Snowy Strawberry Cupcakes

Do these look tempting enough for a quick bake session 
@ home ?


I was longing to try home made cupcakes for quite some time now...

Here I am with a quick and simple recipe for 

strawberry cupcakes with white creamy frosting & rainbow sprinkles


All you need for cupcakes and frosting is as below....

Cupcakes (makes about 10-12 cupcakes):

2 cups of maida (refined flour)
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of sodium bi carbonate powder
3 medium sized eggs
1/2 tsp of strawberry essence (or any other essence you may like .. pineapple, vanilla, orange...)
2 cups of powdered sugar
100 gms of unsalted cooking butter

Frosting:

3 egg-whites
Castor Sugar - 100 gms
Lime juice - 1 tsp

Steps:

1. Sieve maida + baking powder + bicarb together and keep it separately (extremely important step to let air into the flour)

2. Beat 3 eggs for about 10-15 mins, till light and frothy

3. Beat sugar and butter till most sugar dissolves in butter, and then add this to the beaten eggs. Mix lightly, while avoiding to break the froth.

4. Now is the most crucial step in preparing for any cake - You need to fold in the sieved flour into the above mixture with extreme care. Most important tip here is - 'go slow, and do not hurry' :-) This is the way I do it... Use a flat spatula for folding the flour into the above mixture from outside of your bowl to inwards. The idea is to retain all the air you have incorporated till now inside the cake batter, or else, your cake would just turn into a thick dense lump!

5. In the end, add essence, any food color (if you like) in the cake batter.....and here you go...ready to bake!

6. Arrange your paper cups in a cupcake baking tray, and add only 2 spoons of batter into each of the paper cups. Make sure each paper cup is nearly half full, to ensure you have enough room for the cake to rise.

7. Place your baking tray in a preheated oven (170-180 deg C),and your cup cakes should be done in about 20-25 mins. Easiest way to check is to insert a dry knife or a metal skewer, see if it comes out clean..

8. Allow the cupcakes to cool, while you can prepare the frosting for your cupcakes. You can always enjoy these cupcakes on their own, but just in case you want to decorate these babies with lovely white frosting..then this is the way to go..

10. Frosting that I used was pretty simple. All you need to do is beat egg-whites from 3 eggs, and mix castor sugar and a bit of lime juice to it. Now, here is the catch..if you like dry and hard frosting on your cupcakes then you have to beat the egg-whites till they form sharp peaks, but if you like a rich creamy texture on your cupcakes (just like the above picture), then you just have to beat the egg-whites till they are frothy, and rest remains the same.

11. Last step is to either pipe the frosting or just top your cooled cupcakes with a spoonful of frosting, and decorate them with your favorite toppings (rainbow white chocolate sprinkles is what I used for my cupcakes).

Serve these cupcakes warm or chilled - which ever way you like, and don't forget to share them with your loved ones, it just tastes so much better!

That tempting roadside 'chowmein' - made easy @ home !

Next on the line is my son's favourite and on demand by a dear friend of mine... It's that roadside style, irresistible, yet healthy 'chowmein' or hakka noodles as we know.

There are lot of variations that you can do to this recipe and serves as a healthy and yummy snack for kids of all age groups..well, not just kids trust me.. will surely hit off with your friends and family too!

Let's begin with the ingredients for this.. You would obviously need hakka noodles :). Choice of hakka noodles is purely your choice. I will though tell you what I use; I usually go with eggless 100% wheat noodles. Next comes the veggies that would go in - carrots, capsicum, cabbage and onions. You may wish to add more veggies like beans, mushrooms, babycorn..

For seasoning, you would need to have soy and tomato sauces. Other optional sauces include lemongrass flavoured hot & sweet sauce, pepper sauce, green chilly sauce and may be some white vinegar too.. Well, I am using just the soy (medium dark) sauce and some tomato ketchup in this recipe, and will leave the addition of other sauces to your taste buds and creativity! Apart from the sauces, you will need salt, white and black pepper powders for seasoning. I somehow do not recommend the use of MSG (ajinomoto), which is typically used in the roadside and restaurant chowmein, for all its harmful effects on health, particularly when you are cooking for kids. Ajinomoto though does provide that unique flavor to your noodles that you get at those roadside thelas..

Preparation is pretty simple, just few key tips to keep in mind..

