Banana & Coconut Pradhaman/ Payasam

I am not usually a fruit in a payasam sort of person - I love me milk with sugar and cardamom, at times with freshly cooked rice. But the challenge for Avant Garde Cookies for the hush-hush week that Roshni laid on me was using fruits or whatever to make a pradhaman. Thanks for the push, Roshni - We actually loved it and it was almost a meal to have a cup of that, as a replacement for breakfast.

A very simple and quick to put together recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 ripe bananas
• 1 can condensed milk
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 cup of sweetened coconut (grated)
• 1tsp of cardamom
• 7-8 crushed cashews
• 1tsp of coconut oil
• 1tsp of butter

Method

1. Empty condensed milk and the evaporated milk in a sauce pan and whisk together. 
2. Pour into a mixer along with the bananas and blend until smooth
3. Pour back into the saucepan and start heating
4. In a separate pan, lightly brown the coconut and cashews with 1 tsp of butter
5. Add to the boiling mix 
6. Allow it to cook with the pradhaman for about 2-3 minutes
7. Add 1 tsp of coconut oil before serving 

Enjoy :)

Cardamom & Pistachio Cookies

These should ideally be called the everything-in-it cookies.

After yet another looooong haitus, here I am back in a holiday mood with a cookie recipe. It was also for a friend’s son whose birthday. If one knows the basic requirements to make a cookie, like flour and baking soda, oil etc, then one can get creative with cookies and make them as healthy or decadent as one wants it. I had experimented with Giada’s pumkin and Raisins oatmeal cookies and they were a hit even with my little lassie, so I ventured on to try a similar cookie with several new and interesting ingredients. My little one offered a cookie to a lady who took her pictures and my son’s senior pics and I just got an email from her with compliments on the cookie and a recipe. So this one’s for you Melody J Most of these ingredients are dispensable or changeable depending upon what’s available in your kitchen and what you like in your cookie. And with those caveats in place, let’s check out the recipe.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Bake time 15-18 minutes

Makes about 25-30 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tbs coconut powder
• 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 3 tbsp quinoa flakes
• 3/4 cup turbinado raw sugar
• Zest of 1 clementine
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/2 cup of chopped dates
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 1/4 cup chopped pistachios
• 3 tbsp milk 

Method

1. Set oven to 350 F
2. Grease couple of cookie pans
3. (parchment paper –optional)
4. Mix all the dry ingredients nicely
5. Throw in the nuts and the dry fruits
6. The proceed to add the oil, milk and maple syrup
7. This should make a thick nice consistency – you may add additional spoons of milk should you find your mixture too thick.
8. Either with your hands or with a tablespoon, drop small amounts on to the prepared cookie sheet an inch apart.
9. Cook for about 5 minutes –
10. Open oven and pull out the cookie sheet
11. With a flat spatula gently press down on the cookies – they will have melted just enough at this point for your to shape them
12. At this point sprinkle some sugar on top of each cookie
13. Put them back in the oven and cook for the rest of the time
14. Each oven varies so please keep a watch on the cookies and if you see their underside getting browned that is a good time to remove them
15. Cool on rack and enjoy with friends and family  These will make great holiday gifts and don’t forget Santa – a personal and delicious one.

Enjoy and I will try to be back more holiday recipes soon.

Nutella Cookies

My first post for Avant Garde Cookies this month was a challenge - to make a dish with 5 ingredients or less - now as an Indian, you will know we use a lot of ingredients to make our food and I was turning a few recipes in my mind, including the raita I posted last ... But as luck would have it, my yoga teacher posted this cookie recipe with 4 ingredients and I was jumping with joy - Yes!!!!!! There is my post for the event :) A recipe from My Tasty Kitchen

Simple and delicious Nutella Cookies -Makes about 22- 8 minutes to prepare and 8 minutes to bake and voila!

