Because everything is better with color

Grated carrot salad seem to be all the craze suddenly and I definitely get why. It is sweet, crunchy, delicious and actually good for you. But why stop with just orange carrots. Use some purple and yellow carrots in the mix. For 1 lb. of carrots, a simple vinaigrette with 1 table spoon lemon juice, 1.5 table spoon olive oil, salt and pepper to taste is all you need. I sometimes just sprinkle some chopped mint and nothing else.

Rainbow Carrots

These cupcakes’ glaze were made with strained frozen blueberries and powdered sugar.

Lemon Cupcakes with Blueberry Frosting

Below I made some orange and strawberry cupcakes. The orange frosting is just orange juice, orange zest and powdered sugar. The strawberry frosting is frozen strawberries that were thawed and strained and then mixed with powdered sugar. The pulp that was strained was puréed and added to the strawberry cake batter.

strained juice

adding powdered sugar

strawberry frosting

orange frosting

One of my favorite desserts is a lemon bar. Its a harmony of contrasts – sweet yet tart, crisp and soft. I usually use simple white paper cups to serve them but sometimes I use colorful ones depending on the season. Now they are not just lemon bars but Christmas bars or sweet-16 bars or mardi gras bars.

Tips for the perfect shaped Cookies

You take trouble to get the cookie dough ready, shape them carefully and tenderly place them on a baking tray only to get a cloud shaped cookie at the end.

What went wrong? How do you get perfectly shaped cookies?

Here are a few tips that will help:

1. Pick the right recipes – Not all recipes are meant to be used with cookies cutter. For example a classic chocolate cookie will just not work. A few recipes that I have found work well are these Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread Cookies and Shortbread Cookies.
2. Dunk your cookies cutter in flour before cutting the cookies – It prevents the cookies from sticking to the cutter and gives it a cleaner cut.
3. Do not grease your baking sheet – There is not enough grip when it is greased and the cookies just spreads too much. To prevent the cookie from sticking use the next tip.
4. Use parchment paper – Parchment paper provides enough grip to keep the cookie from spreading too much while still ensuring they just slide off. If you look at the picture below you will notice how the cookie on the paper has the cleaner edges as compared to the other tree cookies which did spread and ended up sticking together. It also browns better, so take them out a little earlier if you do not desire this. Funny thing is that when I tried parchment paper with pizza, it actually prevented it from browning. Go figure!
5. Cool the dough – After shaping the cookies place them in the fridge for about 8 minutes to harden.
6. Always preheat the oven – when the oven is hot hot enough, the cookies don’t gradually melt but start cooking and setting immediately.
7. Do not over beat the cookies – Unlike with a cake you do not want too much air incorporated into the cookie.
8. Have fun – It does not have to be perfect. 

Perfect – probably not. But the kids had fun.

When I see a beautifully decorated sugar cookie, I love looking at it but I do not necessarily find them mouth watering. Give me a thumbprint cookie or magic bar.

Box of pecan butternut balls, thumbprint cookies and magic bars

Candy Turkeys

I’ll let the picture do the talking here.

Just melt the caramel candy in the microwave for about 30 seconds and stick the other candy to look like…

While these are easy to make I would not make these with young children since the caramel can become really hot. You also have to keep reheating the caramel in small batches and work quickly before they harden.

I have sent these to my kids classes for thanksgiving and they would also make cute name place holders.

Tomato crazy

A sweet neighbor gave me so many juicy, plump, freshly picked tomatoes, that I was looking for recipes where it would be the star.

First let me enjoy my delicious tomato sandwich for breakfast.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I love the smell, look and taste of cinnamon rolls. Throw in some nutrition from pumpkin and whole wheat, cut down the fat and these pumpkin rolls are even better. The lovely orange from the pumpkin is another bonus.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 2 cups bread flour
• 2-3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 package (2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
• 1 cup milk (reserve 2 tbsp of milk)
• ½ stick unsalted butter
• 1 cup of pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup  granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon  salt
• 2 large eggs

Cinnamon Filling:

• 1/2 cup (160 grams) packed light brown sugar
• 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 cup oil

Glaze Frosting:

• 1/2 cup confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar
• 1 – 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Procedure:

Warm the milk till it reaches about 120°F  (that’s about warm enough for you to comfortable drink). Add in butter, sugar and salt. Combine in a stand mixer. Add the package of instant yeast and 2 cups of flour. The mixture does have to be warm for this instant yeast to start working. You could use regular yeast too however the temperature should be lower and it will taker longer to rise.

Add in the egg and pumpkin puree.

