Umm Ali/ Egyptian Bread Pudding

This umm ali is an Egyptian sweet, that has a layer of puff pastry sheets, nuts and milk. This dessert is totally delicious, easy, simple and made with very less ingredients.

This looks similar to bread pudding. You can even add raisins, desiccated coconut, chocolate chips of your choice.

I first heard about this dessert long back, but couldn't try because of the non availability of puff pastry sheets. I completely forgot about this dish and one day my brother, when he visited Kuwait, he ate this at a friend’s place and told me about this awesome dessert. Then itself I have decided that this one I am going to try and within minutes a wonderful dessert is made.I was really surprised that this lovely dessert can be made easily. Just a mouthful and you will be mesmerized with the flavors and I am sure that you won't stop with a little.

This is a warm, comforting, gooey and very delicious dessert. Now I am thinking, I should have tried this dessert long back...

Adapted from All Recipes:

Ingredients:

1. Puff Pastry Sheets- 1 Packet (thawed)
2. Milk- 3 Cups
3. Sugar- ¾ Cup (as required)
4. Almonds- ½ Cup
5. Pistachios- ½ Cup
6. Vanilla Essence- 1 tsp
7. Cream- ½ Cup

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a bread pan with butter and arrange the puff pastry sheets one over the other and bake for about 15 minutes. The puff pastry should be golden and puffed.
2. In a sauce pan heat milk along with sugar and vanilla essence. Stir well and let it boil for about 15- 20 minutes till the milk is reduced little. Switch off the flame.
3. Break the puff pastry sheets into pieces and place it in the bread pan, sprinkle some powdered almonds and pistachios.
4. Over this pour the boiled, reduced milk and cream  and remaining nuts on top. Bake for 20- 25 minutes and serve warm.

Restaurant Style Paneer Butter Masala

Paneer butter masala is a dish which I usually order whenever I visit a vegetarian restaurant. This dish is a good combination of rotis, parathas and also with all varieties of rice. I was searching for restaurant style paneer butter masala and I stumbled upon Food Viva, which had lovely step by step pics and a very simple but tasty recipe. I loved the recipe and tried, it came out perfect.

This recipe is a hit in my home. My husband and my little ones loves paneer a lot and so this one is made all the time.

In this dish the soft paneer is well soaked and mixed in mildly spiced onion tomato cashew gravy. This can be made with tofu also.This paneer butter masala can be made in different methods. Long back I have posted a different variety of this paneer butter masala. This is just another method. Just try this and you will love this delicious recipe.

Ingredients:

1. Paneer ( cubed)- 2 cups
2. Onions- 2 nos
3. Tomatoes- 3 nos
4. Ginger and garlic paste- 1 tbsp
5. Green chillies- 2 nos
6. Red Chilli Powder- 1 tsp
7. Cashewnuts- 6- 7 nos
8. Coriander Powder- 1 tsp
9. Garam Masala Powder- 1 tsp
10. Milk- ½ cup
11. Water- ½ cup
12. Kasuri Methi- 1 tbsp
13. Cream- ¼ cup
14. Oil- 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Soak the cashew nuts for 30 minutes and grind to a paste. Keep this aside.
2. Grind onions and purée the tomatoes.
3. Heat oil, add the ground onions, fry till it becomes light brown in colour.
4. Add ginger and garlic paste. Stir well. In this add the puréed tomatoes, green chillies and red chilli powder.
5. Add the cashew paste, coriander powder and garam masala. Stir well till the oil separates. Add milk and water.
6. Mix well, add salt. After about 10 minutes on low flame add the cubed paneer.
7. Sprinkle some kasuri methi on top and switch off the flame.
8. Pour some cream on top and serve along with rotis, naan, pulav and so on.

Barbie Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Icing

After much demand from my friends and my husband, today’s post is about a cake and this post has been sitting in my draft since past couple of weeks. I made  this barbie cake two weeks ago for my little one’s birthday who is a die hard barbie fan… :).

When her birthday was nearing, she promptly demanded a barbie cake. As I am not a professional baker, I was in a dilemma on where to start and how to go about it. And my search for barbie cakes started and after so much of googling and going through dozens of blogs, videos etc., I was able to gather the process which resulted in a beautiful cake.

I made the basic cake a chocolate one and I filled the layers and covered with ganache and sugar syrup so that the cake turns into a chocolate truffle cake.  I made a hole in the center of the cake by using an oval shaped cutter for the barbie to squeeze in.

Filling the layers using ganache

Before inserting a barbie doll into the center of the cake, measure the length of the lower part of the barbie i.e from the waist to the toes and then bake cakes accordingly. For some barbie cakes we require to make 3 cakes and for some four. I made four cakes and then cut each cake into two layers. My cake was an eight layered chocolate truffle cake which is covered with strawberry buttercream icing to look just like a barbie’s layered gown.

I never expected that one day I will make a barbie cake which looked so awesome, which even I couldnt believe I did :-). For decorations you can put fondant flowers or use different coloured icing or sprinkle some silver balls around the buttercream.

If I can make a barbie cake, I am sure you can also bake one and surprise you little ones ...

