Free Imagine Things

Hi everybody how are you all doing ?, These are the Biscuits I made a long back in my draft, I made these when Lubna and Yasmeen announced for Ramdan event :), I made thrice, we ate, even shared to friends and family but never posted on time :).
I had written this in my book, quite a long time ago but had never tried them as I had no oven, I just thought I will give a try as it was made with dates.  Dates are one of my favourite dry fruits, I get so tempted when I see.
When ever my friend visits his parents in Dubai, never forgets to buy me a box full of Dates.  So, here I am with this recipe, and of course as I told earlier, I made these quite a lot of time, as my kids and friends liked it.
I made it in  both with Egg and Eggless way and it turned quite well in both the ways.

BISCUITS TAMIR

INGREDIENTS:
2 Cups of Flour
200gms Chopped Dates
1 Egg
1/4 Cup Oil
3/4th Cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tbsp Sesame seeds
water as needed little by little to form a dough

METHOD:
Sieve flour with Baking Powder, add egg, oil and sugar to it.  Mix well for 3 to 4 minutes, Make a stiff dough with water, Knead well and keep aside.
Meanwhile chop the dates nicely and keep it ready.
Divide the dough into two portions.  Roll out into thick square or round like a Chapati, prick with a needle spread dates all over, cover with another chapati or however you have rolled the dough on the first roll.
Press a little and sprinkle Sesame seeds. Cut into rectangles and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes, cool and store.





FOR THE EGGLESS VERSION:














INGREDIENTS:
Same as above for the Egg version but I just omitted the Eggs in it and used water as needed to bond the dough. (An other time I used 2 tbsp of Flaxseed powder to give it a little more healthy touch).
For the dates filling, I Grounded
3 tbsp of Poppy seeds with grated
1/4 cup of Copra and
3 tbsp of sugar and
1 cardamom pod without the skin.
Mix this with the dates and spread it over the rolled dough same as above and spread another roll on top of it and bake the same way.
It will not puff up as the egg one, but tastes good.

I am sending this to the event hosted by Sudeshna of cook like a bong,  Cooking with seeds - Poppy seed, started by Priya of Priya'seasyntasty recipes.

Another One from Asha's Gujarati cuisine, which was interesting to try out, She said that it was a Great and authentic Gujarati delicacy. whatever it is my H loved it as much as I did, don't look at her photo and wonder how does it ever compare with mine, I made it like a halwa and popped it into a plate, Check out her blog at the link above to look at this beautiful click of sweet carved out into a heart, then make it and eat it, it's really nice not too sweet and good for health as it is made with wheat flour!,  searching for Gujarati recipes I stumbled into an other blog called Enjoy Indian food by Meera, who has got loads of Gujarati dishes dished out in her kitchen, and writes about the same sweet, and explains why it is called Gol papdi even though it is not Gol (round) in shape, she says Gol means Jaggery. Try out her version too...

SUKHDI OR GOLPAPDI

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Cup Ghee
1 Cup Wheat flour
3/4th cup Brown sugar/ white sugar/Jaggery
1tbsp of poppy seeds
1 tsp of cardamom powder

METHOD:
Heat Ghee in a kadai, when hot add poppy seeds, then add wheat flour and start stirring continuously until you get a nice aroma of a roasted flour, then add the sugar and mix well, add cardamom and 2 tbsp of milk, it starts leaving out the sides, flatten it and cut it into squares and you can decorate with cashew, raisins or blanched almonds.
I removed it before it became more like a cake, It was a like brown mass, and later it became hard not to bite though, It was delicious. I used to both brown sugar and Jaggery to make this sweet
I am sending this to simply food who is hosting the flavours of Gujarat.

When I saw this in her blog, I was so interested because of two things, one is the bright colour and the other is the beetroots. As I have told you in my previous posts, she does a lot of Ground work and you have to read about it in her blog. She says it is so famous in US and goes on telling a story about a lady who was impressed that she really wanted to try it out on her own and asked for the recipe, but was refused and proceeded on buying the recipe and was charged so much, I mean a way too much, that she took her revenge by giving the recipe to every one!
She even quotes from New york times, which I think you should read it in her blog and here is the link to the original recipe. She has a group of twitter friends who experiment new things and this was one of them, she says she adopted this recipe from Hannah's seeing Red, I adopted this from her blog with the changes she made to the originally recipe. The only variation I did was getting very tempted I added my flax seed mixture. Check out her blog about all the information about this gorgeous looking cakes.
As she says the cakes sold used the Red colour or the beetles, which we cannot use as a vegetarian she says substituting beets was a wonderful trick. and it certainly looked Red.