Add the rest of the flour a ¼ cup at a time and knead it in for at least 1 minute. When the flour begins to form a ball stop adding flour.

Roll into a ball and brush with oil. Place the dough ball in a large oiled bowl with enough room to rise and cover with a plastic wrap.

Place the bowl in a warm corner. It will take about 2 hrs. for this first rise, when it will double in size.

Roll out the risen dough into a rectangle which is ½ inch thick.

Brush or spray with a layer of oil and spread the cinnamon, brown sugar and flour.

Starting from one end begin to roll to the other end.  When you have almost completely rolled it, brush the edge with milk and roll to so it will seal. Place the seam side down and use a serrated knife to slice into 8 – 12  pieces depending on the dimension of your dish.

Arrange the rolls on a 13 X 9 sized dish. Keep in mind they will increase in size again. There is more browning at the bottom of metal trays but glass seems to be more even. The first time you make it, the rolls might not be evenly sized and might be a tad messy…but it will still taste delicious. The 2nd time you make it you will figure how thick, wide and long you want to roll out your dough and how thick you want each piece to be.

Cover the dish with a plastic wrap and let it rise for another hour.

At this stage you could also just refrigerate it and choose to bake it a day or two later. I made this the night before valentines day and refrigerated this. The next day I let it sit at room temperature for an hour before baking.

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190° C) and bake for 10 – 15 minutes. Keep checking after the 10 minute. When they are ready, you will hear a hollow sound when you tap them and they will be a golden brown. Brush them with milk and glaze them if desired. As with the case of bread, over cooked is better than under. The opposite is true for cookies however.

For the glaze, mix the powdered sugar with the milk and drizzle on top of the rolls.

Cinnamon Rolls with light drizzle of glaze

If you prefer to watch a  video I would recommend the video at Joy of Baking. The procedure is the same but the ingredients are different. Love that website.

Different Variations:

• Add pecan and raisins to the filling.
• Substitute the pumpkin with cooked and mashed sweet potatoes.
• Or replace the vanilla it the glaze with orange juice and add orange zest to the dough. Then replace 1/2 the cinnamon with powdered cloves. Cloves have a strong flavor so do not be tempted to add more. The cloves and orange will make it taste almost like hot cross buns.
• Make these into pumpkin dinner rolls. After the first rise shape them to balls and wait for the second rise and bake. No filling or glaze required!

Dinner Rolls

Easy Gulab Jamun (using powder milk)

Easy is a relative word and for gulab jamun this is a pretty easy recipe. But this is not one of those recipes where you can dump everything in a bowl and then bake. There is the step of making the mixture, then making the little balls and then frying and finally soaking them. While that might sound intimidating, it is easy once you get into a rhythm.

Saffron and Cardamom pods

Before getting into the recipe, let me tell you what a gulab jamun is. Think of donut holes soaked in sugar syrup which is usually flavored with rose essence (gulab is rose in Hindi). Despite being an Indian who was born and raised in the middle east, I do not like rose essence at all which is common in both Indian and Arab cuisine. So I use Saffron and cardamom instead which is pretty commonly used. This is a real sweet dessert – almost achingly sweet for some. One of my son actually prefers this before it gets soaked and says it tastes like a milky donut-hole. I agree and might try tweaking this recipe and make a lemon frosting for this. Hmm!

Ingredients:

For the jamuns

• 2 cups of milk powder
• ¾ cups of  flour
• 1 cup of heavy cream or ¼ cup of melted butter and 3/4 cup of yogurt
• 1/3 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• oil – for deep frying
• For the syrup
• 4 cups of sugar
• 4-5 cups of water
• 1 tsp. lime or lemon juice
• 2 pods of cardamoms crushed (optional but highly recommended especially if you do not use the rose essence)
• 3-4 threads of saffron (optional)

Method:

Warm the water with sugar till it is all dissolved which should take about 10 minutes. Add the crushed cardamoms (or rose water or saffron) and lime juice which will prevent the syrup from crystallizing and also cut through the sweetness a little. The sugar syrup should not be too hot else the jamuns could become too soggy. If it is too cold then it does not soak the syrup and thus deflate.

Mix the rest of the ingredients for the jamun. It will be sticky but stiffens as you keep stirring. It might seem too soft and sticky initially but just keep kneading for a while and the water will get absorbed. Let it rest for 10 minutes. If it is still too sticky add a few teaspoons of flour.

 

Now get the assembly line ready – container with sugar syrup near the heating oil and keep the gulab dough near it. Some like to roll all the ball at once and cover it with a damp paper towel. I prefer rolling them while the previous batch is frying – that’s just my rhythm. Find a method that works for you.

