Tag: Bakes

Mediterranean Frittata

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I hosted a brunch earlier last month for Sahil’s colleagues. Now the usual dilemma I face is that amongst my friend circle is that I am the sole vegetarian. While they enjoy the vegetarian fare I lay out, I don’t want my guests to miss their non vegetarian dishes.

So in instances like these I choose eggs, they come in handy. I am comfortable baking with eggs and hence decided to make a savoury dish for my lovely guests.

Frittata happens to be Sahil’s favorite after Spanish omelette or Shashouka hence I made these. I have these phases wherein I get obsessed with certain ingredients and simply can’t get enough out of them. Currently sundried tomatoes top this list hence I decided to give the Frittata a Mediterranean twist and added them to the mix.

It was World Baking Day yesterday and it is only right to post about something which I baked recently.

Fritatta

Yields : 12 portions

Ingredients
6 organic eggs
1/2 cup finely chopped Kalamata Olives
1/2 cup finely chopped sundried tomatoes
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp white pepper powder
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese + 2tsp for garnish
Handful of feta cheese crumbled
Sea salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs lightly and add all the remaining ingredients.Season well.

Now to a greased muffin tray, add a spoonful of the mixture and top it with some mozzarella cheese as a garnish.

Bake for 10-15 minutes and remove them from the muffin tin. Serve immediately.

However these re-heat well also so are a good option for breakfast the day after.

Until next time, happy cooking!

Eggless Chocolate Walnut Brownies

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Weekends usually mean having family over for lunch or in evening for snacks and some drinks. I have a dear brother-in-law staying here in Dubai for the last 6 years. He helped us settle in when me and husband were newbies around here and is our only close family out here.

He got married a few days back and I’m currently in New Delhi, visiting home for his wedding. He came over to discuss his last minute anxieties and we were happy to share his joy. To celebrate this occasion, I decided to bake some brownies, who doesn’t like a chocolate chip brownie served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. A late post but as they say it’s better late than never!

I’m posting this today on my Mum-in-law’s birthday.

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Ingredients
Serves : 4
Prep Time : 10 minutes
Baking Time : 28-30 minutes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/3 walnuts chopped coarsely + 2tsp to garnish
1/3 cup of canola oil
1 cup of milk
1 tsp of vinegar
1/2 tsp coffee powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
Handful of chocolate chips to garnish
A pinch of salt

Pre heat the oven at 180 degrees Celcius.

Sieve the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.

Mix the milk at room temperature with coffee powder and vinegar and set aside

Mix the caster sugar to the dry ingredients.

Mix the oil and vanilla extract to the milk mixture.

Add the flour mixture and the milk mixture together and blend well.

Add chopped walnuts to this and fold the mixture gently.

Pour the batter to a well greased pound cake pan and top it with chopped walnuts and chocolate chips.

Batter

Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

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Cool the brownies completely before cutting them in neat squares.

Brownies
Serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and cut strawberries.

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The brownies will stay well up to 3 days.

2014 – A new year! An old post! Super Moist Chocolate Cake :)

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Chocolate Cake1

Happy New Year! I hope everyone has a blessed year with good health, happiness and contentment in life. Late wishes I know, but like they say – Better Late Than Never!

Before I hop on and start creating memories for 2014, I want to share that it was a lovely December last year! Apart from the ever increasing To-Do list, year end review and strategy meetings at work, I have had a blast.

I have been dining out almost thrice every week for a month now, given late evenings at work leave me too exhausted to face the stove top. However I have been batch cooking a lot for friends and family this month. I even sent a care package of granola bars and cookies to mom-in-law ensuring she does not miss her granola at breakfast. She lovingly distributed some to her kitty party friends.

Last 10 days of 2013 have been very endearing filling me with gratitude for God having given me a great year and making me hopeful of an even better 2014.

I participated in @uaesecretsanta this year, it’s a stand alone gift exchange for tweeps within UAE. I got gifted an amazing book on baking and a Gingerbread house making kit from Tavola by my super sweet Santa.

Ain’t it cute! My secret santa was very thoughtful towards my wish list I’d say. See them below, so this post is dedicated to her 🙂

Secret Santa Gifts

I did my bit by sending gifts to my Santee too and it reached her just in time.

This year New Year’s evening was a quiet one for me and Sahil, we are home listening to some music, sipping our favorite beverages, me masala chai and him his Old Monk. He was working on his final draft for his upcoming coffee table book and I was catching up with friends and family back home. We later stepped out and saw the amazing fireworks. We parked ourselves with several others on the Knowledge Village flyover, we had distant view of fireworks at Global Village, JBR and Burj Khalifa. The magic begun when Burj Al Arab started it’s colorful array of fireworks.

And then like Dubai style, the best was saved for the last. What I saw gave me goosebumps! The much awaited fireworks started over the Palm, a 180 degrees view of colors and lights saw me giggling like a school girl. I such a sucker for fireworks! This was the highlight for my New Years Eve and I will cherish this for the longest time ever.

For the first post of 2014, I’m sharing a recipe for a chocolate cake I baked for my office pot luck lunch for Christmas. Yes! I had a full working day but it turned out to be fun towards the end of it.

