Mocha Muffins with Chocolate Chips

Being a true chocolate lover, I always find ways to have them in some way or the other. :) Whenever I crave for chocolates especially on sunday evenings it has be one of these - Molten Lava Cake / Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting. But now I was on the look out for new chocolate recipes and found this one. Chocolate and Coffee is one of my favorite combination.

INGREDIENTS
Adapted from Food Librarian

Instant Coffee Powder - 1 1/2 tbsp * note 1
Hot Water - 1/4 cup

Choco Chips - 1 cup *note 2

Dry Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour - 1 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup
Cocoa Powder - 3 tbsp
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp


Wet Ingredients:
Butter Milk - 1/2 cup * note 3
Vegetable Oil - 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2 large * note 4
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

METHOD
Preheat oven at 180 degree C for 10 minutes.
Dissolve coffee powder in hot water.
In a bowl mix together the wet ingredients.
Add the coffee mixture.
In a separate large bowl mix the dry ingredients.
Mix in the buttermilk  mixture just until combined.
Add the choco chips and mix it.
Line the muffin tray with liners.
Scoop the mixture and pour into muffins pan.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Transfer to rack and cool.

Tips:

1. I used Bru Instant Coffee powder.
2. In the original recipe the quantity added is 1 1/2 cup.
3. I added 1 tsp vinegar to 1/2 cup milk at room temp to make buttermilk.
4. Use eggs at room temperature. If it is too small add 3 eggs.
5. The original recipe calls for adding 1 cup pecans which I skipped.

Jam Tarts

The cute little jam tarts sure has become my kids favorite tea time snack.

INGREDIENTS

Flour-115g

Butter-60g *

Baking powder-1/2tsp

Water-4-5 drops**

Jam

METHOD

Mix flour and baking powder together.

Add the butter and rub it with your fingertips till it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add few drops of water to bring together the dough.
Line the tart tins***

Fill 2/3 of the tart with jam.

Bake at 180 degress for 15 mins or until golden around the edges .

De-mould when cooled.

Tips

You can use cup cake mould to make these tarts.

*Use chilled butter and if possible chilled flour.

**Use chilled water.
I refrigerated the dough for 1/2 hour so that's its easier to roll out.

***Roll out the dough on a flat surface about 1/8 inch thick. Then using a cookie cutter or glass cut into 

round shape. Cut out the rounds and gently place it on the mould and press it on all sides.

If you find it sticky, place a parchment paper and roll it on that.

Easy Prawn Pulao

Want to make a yummy pulao in a short time? May be during weekends or that you are not in a mood to cook something complicated or the usual meal. Then this is it. A tasty combination of rice and prawns. The flavour of prawns and spices blends well with the rice and voila in minutes this yummy pulao is ready. So all the sea food lovers what are you all waiting for. Go ahead and try it!

INGREDIENTS
Prawns - 1/4 kg
Cinnamon - 1" piece
Cloves- 3
Bay Leaf - 1
Cardamom- 3
Onions - 1 1/2 cup(finely chopped)
Green Chilly-1
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 1/2 tbsp
Tomato - 2 medium (finely chopped)
Red Chilly powder - 1 tsp +  1 tsp
Mint leaves - 1/2 cup
Coconut Milk 1 1/2 cup
Basmati Rice - 1 1/2 cup
Water - 1 cup + 1/4 cup
Oil - 3 tbsp
Salt - to taste

METHOD
Marinate the prawns with 1 tsp chilly powder and salt.
Soak basmati rice for 1/2 hour and drain.
Heat oil. Add the cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and bay leaves.
Add onions, chilly and saute well.
Add ginger garlic paste.
Add red chilly powder.
Add tomatoes.
Add prawns, mint leaves and salt.
Add the coconut milk and water. Bring to a boil.
Add rice. Stir well. Close with a lid and cook on high flame till the water comes to a boil.
Reduce heat to low.
Cover with a lid and let cook (appox. 15 minutes on low flame).
Serve hot with raitha and green salad.

Tips:
You may need 1/4 cup extra water depending on the rice. If its not cooked heat water and pour on top of the pulao. Close with a lid.
This pulao is delicious if spicy. But reduce spice level as per tolerance.
Use medium or small prawns as they are tastier.