Heat the oil to medium.

Roll the dough into little balls a little less than 1″ diameter. After frying and soaking they increase in size. The picture shows an uncooked ball, then a fried one and finally a soaked one.

Size increase

 

Do not over crowd the pan. My container could fry about 12 balls at a time but if this is the first time you are doing this make less. It should turn a golden brown and float to the top. Gently turn them to ensure they brown evenly . This cooks real quick so keep an eye on it.

 

Assembly line with the rolling, frying and dunking

As soon as it is done drop the gamuns into the sugar syrup.

While it soaks fry the next batch.

If the syrup container gets crowded remove the soaked ones to make room for the next batch.

It will keep outside for a day but refrigerate or even freeze after that. But it is best served warm (or at least at room temperature) so if you do choose to refrigerate it, bring it back to room temperature and then slightly warm it in the microwave in batches.

 

Gulab Jamun

Simple stress free cake decorting done in under 20 mins!

This first one didn’t even take me 10 minutes. I just poured some glaze on the cake and before it completely set put some sprinkles on it. I used a cookie cutter to get the shape I wanted. Do not put the sprinkles too soon or they will dissolve and start to spread unevenly on the cake. If you wait too long then the glaze hardens and the sprinkles will not stick.

Glaze and Colored Sugar

If you want a cake and entertainment in one then this could be the perfect solution. Make lots of cupcakes with a thin layer of buttercream. Keep lots of topping like cookies, sprinkles, pretzels, chocolate chips and some more frosting on the side.

The kids pick a cake and just have fun messing  it.

Another route is to use edible cake stickers. They are very easy to use and there are so many choices online. But read the instructions carefully before doing anything since they usually have good suggestions on how to apply them. For example if the sticker gets too sticky to separate from the backing then place it in the freezer for a few seconds then retry. Also if you frosted the cake a day or more earlier then moisten the top of the cake with a spritzer or brush since the surface becomes too dry. This prevents the sticker from sticking on to the surface.

Angry Birds Edible Sticker Cake

Banana cake with frosting and a Curious George Sticker

 

Dairy Free Milk

Dairy free milk

My son was having some weird reaction and after doing some reading we thought it would be a good idea to give up milk for 6 months. Let me tell you it was hard. I did not realize how many things had milk. It was not too bad finding a milk to add to pancake mix or smoothie but to find something good enough to drink straight was something else. What made it a little harder is that my other son is allergic to tree nuts. Yes – tree nuts, basically any nut (walnuts, pecans, pistachios, almonds, macadamia) but peanuts. Its not too bad compared to many other allergies actually. My younger son and I like almond milk but my older could not have that, so initially I just made two sets of stuff one with regular milk and another with the almond milk. Then I started buying hemp milk, so for cooking I would use hemp and for cereal or straight up we just picked whatever carton we liked. That arrangement worked pretty well – except for the space all the cartons took in the fridge! Now cheese was harder, we really did not find something we really liked so we just learnt to do without it. After 6 months we figured it was not diary and my son thankfully and cheerfully chugged that first cup of all-dairy-milk down fast.

I digress, back to rating the dairy-free milk from my favorite to the least liked:-

1. Almond milk (creamy and mild in flavor)
2. Hemp milk (not as creamy but thick enough – no flavor so was great for batters)
3. Coconut milk (disappointed it did not taste anything like coconut)
4. Soy milk (too much flavor but was creamy)
5. Rice milk (watery and mild)
6. Oat milk (watery and blah)

There you have it! My winners!

An easy three shaped race track cake

My son was about to turn 3 and I had a week decide what cake to make. He loves race cars – specifically Lighting McQueen from Disney Cars. But I knew better than to attempt making a car shaped cake – especially considering this would be my first time decorating a cake. A plain ol’ round or square cake sounded too boring for a kids party and buying a number or car shaped pan seemed like a waste.

Well why not cut out a ‘3’ shaped cake. Nah – too much crumbs which could make decorating difficult. And then it struck me! How about making a 3 shaped cake pan. No, I do not do metal work – but stay with me. Take 2 round cake pans and place empty can in each and pour the batter around them.

So you have two loops and join them to make a 3.

Have a look at the pictures, it will make a lot more sense. Note, I placed potatoes in the cans to weigh them down and have baked potatoes too.

I put a layer of buttercream all over the cake. I then used cookie crumbs over the cake to make it look like a road. My older son then decorate the sides and top with candies. Yes when your kids help it will be a wee bit messy but it was having a perfect cake or having a pretty good cake with a happy son.