Before we get to the recipe, a gentle reminder of the fund drive Siri is doing for the Vaidehi Ashram for Destitute Girls in Hyderabad. Please donate or the spread the word to help Siri in her noble cause. Fund Drive ends on Feb 25th.

Source: Delicious Snacks
Total Time: 20 – 25 minutes
Cooking Time: 5-10 minutes
Baking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ – 3 tbsp. Oil (recipe called for sunflower but I used olive oil)
• 1/3 Popcorn Kernels
• 1/3 Brown Sugar (I used light brown sugar)
• 2 tbsp. Corn Syrup (I used lite corn syrup)
• 1 tbsp. Milk
• 2 tbsp. Butter
• 1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Preparation:

• Pre-heat the oven to 300 F. By mistake I pre-heated it to 350 F.
• In a heavy bottom pan, heat oil. Add corn kernels and cover it. Shake it vigorously for about 2 minutes until popcorn is popped. I did not have a heavy button pan. Heated the oil, after adding corn kernels, reduce the heat to medium high and popped the corn for about 1:40 minutes until the sound of the corn popping reduced. Follow the instructions on the popcorn kernels packet to pop the corn.
• Once the corn is popped, transfer it to a big bowl.
• In another pan, take sliced butter, sugar, corn syrup, milk and heat it on low heat until the butter is melted. Stir constantly until butter is melted.
• Bring the mixture to a boil without stirring.
• Once it comes to a boil, let it boil for another 2 minutes.
• Remove from heat, add chocolate chips and stir the mixture until chocolate is melted.
• Pour the chocolate mixture over the pan and mix well until popcorn is well coated with chocolate.
• Spread the chocolate coated popcorn on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300F oven for 15 minutes or until the popcorn is crisp. For some reason, I set the oven to 350 F and 12 ½ minutes into baking, I realized I set the temperature wrong, 350F instead of 300F. Luckily, popcorn was crispy enough and was not over baked.
• Cool the popcorn and serve,
• Store the leftover in an air tight container.

Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 and in 2011.
Event Entries: Sending these to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Cooking with Seeds: Corn, an event started by Priya, and Bake Fest # 4, an event started by Vardhini.

Photo, courtesy of Siri

Each child has a story of her own and reading some of their stories in Siri’s post (first visit) was heart touching. After visiting the ashram, Siri wanted to do more for the girls at the ashram and hence the fund drive and the raffle prizes. This is Siri’s post of her second visit to the ashram.

Photo, courtesy of Siri

The fund drive started on Jan 26th and will go on till Feb 25th. Along with the fund drive there are some 40+ riffle prizes to giveaway. The riffle prizes are sponsored by fellow bloggers and I am sponsoring couple of prizes to help Siri. This are my small contributions to support this noble cause.

Photo, courtesy of Siri

This is how the fund drive and the riffle prize giveaway works:

1. Each $10 or Rs.500 donation will give you 1 riffle ticket. A $20 or Rs.1000 donation will give you 2 riffles tickets. You can use 1 riffle ticket to bid on any one of the 40+ riffle prizes. If you have 2 riffle tickets, you can bid on any 2 prizes from the list, or you may use both the riffle tickets to bid on one prize, by doubling your chances of winning the prize. At the end of the fund drive, a lucky dip is drawn for each prize by the ashram kids and the prize will be shipped to the winner.
2. Contribute using the PayPal or credit card by clicking the chip below or by going to Siri’s fund drive page.
3. Once you make the contribution and receive a confirmation, email the details to Siri @ info(dot)siri(at)gmail(dot)com, along with your choice of raffle prize(s).

All the contributions will go direct to the ashram and Siri will update the list of donors on the fund drive page within 24 hours upon receiving the confirmation email. If one wishes to stay anonymous, please mention that in your email and the donation will stay anonymous.

Photo, courtesy of Siri

The riffle prizes I am sponsoring are The Food52 Cookbook: 140 Winning Recipes from Exceptional Home Cooks & Polder KSC-310-28 Easy Read Digital Glass Top Scale, Silver by Polder. Both these prizes are for shipping with in the United States and will be shipped to the lucky winner.

