Scrummy Yummy Cuppy Cakes

The title says it all. Yes, I love 'em and they bring out a little person hiding in me.  Cup-cakes were a childhood favourite! They were a luxury then as we would have them only at the beginning of the month after pay-day. There are many good bakeries in my home-town, Pune. Some of them are so popular that people don't mind queueing for hours to get their hands on their favourite baked goodies...

Over time I developed taste for other cakes and these simple cakes were forgotten. When I first came to UK, I saw most super-stores have a variety of these cakes - all decorated and dainty! They are called Fairy Cakes here and they look cute with the light pink and yellow icing and decorations. But to tell the truth I prefer the undecorated variety. I would decorate them if I was making them for party but even then I would stick to simple butter-cream or chocolate icing. 

I love baking and my interest first developed when I started watching Good Food channel. This is now a favourite channel in our household. These days I haven't been getting enough time for baking. I just have been buying baking ingredients and equipment with the intention of trying some new recipes. Recently I bought these cute looking silicone cup cases - they are quiet good because you don't need to grease them and cakes come out easily  as well. As I had some spare time and mood today, I thought of trying out the new cup-cases.

These cakes are easy to make and you need the basic baking ingredients on hand. If you are not using silicone cup-cases, then you will need paper-cases which should be placed inside muffin moulds.

Fairy Cakes / Cup Cakes

Ingredients (for a dozen cakes)

125 gms Self-Raising Flour
125 gms Caster Sugar
125 gms Unsalted Butter
2 medium eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 tbsp Milk

Preparation

• Take the Butter, Milk and Eggs out from the fridge few hours before you want to start baking. It is important for the Butter to soften before you use it.
• Pre-heat your oven to 200 C before baking the cake. I turn on the oven just before making the cake mixture.

Method

• With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until it turns light and fluffy.
• Lightly beat the eggs and add them one at a time while mixing.
• Add the vanilla essence and mix it well.
• Sift half of the flour first, then add the milk. Fold the flour into the liquid mixture with a wooden spoon/spatula.
• Now add rest of the flour and mix well with the wooden spoon.
• Spoon the mixture into cup-cases.
• Bake them in oven at 200 C for 15-20 minutes or until they feel firm to touch and are golden on top.

Super Healthy Rainbow Salad

It's a typical British day outside - dull and wet! Very uninspiring to say the least and I have been feeling lazy as well. This is just my first week of blogging and I had made promise to myself that I would be writing atleast one post (atleast initially :-) So I have been wondering what to cook for lunch that can be made quickly while my little one is asleep - I sometimes feel guilty when I have to cook leaving him alone to entertain himself.

So I had a quick look in the fridge - lots of fresh vegetables waiting for their turn to be consumed. I had been feeling health-conscious recently and had stocked up on vegetables on my last trip to the super-market. I had been thinking of making Salads - but already three days have passed and Salad has not made it to our dining table yet. And today's not an ideal day for Salad but if I don't do something about those veggies today, I doubt if I would be able to finish them before weekend.

The Salad I had been thinking of making has no name - it's my own invention and I am going to call it "Rainbow Salad". "Rainbow" because it has seven different beans/vegetables - Kidney Beans (boiled), Sweet Corn, Spring Onions, Carrots, Green Capsicum, Red Capsicum and Cabbage. I cannot emphasize enough the goodness of these veggies and the Salad tastes great as well.

Rainbow Salad

Ingredients

3/4 can of Rajmah/Red Kidney Beans
1/2 cup of Sweet Corn Kernels
Couple of Spring Onions - sliced
1/2 Green Pepper - cut into 1" long strips
1/2 Red Pepper - cut into 1" long strips
1 Carrot - grated
1/2 cup shredded Cabbage
2 Green Chillies

For dressing

1 tbsp Lemon Juice
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper

Method

Very easy-peasy! Mix all the vegetables in a big bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, mix together dressing ingredients and pour the dressing on the salad. Mix well.

This Salad looks very appealing on its own.

Here's a close look of the Salad:

Served on lettuce leaves:

If you entertaining guests, then this salad can be served on tacos or on potato-nests as starters.

