Dark Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

The last week was a very hectic and tiring one. There was so much to do throughout each day that by the time evening rolled in, I was ready to say good night! So, decided to stay away from the laptop as well as reading and other hobbies/activities that I usually indulge in before bed time. Now am much refreshed, thank you very much :). I guess sleeping in through the long weekend with no classes to chauffeur the little one to did the trick! Now am back and revving to go...

Another Valentine's Day came and went by. During the initial years of marriage I used to be pretty excited about "celebrating" V-Day - treating it at par with birthdays and our anniversary. As the years passed, it was just another day, though my husband never failed to get me flowers and/or chocolates, and  of course we ate out. Then the little one came along, and at school, it certainly is a grand occasion. So, now I get a personalized hand made card from him :). As do his teachers and classmates!

Well, sticking to tradition, I gave myself a holiday from the kitchen as far as dinner preparations are concerned. But we ordered delivery as it was freezing outside and it felt like too much to get dressed to dine out, specially after DH returned home tired from office and DS was about ready to doze off! But I decided to make dessert at home. Made jelly for the little one, so was at liberty to try out something different for us.

Last year, on my trip to India, my cousin made this delicious molten lava cake that I absolutely loved. Have been meaning to try it out for sometime now. So took this opportunity to do the same.

I used the molten chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart's website, but modified it to suit what I had in mind! For one, I used a combination of Ghirardelli intense dark 86% chocolate and Hershey's bittersweet chocolate chips. Also, I served it with French Vanilla ice cream instead of whipped cream.

A few years back, I used to watch Chef Curtis Stone's show Take Home Chef. In the show, chef Stone would visit a grocery store, randomly pick one of the customers, shop for them, go home with them and cook them a wonderful meal. Am sure that show has prompted me on many an occasion to pay attention to what I was wearing before I went grocery shopping! How many times have I wished Curtis Stone would film his show on the east coast! Imagine, a meal cooked by a celebrity chef - that he is way too cute in the looks department and speaks with that Aussie accent of his doesn't hurt either ;) Not any more though - now I am a regular in my "mommy" clothes, rushing along like a headless chicken trying to get all my chores done before rushing off to pick up kiddo from school and take him to whatever extra curricular activity is scheduled for the day!

OK, my reason for going off at a tangent like this is that, in one episode of the above mentioned show, chef Curtis added a bit of chilli powder to his chocolate cake and the couple who tasted it were raving about it! Fast forward all these years, I decided to go ahead and do the same to my molten lava cake. After all, how many chances was I going to get to try something risky in desserts when I am not cooking for my son!

OK, we have Martha Stewart and Curtis Stone. What about Priya? Oh I am there too - in a dash of Jamaican All Spice, a pinch of dry ginger powder and a few drops of Earl Grey tea!

All the flavors worked pretty well, but the cake is REALLY REALLY intense! You definitely need the ice cream (preferably vanilla, so that the flavors don't clash) to enjoy this dessert.

Another thing I'd like to mention is, bake the cake just before serving. If you leave it uneaten too long, it will deflate. Also, the inner molten layer will thicken. It just won't taste the way it is supposed to taste. The advantage with this recipe is, you can prepare everything, cover it with a cling wrap and refrigerate it, taking it out when you are ready to bake.

Preparation & Cooking: 30 minutes         Serves:6

Ingredients:
Unsalted Butter - 4 tablespoon plus some more to grease the baking cups
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Eggs - 3
All Purpose Flour - 1/3 cup
Bittersweet Chocolate Chips & Dark Chocolate - 8 oz
Confectioner's Sugar - For Dusting
Red Chilli Powder - ¼ teaspoon
Earl Grey Tea - 1 tea bag
Dry Ginger Powder - a pinch
Jamaican Allspice - a pinch
Salt - ¼ teaspoon

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius). Grease the baking cups with butter, dust with sugar and set them aside.
2. Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, stirring well after every minute. It will take around 2-3 minutes to melt smoothly, without any lumps.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together till fluffy and add in the eggs one by one, beating well between additions
4. Add in the flour, salt and spices and mix till well blended.
5. Dip 1 bag of Earl Grey tea in a glass of hot water,  add a few drops of this to the mix as well.
6. Finally, mix in the melted chocolate, divide batter among the baking cups and bake for around 10 minutes, till the tops of the cakes do not jiggle when shaken lightly.



7. Remove from the oven, let it stand for 10 minutes.

Turn out the cakes bottom side up, dust with confectioner's sugar and serve immediately with your favorite ice cream.

PS: Don't forget to notice how the the inner chocolate layer simply oozes out when you make that first cut with your fork! I was too busy drooling over it, and by the time I finally managed to get around to clicking the picture, it was too late! So the picture does not do justice to the real thing!

Sending this across to

and

as well as Cooking With Love - Spouse event
and the "Lets Cook/Bake For Valentine" event.

Eggless Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Today was DH's birthday. So decided to bake some cake.

As far as flavors go, it had to be a carrot cake or a pineapple cake, two things he really likes. Now the carrot cake I make has nuts in it, but my little one doesn't like nuts, so pineapple was the one I settled for. There was no question of frosting as the birthday boy does not like frosting! So, a pineapple upside down cake it was to be!