EGGLESS RED VELVET CUP CAKES

I am sending this of to Tried and tested event of Zlamushka's, being carried on by Lakshmi and this month hosted by valli of cooking4allseasons.
Hope valli will still accept my entries, as I have tried but not able to post them on time...

Thirunalvelli halwa da, Thiruchimale koteda, Thirupati ke laddu thanda saamidaa, unnakke naambo sapdrdakk panni kuduthome paathiyaa, aapdi an solraa yen ponnu!!, just kidding mum!!, howzthis ?, You Saw the Starter and Main course from my daughters creations, Now this will be my the last two of their creations for that day, I am posting the side dish and the dessert especially my eldest daughter created!!. I did not know what to call it so I just decided I will call it a dessert.
You must be wondering what those words in Tamil are, My second daughter  is a lovley girl, and always keeps making jokes, so, that day when we all sat and ate she wanted to tease me these are the words she told me, As it is in Tamil, taken from a film called Saami, what it says is Thirunallvelli is famous for its halwa, Thiruchimale has a firm fort, and of course everybody knows that No laddu can beat Thirupati ladoos!!, she was teasing me saying all these things that If I think myself a very good cook, and nobody can cook like me, just see how we have beat you to it!!. Ooops that was a cool one right ?.
This perfect roast potatoes was especially created my second daughter because she is just mad after eating potatoes, and she was convincing us all that it was a perfect side dish.

PERFECT ROAST POTATOES

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Kg cut into cubes (choose from floour potatoes such as King Edward, Maris piper or Desiree - peeled and cut into even sized chunks.
3 tbsp Olive oil
2 to 3 cloves of Crushed garlic
few sprigs of Thyme leaves
1 tsp of powdered pepper

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees/Gas Mark 7, Bring in a large saucepan of salted water to boil, add the potatoes and cover and cook for few (5 to 7 min), they will still  be firm , Remove from the heat.
Meanwhile take oil in a cup nicely mince the garlic, pepper and thyme and mix them well with oil.
Drain the potatoes, On the stove top take a Roasting tin or Sauce pan add the infused oil add the potatoes, mix them well and cover with a lid and shake it now and then so that the surface of the potatoes is roughened, to help give a much crisper texture.
Remove the roasting tin from the oven and carefully tip the potatoes into the hot oil.  Baste to ensure that they are all well coated with the oil.
Roast at he top of the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes until the potatoes are browned all over and thoroughly crisp, turning only once halfway through the cooking time and bastng, otherwise the crunchy edges will be destroyed.
Carefully transfer the potatoes to a warmed serving dish, Sprinkle with a little salt and serve at once.

I was monitoring them as it was involving oil and oven.

This Dessert was created my eldest daughter, she loves to create the desserts and always encourages me to bake and create them, not that I do a lot!.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INGREDIENTS:
4 Oranges ( I used more than 4 until I got 1 cup of Juice)
Zest of 1 Orange
100 gms of softened butter
100 gms Sugar (I used more sugar)
150 gms Flour
3 Eggs Separated
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Orange essence (or Cointreau)
1 Pinch of salt
1 tbsp Rum (I skipped)
Butter to Grease the pan

METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees, Grease a 6'' cake pan, and line the bottom with parchment.
In a bowl beat the sugar and butter which is softened together until well blended.
Add the yolks one by one to the this mixture, one by one slowly incorporating each one very well, add each yolk separately one by one carefully until you obtain a smooth batter.
I then added Orange essence but skipped the rhum as she had mentioned.
Then in an other bowl sift Baking powder and flour together and add it to the batter slowly incorporating it into the sugar and butter mixture and mix well.
Cut and juice the oranges, I had around 5 to 6 oranges where in I got 1 cup of juice, make it into two halves pour half of the juice in the batter and add the zest and mix well together.
Separately beat the whites until firm with a pinch of salt, Add them delicately to the batter (So says PAB!!), well I take these instructions very seriously!!.
Pour this batter into the pan and bake for an 45minutes to 1 hour or check by inserting a pick into it and if it comes out clean, then it is done.
You must have noticed that the colour will be dark orange when it is done!!
Take the cake out from the oven and Pour the other half of the juice into the cake while it's still warm!!!.
Take care not to pour it too fast and not to let the cake cool too much before you do it.
It is important to to get the right timing, if you don't get it right your whole cake will not have juice in it!!
Then the cake will have two different textures and will have a visible line halfway down where the juice would have stopped penetrating!!

