White chocolate sponge cake

Moist, soft and delectable sponge cake that is light and airy and simply divine to eat.


Ingredients:

240 grams / 8 oz self raising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
240 grams / 8 oz sugar
240 grams / 8 oz butter
5 small eggs (or equivalent egg replacer)
2 tablespoons natural yoghurt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For Topping:

240 grams / 8 oz White chocolate
60 grams / 2 oz Milk chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 centigrade/ 400 Fahrenheit
2. Prepare a loose bottom 8 inch cake tin by lining it with parchment paper and greasing it.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs and yoghurt and mix together.Add the vanilla essence.
4. Sieve the flour and the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
5. Fold in the flour into the wet ingredients .(Do not over mix)
6. Tranfer the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin  and bake in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes .
7. Check if the cake is baked by insering a skewer in the centre of the cake, if it comes out dry cake is ready.
8. Remove  cake from oven and cool.
9. In a double boiler melt the white chocolate.
10.In a separate bowl melt the milk chocolate.
11. Cover the cooled cake with the white chocolate.
12. Using a piping bag fill  it with the milk chocolate.
13. Pipe vertical lines 1 inch apart on top of the white chocolate topped cake.
14. To make the swirl pattern. take a cocktail stick and draw lines on the cake in the opposite direction to the milk chocolate piped lines. The dragging of the cocktail stick will form the swirl pattern.
15.  Allow chocolate to set before serving.

You may like:

Chocolate cake.

Semolina Dhokla-Instant

Semolina Dhokla-A savory teatime dish healthy and delicious . Steamed and tempered with green chillies, sesame seeds, mustard seeds and garnished with grated coconut and chopped fresh coriander.

Ingredients:

For dhokla

1 cup coarse sooji /rava(semolina)

1 cup natural yogurt (sour)

3/4 cup water

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ginger paste

1 teaspoon fresh finely chopped green chillies

1 level teaspoon eno salt

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh chopped coriander

For tempering:

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1 teaspoon fresh chopped coriander

1/2 teaspoon chopped green chilli

1 tablespoon desiccated coconut
1 tablespoon oil
1½ teaspoon till seeds
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
2 red dried chillies
3-4 curry leaves

Method:

1.Put water in a steamer to heat up.

2.Slightly oil a small 8-10 inch thali with a rim and keep aside.

3.Mix all the ingredients for the dhokla together (except the eno salt) and form a batter.

4.Place the oiled thali in the steamer and just before you are ready to pour the batter, add the eno salt and mix the batter gently.

5.Pour the batter in the thali and sprinkle with chopped coriander and a bit of red chili powder on top.

6.Put the lid on the steamer and steam for 10- 15 minutes.

7.Open the lid of the steamer and if the dhoklas are ready they will spring back when gently pressed.

8.Remove thali from steamer and let it cool.
9.Add tempering and then cut dhokla into diamond shapes and arrange on serving tray

For tempering:

1.Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan when hot add mustard seeds, till seeds ,dried red chilli and curry leaves and chilli powder.
2.Pour over the tempering over the dhokla and sprinkle with fresh chopped coriander, dessicated coconut and fresh chopped chillies.

3.Serve with coriander chutney.

You may like:

Coriander green chutney

Green tomato chutney

Spinach Dhokla

This post has been submitted to:

Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipies-Cooking with Sesame seeds event.

Orange Peel garnish ~ Create n Carve

Orange Peel garnish, these pretty garnishes were cut from discarded orange peel. Rather than throw the peel away , you can cut them into leaves, butterfly and flower shapes to use as garnishes. A very basic carving and easy to attempt.

Submitting to:
Create n Carve ~ Fruit and Vegetable event by simply.food, guest hosted by Mina

You may like:
Other Carvings

Sweet Lemon Pickle

Homemade sweet lemon pickle, spicy and hot ,sweet and tangy , a taste that will leave you licking your fingers.

Ingredients:

240 grams/ 8 oz preserved lemons
180 grams/ 6 oz jaggery
120 grams/ 4oz achar masala
2 tablespoons  sunflower oil
2 red dried chillies

Method:

1.Cut the preserved lemons into small bite size pieces( appox 1 inch )
2. Place the preserved lemons on a sheet of kitchen paper and place on a tray, leave to dry in a warm place or  in sunlight  for few hours.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan when hot add the red chillies and jaggery.
4.Cook the jaggery on a low heat untill it melts , Once the jaggery is soft add the achar masala and mix well.
5. Take off the heat and allow to cool to room temparature.
6. Stir in the semi dried preserved lemons, cover the pan and leave it in a cool dry place for 7 days.
7. Each day stir the lemon pickle once in the morning and once at night.
8. After a couple of days you will find that the sweet masala will infuse into the lemons and coat them really well.
9. After 7 days transfer the pickle into sterelised jars and keep in a cool dry place or in the fridge.
10. Pickle is ready to eat and will keep up to 4-6 weeks.
Seve pickle with parthas and puris.