On a Sweeter Note - Seviyan Kheer

If there's one sweet-dish that is popular all over India, it is Kheer - a milk and dry-fruits based pudding. It is  often prepared in Indian household on festive occasions, for other celebrations or for guests.

Although there are many types of Kheer, the one I like most is Seviyan Kheer prepared from Seviyan (Vermicelli). I thought this Kheer deserves a special place on my blog for a number of reasons. Number one reason is that all in the family love it. I learnt this dish from my sister-in-law (brother's wife) who used to make it often at family get-togethers. I could never get enough of Kheer prepared by her as there were others also in the race for finishing it off :-)) Surprise, surprise - my little nephew used to be a winner in this race!

I also have an opinion about what constitutes a good Kheer. I feel that a balance of all the ingredients is of essence - a good Kheer has a sweet mellow taste, with a background flavour of Cardamom and an interesting crunch added to it by dry fruits and nuts. Although Kheer preparation is not a Rocket Science, it does need patience and practice to get the flavour right.

Seviyan is easily available in Indian grocery stores. There are a couple of varieties; the one used in this recipe is the thinner variety (see the picture below).

So here goes my recipe...

Seviyan Kheer

Ingredients

1 cup Thin Seviyan (Vermicelli)
500 ml Milk
3/4 cup Sugar
1 tbsp Ghee/Clarified butter
3-4 Green Cardamoms
1 tbsp Cashews - cut into smaller pieces
1 tbsp Almonds - blanched, peeled and cut into long, thin pieces
1 tbsp Chironji
1 tbsp Pistachios -chopped finely

Method

• Heat Ghee in a pan and roast Cashews and Chironji nuts. Keep them aside.
• Crush Seviyan to smaller pieces and add it to the ghee. Stir.
• As soon as the Seviyan start turning brownish in colour, add the milk and bring it boil. Keep stirring it, otherwise the Seviyan will start sticking together or to the pan.
• Once the milk has boiled, add sugar and powdered Cardamom. Stir.
• Let the Kheer boil for about 5 minutes and then take it off stove.
• Add the roasted nuts, almonds and pistachios(if using).

Eat Your Green Beans

"Eat Your Greens" is a popular slogan in UK, often used to campaign in favour of vegetables and fruits.  In support of this slogan and of Green Beans, I have decided to write this post. :-) One of the green vegetables that is often under-rated is Green Beans which is also known as Runner Beans or French Beans. This vegetable not only has a wonderful flavour but is versatile as well - it can eaten steamed, added to stir-fries or rice preparations.  Not to mention its nutrional value - it's rich in nutritients like folate, vitamins K and C and of course it is a source of fibre as well.

In India, these beans are commonly known as French Beans. In Marathi, the vegetable is also called Farasbee (corruption of French Beans) or Shravan Ghevda. Ghevda  is used to refer to beans and "Shravan" because it is grown in the monsoon season.

In UK, this vegetable is available in the super-markets all year around and is often served as side-dish to accompany meat/fish dishes. In India, each region has its own way of preparing this wonderful vegetable. In this post, I thought of sharing with you my method of preparing this vegetable. My DH loves my version of French Beans as it tastes good and can be prepared very quickly and easily!

French Beans Bhaji


Ingredients

1 packet/250 gms of Green Beans
2-3 dried red chillies
1/2 inch piece of jaggery/1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 sprig of curry leaves
1/2 tsp salt (or according to your taste)
a pinch of asafoetida(hing)
1 tbsp oil

Method

• Wash the beans and first top and tail them. Then cut them into very small pieces - size of peas.

• Add the oil to shallow pan and heat it. Add the mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds. Once the mustard seeds start popping, add asafoetida, red chillies and curry leaves.
• Add the beans and mix well.
• Then add jaggery and salt.
• Mix well and then cover the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes. Once it's done, you may add grated coconut (optional).
• Serve with chapatis.

