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Ras Malai (Rose Flavoured)

Ras Malai, one of my favorite dessert, is made from paneer also known as Indian cottage cheese soaked in sugar syrup and served with milk flavoured with cardamon and saffron. Ras Malai is a kind of Bengali sweet, originated in the eastern part of India,mainly Bengal. Traditionally Ras Malai is prepared using cow's milk and flavoured with cardamon and saffron, In my recipe I have used Rose water for flavouring and red food color for giving them light pink color. These sweet dumplings are going to FIC Pink/Rose event hosted by Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes , you can find the details of the event here and to Harini of Tongue Ticklers, event details here.The below recipe yields about 24 Ras Malai of medium size.

Ingredients for Paneer dumplings :

2 litre full cream milk (I used 3.5% fat)

2 tbsp lime juice diluted in little water

Ingredients for Sugar syrup :

1 1/2 cups of sugar

4 cups of water

1 tsp cardamon seeds

2 - 3 tsp Rose Water or Rose essence

4 - 5 drops of red food color

Ingredients for Milk :

1 litre milk

1/2 cup sugar or according to your taste

1 tsp mixed dry fruits or masala milk powder

1 tsp rose essence or rose water for flavouring

3 - 4 red food color

Procedure :

• Heat the milk for paneer in a non stick vessel. When it starts boiling, add lime water slowly and reduce the heat. Add lime water until the water and paneer are separated.
• Immediately remove the paneer from heat and strain the paneer in muslin cloth or a strainer.
• Put some cold water on the paneer, this will help to make the paneer soft.
• Knead the paneer properly and make small dumplings as shown below in the image. I have prepared them in oval shape, you can give any other shape of your choice.

• To make the sugar syrup, heat sugar, water, cardamon seeds and rose water together on high flame. When it starts boiling add 3 - 4 drops of red food color.  Now add the paneer dumplings few at a time. Make sure you have enough space for the dumplings to expand.
• Cover the vessel and let it cook for around 7 to 10 mins on high heat.
• The paneer dumplings will gain volume and increase double in size and will have soft pink color. Immediately remove the paneer balls and keep it aside disolved in little sugar syrup.

• If you require dark color, you can add some more food color to the syrup.
• Similary, follow the procedure for rest of the paneer dumplings.
• In a seperate pan, heat the milk along with sugar, rose essence or rose water and masala milk powder, boil it till it reduces in quantity and becomes little thick. Reduce the heat and add red food color and gently add the paneer dumplings which we had made earlier one at a time. Simmer on slow heat for 5 mins.

• Serve chilled, garnished with dry fruits

Eggless Vanilla Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

I am not a big fan of muffins but as I had a box of strawberries in my fridge which I had bought last week and I had to use them as they were getting spoiled, I thought why not lets make vanilla strawberry muffins, vanilla and strawberry go well together. Even while making strawberry milkshake I always add little dab of vanilla which gives nice flavor...hmmm..I love vanilla. When i started making these muffins i realized, I was out of eggs...hence made eggless version using milk and yogurt. I always used to prepare eggless cakes using milkmaid or condensed milk but somehow i dont like the flavor of condensed milk which empowers the cake, on the other hand yogurt is an excellent binding agent and it also helps to make the cake moist. I have used plain yogurt here but you can also use vanilla yogurt. The strawberries which i had bought were not very sweet, to make them sweeter, I chopped them fine and added little sugar to it and kept it aside for few mins, you can also reduce the sugar in the recipe accordingly. Finally after making the batter, I added few chocolate chips and wow the results were surprisingly good....I took these muffins to a friends place and they were gone in seconds..:) The recipe made 12 medium sized muffins.

This is my entry to the event Egg substitute - Yogurt/Buttermilk hosted by Madhuram, you can find the event details here

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of All purpose Flour

1/2 cup sugar (I have reduced sugar little as I had added sugar in strawberries as well)

1/2 cup yogurt

1 - 2 tbsp milk

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup butter at room temperature

2/3 cup strawberries finely cut

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Procedure:

• Preheat the oven at 180 degree C.
• Sieve all purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder together and keep it aside.
• Beat butter and sugar together until creamy.
• Add yogurt in the butter and sugar mixture and beat well.
• Add the dry ingredients in the yogurt mixture along with milk little at a time and beat well. Check the consistency, donot use the entire milk if not required. Sometimes yogurt may be very thin because of which you may not require all the milk given in the recipe.
• Finally add vanilla essence, chopped strawberries and chocolate chips.