GATEAU A' L ORANGE

Hi, friends hope you are all doing well, You must be wondering that I keep disappearing every month for a few days to enjoy my migraines and my Irritable, horrible moods, well, I am now 'touch wood' feeling better, I missed a lot of events, don't think I wasn't cooking , I think thats the only thing which keeps me going!!, But, I will never be able to do anything further than that, my kids take the photos upload them in my comp but that's it, I cannot do anything as I will not be able to watch the screen for a long time,  this Migraine has become a monthly problem,  God!!, how I wish this problem gets out of me soon.

Coming back to the Daring Baker's challenge, I finished my challenge on the 27th of May, but could never post it, As I had made one step of this recipe before, I was comfortable doing this.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers challenging was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cup Cake , Cat challenged everyone to make a Piece Monte'e or Croquembouche based on recipes from Peter Kump's baking school in Manhanttan and Nick Malgieri.

This month's challenge was ''Piece Mont'ee, which literally means ''mounted piece''.  It is also called Croquembouche which means ''crunch in the mouth'' !!, The Piece Montee is actually a large cone like structure made of Profiteroles (Cream filled Puff Pastries, which I have seen in Super Markets dipped in chocolate), It is served like this as a dessert in weddings!!, people pick them out from the structure and enjoy it, there are loads of Videos you should definitely watch to know and how it is done.

PIECE MONTE'E OR CROQUEMBOUCHE

For the Piece Montee to mount there are three steps involved, first you have to make the Vanilla Creme pattissiere, Pate a choux and the glazing.

INGREDIENTS:
FOR THE VANILLA CREME PATTISSIERE (Half batch)
1 Cup (225ml) Whole milk
2 tbsp Corn Starch
6 tbsp (100gms) Sugar
1 Large Egg
2 Large Egg yolks
2 tbsp (30gms) Unsalted butter
1 tsp Vanilla

METHOD:
Dissolve Corn starch in 1/4 cup of milk, combine the remaining milk wit the sugar in a saucepan, bring to boil, remove from heat.
Beat the whole egg then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
Return the remaining milk to boil , pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream coninuing whisk.
Cream thickens and come to boil, Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla
chill until ready to use.

FOR CHOCOLATE PASTRY
Dissolve 1 and 1/2 tsp instant expresso in 1 and 1/2 tsp boiling water, whisk into pastry cream wit butter and vanilla.

PATE A CHOUX
INGREDIENTS:
3/4 or 175 ml water
 6tbsp (85 gms) Unsalted butter
1/4tsp salt
1 Cup (125gms) All purpose flour
4 Large eggs
1 tbsp Sugar

METHOD:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, Bring to a boil and stir occasionally.
At boil, remove from heat and stir in the flour stirring to combine completely.
Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Transfer to a bowl with a wooden spoon, 1 minute to cool slightly .
Add 1 egg at a time , the batter will appear loose and shiny, like a buttered mashed potato, keep adding eggs one at a time reapeating the same process, until all the eggs are incorporated.
Meanwhile keep your pastry bag ready with a round tip 1'' apart, I just piped the pastry without any tip :) I think that is why my pastry was quite big!!,
Bake the choux at 425 degree F/200 degree C, until well puffed and urning lightly golden in colour about 10 minutes, Lower te tempratrue to 350 degree F/180 degree C and continue baking until well golden coloured and dry about 20 minutes more, Remove to a rack and cool.
Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

Filling:When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.


Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your Piece Monte'e.

HARD CARAMEL GLAZE:
1 Cup (225g) sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice

METHOD: Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand, place on medium heat, heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and center begins to smoke.  Begin to stir sugar, Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber colour.  Remove from heat immediately, and use it immediately.
Assembling your Piece Montee: Lay out the unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert.  For example, if making a conical shape, make a pattern stick them together and start from the bottom layer and build it upwards like a zigsaw puzzle, seeing which pieces fit together.
Once ready to assemble dip the top of each choux in the glaze and start assembling on the sheet. continue dipping and arranging the pastries in usisng the glaze t hold them together and build up.
Once done, I poured some more chocolate glaze on to of it and allowed my kids to enjoy by decorating with what ever they want.

