Monday, August 30, 2010

Minty Spiral Bread

My new love - nope, am happily married and very much in love with hubby after 11 years of marriage, thank you:-). Am talking about breads.  My humongous sweet tooth makes me bake cakes and desserts ever so often. The smell of vanilla or the sight of chocolate makes me hunt a cake or dessert recipe and get it on my table as soon as I can. But breads calling out to me - hey, this is new!!  My first attempt at baking bread was a disaster, my second one, the Masala Bread was successful. The third attempt, though the same recipe, had me and my  family polishing off the last crumb. I had never imagined myself baking breads or poring(read salivating) over bread recipes. Aah.. the sheer magic and pleasure of home baking!! Am I so glad I have started baking breads...

Baking breads(oh,forgive me, for the repetitive usage of the phrase so often in one post), I think, has one huge advantage. You get to satisfy your craving for baking without the sugar overload or without having to mark days in the calendar to check if its been a decent gap between the sugar and possibly high fat  intake in the guise of a cake or dessert.  Am enjoying my tryst with yeast tremendously and looking forward to a long love affair with breads...

After baking Masala Bread, I had promised my Dad that I would get him some of the same the next time I baked. I tried the basic bread recipe from Champa again, with a little twist,( literally:-) and out came from my oven a delightful Minty Spiral Bread.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Orange Yogurt Cake - Oh-so-delicious!!!


A spate of unsatisfactory bakes- that's what happened to me in the past couple of weeks. Like a row of flop movies- Aaw, poor joke here, excuse me:-). A souffle which rose - but not high enough, a genoise which did not seem tall enough to make a birthday cake out of, a chocolate cake which got the perfect ganache drape, but I messed up with the decoration- too big an 'Oops' to make it to the blog. My dessert did not set well enough to slice it, Agar-agar - u let me down:-(. Add the extremely temperamental electricity supply in Namma Bengaluru - would put off the most passionate of bakers I guess. Power supply seems to be so much more consistent in the past few days- Touch-wood!!

Yesterday after a long time, my oven smiled on me again. Whew!! I had seen this Orange Yogurt Cake on Pavani's blog here and had instantly bookmarked it (among scores of many many recipes, don't know when I will ever try them all!!). I love oranges in a BIG way, I don't know how many dozens of them I ate when I was carrying my first one - so much that hubby started worrying about it:-). Oranges in bakes is something I absolutely adore. I had oranges in my fridge and this seemed the perfect recipe to try - low fat, quick and super easy.

It was easily one of the tastiest tea cakes I have baked- super spongy, moist, refreshing and deliciously zesty. Thanks Pavani for sharing this recipe and reminding me of the forgotten Martha Stewart website. This cake is something which is going to be on my favorites list for a long time to come..

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Pineapple Halwa - With Low Fat Khoya!

With Low Fat Khoya ready on my kitchen counter, I had to use it to make something ASAP. You don't keep such things waiting for too long right?? Its bad for my peace of mind. I mean, I will keep thinking about it to distraction and behave like a cat on a hot tin roof.  Make something out of it, polish it off - Ah! Peace!!! I usually do not make halwas as they generally need a considerable amount of fat and the ones that use less fat don't usually taste all that great. Honestly, halwas aren't the thing my mind conjures up when I think of dessert. Oh, yeah, am really partial to some desserts. But I made an exception this time and was raring to try out Pineapple Halwa, another Tarla Dalal recipe. Counting the recipes on my blog a few years from now, you can safely bet, a good number of these will be from either Sanjeev Kapoor or Tarla Dalal.

Well, this halwa was on my mind since ages. But, aaa.. hmmm... I have to first hunt for a good pineapple. If I am lucky enough to get one which is sweet and has no bruises( forgive the expression) I would need to take up the great exercise of peeling the thorny skin, ensuring there is not a single tiny black thorn hiding anywhere. If there is any fancy gadget which can help do all this, I am unaware and I would appreciate info on the same:-)).

This halwa, sounded quite unusual to me and the addition of the Low Fat Khoya added to its allure. Read on to know how this low fat sweet treat became a winner in my books.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Low Fat Khoya / Mawa

I have been missing from the blogging scene since almost 2 weeks, no 3 weeks. Whoa!! Has it been so long?? It started with my son's exams, my kids falling sick one after the other and staying at home with me. I know I often sound like Cinderella's step-mom, but having kids at home all day, and sick ones at that can be pretty draining.  And no you don't get any prizes for guessing whose turn it was next to fall sick. I really don't know if I fell sick due to sheer exertion or due to proximity with the cold and fever virus or whatever you call it. Must be the virus something, as Moms are not allowed to fall sick due to exertion, no way!!!! Yeah, I sound wicked again:-)

We also took time to get away on a short vacation to Madikeri, Coorg. I can't belive that just 4 days of being waited upon, can cause such a bad holiday hangover. Next time, I go away on a holiday, along with the freezer, I will also stock up my drafts folder before I leave:-)) Lol!

Wanting to make a low calorie dessert post the holiday binge, I tried making Low Fat Khoya, a Tarla Dalal recipe. It turned out a very good substitute for the regular khoya, a quintessential part of so many Indian sweet preparations. Imagine eating a sweet with a fraction of the calories and fat and with almost the same taste and texture as one made with regular khoya. And real easy to make?? Too good to be true right?? A sure keeper of a recipe, I see myself using this again and again and with less guilt.