• Mix gently, donot overbeat as the strawberries may get mushy.
• Grease the muffin pan or fill them with paper liners.
• Fill in the each muffin mold upto 3/4 level.

• Bake them for 25 to 30 mins, until a knife inserted comes out clean.
• Remove the muffins from oven and cool them completely on wire rack.
• Serve them with cold milk or enjoy them like I do with jam... :)

The muffins turned out to be moist, not too sweet and just perfect for my taste. You can skip chocolate chips and add any other dry fruits of your choice.

Homemade Gulab Jamuns

Gulab Jamun is the most popular indian sweet which wins hands down always. No matter what the occasion is,  you'll see this sweet everywhere right from birthday parties to wedding ceremonies to dinner parties. I have tried making gulab jamuns using the ready made mixes which are easily available, this time i thought otherwise and made then using milk powder and all purpose flour. The recipe seemed to be very simple and I had all the ingredients on hand. The recipe is adapted from Priya's blog and you can view the original recipe here. I have made few changes to the recipe to suit my taste and the results were very encouraging, I definately will be using this recipe a lot in future. The below recipe yields around 30 to 35 gulab jamuns.

Ingredients:

2 cups Milk Powder

1/2 cup + 1tbsp all purpose flour (Maida)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp ghee or melted butter

Oil for frying

Sugar syrup ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

1 tsp cardamon powder

few drops of rose essence or rose water (i used rose water)

few saffron strands (optional)

Procedure:

• Mix milk powder, flour, baking soda and ghee in a vessel. Mix them with your hands until they form crumbs. 
• Add milk little at a time and make soft dough out of it. Cover and keep the dough aside atleast for half an hour.

• In a seperate heavy bottom pan mix sugar, water, cardoman powder and rose water, bring it to boil. Boil this mixture for atleast 10 to 15 mins.

• Make small round balls of the dough, grease your hands with little oil if the dough is sticking to hands.

• Heat oil for frying, fry the jamuns on very slow heat, each gulab jamun will take atleast 5 mins to get cooked. Remove them on paper towel once they turn brown.

• Transfer the gulab jamuns into sugar syrup. It will take sometime for the sugar syrup to be absorbed in gulab jamuns, I would suggest to keep the gulab jamuns in syrup for atleast 4 to 5 hours so that the flavors of cardoman and rose water are nicely absorbed.

• You can warm the gulab jamuns before serving.
• Enjoy these delicious gulab jamuns either hot or cold with vanilla ice cream :)

Paneer Methi Malai Mutter

                                            

One of the most things i miss staying away from home is food made by my mom, she cooks the most amazing dishes in the world, recently when i had been home she cooked all my favorite dishes, love you mom and miss you, so here is one of my favorite dish Methi Malai Mutter with a twist of paneer. The recipe is very simple and uses least number of spices but still is very rich in taste. Its Perfect for special occasions or dinner parties. The gravy is unique blend of cashewnuts and onions. This recipe yields serving for 4 people. Ingredients:

1 cup washed and finely cut Methi (Fenugreek leaves) 1 cup green peas (I used frozen) 1 cup paneer (Cottage cheese) cubed in small pieces 2 tbsp fresh cream or Malai 1 tsp salt or according to your taste 1-2 tsp sugar

1 pinch baking soda (Optional)

Ingredients for gravy:

100 gms cashewnuts

2 large onions cut into 4 pieces each

2-3 green chillies

1 tsp ginger paste

Ingredients for tempering:

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 pinch asafoetida

2 Bay Leaf Procedure:

• Blend onions, cashewnuts, green chillies and ginger paste along with little water in mixer grinder into fine paste.
• Deep Fry paneer pieces and soak them into cold water for few minutes, this will remove the excess oil from paneer and make them soft.

