Dilpasand or Sweet Puffs

Hi Everyone….

Well today I was very excited that I posted the Image of my recipe without a link for the recipe. Well here I am to post the recipe… Dilpasand as it is known as is a sweet puff with lots of filling which makes you tempted towards the dish. I use to love this a lot when I was a kid… Even when I grew up I use to have it… but my main reason to prepare this now is my hubby… he loves dilpasand…. Well to be frank he got a sweet tooth which makes me to cook all sweets for him… This one is a very easy recipe… In chennai you can find it in each and every bakery but then I never knew it was so easy to prepare. Now am happy as I could prepare this at home whenever I want.

This particular recipe can be prepared either using pastry puff sheets which are available in stores or else you can prepare it at home. I prefer to prepare it at home and I keep it in a zip lock bag to use it whenever I need one but the process of making at home is bit lengthy hence many prefer to buy it from shop, the reason that I prepare it at home is because I can use less butter and make it as and when I want. I will post the recipe for puff pastry some other day with each pic for each stage of preparation depicted. I have used cake piece too because in Chennai many shops they use it in the recipe. If you want you can omit it and use the rest of the ingredients.

Well the recipe goes as follow:

Puff pastry sheets – 6

Tutti fruity (Red Colour) – 50 gms

Tutti Fruity (Green Colour) – 50 gms

Fresh Coconut Scraped – ½ cup

Sugar – ½ cup

Chocolate Cake – 2 pieces (Optional)

Cardamom powder – ¼ teaspoon

Jeera Powder – ¼ teaspoon

First you need to roll out the puff pastry sheet length wise for a long puff or a circle for a round one. I preferred it to be long so I rolled it out as a rectangle shape. Now in a bowl mix all the rest of the ingredients properly, make sure the cake pieces are powdered while it gets mixed with other ingredients. Now place the filling inside the puff pastry sheet and seal it up properly. Preheat the oven at 130 C and place the sweet puff in it and bake for 20 mins.

If you want you can cook the same even in Microwave but you have to be very careful as the heat is more in Microwave hence you should take it out in 7 mins or you need to go on checking it.

Well hope all of you will try and let me know your feedback. 

Black Forest Cake

Well to start up with I love cakes and my love for cake started when I was of the age of around 5 to 6 years, My Aunt was the one who use to bake the cake in our home. Her cake use to be very soft and delicious. Every alternate day I use to ask her to bake a cake. I use to wait patiently until she made the batter and baked it. She use to bake the cake with different flavors like banana cake, Fruit cake, nuts, orange etc…  When I grew up my love for cake was the same but with time I became crazy for Plum Cake, Chocolate Cake and Black Forest Cake. I started baking and I tried Plum Cake last Christmas, Chocolate Cake I bake every now and then as my hubby likes it and this is the first time I made Black forest Cake, but I am very happy with the outcome. In Chennai I use to have Black forest Cake from The Cake World at Anna Nagar and Primas Bakery. These were the two places where I use to be seen very often ;-). Well I dint plan to bake it but since all the items were available at home I thought why not give a try. The only difficulty that I faced was to get the cherries. After roaming around in Kuwait at last we found it out. Though it was the first time but I was very happy with the outcome as it came out very well… Well my hubby helped me out in decorating the cake and the photo courtesy goes definitely to him

Black Forest Gateau and Black Forest Cake are the English names for the German Dessert Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte literally known as Black Forest Cherry Torte. Black Forest cake was originated in Germany. Typically Black Forest consists of several layers of Chocolate Cake, with whipped Cream and cherries between each layer. Then the cake is decorated with additional whipped cream, maraschino cherries and chocolate shavings.

Well let’s get started with the ingredients:-

Cake

·        Self Raising Flour (Maida) – 2 cups

·        Egg – 4 eggs

·        Sugar - 1 ½ cups

·        Cocoa Powder – ½ cup

·        Butter (Unsalted) - ½ cup

·        Baking Soda 1 ½ tsp

·        Baking Powder 1 tsp

·        A pinch of Salt

·        Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

·        Milk (Cold) – 1 cup

·        Coffee Powder – 1 ½ tbsps

For Filling

Cherries – 1 Tin

For Icing

Icing Sugar ½ cup

Whipping Cream – 1 pack (Almarai – Available in Kuwait)

For Decoration

Dark Chocolate – 50gms (Grated)

Preheat the Oven to 170C or 325F.

In a Bowl sieve the Self Raising Flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Salt, Cocoa Powder & Coffee Powder.

Place butter and sugar in a bowl and whisk it until light and fluffy. Then add 1 egg at a time and whisk it, slowly add the flour little by little.

Grease the pan and pour the batter into it. Now place the baking pan in the oven for 40 mins.