Toasted Sandwich Rolls

Do you think all rolls are the same? Then check this out. A very different roll made from bread! What else can you ask for? A healthy, crunchy and baked sandwich roll - a perfect snack for all. Stuffed with potatoes and spices makes it energy packed too. This is perfect for picnics, lunch box or even as a break time snack at office.

Ingredients:

8 slices of bread

3 medium  potatoes boiled and mashed

1 small onion finely diced

1/2 teaspoon ginger paste

1/2 teaspoon  garam masala

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon sugar ( I used 1/4 tsp)

2 finely chopped green chillies ( I used only 1)

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder ( I used 1/4 tsp)

1 tablespoon olive oil 

Salt as required

METHOD

In a pan heat oil . Add onions and saute till it becomes translucent.

Add ginger paste and saute.

Add chillies and saute.

Add the chilly powder, garam masala and salt.

When the raw smell is gone add the mashed potatoes, lemon juice and sugar. Mix well.

Remove from heat and let it cool.

Divide the masala into 8 portions.

Then roll it like sausages approximately the width of the bread.

Chill it for 15 minutes.

In the mean time remove the crusts of the bread.

Roll it using a rolling pin and flatten.

Place the sausage shaped masala on the bread and roll it. Paste the ends using little water.

Repeat this for all the flattened bread slices.

Preheat oven for 10 minutes at 200 degree C.

Brush some oil in a baking tray and place the rolls in it.

Brush little oil on the rolls too.

Bake for 15 minutes in the oven or till the rolls turn golden brown.
Serve it just like that for kids and with coriander chutney/tomato sauce for others.

Tips: 

Add more chilly  and adjust as per spice preference.
Use large sandwich bread to make these rolls.

Fruit Custard

The best way to make kids have their daily dose of fruits is by giving  them a bowl of fruit custard. Its easy to make and ready in minutes.

INGREDIENTS

25 gm Vanilla Flavored Custard Powder
1/2 liter milk
6 tablespoon sugar
1 apple
2 small bananas
1 mango
1/2 cup pomegranate
1/2 cup chopped pineapple
1 glass water
Cherry for topping

METHOD

Measure 25 g custard powder into a bowl.
Add 1/4 cup milk from the 1/2 liter milk and make it into smooth paste.
Boil the remaining milk after adding 3 tablespoon sugar.
Remove milk from fire and stir in the custard paste.
Now place over low flame and let it cook for 1-2 minutes. Keep stirring.
Remove, pour into a bowl and let cool in the refrigerator for 15-20 mins.
Add sugar in a pan with water.
Boil and let cool.
Chop fruits fine and add to the sugar syrup.
When the custard is chilled add the fruits and serve with cherry topping.

Tips:
As the fruits are soaked in sugar syrup it can be refrigerated and used later. It won't get spoiled.
Add any fruits of your choice.
Reduce the sugar level as per preference.
You can refrigerate the fruits before using (about 1 hour). 

Crispy Chicken Cutlets

Chicken Cutlets are one of the best starters for a party…something that satisfies the craving for a light snack. It’s healthy and nutritious. The best way to make kids eat chicken and veggies.

INGREDIENTS
Recipe Source: My own

Cooked  Chicken – 500gm

Onion – 4

Green Chilly – 3

Ginger garlic Paste – 3 teaspoon

Chicken Masala – 3 teaspoon

Chicken Stock Cube – 1

Garam Masala - 1/4 teaspoon

Potato- 4 medium

Carrot – ½ cup

Coriander Leaves -¼ cup

Egg -2

Bread crumbs to coat (approx of 5 slices sandwich bread)

Oil to shallow fry

 Salt as required

METHOD

       Peel, wash and chop onions fine.

      Chop chilies very fine. (Slit chilly many times and then chop)

      Pressure cook potatoes and keep aside.

      Chop carrots very fine.

      Chop coriander fine.

Keep the bread in the freezer for ½ hour and then powder in a dry mixer roughly.

Heat oil in a Kadai.

Add ginger garlic paste and sauté for 10 seconds.

Add onions and sauté.

Add chilly and sauté.

Now add chicken masala, chicken stock,garam masala and sauté well.

Add carrot & simmer. Cook for 3-4 minutes stirring in between till it is almost half cooked.

Separate meat from bones and mince in a food processor/mincer.

Mix the chicken with the veggies and mix well.

Peel the cooked potatoes, mash them and add to the Kadai.

Add salt if required.

Make breadcrumbs.
Separate the egg yolk and egg whites.