You can take an other look at my Croquembouche..................


















My Verdict: It was simply delicious so my kids declared and wanted me to make it again!!, but they did not like the caramel glaze as they found it quite sticky!!, So next time minus the caramel glaze I am going to do this again, My eldest said it was so delicious and said it tasted like the Eclairs, I had to tell her that it was the same choux pastry!! which I have used to do this, Loved it, thanks Cat for this lovely challenge!!....
c u soon...., take care......

I would also like you if you are interested in doing this check out Audax Artifex's blog for some wonderful tips and important things which you need to understand and keep an eye when you want it to turn out perfect. He is a great baker and a very creative one at that, and check out on other daring bakers for their lovely creations and feast your eyes with such creativity you will be awed to see.......

This Book makes me cook, is a book club by few bloggers, with whom I joined with, just to read some books at least once a month!!, these days I have never been able to read any serious books at all, when I found this club, I was truly happy and they also welcomed me into their club. This is my second book, This time again I got hold of this book only after the 15th of last month, I was a bit confused with the posting dates, which I came to know a little late, Now I know exactly when to post the next one!!, Anyways as usual I think I am the last one to post!!.
This month (april) book choosen by the book club was ''Julie and Julia'', 524 recipes, 365 days, 1 tiny apartment by Julie Powell.
As many of you who might have read the book or seen the movie know that Julie powell is a secretary who lives in a tiny apartment with her husband and how she found this book in her mom's collection and her saga or journey through this book of Julia Child's Art of French CoMastering the oking, and this is how the project was born!!
Julie begins to cook everyone of the 524 recipes in the book, within the span of just one year- 365 days!!, Once she plunges herself into this project, she just thinks only about this, it just becomes a breath to her life, The life with her family, friends and work all becomes secondary in her life when she starts the project.
The book particularly I liked in it was her hard labour in trying out all the recipes to the perfection of Julia child, was quite a tedious task for somebody who knew very minimal things about cooking!!, her journey was really a tough one, as she had issues mentally with some of the things which wouldn't eat!!.
The other thing was her husband's involvement in her project was what I most appreciated, juggling between everyday work, his sickness and his wife's project, hats off to him, caring and encouraging her in every step of her project, sometimes his defensive tactic of selective hearing as julie says, made him survive with his wife's venture!!.
what I didn't like in the book was too much of the 'F' word, and talking too much about sex was what I did not like, there was not much of anything about the cooking or baking, as what I had expected!!, Nothing much about Julia child at all, The book is all about her struggling with her life and her living with her family and friends, I could see some of the names of some dishes and reading it I came to know that it is more about cooking meat and not much vegetarian cooking in it.
In the end I felt really sorry for Julie as she felt that she was not at least recognised by Julia child, but as she herself says - what it takes to find your way in the world, It's not what I thought it was, - I don't know confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have no question , But, there's something else something that these things grow out of  - It's Joy!!.
I do not blame Julie, being a blogger myself, I know how each one of the bloggers out there dedicate their life into blogging and how much it involves and revolves around their life, through this book I take this opportunity to give a big bow to all the food bloggers who love their bleeders and think them as part of their life.
Meryl streep as Julia child has taken the movie into an excellent setting, she just blends in with Julia child's character and feel us more rapport with that lady in name and fame. After seeing the movie 'Devil wears Prada' I am a big fan of Meryl streep and just loved her in ''Julie and Julia'' too!!.
I should say that I loved the movie than the book, Reading a lot of MAofFc in googling I came to know that this Recipe was the last in her book, as I think I am the last one to write about this book, this would be quite an appropriate choice, I really do not know if Julie or Julia would approve my cake..., but as Julie says I tried my best to bake this cake!!