Once the Cake is done keep it on top of a wire rack to cool.

Use a large knife to Slice the Cake into 3 equal parts. Drain the Cherries and keep the syrup separately.

Whip the cream adding the sugar.

Take a slice of cake and pour the syrup of cherries and top it with pieces of cherries and then spread the whipped cream on top of it. Now place the Second slice of Cake and repeat the same process mentioned above. Once all the three slices are spread cover the entire cake using whipped cream. For decoration use the grated chocolate and cherries. Keep the Cake in refrigerator to set.

Serve it after an hour. J

I am sure you would love the outcome as I did. Will update my other recipes soon. 

Garlic Chicken

Today I am going to post the recipe for Garlic Chicken… I love this recipe a lot and even my hubby…  While in Chennai I use to go out to restaurants to relish on this particular dish but never did I ever think that  I would make this one day at home…  I loved cooking but I dint have time to do so in Chennai but here in Kuwait I have so much of time to try different recipes… Well I was supposed to post this recipe a long time ago as my dearest friend – Jensy asked me to do so… So here I am jensy to give you the recipe…  One thing that I like about Kuwait is that we get all sorts of vegetables over here… especially fresh spring onions which I like to add to all of my recipes as a final garnish…  Let’s have a look at the recipe… J

Ingredients:

Boneless Chicken – ½ kg

Spring onion  - 2 stalks

Soya Sauce – 1 tablespoon

Chicken Stock – ½ cup or 1 cube

Onion – 2 medium

Red Chilli paste – 2 tablespoons

Garlic – 20 cloves

Corn flour – 2 tablespoon

Tomato ketchup – 2 tablespoon

Oil – 1 ½  tablespoon

Salt  to taste

First clean the chicken and cut into medium size pieces. Finely chop the Spring Onions. Take an onion and cut it into 4 pieces and then slice it again in the center thus you will get big pieces of onions. Chop the garlic into small pieces.

Chilli paste: for chilli paste take 10 red chillies and put them in half a cup of hot water. Leave it for around 15 minutes then put it in grinder and make a paste of it or you can even buy chilli paste from the store.

Take a pan pour the oil. Put the garlic into it and fry it. The colour of the Garlic should become light brown then add the onions and sauté it well. Once the onion turns to light pink put the chicken pieces into it. Now add salt according to taste. Mix it well. Add tomato ketchup, red chilli paste and mix it well. Let it cook for some time. Add soya sauce. Meanwhile in a bowl mix the corn flour with the chicken stalk. Mix the chicken stock and corn flour mix with the chicken. Cook the chicken until it’s done or till the sauce starts to thicken. Finally garnish the Garlic Chicken with Spring onion and serve it hot with Chapathi , Naan or any other Indian bread.

Pinwheel Cookies

After a long time I am posting a recipe again… it doesn’t mean that I was not cooking all these days but I was very lazy to type it and post it… L  Anyhow I am here once again with my recipes and this time I am going to post the recipe for Pinwheel Cookies…  I tried these cookies as the colour and the taste attracted me to try it out… My neighbor’s kids loved it so much that every day the younger one asks me for chocolate cookies…  but before trying the recipe I would like to tell you that you need to have patience to try out this recipe… it take long time for the cookies to bind hence it would take two days for the process to be over and you can have your cookies… The recipe is mentioned below :

Butter –

Sugar – 1 cup

Salt – a pinch

All purpose Flour (Maida) – 3 cups

Baking powder – 1 tablespoon

Egg yolks – 2

Vanilla essence – 2 teaspoons

Instant Espresso powder – 1 tsp

Cocoa Powder – 3 tablespoons

Bitter chocolate – 50 grams

Milk – ½ cup

Sift the flour, salt and baking soda. In a mixer  cream the butter on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar and mix it well. Add the egg , milk and vanilla and mix it properly.  Now divide the dough in two portions.

In one portion you can add crushed almonds or cashew and mix it properly or you can leave it as it is so that you get the taste of vanilla. Once mixed properly keep it aside.

For the second portion of dough first melt the bitter chocolate. Add the instant espresso powder and cocoa powder in it and mix it with the dough.

Keep both the dough in refrigerator for half an hour. Now take it out and roll out the 1^st portion of the dough (Vanilla) into a rectangle shape on a waxed paper. Do the same with the second portion of dough (Chocolate)

Now carefully place the chocolate dough on top of the vanilla dough.  Peel off the waxed paper. Now press the dough and roll the dough like a swiss roll and now wrap the roll in a cling film and keep it refrigerated for 12 hours.

Once its done take off the cling film and with a sharp knife slice the roll into thin slices.  Heat the oven to 180C for 15 to 20 minutes. The cookies will expand a bit… Do try it out and let me know your feedback