I received the cookbook as a Christmas gift and I love it. I have bookmarked many recipes to try out. If you decide to get this raffle prize, the code is RU13.

My other raffle prize is digital kitchen scale, which I use for measuring ingredients for almost all of my bakes. In baking, it is very crucial to use exact measurements and a kitchen scale comes in very handy. I also use my scale to measure ingredients when I cook for the blog. The code for this digital scale is RU14.

Here is the list of other riffle prizes. There are some interesting raffle prizes such as ice-cream maker, panni & sandwich grill, canon camera lenses, cook books and many more. You can choose anyone of those prizes for just 1 raffle ticket. All the raffle prizes will be shipped to the winner, free of shipping charges.

There is no limit to your contribution and please donate to this noble cause and/or spread the word about the drive. Please make a difference!

For more details of the fund drive please check Siri’s blog.
Fund Drive
Her first visit to Ashram on Jan 1st.
Second Visit
List of raffle prizes

This morning I was leaning towards molten lava cake and U asked if I was making the pie today. And here I am, with the Mexican Chocolate Cream Pie. I followed the recipe as given with a few substitutions as I did not have those ingredients in my kitchen. I substituted espresso powder with instant coffee, frozen cool whip whipped topping with reddi whip and I skipped chili powder as it is an optional ingredient.

The pie turned about good but I would make a few changes the next time. Pie crust called for cinnamon powder and I did not really care for it. I might cut back a little on it or skip it all together. U liked the cinnamon flavor though. I also found the pie crust little crispy and very firm. I would reduce the baking time for the crust, the next time I bake it, I wanted to get cool whip whipped topping but U wanted to tasty the pie right away, so I used Reddi whip. I would recommend using Cool Whip instead. Also, do not be intimated by the lengthy ingredient list. It is a very easy preparation. Make & bake the pie crust, prepare the custard, fill it in the pie and refrigerate until set. That’s it!

Source: The Best of Cooking Light 13 Special Edition
Total Time: 35 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 – 15 minutes
Baking Time: 7 – 9 minutes
Refrigerating Time: 3 hours
Serves: 8

Ingredients:
Crust:

• 1 ½ cups Graham Cracker Crumbs or 10 Crackers (can use any digestive biscuits)
• 2 tbsp. Sugar
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon Powder
• 1/8 tsp. Salt
• 2 tbsp. Egg Whites (1 egg white)
• 2 tbsp. melted Butter

Filling:

• ½ cup Sugar
• 2 tbsp. Corn Starch
• 1 tbsp. Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• ¼ tsp. Instant Espresso Powder (I used Bru Instant Coffee Powder)
• 1/8 tsp. Salt
• 1/8 tsp. ground Red Pepper (I did not use it)
• 1 Large Egg
• 1 Large Egg Yolk
• 1 ¾ cups 2% reduced fat Milk (I used 1% Milk)
• 2 oz. Dark Chocolate chopped (I used 1 oz. bitter chocolate and 1 oz. milk chocolate. Recommend dark chocolate)
• 1 ½ cups frozen reduce-calorie whipped topping (I recommend Cool Whip)

Preparation:
Crust:

• Pre-heat the oven to 375 F.
• Break graham crackers into small pieces and run it in the food processor for few seconds. It does not have to be a fine powder.
• Keep aside 1 tbsp. for topping and take the rest into a bowl.
• Add cinnamon, sugar, salt to the crumbs and mix well.
• Add egg white and butter to the mixture and mix well.
• Grease a 9” pie pan with cooking spray. I lined the pie dish with an aluminum foil & then sprayed the cooking oil.
• Transfer the mixture to the pie pan, press it to the pan.
  
  

• Bake it for 9 minutes or until the crust is lightly toasted. I would recommend baking for less than 9 minutes as mine was very firm.
• Remove from oven and cool it on a wire rack until completely cool.
  