REINE DE SABA (QUEEN OF SHEEBA CAKE)

INGREDIENTS:
3 Oz Semi sweet Baking Chocolate
1 oz Unsweetned chocolate
2 tbsp Strong coffee (dark rum)
1/2 cup Unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
pinch of salt
2 tbsp Granulated sugar
1/3 cup blanched Almonds (Pulverised in blender with 2tbsp of Granulated sugar)
1/4 tsp Almond extract
1/2 cup Plain bleached Cake flour (I used Self-raising flour)

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Gas Mark 4)
In a sauce pan melt both the chocolates and strong coffee (/dark rum) by using a double boiler set over a pan of 2 or 3'' of water, combine and let chocolate melt stirring smooth and turn of heat
In an another bowl take softened butter, beat it add sugar and yolks and beat until soft and fluffy
In an another bowl beat the egg whites add cram of tartar and salt and beat until soft peaks are formed add 2 tbsp of sugar and beat until shining peaks form leaving a trial behind.
Now Blend the warm melted chocolate into the yolk mixture, then blend in the ground almonds and almond extarcts.
Immediately stir in 1/4th of egg whites, delicately and rapidly fold in the quarter of the flour, this way alternatively keep on adding the egg whites and fold in the flour until completely both of them are used up.
Then fold this mixture into the cake tin immediately and press in well with the help of spatula and bake this in the lower middle rack of a preheated oven
Bake the cake for around 25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes clean when inserted in the cake, But, You need to keep in mind the cake in the middle should be still soft or glooey, and should move when shaken.
Remove it from the tin once it is cooled and then do the Icing.















I did a chocolate Icing with :
4 oz of chocolate
A knob of butter
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of milk
I melted the chocolate, with knob of butter, sugar and tbsp of milk and made an Icing on to top it.
I had a real problem my cake tin which locks is loose came of when I lifted it to put it in the oven, came off and I felt like crying, and i tried my best to push the mixture into the tin and I had no hope that it would really bake or not !!, thank God!! it did bake and came out really well, I really wanted to show a piece of how it looked but my kids were more interested in eating it than taking photos!!, when I came back I saw that they had just left me a piece of it and as it was late in the night I dare not take any photos, As most of photos are crap !!
I used some flaked almonds to top it which I saw in one of the blogs, when I googled for this recipe, I had 3 to 4 blogs to go through for this recipe, then I decided to take the recipe from this blog and Nigella's blog which were almost similar.

I was not really very precise with the measurments as oz/gms/cups differ a little bit which is very difficult to measure so I have just rounded of and I used a little bit of more sugar, the best was the Icing I made it was really stupid of me when I melted butter and chocolate they were perfect, as my family has a sweet tooth I thought I will add a tbsp of sugar and when I added it started to become hard and then I added milk and made it little liquidy but it was curdled up so then again I added 2 more pieces of chocolate and then it gained back its shining consistency!!.
Hope you all enjoyed my post as I enjoyed this cake!! c u soon..., I think I will be on time for the next time.
will be off to see what my friends have cooked from the book... and you also my friends do check out their blogs.

We both did a window shopping around the city centre and came back home quite tired, we had a subway sandwich then had a pack of crisps and went around the shops thought we will go to the station and we would be home soon, she had and kept telling what I need to cook today, but when we came to station we came to know that we need to wait almost an hour and half  in te cold weather !!, so by the time we were back home it was nearly half seven, so we sorted somethings out in the house and thought of cooking something up soon, I then remembered this recipe which I wanted to try out from this blog, PJ of Ginger and Garlic has lovely recipes which would be very interesting to my kids, so I was showing my daughter if she would like this than what she had already asked for, so we sat down to check out the recipe, she was really not very interested with eating Tofu today, so we were checking out more recipes from this chef Mr. Mark Bittman, well I really didn't know who it was and I came to know about him through PJ, so I started googling and I stumbled on this blog called I Heart cooking club, I really was so interested to participate in the event, so I had think fast what I could muster up, this was all daughter's idea and she was with me and helped in doing this too..., It was really tasty, but I did tweak them a little, I should say Mark Bittman talks very well, and as he says you can do it your way, if you know the ingredients, lick and see if that is how you want!!, then that's just fine so here is my recipe and of course I did a back up check with the procedures with Joy of cooking.., just to make sure I wouldn' t make anything wrong, like cross checking.. as in the video of Mark Bittman doesn't give you exact measurments.

