Gulab Jamun

Prep time - 30 mins
Cooking time - 40 mins + 1 -2 hrs to soak gulab jamun in sugar syrup
Complexity - easy
Servings - makes 12 gulab jamun

Ingredients :-

For Gulab Jamun :

• Khoya - 250 gms 
• All purpose flour (maida) - 2 tbsp
• Vegetable oil - for deep frying

For sugar syrup :

• Sugar - 2 cups
• Water - 2 cup
• Cardamom seeds, optional - of 2 cardamom

Method :-

For making Gulab jamun :

Mash khoya properly so there are no lumps. Add all purpose flour to it and mix everything . Now divide this mixture into 12 equal size portions, you can make more or less gulab jamun by decreasing or increasing the amount used in making each portions. Now roll each portion into smooth round ball. There should not be any cracks in the balls.

Heat oil in a pan on medium, add these khoya balls into pan. Oil should not be too hot otherwise gulab jamun will not get cooked from the inside. Always fry gulab jamun on low to medium heat. You need to keep stirring these gulab jamun in between so they do not get burnt from one side. Depending upon the amount of oil you are using for deep frying, you can fry more or less gulab jamun in one go. It usually takes 15-20 mins to fry gulab jamun.

Once they turn dark brown, take them out from gas and let them cool down.

For making sugar syrup :

Add water and sugar syrup in a bowl and put on medium heat for 20 mins. Stir in between. You should not cook sugar syrup for too long otherwise it will become thick after cooling down, which is ideal for making burfi (a different sweet) but not ideal for soaking gulab jamun. Once its ready, take it out from gas and add gulab jamun to hot sugar syrup and let it stay like this for 1-2 hrs.

Gulab jamuns are ready.

* The amount of all purpose flour used depends upon the freshness of khoya. If khoya is very dry, add half the amount mentioned in the recipe. If khoya is fresh and greasy, add as per the recipe.

* Try to use fresh khoya for delicious results.

Trifle

 

Prep time - 15 mins (If cake is ready in advance. Cake recipe - http://tryyourowntaste.blogspot.com/2013/06/french-vanilla-cake.html )
Cooking time - 5 mins
Complexity - Easy

Ingredients :-

• Whipped topping - 500 ml
• Sour cream - 300 ml
• Vanilla / Chocolate / Angel sponge cake   - 8' inch
• Strawberry, thinly sliced - 12-13
• Kiwis, peeled and thinly sliced - 4
• Banana, thinly sliced - 3
• Crushed pineapple - 1 can
• Vanilla pudding mix - 3.4 oz

Method :-

Mix whipped topping, sour cream and vanilla pudding mix together and blend just enough that everything is mixed properly. Cut the cake into equal size chunks.

Take a trifle bowl or simple glass bowl and line it with  1/2 of the strawberry and kiwi slices. Place half of the cake chunks on top of strawberry and kiwi slices.

Now put a layer of banana and crushed pineapple ( drain the liquid ) on top of cake layer. Now use half of the cream layer on top of pineapple and banana layer. Repeat this process and top with cream layer. Trifle is ready. Put it in fridge for at least 3-4 hours so that juice of fruits will be absorbed a bit by the cake and also cream will mix with fruits and overall flavor will enhance. You can serve trifle in bowl or glass and garnish with fruits of your choice.

* You can use grapes, berries, oranges and any other fruits of your choice but try to use fruits that are not very hard and also remove seeds.

* You can decide how many layers of fruits and cream you want and according to that you can divide the portions to use for each layer.

* You can make trifle one day in advance and put it in fridge overnight.

Vegan chocolate cupcakes

Prep time - 10 mins
Cooking time - 30-35 mins
Serving - Makes 6 cupcakes
Complexity - Easy

Ingredients :-

• All purpose flour ( Maida ) - 1 cup
• Cocoa powder - 1/3 cup
• Refined sugar - 1 cup
• Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
• Milk - 1 cup
• Baking powder - 1 tsp
• Baking soda - 1 tsp
• Vinegar - 1 tbsp

Method :-

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease muffin tray with butter or line with cupcake sheets. Mix all the dry ingredients together and whisk everything. Now add rest of the ingredients and mix everything properly. Use hand mixer or simple spoon. You do not need to over beat the mixture, just enough so that everything is mixed properly. Pour this mixture into muffin tray. Fill the mixture till 2/3 of each cupcake hole. Bake for 20-25 mins or until the toothpick  inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let them cool for 10 mins on a cooling tray.
Garnish with chocolate ganache or butter cream (or they can be served as-is). Enjoy.