  

Filling:

• Combine sugar, corn starch, cocoa powder, espresso powder, salt, whole egg & a yolk and whisk well.
  Heat milk in a heavy bottom pan on medium high heat until it just begins to boil and tiny bubbles form around the corners.
• Turn off the heat (it is not required but I did), gradually add some hot milk to the egg mixture, whisking constantly.
• Transfer the milk egg mixture back to hot milk and cook it on medium heat, whisking it constantly.
• The recipe called for cooking it for 10 minutes until thick and bubbly. I cooked it for 7 minutes.
  
  

• Remove from heat, add chopped chocolate and stir/whisk it until chocolate is melted.
• Transferred the filling into a bowl and cooled it in an ice bath. One can put the pan directly in a bowl of ice.
  
  

Pie

• When completely cool, pour the filling into the crust, cover it with a saran wrap and refrigerate until the pie is set.
  
  

• Spread whipped topping on top of the chocolate filling, sprinkle with the cracker crumbs, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Suggestions:

• I would skip cinnamon powder or add very little.
• I would reduce the baking time for the pie.
• Use Cool Whip frozen whipped topping instead of Reddi Whip cream.

Egg less Pie

• Egg white can be omitted in the preparation of pie crust and if required add more butter. I think additional butter is not required.
• For the filling, egg can be skipped. I have not tried it but this filling recipe is similar to chocolate custard I made few days ago. I am guessing this filling would taste fine even without eggs.OR can add little gelatin or agar agar.
• For semi-homemade chocolate cream pie, get a store bought pie crust, for the filling use Jell-O instant chocolate flavored pudding.

Recipes posted this day: in 2010 Ragi Java and in 2011 Ground Chicken Vegetable Pulao
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog.
Event Entries: Sending these brownies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Pradnya’s Bake Fest # 3, an event started by Vardhini, Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest and Ramya’s ABC Series: Desserts.

The preparation of the squares is very easy but the only time consuming part of the preparation is chopping the nuts and biscuits. Digestive biscuits & nuts are mixed with melted chocolate and butter, and then refrigerated to set. The recipe called for 4 oz. or 8 tbsp. of butter but I used only 3 oz or 6 tbsp. I took the the below picture the next day in natural light.

Adapted: Joy of Baking
Total Time: 20 – 30 minutes
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 4 oz. Semi-Sweet or Bitter Chocolate (I used 3 oz. semisweet & 1 oz. bitter chocolate.)
• 3 oz. Butter
• 4 oz. / 115 grams Digestive Biscuits (I used Nabisco Social Tea Time Biscuits)
• 6 oz. / 175 grams / 1 ¼ cups Walnuts + Pecans + Almonds

Preparation:

• Roast the nuts in a pan until lightly toasted. Cool the nuts and chop them. Chopping walnuts & pecans was easy but it was difficult to chop almonds. I coarsely powdered them in the grinder.
  
  

  Chopped nuts & biscuits

• Break biscuits into ½ “pieces.
• Chop chocolate and butter.
  
  

  Chopped Chocolate

• Melt butter & chopped chocolate in a double boiler. That is, boil water in a sauce pan and simmer it. Take chocolate and butter into a mixing bowl and place it on the saucepan and melt chocolate & butter.
• Once the butter & chocolate is melted, remove form the double boiler, add biscuits and nuts, and mix well.
• Grease an 8 x 8 pan or a pie dish (I used a pie dish) with some butter. Pour the chocolate mixture in it and refrigerate for 2-3 hours or until the mixture is firm and set.
  
  

• Cut into required size squares, store in an air tight box in the refrigerator.

Suggestions:

• I could cut the biscuits even smaller pieces than I did.
• I would use semisweet chocolate only. Since sweeteners are not used in this recipe, using bitter chocolate might make the squares a little bitter.

Recipes posted this day in 2011: Cabbage Cucumber Salad with Mustard Yogurt Dressing
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: Checkout more about this marathon and my blogging buddies on Srivalli’s Blogging Marathon Page.
Event Entries: Sending these cookies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela and to Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest.