Ingredients:

Chocolate Truffle Cake

1. Flour- 1 Cup
2. Cocoa Powder- ⅓ Cup
3. Baking Powder- 1 tsp
4. Salt- as per taste
5. Eggs- 3 nos
6. Vanilla Essence- 1 tsp
7. Butter- ½ Cup
8. Sugar- 1 Cup
9. Milk- ⅓ Cup

Sugar Syrup:

1. Water- ½ Cup
2. Sugar- 5 tbsps

Method:

• Boil water and add sugar. Stir for some time and remove from flame. Let it cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache:

1. Heavy Cream- 1 Cup
2. Chocolate Pieces- 1 ½ Cups

Method:

• Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat and just when it starts boiling remove from flame and add the chocolate pieces. Stir well till all the pieces are melted and blended properly.
• Allow the ganache to cool.

Method for chocolate cake:

1. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt trice. Keep this aside.
2. In a clean glass bowl beat the eggs along with vanilla essence till it turns creamy and light.
3. In another glass bowl beat the butter and sugar well using a hand mixer. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture and beat well in one direction till all the ingredients are well incorporated.
4. In the above mixture, alternatively fold the flour and milk till well blended (in one direction). Pour this cake batter in a greased cake bowl.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Bake the cake for about 30- 40 min or till a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
6. Remove the cake from oven and let it cool completely before building the barbie cake.
7. Using this measurement, prepare two more cakes to complete the full barbie dress.
8. In this the top most cake that starts from the hip of the barbie, should be made in a glass bowl which has a curved bottom. So that when the cake is inverted from the glass bowl it will look like a dome shape.

For the barbie:

• Wrap the lower half body  and the hair of the barbie with a cling film, so that when it is inserted in the cake it won't get spoiled and it will prevent staining from the food.

Make hole in the middle of the cake:

1. Make a hole in the center of each cake using a sharp knife or with an oval shaped cutter and make sure that the barbie inserts in the hole properly.
2. Make each cake into 2 layers and place the base i.e one of the cake on the cake board and sprinkle some sugar syrup and then spread the prepared chocolate ganache. Place the next layer of cake and repeat the process. Stack the cake one after the other alternatively sprinkling the sugar syrup and spreading the ganache, ending the cake layer with the dome type cake.
3. When all the layers of the cake are stacked properly, cover the entire cake using this ganache.
4. Place this ganache covered cake in the refrigerator for about half an hour.
5. After taking out from the refrigerator insert the barbie in the cake and decorate with buttercream icing.

Covering the cake using ganache

Buttercream icing:

1. Beat the icing sugar, butter and strawberry essence till light and fluffy. Divide the batter into the ratio of one third to the two thirds. Add a few drops of pink colour to the two third of teh icing and fill these in two piping bags with a zigzag nozzle.
2. Pipe the basic buttercream on to the cake as shown in the pic and cover the remaining portion of the cake from base to the top, until you reach the barbie’s waist.

Decoration on Barbie cake:

• Decorate with silver balls on to the barbie cake by placing them randomly. Remove the cling film from the barbie’s hair.
• Now the barbie cake is ready for the birthday party.

Churros with Chocolate dip

These churros are also known as Spanish doughnuts. Spanish eat these churros as breakfast dipped in hot chocolate. These are made in different varieties in different places. These are long, straight or slightly curled lengths that are ridges. They are popular in Spain, France, Latin America and so on.

These are fritters, deep fried in oil which has crunchy outside and soft inside, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon mixture and served along with hot chocolate. These are piped through star shaped nozzle but as I didn’t have the nozzle, I just cut the edge of the ziplock bag and piped the dough through it.

I got the idea of making this when I was discussing about what to make for iftar with my brother, he gave me the idea of trying these churros as when I visited his place in Belgium, we searched for these churros, but to our bad luck we couldn’t spot any. He told me to try to make these at home and that day he insisted me and for the next few hours I googled for these churros and so you all can see the final result. Try these amazingly delicious sugar- cinnamon coated churros dipped in a bowl of creamy chocolate sauce and let me know....

Ingredients:

1. Maida / All purpose flour- ½ Cup
2. Water- ½ Cup
3. Sugar- 2 tbsp
4. Butter- 1 tbsp
5. Salt- a pinch
6. Oil- 1 tbsp
7. Vanilla essence- 1tsp
8. Egg- 1 no

For Coating:

1. Sugar (coarsely ground)- ½ Cup
2. Cinnamon powder- 2 tbsp

For the Chocolate Dip:

1. Chocolate (chopped)- ¼ Cup
2. Fresh Cream- ½ Cup

Method:

For the dough:

1. Combine water, butter, salt and oil. Bring to boil. Add flour and mix well till it forms a ball.
2. Transfer this to a bowl and add vanilla essence. Mix well till the dough cools a bit.
3. Add the egg and mix well till everything is well blended and forms a sticky dough.
4. Transfer this into a ziplock bag and keep this aside.
5. Meanwhile heat oil for deep frying. Mix cinnamon powder and coarsely ground sugar in a bowl.
6. Cut the edge of the ziplock bag little big and pipe strips of dough into hot oil and fry till golden brown, drain on paper towels. Repeat the process till finished.
7. Roll these churros in cinnamon- sugar mixture and arrange them in a plate.

For the Chocolate dip:

1. Pour the cream in a bowl and heat it on low flame.Do not boil. Switch off the flame.
2. Add the chocolate pieces and stir it well it all the pieces are melted.
3. Dip the warm churros in the chocolate dip and bite into a delicious dish...

Note: The length of churros has become small as the kadai which I used for deep frying was small.