I have completely followed the recipe from Joy of Baking’s website. This is very simple cake, comes together in just less than an hour including the prep time. Perfect when you are hard pressed for time like I was!

http://www.joyofbaking.com/cakes/SimpleChocolateCake.html

Chocolate Cake Making

It’s quite a thin batter which can get you scared in the beginning whether the cake will hold it’s shape but it’s alright. The end result is a gooey, moist chocolate cake oozing with flavor. This is one recipe I swear by, it’s not let me down ever.

Chocolate Cake

I simply topped it with some home made chocolate fudge frosting and strawberries! My colleagues are a berry loving lot 🙂

Chocolate Fudge Icing 

1/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup icing sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine cocoa powder, sugar and milk in a saucepan and blend all together for few minutes on medium heat. Take off heat when it starts to simmer, add butter and mix well. Add vanilla extract and blend all the ingredients together. You can add little milk if the mixture is too dry. Let the mixture cool down. Spread over cake sparingly, the fudge icing stays well if kept refrigerated unto 3 days.

I hope I’m able to bring out more posts at regular intervals this year around! Here’s too more cooking and creating great foodie memories ahead 🙂

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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I love having cookies and biscuits, blame it on me being an avid tea drinker. I love my morning tea and then again in the evenings and just when feeling under weather. I make myself a nice cuppa of steaming hot ginger tea or masala chai as they say.

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The chai masala can be easily bought from any groceries selling Indian food. Here in Dubai, you can find nice homely and fragrant chai masala at Al Adil, they have branches across UAE. However I have a time tested chai masala recipe used in my household. I will share the same in the blog soon!

Cookies can be quite filling when busy mornings leave you with no room to fix breakfast. A cup of tea, a couple of cookies and the morning is sorted. I love double chocolate chip, coconut orange blossom water and oatmeal honey cookies. This time however I was in mood for something healthy.

Oats are a healthy option to feed on. Now I am someone who is fond of having breakfast the traditional way so give me parathas, poha, upma, idli, wada sambhar and you see me grinning. Eating muesli or cereal is never my idea for breakfast. When me and S got married, difference in breakfast options came to the forefront. He insisted that I start eating healthy but I was too adamant to give up my butter laden parathas with a side of pickle.

Cooking breakfast every morning while struggling to get out for work, seems a task in itself and hence cookies with a side of peanut butter toast is a staple go-to breakfast option on most of the crazy weekdays.

So this recipe for oatmeal cookies seemed like the easy way out to incorporate healthy options and give up the store bought flour laden cookies and biscuits.

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Adapted from Joy of Baking website
2 sticks / 200 grams unsalted butter
200 grams light brown sugar
1/3 cup regular white sugar
2  eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 grams all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
250 grams old-fashioned rolled oats
100 grams dark raisins
50 grams coarsely chopped walnuts
a handful of dried cranberries

When baking goodies, prep time is crucial. Start with having all the ingredients assembled so that you don’t have to keep looking for them once you get started.

So I start with removing the butter from the fridge and bringing it to room temperature.

Preheat the oven oven to 180 degrees Celcius and line the baking sheet  with parchment paper. You could buy store bought ready to use parchment paper sheets, Lakeland has some good options.

I use parchment paper rolls bought from Waitrose which I cut individually for every batch of cookies. They are quite economical and just need 2 minutes to cut in the size you need. Also keeps reminding me of my craft lessons at school *chuckles*

In a big bowl, beat butter using the hand mixer for 1 minute until nice and creamy. I usually use Lurpak or Elle & Vire brand unsalted butter. You could also use salted butter, if that’s what you’d use, omit the salt in the recipe.

Now, add the brown sugar and white sugar to the butter. I use Whitworth’s light brown sugar and SIS brand for the white granulated sugar. I would love to use the dark brown sugar next time since it gives a rich brown color to the cookie batter.

Beat until sugar gets mixed well and the mixture does not appear grainy. It usually takes 3minutes for the mixture to look fluffy.

Add one egg at a time to the mixture and beat well maybe for 1 minute each.  I use Omega 3 large or medium eggs.

You can add the vanilla extract at this point and let it blend together with the batter.

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In a different bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and whisk it well so that the baking soda is mixed with the entire dry ingredients.

The original recipe called for cinnamon however I did not have the same handy and hence skipped it completely from the recipe.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix well with a spatula.

Add oats walnuts, raisins and cranberries to the mixture and combine everything together. While walnuts give the cookies a nice crunch, raisins and cranberries give a nice sweet and soggy feel to them. It is a beautiful contrast in textures.

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Now take a small ice cream scoop and take the cookie batter. You can dab the cookie ball slightly and flatten them with your fingertips, Make sure to keep adequate space between two cookies allowing them to bake well.

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Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. The corners will be soft but the center for the cookie will be soft and chewy, If you want them crisp increase the flour in the recipe and bake for 2-3 minutes more.

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Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet. Store them in an airtight container, they stay well for 10 days. This is when they do not get polished off!

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I love how my kitchen smells heavenly while these cookies are baked. Until my next post, happy food memories ahead!