I met Amulya in an online community almost 4 years ago. She was a very sweet, hardworking, determined and down to earth woman with a cute small. She was full of life, energy and up for any challenge that life threw at her. I never met her personally and my only interaction with her was in this online community and on Facebook, commenting on status updates and photos. She got busy at work, left the community and stopped updating her blog. She was active on Facebook and it was the only medium to know a little of what was happening in her life. She was always outspoken about her rheumatoid arthritis and how difficult it was getting for her, as she had to be on her feet all day, due to her profession, a pastry chef. She had a few health issues but nothing serious, so we (virtual friends from this community) thought.

Last month, on Dec 28, we were shocked to learn about her demise and were awestruck! She had passed away the day before. She was young, in her early 30s and none of us knew how serious her health condition was. Three four months ago, she went back to India on her parents insistence to get herself treated and we all thought she was getting better. Apparently not! The irony of all this is, she came from a family of doctors, her parents (I think even her mother is a doctor) and both her siblings are doctors and yet, she could not be saved. The news of her demise was shocking and I was even more shocked at how much it had impacted me. It took me almost 5 days to come out of this shock. Every few hours I went to her Facebook profile hoping someone would say this is all a rumor and she is doing fine. I wish it were a rumor and unfortunately it wasn’t! Each time I saw her FB wall, the sadder I became. Yet, I would go back an hour later wishing to hear some good news. Even though I never met her, I was amazed and shocked at my own reaction to her death, and was surprised how much it had disturbed me. I wish and pray to god to give her husband, parents & family enough strength to get over this terrible, untimely lose. I also wish I had baked these cookies sooner to let Amulya know how much I liked them. I know your are watching from somewhere out there and are thrilled to know someone on this planet has tried your recipe! Where ever you are Amu, rest in peace! We all miss you!

Today is one month anniversary of her passing away and I decided to post this recipe today, as tribute to her. I also baked Foccacia bread from her blog few years ago.

Coming to the recipe, I followed the recipe exactly as given and the cookies came out perfect, melted in mouth as soon as I took a bite! The only glitch I had during the baking was figuring out the baking time. The recipe called for baking for 20 minutes and my first batch of cookies burnt. The second batch, I baked for 13 ½ minutes and the cookies baked perfect. Amu did mention that if we are using a fan operated oven, we ought to reduce the oven temperature but I don’t know if my oven is fan operated. I think that was the mistake I made. I should have baked at 325 F (160 C) for 20 minutes or should have baked for 13 ½ minutes at 350 F (180 C). This proves the statement oven temperatures vary from oven to oven.

Source: Amu’s Crazy World
Total Time: 40 – 45 (for 2 batches)
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Baking: 28 minutes (13 ½ minutes per batch)
Yields: 30

Ingredients:

• 125 grams Unsalted Butter softened (I left it on counter top for 2 hours)
• 1 cup Superfine Sugar
• 1 Egg at room temperature
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 125 grams White Chocolate Chips
• 60 grams Sliced Almonds (can use silvered almonds or whole almonds sliced)
• 1 ¾ cup Self Raising Flour**

** I substituted I cup Self Raising Flour with 1 cup All Flour Purpose + 1 ½ tsp. Baking Powder + ¼ tsp. Salt. Substitution ratio from Joy of Baking

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Line the baking / cookie sheet with baking / parchment paper.
• Sift together flour and salt. I did not have self-rising flour and made it at home with the ratios mentioned above **. I made 2 cups of flour and used 1 ¾ cup for the recipe. I found this was easier than calculating the ratios for making ¾ cup self-rising flour.
• Take soften butter and sugar in a bowl and beat it using and electric beater. I used my hand held electric beater/mixer. Beat it until the mixture is fluffy and pale.
• Add egg and vanilla extract and beat well to incorporate the egg. Do not over beat the mixture.
• Add self-rising flour and fold in using a spoon or a spatula.
• Add the chocolate chips and mix well. At this point, I wound it easy to use my hands to mix the dough.
• Make 30 equal size balls and place them on the cookie sheet an inch apart. These cookies raise a lot when baking. Also, I lightly pressed the balls to flatten them. Press just lightly. This step can be skipped, as we will be doing this step again.
• Bake in the pre-heated oven for 8 minutes (recipe said 10 minutes).
• Lightly press the cookies, with very little pressure using your finger tips and put them bake in the oven to bake for another 5 ½ minutes (recipe called for 10 minutes).
• The cookies are done when they are light golden color. The other way to check if the cookie is done is, when you lift the cookie off the baking sheet, it should come off without breaking.
• Remove them from the cookie sheet and cool on a cooling rack.
• Serve when cool and store the rest in an air tight container.