STRAWBERRY WITH ALMOND CREME ANGLAISE

INGREDIENTS :
Strawberries as you wish
1/2 cup Cream ( I used full creme)
1/2 cup milk
1 and 1/2 tsp Custard Powder
2 Egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
10 Almonds
1/2 tsp Almond essence

METHOD
Take a pan and toast almonds slightly and keep aside.
Take a bowl put the toasted almonds and pour in the cream, milk and sugar and keep stirring and when it starts heating up add custard powder and the yolks and keep on stirring until it thickens, do not boil and if you allow it boil as the yolks are in their they might get curdled up, as both Mark and Joy of cooking say it might curdle up and if it does Joy of cooking says put it in the processor and it would become alright.
But I was, should I say both us worked together and it didn't curdle up and my daughter reminded me as Mark says turn your spoon around and pull a straight line on it, to check the right consistency of the Almond sauce it will not waver!! ahem!!, mum it is perfect said my little sweet heart and here my Almond sauce was ready.
Take a bowl and strainer and strain the sauce and take the Crushed almonds out and set aside, put this Cre'me anglaise into the refrigerator for the sauce to cool
Cut the strawberry and then pour the Almond Sauce over it and sprinkle crushed almonds to decorate and serve it chilled.
Hope you enjoyed as we did, check out a precise recipe for the above sauce in Mark's/Joy of cooking or by Googling with some of wonderful bloggers who would have tried it out !!.
I would also send this to Thanda Mela event and cooking with kids both hosted by Srivalli.

Here are some more pics of my strawberry almond sauce.





















Thank you and c u soon......

Hi friends, I know I am a few minutes late for my Daring Baker's challenge posting !! :), that's me always late for everything, But, But, just a second I posted in the forum right on time!! exactly 2 minutes before midnight!!.
This month April 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge was hosted by Esther of  The Lilac Kitchen, she challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using if possible a very British ingredients Suet!!!.

Well, well, well this was a difficult situation I was in and few more like me who are vegetarians and vegans, as Suet is made from meat!!, Even though here they sell a vegetable suet by Atora, I had never tried it and really did not know how it works, May be someday I might give it a try!!, But then Esther, was a wonderful host who wanted all of us to participate and was she flexible, yes!!, she was very !!!, she wrote that she wanted all of us to bake I mean Steam away or Bake or however you know how to make a pudding!!, and yes here we go we all had free reins so we could just make whatever we wanted!!
If you are interested on how the suet is made check out in Esther's blog or visit the main Kitchen where loads of our Daring bakers have contributed to stuning puddings to feast your eyes!!
I just wanted it to be atleast in something realtively near so I really wanted to Steam and see how the pudding tastes and looks!!, I was so surprised that it turned out very well..., Here is my pudding recipe...
This recipe after searching so many books I found this one, which attracted me for two reasons one by the look of it and the other was it had dates in it!! The most loved dry fruit by me....!!!,This book is a collection of Desserts and doesn't have an author.., whoever found this one won my heart and of course my family and friends who enjoyed it, especially my H who said, it was simply Gorgeous and had a generous second helping !!! as it was quite sweet...
Sorry once again I have to apologise the not-too-tempting-clicks!!, But they were really too yummy!!, you all must give it a try.

CHOCOLATE, ORANGE AND DATES PUDDING

My kids were saying it just tasted like the Orange chocolates sold exclusive only in UK, which is just like the orange segments, as if you are peeling an  Orange, So if you ever come to UK, do not forget to buy these Orangy chocolates.., as I heard from lot of people that you can get it nowhere!!
Enjoy!!!

This was what my mom used to make during the season of Mangoes!!, well, now of course it is the season of Mangoes!!, Summer time Mango, Karbooze (water-melon) time, it is such a refreshing drink, right from the fridge, when yu serve it chilled when the sun is scorching it is absolutely a bliss, In Banglore, there are a lot of Fresh fruit shops which have a good business during summer, and here they sell it as Mango milk shake with Ice cubes and it feels so good!!, I think I am going on and on about this, writing about this I think I am walking down my memory lane !? or in the streets of Banglore!!, Oh! God! whatever it is let me come back to the recipe and I need to tell you why I made this!!
I joined this club of book lovers called ''This book makes me cook'' who read a book every month and cook something from the book!!, I wanted to join this club and I had this thought from a long time, but never got a chance to write to them, last month I decided I was going to join them just for the love to read books, It was quite a hard way to start off with as I could not get hold the copy of that book so they helped me with it and I had a hard time as reading the soft copy was quite difficult, I was crying and laughing !!, My children thought mum is upset reading the book and that's the reason she is crying but then I had to tell them continuously reading for an hour or so everyday was bringing water in my eyes!! but the book was quite hilarious!!