* You can use the same recipe for making chocolate cake. Pour the mixture into 8 inch baking pan and bake for 30 mins or until the toothpick  inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Balushahi

Prep time - 20 mins
Cooking time - 30-45 mins
Complexity - medium

Ingredients :-

For balushahi :

• All purpose flour - 1 2/3 cup 
• Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
• Baking soda - a pinch
• Curd - 1/2 cup
• Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp and for deep frying
• Pistachio, chopped ( optional ) - 9-10

For sugar syrup :

• Sugar - 2 cup
• Water - 1 cup
• Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Method :-

Balushahi :

Mix all the dry ingredients together properly. Put 2 tbsp of vegetable oil to the dry mixture and with your hands, blend everything properly. After this is done, add curd and knead everything roughly. Do not try to make the dough smooth as we will do that part later. Mix just enough so that everything is glued together.
                              
Let this rough dough stay for 20 mins. After 20 mins, try to smooth the dough a little. Do not knead properly. Let the dough remain rough.

Divide this dough into 12 equal portions and shape them in round figure with a dent in between. Again, you do not need these portions to be rolled into smooth round shapes. Rough edges on the round balls will help sugar being soaked, when we will dip balushahi into sugar syrup.

Heat oil in heavy bottom  pan on medium heat. Once oil is heated, put balushahi in it. Do not put too many balushahi in one go because these balushahi will grow in size. This process will take time. Let this balushahi turn golden red. Turn balushahi and let them cook from the other side. Once done, take them out on a tissue paper so that extra oil gets absorbed by the paper. Let them cool.

Sugar syrup :

Put a pan with sugar and water on medium heat. Add lemon juice to it. Boil this mixture for 15-20 mins or until when one drop of this mixture taken between two fingers stretches and makes one string. Once its ready, switch off the gas and add balushahi to this mixture and coat balushai with sugar syrup from every side and let them stay in the mixture for 20-30 mins. Do not put all the balushahi in one go otherwise sugar syrup will not be soaked by balushahi properly.

Balushahis are ready.

Eggless Vanilla cake

Prep time - 15 mins
Cooking time - 30 mins
Complexity - Easy
Servings - for 6-8 people

Ingredients :-

• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Sugar - 3/4 cup 
• Baking powder - 2/3 tsp
• Vegetable oil - 2/3 cup
• Vanilla essence - 1 to 2 drops 
• Chopped walnuts, optional - 5 to 6

Method :-

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix everything properly. Add oil, essence, walnuts to dry ingredients and mix everything well.
Grease a 8" diameter baking pan and pour the mixture in it. Put this pan in oven for 30 mins. Take the cake out and check if the fork comes out clean if it is inserted in the cake. Bake it for another 5-10 mins if its not done.

Peanut chakki (moongfali panjiri )

Prep time - 20 mins
Cooking time - 30 mins
Complexity - Easy

Ingredients :-

• Peanuts - 200 gms 
• Sugar - 175 gms
• Water - Just enough to wet the sugar

Method :-

Take a heavy bottom pan and put it on medium heat. Roast peanuts in this pan until they are golden brown in colour. This process would not take more than 10 mins. Let peanuts cool down. Rub these peanuts with your hands so that brown cover is not there. You do not need to take out cover from all the peanuts.

Once roasted, put these peanuts into mixer and grind them. You do not need the mixture to be powder thin. You need it to be coarse ( if it becomes powdery then also its fine).

Meanwhile put sugar in heavy bottom pan and add water to it. Heat sugar and water on medium heat till sugar is properly dissolved in water and the mixture starts boiling.

 Add roasted peanut mixture to this sugar syrup. Mix properly and stir for another 10-15 mins. Grease a thali (You can use baking pans if not having thali) with butter or desi ghee.

Pour peanut sugar mixture into this thali and let it cool down for 10 mins.

Cut chakki into your desired shapes, remember you need to cut before its half set (Do not wait until chakki is properly cooled down otherwise it will be hard to cut it into pieces). I have seen my mom using a knife and cutting chakki into squares so I did the same. You can also use cookie cutter for different shape.

Once chakki is properly cooled down take all the pieces out with the help of knife. Peanut chakki is ready.

Happy janmasthmi .

Mango kulfi pops

Prep time - 5 mins
Cooking time - 6-7 hrs
Complexity - Easy
Serving - for 4 persons

Ingredients :-

• Mango pulp - 1 /2 cup
• Condensed milk - 1 cup
• Full cream milk - 1/2 cup
• Kulfi mould ( You can use ice tray if you do not have one)

Method :-

Mix all the ingredients together and beat at medium speed using hand mixer. You can also use mixer/juicer for this. Pour this mixture into kulfi mould/ ice tray and put it in freezer section at the lowest temperature. Let it stay there for 6-7 hours. Take the tray/mould out and check if mixture is properly set. If not, put it back to the freezer otherwise take it out, mango kulfi pops are ready.