Notes:

• As I mentioned, oven temperatures vary from oven to oven. The recipe called for 20 minutes of baking but mine were done in 13 ½ minutes. Please use your discretion here.
• I am cut & pasting Amu’s note. “Please Note: The Oven Types and Temperatures vary for each and every one of us… So please bake them accordingly… If using a Fan-forced oven the temperature should reduced by 20*C (i.e 160*C). But the tip to check if your biscuits or cookies are done is given above so varying oven temperatures should not be a Problem…:-)“

Recipes posted this day in 2011: Mushroom Masala
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: Checkout more about this marathon and my blogging buddies on Srivalli’s Blogging Marathon Page.
Event Entries: Sending these cookies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Pradnya’s Bake Fest # 3, an event started by Vardhini and to Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest.

I quickly thought of plan B, to make either chocolate pizza tart with pastry sheets or chocolate puffs. I decided to bake the latter. I thawed the sheets as per the instructions, preheated the oven, made the filling and started to work on the puff sheets. The sheet did look right, the color was a little different and it smelled a little weird. The sell by date was till March but for some reason, I could bake those sheets and those went straight into trash.

It was past 3 pm and I did not have a recipe to post for the today! As I was frantically looking into fridge, pantry and the freezer, I spotted my favorite mini phyllo shells in the freezer. I had other plans for these shells but it came to my rescue today, in the form of chocolate canapés. These little bites are perfect for late night chocolate craving or for a quick dessert for a chocoholic. Chocolate and walnuts are baked for 8-10 minutes in the phyllo shells just until chocolate begins to melt and walnuts are lightly toasted. Those were very addictive, without even realizing, I finished off 6 shells clicking the pictures. And I did not even take that many pictures today, no natural light as it was cloudy most of the day and started raining by the time I was ready to take some pictures.

Total Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Preparation Time: 5 – 10 minutes
Bake Time: 10 minutes
Yields: 15

Ingredients:

• 1 Mini Phyllo Shell packet
• 2/3 cup Milk Chocolate (approx. I used 1 cup and had some leftover after filling the canapes)
• 1/6 cup chopped Walnuts (approx. I used 1/4 and had some left over)

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Line a baking tray with a parchment paper or a baking sheet.
• Mix chocolate chips & walnuts.
• Place the mini shells in the tray.
• Fill each shell with ½ – 1 tsp. of chocolate mixture.
• Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. I baked for 10 minutes and shell was a little crispy but the chocolate was perfectly melted, just soft enough to melt in the mouth. To avoid very crisp shells, check 8 minutes into baking. That might be right time.

Suggestions:

• I used milk chocolate but semi sweet chocolate chips can also be used. However, I have not tried those.
• Mini chips might also be a nice idea as the shells are mini.
• Adding more nuts might also be a nice idea, making it more nutty.
• Serve the canapes hot or warm. When the canapes cool, chocolate chips solidify and are not as soft as they were when warm.
• To re-heat, bake in the oven for few minutes at 350 F

Recipes posted this day, in 2011: Miryala Chaaru
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog.
Event Entries: Sending these brownies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Pradnya’s Bake Fest # 3, an event started by Vardhini, Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest and Ramya’s ABC Series: Desserts.

Here in the US, lot of people use Jell-O instant pudding mix to prepare custard and it tastes fine. It is instant and custard is ready to serve in 3-5 minutes but I prefer the taste of cooked custard better. I use Jell-O once in a while but I like the cooked custard better. I buy the custard powder from the Indian store and cook it on the stovetop. Jell-O has lot of instant pudding flavors and I like their chocolate flavor. So I decided to make fruit salad with chocolate custard. I was out of Jell-O chocolate pudding mix and made it from scratch with corn starch (corn flour as it is called in India) and cocoa powder.