MANGO MILK SHAKE/MAAVINA HANNINA SEEKARNE

Hi all, I have been so busy past 3 weeks, with lot of things going on, even though I had finished my challenge 2 weeks before the dead line I could never post it because of time constraint, today I decided I have to post this, well, as usual my photo is a disaster, as I take them only in the night with my daughter's mobile.
Jennifer of chocolate shavings was this month's host and as she says herself, this scrumptious dessert she made at the Alain Ducasse Cooking School in paris, France, made her bring this to all of us to try out, Hoping you also would enjoy this dessert by making it.
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.

ORANGE TIAN

Note: There are quite a few steps to making this dessert: however a lot can be made in advance.  The Orange marmalade can be made several days ahead of time and the caramel sauce and orange segments preparation should be made the day before you make the dessert. The whipped cream should be  firm enough to make the dessert to set in the freezer for long enough or they will fall apart when you unmould them.

FOR THE PATE SABLEE
INGREDIENTS:
2 medium sized yolks at room temperature
Granulated sugar 6 tbsp + 1 tsp/2.8 oz/80 grms
vanilla extract 1/2 tsp
unsalted butter 1/4 cup + 3 tbsp ; 3.5 oz ; 100 gms ice cold , cubed
Salt 1/ 3 tsp ; 2 gms
All purpose flour 1.5 cups+ 2 tbsp ; 7 oz ; 200 gms
Baking Powder 1 tsp ; 4 grms

Put the flour, BP, cubed butter and salt in a food processor and mix well, In a separate bowl, add the egg yolks vanilla extract, and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale, pour this mixture in the food processor and process (I used my hand as I don't have a food processor), until the dough just comes together, If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple of drops of water and process again to form a homogenoous ball of dough. Form this into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes
Preheat over to 350 degree Faherheit, Roll the dough onto a lightly floured surface until you obtain a 1/4 inch thick circle.
Using a cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough and place on a parchment lined baking sheet and Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.

FOR THE MARMALADE:
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup + 3 tbsps/ 3.5oz/100 gms Freshly pressed Orange Juice
1 Large Orange used to make orange slices
cold water to cook the orange slices
pectin 5 gms
Granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of oranges slices once they are cooked

Finley slice the orange, place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill the cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes
Blanch the orange slices 3 times, This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.
Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool
Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor, I used my mixie)
Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated suar or use a cup measurer for both.
In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juce and pectin. cook the mixture till it reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).
Now your Marmalade is ready (this is absolutely delicious and was my kids favourite, they told me it was far better than the shop bought one, as I had to beg them to try for the first time!!, they were bowled out by the taste of it).

FOR THE ORANGE SEGMENTS:
For this step you will need 8 oranges
cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.
(This was my disaster, my oranges were quite sour and made the orange tian sour!!, so what I learnt was when slicing check each orange to see if it is sweet!!)

FOR THE CARAMEL
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup , 7 oz/200 grms Granulated sugar
1.5 cups + 2 tbsp /14 oz/400 gms Orange juice

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it. Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice, as the soon as the mixute starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments
Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bosl, you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert, when the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon about 10 minutes it takes, you can then spoon it over the orange Tians

FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM:
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup/7oz/200 gms Heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp of hot water
1 tsp Gelatine ( substitute with agar-agar flakes,Xanthum Gum)
1 tbsp Orange Marmalade (see above recipe)

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. let the gelatine cool to room temperture while you make the whipped cream, As I used xanthum Gum I just dissolved the powder in warm water and used it instead.
Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl, whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute.  Add the confectioner sugar, Increase the speed to medium-high.  Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible trails in the cream, the add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. continue whipping until the cram is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in orange marmalade.

ASSEMBLING THE DESERT:
Make sure you have room in your freezer, Line a small  tray or baking sheet with parchment paper, Lay out cookie cutters, Drain out the orange segments on a kitchen towel, I drained them in a sieve fist and then on the kitchen towel, Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.
Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they end up being top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making a tart.
Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer, then top it with the dough circle, before that spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough, this side should touching the shipping cream, gently press on the cirle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.
place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.
using a small knife, gently go around the edges and make sure the dessert is easy to unmould, Gently place your place on serving plate on top of a dessert and turn the plate over and add a spoonful of carmale sauce and serve immediately.
Check out from other daring bakers here and their lovely creations.


















My verdict:
My only problem was my oranges, the oranges I segmented were quite sour and it spoiled the taste of orange tian !!, so I feel it is better to check the oranges before using them. I did not use Gelatine as it is made from the collagen of animal parts, A vegetarian substitute is Agar Agar flakes or Xanthum Gum both help as binding product in the recipe.