Add the egg yolk to the mixture and mix well.

Keep the egg white to coat the cutlets.

Shape the mix to form a ball and then dip in egg white to coat on all sides.

Press lightly in the bread crumbs to form the shape of cutlets and coat on all sides.

Heat oil for shallow frying - about 5 tablespoons in a pan.

Simmer and keep the cutlets to fry on the sides of the pan.

Let it cook on low fire.

Fry on both sides till golden brown, remove and place it on absorbent paper.

Crispy golden brown chicken cutlets are ready!. Serve hot with tomato sauce.

Tips:
I used chicken from the chicken curry. In case you don't have that cook chicken with salt, pepper and some chicken masala in a pressure cooker.
You can use rusk instead of breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are softer.
It can be deep fried but I prefer to use less oil.
In case the mixture become too loose to shape add little breadcrumbs to tighten the mixture.
The cutlet mix can be refrigerated for about 2 days and used.
In case you want to make vegetable cutlets add french beans and peas instead of chicken and use vegetable masala/ a combination of 1 teaspoon Red chilly powder and 1/4 teaspoon turmeric.
If you want to avoid eggs coat it with oil before dipping in breadcrumbs.

Happy Cup Cakes

HAPPY  CUP CAKES

Happy Easter to all!!!  Today’s special is the traditional Vanilla Cup Cakes.

Whenever I see cupcakes, I remember the cuppy cake song…

You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum,Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie

You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye.

Amy sang it so well. I feel this song holds good for cup cakes too. It’s so cute. Easy to bake yet so beautiful.

There has been a cup cakes trend in the culinary world. The number of flavors is just amazing!

This being my first try at making cup cakes, I wanted to stick to the traditional vanilla cupcake which has been my favorite since childhood. I still cannot forget the aroma of the freshly baked cupcakes which my grandpa used to buy for us as kids. How we used to relish every bit of it and would almost eat up the liners too. :)

Vanilla Cupcakes

Recipe Source: Ria

INGREDIENTS

All purpose flour	2 cups
Baking powder	2 tsp
Salt	½ tsp
Unsalted butter (room temperature)	½ cup
Powdered Sugar	¾ cup
Vanilla Essence	1 ½ tsp
Eggs	2
Milk	½ cup

METHOD

Sift the dry ingredients together 3 times.

Cream the butter. Add sugar in small quantities and beat with the electric beater.

Break the eggs in a separate bowl so that if spoilt it won’t spoil the cake mixture.

Add eggs to this mixture and beat for 1 minute.

Add a cup of flour mixture. Alternate it with milk and keep mixing with the beater until you finish adding the flour and milk. The mixture should be light and fluffy..

Preheat oven at 180 degree C for 10 minutes.

Line the cup cake mould with cup cake liners. Fill the tray till about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Check with a skewer or toothpick. If done it will come out clean.

Remove from the tin immediately and let cool.

CUP CAKE DECORATION

INGREDIENTS

Unsalted Butter(room temp)	50 g
Icing sugar	50 g
Vanilla Essence	2 drops
Food Colour	as required

METHOD

Mix the butter and sugar well.

Add vanilla essence.

Add colour as required.

Tips

Cream the butter sugar mixture very well. Do not worry about over – mixing as it has to be mixed more than what you think it should be. The mixture should turn almost white in colour.

But when adding the wet and dry ingredients together do not over mix.

The top of cup cakes puff up in the oven and then flatten after a couple of minutes. So if you get flat tops, don’t worry you didn’t do anything wrong.

For the butter icing decoration the actual ratio of butter and sugar is 1:2. But I find this to be too sweet. You can adjust it as per your taste.

Ragi Rice Flour Puttu/ Combination Puttu/ Rice Flour Finger Millet Puttu

Puttu /Steamed Rice Flour cake is a famous Kerala Breakfast. But quite different from the ordinary puttu you all may have known/seen here is a healthier version of the Puttu- the Combination Puttu.Sounds good enough? :)

Ragi (Finger Millet) is well known for its health benefits. It is rich in Iron, minerals and protein.Finger Millets are tiny deep red grains with oodles of health benefits. And this puttu is an easy way to make kids have a healthy and yummy breakfast too!!

