Melt 'n' Mix Custard Shortbread

I usually shy away from recipes calling for a lot of butter, but then it is the season for sharing and gifting so why not! These shortbread cookies are an indulgence...soft, buttery, melt-in-your mouth and just lightly sweetened. I also love the flavor of custard powder and the light yellow color it adds to the cookies.

Recipe from here, adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly.

Custard Shortbread

Ingredients:

250gms unsalted butter

35gms icing/ confectioners' sugar

55gms castor sugar

40gms custard powder

360gms all purpose flour

pinch of salt

sugar for sprinkling

Method:

Line and grease a 7"x11" pan. Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F.

Melt the butter over low heat and keep aside to cool slightly.Sift the icing sugar and custard powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar.Add the melted butter and beat mixture until thick and creamy. Add sifted flour and salt and mix gently until combined.

Press the mixture into the prepared pan evenly and level the surface. Mark the dough into fingers and prick each finger decoratively with a fork and sprinkle some sugar on top if desired.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly golden. Cut into fingers while still warm and cool in the pan.

If you like your cookies to be crispier, just bake for another 15 minutes or so.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies...Holiday Baking

Anushka started school last week and that leaves me with a couple of hours each day to do all those things that are otherwise impossible with an hyperactive kid at home. My to-do list just keeps getting longer and now maybe I could catch up with some of them.

I am also looking forward to bake some more. Now that Christmas is just around the corner, I have the perfect excuse to try some cookie recipes that I've had bookmarked forever. Moreover Anushka is turning out be quite the cookie lover and that's gotten me really excited.

I have made these cookies before and they are an absolute treat. Not only are they pretty to look at, they taste heavenly too. Bake them right and they are amazingly fudgy and chocolaty, like the perfect brownie. What I love about this recipe is that there is no butter involved and the ingredients have to be just mixed quickly in one bowl and the dough tastes amazing too.

The one change I made was to use substitute some of the bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate as I remember finding them a little too sweet for my tastes. With this change though they were just right. Recipe from here.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate)

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional, but highly recommended

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Method:

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. 

Add the sugar and oil and mix well.

Make sure that the mixture is almost at room temperature and add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after after each addition.

Add the vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture. Stir in nuts.

Cover and chill the dough for two hours or until firm enough to roll.Preheat the oven to 175C /350F.

Form into 1" balls and roll in the powdered sugar until completely coated. 

Place in a parchment covered cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Cool on wire racks. 

I baked my cookies for 8 minutes, they will be soft when you get them out of the oven, but wait for  a few seconds and they will be firm enough to transfer them to the rack and will get firmer when completely cool.

Please, do not overbake the cookies. They look the best on the day they are baked, but they taste just as great for a couple of days more.

Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bark

It's the season where everyone is looking for the perfect gifts for their loved ones. It's all the more special if its something homemade, something that looks fabulous and at the same time requires so little effort. These bars are so easy to make and there is no baking involved!! It's just the thing to involve your kids in and they'd be so excited! Melt the best chocolate you can find and top it with your favorite fruits and nuts and pack them in cute little bags and you've got the perfect gift! And Chocolate does make one Smile!!

Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:
12oz bittersweet/ semisweet/ milk chocolate
1/2 cup mixed dry fruits (raisins, cranberries, apricots)
1/2 cup mixed nuts, roasted and chopped roughly (almonds, pistachios or any other nuts)

Method:

Line a 9" square pan with parchment paper, coming up the sides a little bit.

Take the chocolate in a bowl and place over a bowl of simmering water, making sure that the bottom does not touch the water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Pour into the prepared pan and swirl the pan to cover the base completely or use a spatula to spread the chocolate into an even layer.

Immediately sprinkle the dry fruits and nuts all over the melted chocolate and press lightly into the chocolate.

Keep aside in a cool and dry place until the chocolate sets.

Once set, cut or break into pieces and store in an airtight container for upto one week.

Sending this to Christmas Food Fair

Fruit and Nut Cake - Lowfat and Vegan

Only four days left and I couldn't wait any longer to eat some fruitcake. I do have a batch of fruits soaking in the fridge for a cake I plan to bake in a couple of days and ship to my brother. This cake I made just for us. What I love about this recipe is that there's no oil or butter and there's jaggery and whole wheat flour and tons of fruits and nuts and they don't really have to be soaked in advance. The only labor involved is the chopping of the nuts and fruits. The flavor of the cake gets better as it matures, but I had to take pictures so we cut the cake the same day, yet it was rich and moist. This cake is a wonderful guilt free treat!