When I got down to baking with my standard recipe, I realized I had just one egg left in the refrigerator while the recipe called for 2. So, went and surfed the net for a good eggless version of the same.

The cake that I finally made is adapted from the Nestle website. I just modified it to suit my taste. The recipe required pineapple essence, but I did not have any, so used chickoo and vanilla essences instead. The typical cake calls for cherries, but I had none on hand, so improvised by decorating the cake with strawberries and whipped cream. I also went ahead and added tutti-frooti and chopped jackfruit, to give it more flavor. I used brown sugar with butter directly on the pan for the caramel, instead of making the caramel first as mentioned in the recipe. Another change I made was that I used raspberry flavored sparkling water instead of the plain aerated water specified in the recipe. I also added a dash of salt as I do with all my baked goods.

Preparation & Cooking - 1 hour                  Serves: 7-8

Ingredients:

Pineapple Slices - 7 (I used canned slices)
All Purpose Flour/Maida - 2 cups
Condensed Milk - 1 can (14 oz)
Unsalted Butter - ½ stick for caramelizing and ¾ stick for the batter
Brown Sugar - 4 tablespoons, for caramelizing
Vanilla Essence - ¼ teaspoon
Chickoo Essence - ¼ teaspoon
Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
Baking Powder - 1 teaspoon
Salt - ¼ teaspoon
Sparkling Water - 150 ml
Tutti-Frutti - 2 tablespoons
Ripe Jackfruit - 2 tablespoons, chopped (I used canned jackfruit)
Yellow Food Color (optional)
Whipped Cream & Strawberries - for decoration

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).
• Grease a 9-inch baking pan with butter. Melt ¼ stick of butter and spread it on the pan, then sprinkle the brown sugar over it.

• Next, arrange the sliced pineapples so as to cover the bottom of the pan. Set the pan aside.

• In a bowl, sift together the all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

• In another bowl, beat together the remaining softened butter and the condensed milk until smooth.

• Add the vanilla and chickoo essence and the yellow food coloring (if using).

• Blend in the dry ingredients and the sparkling water adding each alternately to form a smooth creamy batter.

• Pour this batter immediately into the prepared baking pan and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40 minutes. Use a tooth pick to check if the cake is done.

• Once the cake is baked, immediately take it out of the oven and over turn it onto the serving plate. If you leave it on for later, the caramel will harden and the cake will not come out smoothly.

Decorate with whipped cream and sliced strawberries. Yummy cake is ready to be served...

Sending this to Vardhini's

guest hosted at Sumee's Culinary Bites

Bread Halwa

A "different" dessert from guest host Pepper to sweeten our taste buds...

This is a very different dessert recipe worth trying. I tasted it when we ordered food for a family occasion in India. It was so good that I felt like skipping the main course and filling myself with this dessert. But it was very rich and soaked in ghee, however for health reasons I have used less ghee. If you prefer to have it in a rich way you might increase the quantity of ghee.

Ingredients:

Bread slices – 6

Ghee – 3 tbsp

Milk – 2 cups

Sugar – 1 ½ cup or to taste

Oil – 2 tbsp

Slivered almonds or cashews – ½ cup

                                   

Method:

1. Toast the bread slices slightly, either pulse them in a food processor for a couple of times, or cut them to smaller squares, and fry them in 2 tbsp of ghee and oil. (You have to make sure all the bread gets fried to avoid raw portions of bread getting into the halwa)

2. Boil the milk, add the fried bread and stir until all the milk is absorbed into the bread and it is almost dry.

3. Add the sugar. This leaves some moisture in the halwa which eventually dries off after a few minutes of constant stirring.

4. When the halwa is almost dry and leaves the pan, add the nuts and the remaining ghee and mix well.

5. Switch off the stove, allow the halwa to cool down, and serve them in room temperature or slightly warm

Note: For a quick version of this recipe you can use 2 cups of bread crumbs instead of bread slices.

    -Pepper

Chakkara Pongal

It is Pongal! What is the best part of the festival – the dish of course! Not being in India, where custom and tradition take precedence, the sole significance for our kids seems to be what they get to eat. My kiddo chooses to call this festival – “Chakkara Pongal Day”! This being my first contribution to the blog - glad to start with a sweet dish, and on such an auspicious occasion!

Prep & Cooking: 30 min approx.           Serves: 8-10
Ingredients: 
Rice - 2 cups
Moong dal - ¾ cup
Jaggery - 5 cups (not powdered, I am talking about the mini rectangular blocks)
Raisins - 2 tablespoons
Cashews - 2 tablespoons
Cardamom – ½ teaspoon
Nutmeg – ½ teaspoon
Saffron – a few strands
Edible Camphor – a pinch
Salt – ¼ teaspoon
Water – 7 cups
Milk – 1 cup
Clarified Butter (Ghee) – 2 tablespoons

Method: 

• Roast the moong dal until it gives out a nice flavor – don’t let it brown.

• Combine it with the rice, water and milk in a pressure cooker and cook until soft and mushy. Fry the cashews and raisins separately in ghee and set them aside. In another vessel, melt jaggery with about a tablespoon of water. 

•  Add this jaggery syrup along with the cardamom, saffron strands, salt, fried cashew and raisins to the cooked rice and dal mixture and stir until everything blends nicely.

Yummy chakkara pongal is ready!