Rice Flour Ragi Puttu/ Combination Puttu/  Healthy Puttu

INGREDIENTS

Recipe Source: My sis in law - Nishna

Rice flour – 1 cup ( I used Malabar Puttu Powder)

Ragi Flour- 1 cup (I used Nirapara Ragi Puttu Powder)

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Water – 1 cup or as required

METHOD

Add salt to 1 cup of water. Sprinkle this water to the rice flour and mix till you reach breadcrumbs consistency. It should not be too dry. The right consistency is reached when you press little flour in your fist and it  forms a shape and not crumble off. Now take a separate bowl and mix the salt water with ragi flour.  Follow the same procedure. Now keep approximately 2 cups water to boil in the puttu maker. By the time the water boils fill the puttu candles. First add 1 tablespoon of coconut at the bottom then a layer of rice flour ( as in the picture) then again coconut and alternate it with ragi flour. Keep the Puttu candle on the steamer and steam the puttu (appox 5minutes). The steam will start coming out from the top of the puttu candle. Wait for 2 minutes and remove the candle from the steamer. Again wait for 2 minutes before you use a skewer and push the yummy steaming puttu to a plate. Serve this with ripe bananas-sugar-ghee combination or with Kadala (Brown Chickpea) Curry / other combination like Cherupayar curry/ Stu. For the non veggies puttu is a great combination with fish curry or even chicken curry!

Tips:
To make puttu flour at home:
Using raw rice: Soak raw rice for 1 hour. then drain away water well. Keep the rice in a strainer for some time so that all the water gets drained away. Then powder it in a dry mixer(no water at all). Then you need to fry the powder in a thick bottom pan. About 10-15 minutes till the vapor starts coming up and when you lift the powder with a ladle it should fall off easily and not stick to the laddle. But make sure you keep stirring.
Using boiled rice: With boiled rice  the puttu turns very soft. For this you need to soak for 1/2 hr max or only until the rice still breaks when u bite it. It should not get soaked more. Then dry it on a cloth. And follow the same procedure.

Chicken Fried Rice

One of children’s favorite – the Indo Chinese Chicken Fried Rice. This one has been a hit with kids and everyone at home. Once the ingredients are ready this recipe is an easy and quick one to prepare mainly on weekends when you do not want to spend much time in the kitchen.

Chicken Fried Rice   

INGREDIENTS

Basmati Rice                2 cups

Chicken                        ½ kg

Garlic                           1 pod (cut into small pieces)

Ginger                          2’ (cut into small pieces)

Onion                           2 large (cut into small cubes)

Carrot                          2 medium

Beans                           7

Frozen peas                  ½ cup (optional)

Spring onion                 ½ cup

Eggs                             4

Cornflour                      ½  tbsp

Pepper                         1/2  tsp + 1/2 tsp+1 tsp

Soya sauce                   6 tsp

Chilly sauce                  1 1/2 tsp

Tomato sauce               2 tsp

Oyster sauce                1 tsp (optional)

Salt                              as required

Vinegar                        5 tsp

Veg oil                         4 tbsp

METHOD

Cut chicken into small pieces.

Marinate chicken with corn flour, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 egg,1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp Soya sauce and salt for ½ hour

Soak basmati rice for ½ hour and let drain

To cook rice boil 7 cups water. Add salt. When it starts to boil add the rice and drain when half cooked.

Heat vegetable oil. Add the marinated chicken and close lid to let cook on medium fire for 5 minutes tossing in between.

When cooked remove from fire and place on kitchen tissue.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a Kadai, add ginger garlic and sauté for 30 secs. Add onion and fry till translucent.

Move the cooked ingredients to one side of the pan and add eggs.

Add salt and ½ tsp pepper to the egg and scramble it.

Once done mix it with the other ingredients and sauté

Add vegetables, 2 tsp soya sauce, 2 tsp vinegar, salt and 1 tsp pepper.

Keep stirring till the vegetables are almost cooked.

With kitchen scissors or knife cut the chicken into small pieces after removing bones.

Add the chicken to the mixture and toss well. Check salt. It should be a little more than required so that when we add the rice it will be sufficient.

Now keep adding rice and mix well. Take 2 wooden spatulas and toss the rice and vegetable mixture.

Add the remaining soya sauce and vinegar.

Add chilly sauce, tomato sauce, oyster sauce.

Keep tossing for 5 minutes with spatulas on high flame.

Add spring onion and toss for a minute.

Remove from fire and serve hot with chilly chicken.