Ingredients

• 1 cup nutella
• 1cup all purpose flour
• 1/2cup of sugar
• 1egg

Method

1. Heat oven to 350 F
2. blend all 4 ingredients together 
3. Make 1 inch balls 
4. Flatten with the base of a cup
5. Bake for 8 minutes

Goes to Avant Garde Cookies -Check out the other AGC thoughout this week 
Anusha, Jayanthi, Kavitha, Radhika, Veena, Priya S, Roshni

Banana Upside Down Cake

What do you do when you have a sweet craving? Sometimes you give in and go the whole nine yards and make something with what you've got. Thus came about this banana upside down cake. I has several super ripe bananas - hate those btw - and the only way I could imagine having them was in either a bread or with this recipe, in a cake. I used a recipe that I'd already tried out for the cake and just added the caramelized bananas...
Ingredients

• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1.5 cup all purpose flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 4-6 ripe bananas
• 3-4 tbsp Demerara sugar 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Butter a 9 inch pan (I used pyrex)
3. Cut bananas lengthwise and arrange neatly on the bottom of the pan
4. Sprinkle the Demerara Sugar generously over the bananas
5. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer
6. Add eggs 1 at a time
7. Then the flour with the baking powder
8. Mix until it s a creamy batter (don’t over mix)
9. Pour the cake batter evenly over the bananas making sure not to disturb the arrangement.
10. Bake for about 30 -35 minutes or until the top of the cake is golden.
11. Cool it before loosening the sides of the cake
12. Gently invert on to a cake holder.
13. The bananas should look glazed, caramelized and delicious. 
14. Enjoy by itself of with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.

Figs & Coconut Halwa

Ganesha's grace abounds. My site is back up and running with a new look, thanks to Elizabeth Hillstrom, a bright young student who has made this happen for me. It is a simple and easy to navigate layout and I love the look of it :) - I am also operating from priyasnowserving.net, should you prefer a WP format - And if you like the work of this young girl, and the recipes you see showcased, don't hesitate to like us on Facebook :)

Ganesha is remembered every single day in my house, in the most delightful way for me – In that I get to be him every day, sometimes once often twice a day – My soon to be 4 yr old loves the Ganesha stories she has heard and watched from Karadi Tales. She is always Parvati and I get to be Ganesha, who guards zealously her gates as she takes the most leisurely bath in the world, using up all the water of the ganges J - And Hubby dear gets to be Shiva who confronts Ganesha before lopping off his head – the whole scene is enacted each day with no variations allowed, unless the variation has the little one bursting into giggles. My Shiva does a stellar job of showing rage – his whole face vibrating, jaws jiggling (lol) Lots of fun, but I think we are ready to move on to a new act. But not before we celebrate the joyous day when we offer our salutations to our potbellied, elephant faced, single tusked lord of wisdom who removes obstacles – In fact it is the remorse of Shiva for having lopped Ganesha’s head off that makes him bestow upon his son the boon that he would be revered first before Shiva himself. Ganesha loves food, especially sweet dumplings aka Kozhakattais/modhakams or so the story goes. Gourmets like us love to make this an excuse to prepare modakams rice flour shells stuffed often with jaggery and coconut, or jaggery and lentils.

For this occasion, I chose to add a slight twist to the tradition, while still upholding it, by adding freshly picked figs.  This enhanced if anything the already delicious dish by giving it a fantastic flavor. It turned out like a most delectable halwa that could be devoured just like that – Which is why I called it a Halwa. Halwa is best defined as a sweet sticky dessert often made with flour and nuts and fruits. This dish has the nut and the fruit.

I am happy to that a post of offering to Ganesha is my first one for the Avant Garde Cookies group that I am now a part of.

Here is my offering to Ganesha recipe and all.

Ingredients

For the Stuffing

• 16 Ripe or almost ripe Figs
• 1 cup of grated Coconut
• 1 cup of jaggery
• 1 tsp of powdered cardamom
• 2 tsp of water

For the dumpling shell

• 2 cups of rice flour
• 1 cup of water
• A pinch of salt
• 1tsp of sesame oil

Jaggery

Cardamom

Fresh Grated Coconut

Fresh Picked Figs

Method

Stuffing

1. Powder your jaggery – they usually come in blocks and can be found at the Indian store
2. In a saucepan, add 2 tsp of water and the jaggery
3. Let it become syrupy
4. Add the powdered cardamom
5. Follow it with the coconut and let it cook in the jaggery until the water from the jaggery is completely gone and the mix is thick and stuffable
6. Remove from flame and allow it to cool

Shell

1. In the meantime, sift the rice flour
2. Roast it for literally a minute in a wide pan
3. Now add the water and salt and what I do is spin it once in the blender so that it is a pasty fluid
4. Pour this liquid into a saucepan and stir away until the rice flour cooks
5. Stirring helps avoid knots in the dough
6. When the white fluid thickens and comes off the sides, add the oil
7. The color will not be white anymore and the dough will have assumed a cooked look.
8. Switch off and cover with a cloth so that it does not dry out.