How to sprout beans

Sprouted beans are very popular in Maharashtra and are used to prepare a dish called "Usal" - a spicy sprouted beans curry. This curry has a great taste and it has health benefits as well - so why wouldn't anybody want to eat it? Raw sprouts can also be added to salads, soups and stir-fries. Here are a few benefits of sprouting:

• Sprouts have a higher nutrional value than unsprouted beans and even some of the other plant sources of food. They have high energy content required to transform the seed to plant. In addition, they are also a rich source of protein, vitamins and minerals.
• Sprouts are a easy and cheap source of highly nutritional food.
• Some of sprouts like mung/matki have beauty benefits - they can bring glow to your skin. So all the gals who are reading this, take a note :-)
• Sprouts are a live food, so all the nurtition in them are available to you straightaway, unlike other plant sources of food where most of nutritional value is lost by the time the vegetables/fruits have reached your home.

In Maharashtra, a variety of sprouted beans can be easily bought from local vegetable vendors. The grains that are frequently sprouted are Mung, Matki (Moth), Chana (Chick Peas). As the sprouted beans are not available at green-grocers here in UK, many of us who like eating sprouts are denied the pleasure. Although sprouting at home is a possibility, many people think it's time-consuming. However, sprouting is really simple - I have been sprouting at home here in UK. I always like things to be simple and if I can do it, so can you :-)
Let me explain to you the process for sprouting Matki beans at home (the procedure for sprouting Mung beans is ditto):

Day 1 Morning

The beans should be washed and soaked in water for a minimum of 6-8 hours. I always soak the beans in morning.

Day 1 Before bed-time

Discard the water from the beans and rinse the beans. Transfer them into a muslin cloth and gather the sides of the muslin and make a knot at the top to create a bundle. Place this bundle into a bowl and put the bowl away in a warm place - I always keep it in my airing cupboard. If you are living in a warm country, then you can keep the bundle anywhere.

Day 2 Noon

Open the bundle and check out the beans - they should have sprouted by now. I prefer smaller sprouts of about 5 mm - 1 cm in length. If they are too small, keep the bundle for a little longer.

This is how the sprouted beans will look like:

Storage

You can store the sprouted beans in a box in refrigerator for upto a week. It may turn rancid if kept for longer.

Hope all the information in this post has inspired you to start sprouting! I shall post recipes for Usal and other preparations using sprouts later on.

Microwave Khandvi (Suralichi Vadi)

This is the first post in this blog. I would like to share with you all a recipe for Khandvi made in the microwave.

Khandvi is a snack that is popular in Gujarat and Maharashtra. In Marathi, it is called "Suralichi Vadi". The traditional method is a little difficult and needs some practice and patience to get it right. I have never tried making it using the traditional method as I was scared of getting it wrong. In Pune, where I come from, this snack can easily be bought from sweet shops, so I don't think many people try making it at home these days. However, here in UK, I was missing it so much... until I came across a simplistic version of this recipe made in microwave. This recipe gave me enough confidence to try it out and believe it or not - it did work the first time. We were so excited by the outcome, that my DH even volunteered to take photos of the dish. So, if you like me have never tried it before, do give it a go and surprise yourself :-)

Ingredients
1/2 cup Besan (Chickpea Flour)
3/4 cup Yoghurt
3/4 cup water
Chilli-Ginger paste made by crushing one green chilli and 1 inch piece of ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp turmeric
a pinch of asafoetida (hing)

Tempering

1 1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 green chilli - chopped fine
few leaves of coriander chopped
little fresh coconut grated

Method

• Mix besan, yoghurt and water well. Ensure that no lumps are formed.
• Pour the mixture into a microwave-friendly dish and cook in microwave on 80% power for 4 minutes.
• Add turmeric, chilli-ginger paste, salt and asafoetida to the mixture, stir well and microwave on high for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture is thick.
• Spread the mixture quickly and thinly on plastic sheets and allow it to cool for 5 minutes.
• Cut it into strips about 1 inch wide and make rolls.
• Prepare the tempering now - heat oil in a microwave dish for couple of minutes and then add mustard seeds and green chillies. Pour the tempering over the rolls.
• Garnish with grated coconut and chopped coriander leaves and serve.