Recipe from Jugalbandi.

Vegan Lowfat Fruit and Nut Cake

Ingredients:

100 gms dark raisins

125 gms mixed dried fruit, chopped

225 gms mixed nuts, roasted and chopped 

1/2 cup rum

1 1/2 cup water

1/4 cup applesauce/ oil

1/2 cup grated jaggery

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 tsp nutmeg powder

1/3 tsp cinnamon powder

1/3 tsp cloves powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp orange/ lemon zest

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon juice

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Method:

Take the dried fruits, water, rum, applesauce, sugar, jaggery, spice powders, salt and orange zest in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 mins. Take off from heat and add the vanilla extract and lemon juice and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350F/ 180C and grease a 12 cup bundt pan.

Whisk the flour and baking soda together. As soon as the dried fruits mixture comes to room temperature, fold in the flour and nuts. 

Spoon into the prepared pan and bake for 35 - 40 mins or till done in the center of the oven.

Cool in the pan for 10 mins and then invert onto a wire rack and cool completely. 

Brush the cake with some rum if desired and store covered in the fridge. The flavor of the cake improves after a couple of days.

Notes:

1. Use dried fruits and nuts according to your taste. I used 50 gms currants and 25 gms each of dates, apricots and prunes. I also used a mixture of almonds and walnuts.

2. If whole wheat pastry flour is not available, use half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour.

3. I used jaggery for better color and taste. You could also use all brown sugar.

4 For an alcohol free version skip the rum and use orange juice instead.

Sending this to  Cakes for Christmas, Let's Cook-Baked Goodies, Cooking Concepts-Holiday Baking, Christmas NewYear's Eve 2011, Bake Fest, Only Cookies and Cakes, Serve it Baked Sweet, Jingle All the Way.

      

   

    

Pinapple Upside Down Cake and Vegan Fruit and Nut Cake - Last Bakes of 2009

There was a time when I used to bake every second day or so. In the last couple of years all that butter, sugar and flour have started showing at all the wrong places and on top of that we realized that Manoj's cholesterol was a little high. It was time to change our eating habits and I must say its been really difficult. Both of us are crazy about junk and fast food and could happily have just that all day. Some changes we made were giving up eating out, no fried foods (except when visiting friends), its all about simple home made meals now. I bake only on special occasions, when visiting friends or when I'm having friends over. We are getting results and we feel so much better now.

Anyways, here are the two cakes I baked last month.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I made the Pineapple Up-side Down Cake to take along to a friends place. I've had this recipe bookmarked for a while, it's from My Kitchen Snippets. See the recipe here. Just substituted pineapple and cherries instead of peaches.

The cake came out beautifully and was perfect. The sponge by itself was moist and buttery and delicious. I made two mini cakes, so I could taste it before I took it to my friends place. This recipe is definitely a keeper, can't wait to try it with peaches.

Vegan Fruit and Nut Cake

Whats Christmas without a fruit cake! I had a tough time selecting a recipe as the ones I had used alcohol and that's off limits for me. I also wanted an eggless cake and one that was not loaded with calories. After a lot of hunting I finally saw this recipe at Jugalbandi and it was perfect for my needs. That's a blog u can trust and there were so many people vouching for the recipe, I had no doubts what so ever.

I followed the recipe as is. I did not soak the fruits, used half orange juice and half water and totally left out the alcohol. The cake was fabulous, I could not believe that its vegan and was better than any fruit cake I ever baked. Manoj is already asking me to bake another one, guess he won't have to wait long.

This is a must try!!

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Both the cakes are going to Sara's Cakes and Cookies event and to Divya's Show Me Your Cake event.

Happy New Year!!

Here's wishing you all a Very Happy and Prosperous 2010!! The last year was filled with a lot of wonderful memories and the new year comes with promises of even better ones. We have a lot to look forward to this year, most importantly the birth of our baby in early March. Life is full of excitement and anticipation right now :).

2009 ended on a beautiful note, we had a wonderful trip to Mount Shasta with friends and I had my first White Christmas, it was breathtaking. Here's a picture of the view from my window on Christmas morning....

Here's a picture of the cake I baked for Christmas, more about that later in another post.

Some more pictures of my trip...

Our backyard...

A cute little tree...

Eskimo Hill...

Burney Falls...

Lake Shasta...

Have a wonderful year.....