• Heat oil in seperate pan, add cumin seeds and asafoetida and bay leaf, add the cashewnuts and onion gravy and cook it for few minutes.

• Add methi (fenugreek leaves), mutter (green peas), salt, sugar(sugar is basically added to remove the bitterness of Methi) and little baking soda and cook for about 15 to 20 mins on slow heat, until peas and methi are cooked. You can add salt and sugar more according to your taste.

• Add fresh cream and let it cook for few mins.

• In the end add paneer and again cook for a min.

• Garnish with fresh cream and enjoy this rich dish with Nan or Paratha.

Pineapple Cake with Fresh Cream

Pineapple Cake with fresh cream icing

 
 

Baking cakes has always been my passion ever since i baked my first cake. From a very long time I wanted to make something very refreshing and nothing is more refreshing than fresh cream cake with pineapple flavor. So when I got an opportunity to make this cake, I just grabbed it. I made this cake for a friend's birthday. The cake came out nice and moist and extremely tasty. The recipe below makes one 6 inch round cake, I have doubled the recipe and made 2 cakes.

Recipe for cake: 3 eggs 100 gms All purpose flour 100 gms powdered sugar 60 gms unsalted melted butter 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 tsp pineapple essence 1 tsp baking powder Recipe for Fresh cream icing: 200 ml heavy whipping cream 50 gms powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla essence 2 cups pineapple pieces finely cut Almond flakes for decoration Pineapple sugar syrup: Half cup pineapple juice (I used out of carton) 2 tbsp sugar Procedure for Cake:

• Preheat the oven at 200 degree C for about 15 mins.
• Sieve all purpose flour and baking powder together.
• In a seperate bowl beat melted butter and sugar for a min, beat in the eggs one by one.
• Beat this mixture for about 10 mins or until it hold soft peaks.


Fold in the all purpose flour mixture in the egg mixture and beat on slow for a min.
Add in the vanilla and pineapple essence.
Grease a 6inch round baking tin and gently fold the batter into it and bake for about 30 to 35 mins.
You can test the cake by inserting a sharp knife, if the knife comes out clean, its done.




Remove the cake from the tin and let it cool for 10 mins.
Once completely cooled, cut the cake into 3 horizontal layers.

Procedure for Icing:

• Beat the heavy whipping cream and sugar together for 15 - 20 mins until it doubles in volume and stiff peaks form.


Place the bottom layer of the cake, sprinkle some pineapple sugar syrup(Prepare pineapple sugar syrup by mixing pineapple juice and sugar). This gives nice pineapple taste and moistens the cake well.




Spread fresh cream and top it with pineapple pieces.
Put the second layer of the cake on this and repeat the procedure.




Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining fresh cream.




I have used almond flakes and pineapple pieces on the sides of the cake.
Pipe a border on the top of the cake and decorate with pineapple pieces.

Chill for minimum 5 to 6 hours before serving.

Tomato Pickle

Tomato Pickle:


This is my first post so little nervous about it, recently I had been to one of my friends place for dinner, there I tasted the best Home made Tomato pickle ever, I decided I had to try this recipe. I have made few changes to suit my taste and i am glad that it came out well. Thank you Hema for this wonderful recipe.



Recipe:


1 kg firm ripe tomatoes

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 - 2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp red chilli powder

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp fenugreek powder (I used whole fenugreek seeds)

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp tamarind paste or you can use whole taramind as well mixed in water.

1 small piece of jaggery




Procedure:



1) Chop the tomatoes finely and cook them in a vessel along with turmeric powder.

2) Cook them for few mins until they start getting mushy, add salt and tamarind paste and cook the tomatoes on slow heat until all the water is evaporated. This may take some time.

3) Grind this tomato paste in mixer along with fenugreek powder and jaggery (Note, I used whole fenugreek seeds as thats what i had on hand).

4) Heat the oil in a vessel, add mustard seeds, add the tomato paste and red chilli powder and cook on medium heat until the oil and tomato paste starts seperating.

5) This may take some time, around half an hour.

6) Serve with Rice or Paratha...hmmm..enjoy :)