Ras Malai: Best + easiest ever!

Literal translation: Liquid Cream.

Actually it has nothing to do with cream and it definitely has nothing to do with liquid cream or even liquid + cream. It’s just an absurd name- if you make it my way!

Ras malai is a traditional Indian sweet, originating from West Bengal. God I love the Bengalis for having invented this. It’s my favourite dessert ever.

These tiny balls of cottage cheese are soaked in a creamy milk and sugar and eaten with the milk.

It’s a tricky and complicated recipe BUT this version (handed down by my aunt) is easy, breezy and beautiful (yes it’s a cover-worthy dessert)

What you need:

For the Malai: Creamy balls

1 cup of Nido milk powder (or any other brand)

1 egg

1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder

For the Ras: Milk Syrup

1lt milk

1/2 can unsweetened evaporated milk

1/2 cup sugar

Saffron strands

1 tsp cardamom powder

What to do:

1. Make Ras. Boil everything together and make sure that the flame is med, do not let it burn!

2. Make the malai. Sift the milk powder with baking powder, beat in the egg and knead to form a sticky dough. You may be tempted to add water, but resist the temptation. Form tiny balls (they will swell)

3. Put the balls in the boiling milk and simmer for 15-20 minutes till balls swell up and are soft in the centre.

4. Cool and serve nice and cold.

The balls can be flattened- the more traditional shape.

Good example of Watermark gone awry.

hard working cook, lazy blogger

Writing a blog is hard work. Ever so often I find my self cooking away or even clicking away but never get the patience to blog about any of it.

I’m going to be reall-ly busy the next one month, it’s Ramadan plus I will be studying like a crazy nut (or at least I should be!) for all the damned exams that I have to give. I’m quite addicted to social networking and useless browsing so I might even unplug my Internet for the month (yikes!)

So I’m scheduling a couple of posts. hopefully you wont miss me too much

Ohh here’s the Cinnamon french toast with poached caramel flavoured apples that I turned out the other day. Ok Ok so I couldn’t resist. I took a bite before I could click the pic, trust me- you would do the same.

Cinnamon toast + poached apple

What you need:

for the french toast:

1 egg

2 slices of white bread

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 cup cold milk

For the poached apples

1 red apple; peeled, cored and sliced(whichever type)

1 small cinnamon stick

3 tbs sugar

1 cup water

1/2 tsp lemon juice

What to do:

1. Make the poached apples. Caramelize 3tbs of sugar in a saucepan and pour a cup of water once caramelized. Reduce heat.

2. Put the lemon juice, cinnamon and apple slices in the saucepan and cook covered for 15 minutes till done.

3. Make the french toast. Beat eggs, cinnamon, sugar, salt and milk. Dip slices of bread and fry in a non stick pan till golden brown on both sides.

4. Serve both together. Pour some of the caramel liquid over the apples and the toast. YUM!

I sat down on my pretty little (new!) carpet to enjoy this massive breakfast. ahh soft soft carpet.

Baked again: Red Hot Velvet Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream

Page 53: Baked New Frontiers in Baking

I got really tempted and made the Red Hot Velvet Cake from the book.

Well they were nice… But I probably won’t do this recipe again. I guess I went wrong somewhere but I liked the cupcakes.. not loved them. 

The frosting was a real winner though. The pistachios were my personal touch.

 

 

 

They tasted good no doubt, but I would really really really recommend the green tea frosted almond cupcakes from the same book. Those were a dream.

Almond Green Tea Cupcakes from Baked

As I had mentioned in my last post, I bought two new books one of them being “Baked: New Frontiers in baking”

I was dying to try out something from that book and here I am! I made the almond and green tea cupcakes (page 76)

I always feel that baking cakes/cupcakes is something you should save for when you have a crowd. It’s fun when you can watch other people enjoy what you have cooked. So I got the perfect chance. I catered for my mothers tea party. Well a party would be an exaggeration, it was more like a little gossip over tea.

Anyways I made the cupcakes and OMG they were fab!

I followed the recipe to the tee and its a good thing I did.

The frosting was a dream.. green tea powder made like a pastry cream first and then ends up as butter cream frosting.. the guests were guessing what went in it.. ‘pistachios’ is where the guessing stopped.

Lets zoom in to see the frosting… mmmm

I still have a bit of the frosting in my refrigerator and I have discovered the pleasures of licking bits of it off my fingers.

Daring Bakers Challenge: Chocolate Valentino, flourless chocolate cake

This is my second challenge although it should have been my fourth I could not do the previous two cause I had NO time.. but i made sure I had time for this one! it was soooo simple! and really good!

I made just the cake.. it was too sweet and was perfect by itself.

The February Challenge comes from Wendy at wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad – Baker and Chef (Malaysia).

It called for just three ingredients:

-chocolate
-eggs
-butter

Surprisingly it did look like a cake..more like a really rich brownie.
I made them in muffin tins and that too didn’t fill up the tin too much.

Gooey and dense just like a brownie

Yet soft and spongy like a cake!

I really enjoyed making these Thanks again DBers!