* Cooking time for this recipe is completely dependent upon your fridge. Some fridge are very strong like mine so for me it takes somewhere between 4-5 hrs but this is not the case with every fridge so this recipe may take 6-7 hrs for some fridge while for others it might take more than that. 

Nariyal Ladoo

Cooking time - 30 min
Complexity - Easy
Servings - makes 10-12 ladoos

Ingredients :-

• Shredded coconut powder - 100 gms
• Condensed milk - 150 ml
• Milk - 1/4 cup
• Pistachio or almond (optional ) for decoration - 10-12 (sliced)

Method :-

Take a heavy bottom pan and put it on low medium heat. Roast dry coconut powder for 4-5 minutes. stir occasionally otherwise it will get burned. Pour condensed milk and mix it well with with coconut powder. Now add milk to this and keep stirring until the mixture is thick. This will not take more than 6-7 minutes.

Once thick, switch off the gas and let this mixture cool down for 10-15 minutes or until you are able to touch this mixture. Put a spoonful of mixture in your palm and try to make a smooth ball like round shape. Dust this coconut ball with dry coconut powder and put a sliced almond or pistachio on top.Enjoy

Cham Cham

Prep time - 3 hrs
Cooking time - 1 hr
Complexity - High
Serving - for 2 persons, makes 4

Ingredients :-

• Milk - 1/2 ltr 
• Lemon water - 4-5 tsp
• All purpose flour/ Maida - 1/2 tsp
• Yellow food color - 3-4 drops (optional)
• Pistachio - 8-9 ( for garnishing )

For Sugar Syrup :

• Water - 2 cup
• Sugar - 1 cup

For filling :

You can use either khoya or whipped cream. Both make a great chum chum.

When using khoya, you need :

• Khoya - 30 gms
• Sugar - 15 gms ( 1-2 tbsp)
• Kewada essence - 1-2 drop

Mix all the ingredients together to make khoya filling

When using whipped cream, you need :

• Heavy whipped cream - 4 tbsp

Method :-

Bring milk to boil. Keep stirring occasionally otherwise it will burn. Once boiled start adding lemon juice gradually. Milk will start curdling. When you notice that curd is getting separated from water, turn off the gas.

Let it cool down for 10 mins. Now separate this curd and water using a cheese cloth. Pour cold water on the cheese cloth wrapped curd. Rinse under cold water and squeeze the water out. Let hang the curd in cheesecloth for about an hour so that extra water is drained out.

Now your hanged paneer is ready. Take it out from the cheesecloth. Knead it properly so there are no cracks. Add all purpose flour to it and knead it again. Divide the mixture into 4 oval shaped balls.

For making sugar syrup : In a pressure cooker add water and sugar, and bring it to boil. You just need water and sugar to mix properly. Do not put lid.

Add paneer balls to sugar syrup and put on the lid. Wait till one whistle. After whistle, reduce  the gas to low heat and let chum chum cook for another 7-8 mins. Turn off the gas after 8 mins. Let the cooker cool down. Once all the steam is out from cooker, open the lid and let the chum chum stay in that syrup for another 10-15 mins because chum chum can break easily if they are hot.

Take all the chum chums out in a bowl along with sugar syrup and place them in a fridge for 3-4 hours. Chum chum tastes best when served chilled. Once chilled, take them out from syrup and slit them from the centre one by one. Do not slit all the way through. Now put your favorite filling (khoya or whipped cream) in slit area of each chum chum. Garnish with pistachio.

* You can also make chum chum in a heavy pan instead of a pressure cooker. Use the same amount of water and sugar to make syrup. Put paneer balls in prepared syrup. Put it on a medium flame. Once chum chums are ready they will start floating at the top of boiling syrup.

Moltan cake

Prep time - 40-45 mins
Complexity - Medium
Serving - for 2 persons

Ingredients :-

• Dark chocolate cake/ any cholate cake box mix  - 1/6 cup (or follow box instructions; calculate measurements for 2 persons)
• Water - 1/6 cup
• Egg - 1/2 beaten egg
• Vanilla ice cream - 2 scoops
• Chocolate fudge - 4 tbsp
• Magic shell Chocolate

Method :-

Preheat oven on 325 F . Mix Dark chocolate cake mix, water, and egg together and beat it on low speed for 1 minute.

Grease the muffin tray with butter and pour the mix. Let it bake for 25 mins or until the fork inserted into the cake comes clean.

Let it cool down for 15-20 mins in the muffin tray. Take the muffins out and put them upside down. Scoop out a little cake so that later we can fill the hole with chocolate fudge.

Fill the Chocolate fudge into the scoop like the below picture and put it in microwave for 20 sec.

Take it out and put a large scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of it.

Drizzle the top of ice cream with magic shell chocolate.