Start with boiling water in a large vessel with 2 tsp of cooking oil and 2 tsp of regular salt. While the water comes to boil, you could prepare the veggies...I generally shred onions, cabbage, capsicum and cut thin juliens of carrots. Watch out for nicks and cuts while doing this! Ok, by the time you will prepare your veggies, water would have come to a boil. It's time to put in your noodles. Breaking the noodle bars into smaller pieces, helps having shorter strands of cooked noodles. It generally takes not more than 3-4 minutes of boiling time to cook noodles to the optimum state. Once the noodles are cooked 75-80%, it's time to take them out of the boiling pot. It's extremely crucial to immediately get the noodles out in a strainer and have cold water run through it. This steps ensures that the noodles do not get any more softened than the desired extent. Another important step is to apply some cooking oil through the noodles, so that the boiled noodles do not stick together because of its starch..

Time to get your veggies cooked. For this, you will first need to heat some oil in a wide, preferably flat base wok. Saute onion till it turns translucent, and then add carrots, followed by cabbage and capsicum. Each vegetable would need about 1-2 minutes of saute time.

 

Once the veggies are done, add generous amount of sauces and sprinkle some crushed pepper powders (white and black). I would actually let you decide the ratios of different sauces depending on your taste buds... Lot of other variations can be done to these noodles. Just add scrambled eggs or shredded boiled chicken or pan fried prawns as per your delight! Vegetarians can do a lot of variations with veggies that go into these noodles...

I usually make these noodles for my little one, who likes his food close to bland, so this is how the noodles that I made look like...

A quick & quirky cooling drink for summers...

This is a quick & innovative concoction to those small parties at home.. I have tried this few times myself, and delighted my guests with a 'non-cola' traditional drink with a twist!

Here you go...

All you need to do is make 'Roohafza' sharbat or any other rose/fruit based sharbat; whichever you like..

The twist is add a generous dash of lemon juice, along with jal jeera powder, black salt, roasted and ground jeera (cumin seeds) powder, and crushed dried mint leaves. An optional addition could be a tinge of ginger juice, for those who prefer their drink with a tang ...Feel free to adjust the quantities of these as per your taste...

Serve chilled !

Aroma from a soulful kitchen: Punjaab di shaan...Daal Makhani

Aroma from a soulful kitchen: Punjaab di shaan...Daal Makhani: I was born and brought up in a contemporary yet traditional punjabi family setup, where I picked up cooking and developed a fondness with k...

Punjaab di shaan...Daal Makhani

I was born and brought up in a contemporary yet traditional punjabi family setup, where I picked up cooking and developed a fondness with kitchen at a very young age..And so, I will start my blog with my family's favourite dish, and the most sought after traditional 'punjabi daal makhani'..

Richey rich in taste, with subtle flavours, and can be made healthy with few alterations. Here you go..

Daal makhani is traditionally made with black urad daal (lentils), in combination with small quantities of red rajma and chana daal. You need to soak a cup of black urad daal with half a cup of rajma and 2 to 4 tsps of chana daal in water for about 6 to 8 hours.

Drain water from daal, and pressure cook with about 3-4 cups of water, and some salt. Cooking urad daal usually takes longer compared to other varieties of lentils. After 1 pressure cooker whistle, you will need to cook the daal on low flame for about 30 to 40 minutes. Daal needs to get to semi-mashed state once all the steam has escaped from the pressure cooker.

For Tadka / Tempering, you will need:

4-5 medium to large size red tomatoes, ginger-garlic crushed paste (1-2 tbsp), Round black pepper, 1-2 cups of cream/milk/curd+milk, kasuri methi (optional), ground garam masala, red chilli powder, a dollop of butter or thick cream & coriander for garnishing.

You need to boil the tomatoes till the skin comes off, and puree the skin peeled tomatoes.

Heat some oil / ghee in a wok (kadhai). Add round black pepper in hot oil, followed with the crushed ginger-garlic paste. Immediately add some red chilly powder to provide color to the dish. Add the tomato puree, along with salt and garam masala. Fry (bhuno) this tomato masala till the oil separates and leaves nice and red thick tomato masala.  At this point, add 2 tbsp of whipped curd to the masala, and fry for another 2 minutes. Add this masala to the boiled daal, and put the daal on high flame. Add 2 cups of cream or milk + cream or curd + milk (depending on how rich you want your daal to be and how much you want to cut down on your calorie intake). Let the daal come to a boil, and then leave the daal with occasional stirring on low flame for atleast 30-40 minutes.

Here comes the tip for that amazing daal makhani you have always craved for..... Longer you cook the daal on low flame, yummier it becomes!!

A twist to this daal makhani can be given by adding some kasuri methi (dried methi leaves) in the tadka, along with some sweet tomato ketchup, and you would have given a royal touch to your daal makhani..

Suggested Garnishing:

Garnish steaming hot daal makhani with a dollop of butter or thick cream with coriander, and enjoy it with hot jeera rice or rotis or naan (baked indian breads).