Both these processes take no more than 10 -15 minutes flat – I kid you not.

1. Now Let’s get them together
2. So make lemon sized or even smaller balls with the dough. Put your thumbs in the middle of the ball and start pressing the sides, creating a dippy hole in the middle.
3. Make sure this is deep and the sides are thin without falling apart.
4. Now take a teaspoon of the stuffing and place in the hole.
5. Gently fold the sides pulling up with your fingers to make a small tuft, so to speak.
6. The other method is the make a smile –
7. Make a round flat circle with the dough.
8. Add the stuffing and fold joining at the corners, pressing them together. Both kinds are shown below.
9. Steam them and you have your Kozhakattais 

Offer to the Good Lord Ganesha before you pop one into your mouth J Happy Chaturthi Folks and May Lord Ganesha obliterate any obstacles in your life.

My first Avant Garde Cookies Post 

Linking this to Cook Like a Chef

Cupcake Craze 1 - Salted Caramel Cupcake With Caramel-Coffee Butter Cream Frosting

Some of you may have seen my pictures on FB of these delicious Cupcakes, but I am finally getting around to posting them on my blog -The "Sweet Inspiration"(read with Frensh accent) came from watching the Sweet Genius and a few episodes of the Cupcake Challenge.
For all those who love cupcakes, these are some of the best kind you can taste -but also be aware that this has no place in any "dieting" program :) This is indulgence at its highest, but I kid you not when I say it is hard to stop with one!  I got my recipe from a couple of sources; Sprinkle Bakes & 52 Kitchen Adventures, whose post popped up when I searched for caramel cupcakes. After tasting the cupcakes and adding my own "secret ingredient" instant coffee, I think my children declared me a "sweet genius" :) Let me add to this narrative that this has by no means been a summer of holding back, esp on the calorie front - But with kids on vacation  (they are back at school for the first day today) it was hard not to make them things thy like and appreciate - time enough for them to hold back on the yummier things of life - but I have shamelessly indulged in all of it as well and have the price to pay - more hours of gymming required to burn the cupcake lining on my belly off!  Today is the day when the sane and sober me kicks back into full gear - no more sweet indulgences for a while!

I followed the instructions verbatim as given by Sprinkle Bakes and they turned out really well - But I still want to claim my creative addition of coffee in the butter cream - that was Da Bomb!

For quick reference, here is the recipe as written by Sprinkle Bakes

Makes 15 Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line muffin tins with papers. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Cream butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until pale fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.  Add vanilla.  Mix and scrape down sides of bowl as needed. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about halfway full.  Bake for about 25 minutes. When done, transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.

Salted Caramel Filling:

1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons salted butter cubed
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoons heavy cream, at room temperature

Melt the sugar over medium  high heat in a large pot.  Whisk the sugar as it melts and cook until it becomes a deep amber color. Add the butter and stir it in until melted. Pour in the heavy cream (mixture will foam) and whisk until you get a smooth sauce. You may have some lumps but keep stirring until they have melted.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.  

Cut a small round piece out of the tops of each cooled cupcake and pour in 1 teaspoon of caramel.  Replace the cake piece and set cupcakes aside. (I did this with a apple corer - makes perfect holes in the middle :)

Salted Caramel/Coffee Buttercream Frosting:

1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 stick salted butter
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1tbsp instant coffee (I used Folgers)

In a saucepan, stir together granulated sugar and water.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Cook without stirring until mixture turns a deep amber color.  Remove from heat and slowly add in cream and vanilla, stirring until very smooth.  Let caramel cool for about 20 minutes, until it is just barely warm and still pourable.

In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter and salt together until lightened and fluffy.  Reduce speed to low and add powdered sugar.  Mix until thoroughly combined.

Add  1tbsp of instant coffee powder and whip for an additional minute.

Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the caramel.  Beat on medium high speed until light and airy, and completely mixed (about 2 minutes).  Mixture should be ready to use without refrigeration.  If your caramel was too hot when added, it will cause your icing to be runny.  If this happens refrigerate for 15-20 minutes. 

Top caramel-filled cupcakes with frosting.

My Pictorial