbsp Dalia (Roasted split pea) – Optional(I prefer without them)
Ginger

For the Puri
4 Flour Tortillas

Garnishing
A tbsp cilantro (chopped)
1/4 cup Onion finely chopped
1/4 cup Tomatoes finely chopped
1/2 Cup thin Sev

Method: Add 2 cups of water and bring the masala paste to a quick boil.Add Chilli powder,salt and sugar.When the raw smell disappears add the peas ,tamarind chutney, mashed potatoes along with enough water to cook.Allow it to boil until it reaches a semi gravy consistency. The Dalia and the Potato will act as a thickening agent. In the meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F.Place the Tortillas(you may wana cut them into two or four) on a cookie sheet and bake for about 12 mins or until crisp.Remove and cool.Break them into pieces.

Just before serving,place the broken Tortillas in a serving plate,pour a ladle of Masala Mixture enough to cover the Puri’s,sprinkle chopped tomatoes,onions and cilantro.Garnish with sev.

Masala Puri always tastes good when its hot actually piping hot .Instead of Flour you may even try the corn Tortillas.Some dislike the smell of Tortillas,but believe me once they are baked and broken you can hardly make out their taste(this is how I fooled P:-D).Also instead of baking you can just dry toast them in a Tava,it actually takes time but it’s not bad at all.

Verdict: It’s a perfect chat for the evening (especially if you are in 16F like me:-).

Note – I have moved my blog from www.aromasfrommykitchen.blogspot.com.

Alright am back.Welcome to my site,I am extremely delighted about having my own space for blogging. A big big thanks to friend R who helped me work this out. After having made peace with Plagiarism I have decided to move on.Thanks for your solidarity.This site was completed a few days back,but had a lil bit of technical glitches here n there, its all done now . up and running(Haven’t you heard that a zillion times at work:-))

I wanted to come up with something different and unusual. On my page, you would find Kitchen Vocab & Chemistry -where I will share some tips,ideas etc.The Art work section is for all my creative work.I have worked a lil on these pages for now,however I will keep updating them . Recipe Index ? the name says it all.

I wanted to start blogging with a sweet and baked these cute lil ones.Rugelach is a cookie made with cream cheese dough spread with any filling such as jam,syrup,cinnamon and nuts.It is called the “ultimate pastry cookie”,also referred as butter or nut horns(origin being European Jewish Community).As far as I know,they come in two shapes,one in the form of small rolls and the most popular being the crescent shaped one.There are again ways to make them,some use sour cream and others use cream cheese (like I did).These doughs are rolled out into circles,sugar,cinnamon and nuts are spread over,cut into pie shape/pizza shapes and rolled up in the form of crescents.I believe in the US the dough is called as ?cream cheese dough?.I have tweaked the recipe a lil as per my requirement.

Recipe Source : Joy of Cooking book

Preparation Time: 40 min(including baking time,excluding cooling time)

Servings: 16 large crescents and 14 small rectangles

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter (2 sticks),softened

6 ounces cream cheese(softened)

2 Cup All Purpose Flour

A tsp ground Cinnamon

1/3 Cup Sugar

A cup Strawberry Syrup(The original recipe asked for any fruit preserves or Jam)

1 Cup mini chocolate chips(Raisins can also be used)

3 tbsp grounded Walnuts/Almonds(coarsely grounded)

Method: Beat Butter and Cream Cheese on medium speed until blended(I used my Kitchen Aid,an electric mixer will do good too).Add the flour and beat until; the dough comes together. Divide the dough into three parts.Flatten one part of it into 6×4 rectangle or 6 circle. Wrap in a plastic and refrigerate for an hour.(I divided them into 1 rectangle and 2 circles).

Preheat oven to 350F.Cover a cookie sheet with Parchment paper.Work with one portion of the dough(leave the remainder refrigerated).Mix Sugar and cinnamon together.

Rectangular Rugelach:

Shape by rolling each portion in to a 16X10 rectangle,about 1/8 thick.Use flour for dusting.Leaving border spread 1 rectangle with the syrup,place a line of chocolate chips in one end.Sprinkle sugar cinnamon mixture and nuts.Roll the dough starting at the chocolate end ,gently tucking and tightening as you go.Cut the roll into 1 1/2 slices.Repeat with remaining rectangles.(I wanted them to look like cinnamon rolls hence,sliced them really thin).

Crescent Rugelach:

Shape by rolling each portion into a circle about 14 in diameter.Spread the jam in thin layer,sprinkle cinnamon mixture and the nuts.Cut the circle like a pizza,creating 8 large or 16 small even triangles.Roll up from the wide end to the point,tucking the point under.Repeat with the remaining circles.(I made a small and a large circle)

Place the Rugelach to the cookie sheet and sprinkle each cookie with the cinnamon sugar mixture.Bake until bottoms are golden brown (top will still be blond),about 25mins.Remove and let stand on a rack until they firm slightly.

Verdict:

I usually buy the crescent rolls and bake them at home, which makes a perfect snack for evening.But nothing can beat the home made ones.The nutty texture really stands out.Its not that fluffy as the usual crescent that we get in grocery store.Its very easy to bake and the ingredients arent that complicated.Rugelach rocks!!!

You may also like-

Butter Cookies

Scandinavian Pecan Cookies