Corn starch is used to make pie filling and once in a while I use it to make mock/white custard when I don’t have the Indian custard powder. Today I added some coco powder to the boiling milk for chocolate flavor. The taste was good! U thought it was a little chocolaty but I loved it… I made two batches. The first was thick custard (I used 1 ½ tbsp. corn starch), more like pudding and the other was flowing custard (1 tbsp. corn starch). I liked the little thicker version of the custard, although flowing custard is preferred for fruit salad.

Total Time: 15 – 20 minutes (excludes cooling time)
Preparation: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 3 – 4

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Milk
• 1 – 1 ½ tbsp. Corn Starch (It is called corn flour in India. I suggest using 1 ½ tbsp. Corn Starch )
• 1 ½ – 2 tbsp. Cocoa Powder (I used Nestle Tall House baking cocoa powder)
• 4 tbsp. Sugar (adjust to taste)
• ¾th Apple chopped
• 15 Seedless Grapes cut into 2
• ½ can (8 oz. can) Pineapple Chunks
• ½ can (11 oz. can) Whole Mandarin Orange Sectors

Preparation:

• Take ¼ cup milk in a bowl and mix it with corn starch.
• Take remaining 1 ¾ cups of milk in a pan and bring it to a boil. I prefer wide pan when making custard. Whisk or stir the milk constantly to avoid burning of milk.
  
  

  

• Once the milk boils, add cocoa powder and stir well.
• Reduce the flame to low and gradually add corn starch mixture to boiling milk and stir/whisk well. Increase the flame to medium and continue to whisk/stir. It is crucial to whisk continuously to avoid lump formation.
  

• When the custard comes to a good boil, turn off the heat. OR continue to boil until the custard is thick and of desired consistency. Do remember, custard thickens as it cools.
  
  

  Flowing custard

• Sprinkle sugar over hot custard and let it cool.
  
  

• Once the custard is cold, mix well and chill the custard until ready to serve.
• When it is cut to serve, cut the fruits and add it to the custard.

Note:

• Jello-O instant chocolate pudding can be used for chocolate custard.
• The fruits I mentioned in the ingredient list are approximate quantities. Use less or more depending on your taste and use any variety of fruit.
• I used 1% milk to prepare custard and one can use 2% or whole milk to make the custard rich. OR can add some whipped cream or chocolate ice cream to make custard rich.

Recipes posted this day, in 2011: Spinach Orange Soup
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog.
Event Entries: Sending these brownies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, to Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest and Ramya’s ABC Series: Desserts.

Source: Joy of Baking
Total Time: 40 – 45 minutes
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes
Yields: 16 pieces

Ingredients:

• 5 oz. Semisweet Chocolate chopped (can use bitter chocolate)
• 1 stick (½ cup or 113 grams) Unsalted Butter chopped
• 2 tbsp. Coco Powder (I used Nestle Toll House baking coco powder)
• 200 grams or 1 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 3 Large Eggs at room temperature (I left them on the counter top for 2 hours)
• 95 grams or ¾ cup All Purpose Flour
• ¼ tsp. Salt
• 125 grams or 1 cup chopped Nuts (opt.) I used pecans & Walnuts (Can substitute with 125 grams or ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Preparation:

• Place the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 C.
• Grease an 8×8 baking pan with butter. I used the butter wrap to grease the pan. Line the pan with a baking sheet / wax paper / parchment paper.
• Sieve together flour & salt and keep it aside. Also measure all the ingredients and keep them ready before proceeding with the preparation.
• Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler; that is, boil water in a sauce pan and reduce the flame to low, to simmer the water. Take chocolate and butter into a glass or a stainless steel mixing bowl and place it over the simmering saucepan. Melt the butter and chocolate mixing/whisking the mixture. Remove the mixing bowl from simmering sauce pan when chocolate & butter is completely melted.
• Add coco powder to the chocolate mixture and mix/whisk well.
• Add sugar and mix.
• Add vanilla extract & eggs and whisk well to incorporate the eggs.
• Add the flour and stir well until the flour is well incorporated.
• Add nuts or chocolate chips and mix well.
• Transfer the batter to the greased baking pan and bake in the preheated oven for 25 – 30 minutes. I baked mine for 30 minutes. After 25 minutes into baking check to see if the brownie is done. When tooth pick inserted in the center of the pan, the pick should have some batter and crumbs sticking to it. Check the video on Joy of Baking for the doneness test. It is 5:36 minutes into the video.
• Remove from the oven and cool it on the rack.
• Once cool, cut the brownie into desired sizes and store in an airtight container. Brownies can be stored in the pantry for up to a week or in the refrigerated. These can also be freeze but I have never done so.

Recipes posted this day, that year: Lemon Yogurt Cake in 2010 & Egg Bhurji in 2011
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog.
Event Entries: Sending these brownies to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Pradnya’s Bake Fest # 3, an event started by Vardhini and to Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest.

Source: Sweet & Simple Bakes
Total Time: 40 – 45 minutes (excludes refrigerating time)
Preparation: 20 – 30 minutes
Baking Time: 10 – 12 minutes
Yields: 40 Cookies (depends on the size)

Ingredients:

• 250 grams / 9 oz. All Purpose Flour
• 50 grams / 2 oz. Coco Powder
• ½ tsp. Baking Soda
• 175 grams / 6 oz. softened Butter
• 200 grams / 7 oz. Light Brown Sugar
• 100 grams / 4 oz. Superfine or Castor Sugar
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 Eggs lightly beaten (I left the eggs on the counter top for an hour to bring them to room temperature. The recipe did not call for eggs at room temperature, but most of the baking recipes, especially cakes, call for eggs at room temperature.)
• 300 grams / 11 oz. Plain or Milk Chocolate Chips (I used half milk chocolate chips & half semi sweet chocolate chips)

Equipment:

• 2 – 3 Baking sheets greased or lined with non-stick Teflon or non-stick paper. I greased my sheets. I used 2 big & 1 small cookie sheets.
• Saran wrap to wrap the dough to refrigerate.
• Ice cream scoop or a cookie dough scoop and a spoon, if you do not want to dirty your hands by rolling out the cookie dough.
• Last but not the least, Oven, mixing bowls, measuring scale and a mixer

Preparation:

• Sift together flour, coco powder and baking soda into a bowl.
• In another big mixing bowl, soften the butter. Use a big bowl that would hold all the ingredients. I left my butter on the counter top for 30 minutes and it still was a little firm. Leave it out a little long and softening it would become easy.
• Add brown sugar & superfine sugar to softened butter and beat together until light & fluffy. I used my electric hand mixture.
• Add lightly beaten eggs to the butter mixture, beating it until the eggs are well incorporated.
• Add vanilla extract and mix well.
• Fold in the sifted flour until it is well incorporated into the butter mixture. I used the fold setting of the hand mixer to fold in the flour.
• Add chocolate chips and mix well using a wooden spoon.
• Take a saran wrap, transfer all the dough on to it, wrap it properly in the wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour. I refrigerated mine for 6 hours. Also, I shaped the dough into a log, so that it would be easy to shape the dough into small balls before baking.
• When ready to bake the cookies, pre-heat the oven to 375 F / 190 C / Gas mark 5.
• Grease the baking sheets with butter or line them with non-stick Teflon or non-stick paper.
• Divide the dough into 40 equal size balls and flatten them. Place them on a cookie sheet. Dampen your hands when making the balls and the dough won’t stick to your hands. If one doesn’t want to use their hands, use an ice-cream scoop or dough scooper to make equal balls and then, using the back of a spoon, press the dough balls for a flatter shape.
  
  

• Bake for 10-12 minutes until baked. I baked mine for 10 minutes. When you remove the cookies, they will be a little unbaked but that is fine. Cookies will continue to bake for few more minutes even after removing them form the oven. My cookies were soft and that is how I like them. If you want crisper and hard cookies bake them a little longer. But do remember, cookies continue to bake even after removing from the oven.
  
  

• Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Let them cool completely.
  

• Store the cookies in an air tight container.
  

  Done with the photo shoot! Time to get back into an air tight box!

This day in 2011: Spinach Fry
Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.
Blogging Marathon: Checkout more about this marathon and my blogging buddies on Srivalli’s Blogging Marathon Page.
Event Entries: I could not participate in last couple of melas Srivalli had hosted. To make up for those, I am going to send her seven delicious chocolate treats for her current mela! To start with, Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookies are making their grand entry into Chocolate Mela. I am also sending this to Bake Fest # 3, an event started by Vardhini and to Srav’s Cooking Concepts # 6: Chocolate Fest.

Oh, before I get to the recipe, let me explain the title of the post. The recipe chosen is banoffee pie or banana toffee pie and I don’t like bananas. I substituted bananas with mixed fruits for my share of the pie. I used bananas for half the pie and mixed fruits for the other half. Hence the name fruitoffee or fruit toffee pie

This recipe is very easy and requires very few ingredients. The only difficult part of this preparation is making the Dulce de Leches or the toffee for the pie. This is a time consuming process, cooking a can of condensed milk in boiling water for 3 hours. I followed this method but there are other alternatives, baking, microwaving or pressure cooking the can of condensed milk. Different tried & tested methods of preparing dulce de leches are explained here.

Source: Swapna’s Cuisine
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1 can Condensed Milk (can is 396 ml or 14 oz.)
• 1 packet or 7 oz. or 200 grams Marie / Digestive Biscuits
• 100 grams or 1 stick (minus 1 tbsp.) Unsalted Butter
• 1 Banana sliced (for full pie use 3 bananas and for ½ pie can use 1 ½ bananas)
• ¼ Apple sliced
• Few drops of Lime Juice
• 5-8 seedless Red Grapes halved
• 5 Pineapple chunks (I used canned)
• 5 – 8 segments of canned Mandarins
• ½ Pint or 236 ml Heavy Cream whipped or 2 cups Whipped Cream
• ½ tsp. Coco Powder for dusting (opt.)

Preparation:

• Preparation of Dulce de Leches:
  • Take a large pot or a sauce pan and place the unopened can of condensed milk, standing up. Pour enough water in the pot until the can is immersed in water and the water level is at least 2” above the can.
  • Bring the water to boil on medium high. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer it for 3 hours. If the water evaporates, pour hot water over the can and make sure the water level is 2” above the can. Check here for other alternatives to make Dulce de Leches.
  • Remove the can from boiling water and let it cool complete, at least 4-6 hours. I made my dulce de leches in the night and I left the can on the counter top all night to let it cool. If you are not using it right away, store it in the fridge unopened. Unopened can of dulce de leches can be stored for months in the fridge.
• Powder the digestive biscuits to powder. Melt butter and mix it with biscuit powder.
  

• Take a pie dish or a serving bowl and press the biscuit mixture into the pan.
  

  Chill the pie dish until the pie crust is set. OR bake it in a 320 F / 160 C preheated oven for 10 minutes for a firm crust, as I did. Let the crust cool completely before filling the pie.

• Pour dulce de leches in the pie dish.
  

• Arrange sliced bananas on dulce de leches. If you are like me, then substitute the banana slices with sliced mixed fruits.
  

• Whip the cream until soft peaks are formed. I removed the cream just before whipping and I also place the whipping bowl in an ice bath, which is in another ice filled bowl.
  

• Spread 1/3 – ½ of this whipped cream on the bananas. This is about ¾ – 1 cup of whipped cream.
  

• Transfer the remaining whipped cream to a piping bag and pipe it on the pie. I used star nozzle. This step is optional.
• Garnish the pie with lightly dusting the coco powder on top. Chocolate sauce can also be drizzled over the pie.
  

• Serve it immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes:

• The pie is delicious but I found it a little bit sweet to my taste. I could not eat too much at one go. I would suggest adding more fruits than I did. I used 1 banana for ½ the pie and I could have easily used 1 ½ bananas and 3 bananas for the whole pie. The same thing if using mixed fruits.

Tip:

• If you noticed, I listed a few drops of lime juice in the ingredients list. I tossed the sliced apple in few drops of lime juice. Sliced/cut apples retained their color when tossed in lime juice. The apple slices in the first picture were cut almost 2 hours prior to the photo shoot and the apple slices still retained their color.

Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011.