You may like:
Carrot Pickle
Achar Masala (Pickle masala)

Radish Flowers and leaves ~ Create n Carve

Radish flowers and leaves simple and perfect little garnishes for salads.
Click here leaves
and here  for  flower instructions

Submitting to:

Create n Carve ~ Fruit and Vegetable event by simply.food  hosted by Mina

You may like :
Other Carvings
     

Khandvi ~ ICC Cooking challenge January 2011

Khandvi  a delicious gujarati snack that is made from chickpea flour and yoghurt. Tangy and  spicy in taste with a wonderful garnish of coconut and  sesame seeds  makes this snack mouthwatering and delectable .

The ICC cooking challenge  by Srivalli , recipe supplied by Lataji

Ingredients:

Gram flour / Besan - 1/3 cup (heaped)
Curds / Yogurt - 1/3 cup slightly sour, beaten
Water - 1 cup
Salt as per taste
Ginger Green Chilli paste - 2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Cooking Oil - 3 tbsp

For tempering:

Cooking Oil - 2 tsps
Mustard seeds 1 tsp
Sesame seeds 2 tsps
5-6 curry leaves
1 red dried Chilli

For Garnishing:

Grated Coconut - 2 tbsps
Fresh Coriander Leaves, chopped - 2 tbsps
2 green chillies finely chopped

Method:

1.Oil a flat baking tray  ready before proceeding to cook.
2. In a bowl, take the gram flour, salt, ginger-chilli paste, beaten curds and turmeric and water and mix well.
3.The batter should be of smooth thin batter, free of lumps.
4.Add the  and turmeric powders also at this stage.
5.Heat oil in a thick bottom pan and add the prepared batter.
6.Cook the batter, stirring continuously until well cooked.
7.You can know it is cooked with the batter turns a light brown tinge, glaze from the oil and will not stick to the walls of the pan.
8.The batter should still be in a semi liquid state, tipping more towards solid state.
9.Over cooking will result in a mass that will not spread evenly.
10.Transfer the cooked batter quickly on to the flat greased plate and with the ladle spread the batter to a thin sheet over the surface.
11.This has to be done very fast as the batter will thicken as it cools and become difficult to spread.
12.Using a knife make strips of this sheet. Roll each strip into spirals.
13.Place the khandvi rolls on aserving platter.
14.Heat another pan with oil,  whn hot add mustard and sesame seeds and allow to splutter. When they crackle pour them over the rolled khandvis.
15.Garnish with a generous sprinkling of fresh, grated coconut and chopped coriander leaves and few finely chopped chillies.

NB  -I omitted the sugar and asafetida for health reasons, although they were in the ingredient list.
Verdict- The recipe was simple and easy to follow, however in the process of trying to capture some photos of each process my batter got slightly over cooked and resulted in a little difficulty in spreading. However despite little cracks , khandvis rolled beautifully and tasted wonderful.

You may like:
Punjabi Kadhi

Mango Milkshake

Refreshing, smooth, creamy healthy  mango shake with a rich tropical buzz , this milkshake is perfect for breakfast or teatime snack .

Ingredients:

2 ripe mangoes stoned and  diced
300 ml milk skimmed milk
6 scoops low fat vanilla ice cream

Method:

1. Place the mangoes, in a blender jug and puree to a fine pulp.
2. Add the milk and 4 scoops ice cream and blend again.
3. Pour in to tall chilled glasses and top with scoop of ice cream on top of each shake.
Serve immediately

You may like:
Banana milkshake

 

An award and a tag.

This beautiful award comes from Smitha of  Smitha's spicy flavours.
Smith has a wonderful collection of recipes in her blog, a dancing cook who has combined passion in both activities. Do drop by and see her collection of recipes.
Thanks Smith of making simply.food worth of this award. Its truely rewarding and inspiring to receive any form of recognition. ..........but as always  there is a catch the award comes with a tag:

The rules for this award are:

1. Thank the person who awarded me.
2. Share 7 things about myself.
3. Pass it on to  5 people who I think are fantastic. This is unfair as who do I choose???All my blogger friends are FANTASTIC!!

I pass this tag to :
Deepa -Hamaree Rasoi
Mina-Authentic vegetarian dishes
Kairalisisters- Pazam papadam payasan
Ash - Hastakala
Sandhya- Sandhya's Kitchen

I am going to break the rules now and say If anyone else would like to receive this  award and the tag please feel free to take it.
yeh  yeh I know.......................!!! I havn't told you anything about me so  here goes.

1.Three words that describe me, passionate, organised and loyal.

2. My current passions cooking, food styling, photgraphy and fruit and veg carving which I am learning at the moment.

3. My world - my two daughters and of course my better half .

4. My wish- I wish there were more hours in the day, I have so much I want to do and not enough time to do it in.

5.Where do I see my self 10 years from now, hopefully an author with some cook books published.( Well I can dream can't I??)

6. I am a vegetarian I love most foods but some of my favorite dishes are fusion dishes.

7. I love travelling, been to many places but I loved India the best.The divesity of cultures, the aromatic smells of food, the noise of the city that never sleeps, the vibrant colours and of course the happy go lucky people.

Cucumber Rose ~ Create n Carve

Beautiful salad garnish made from sliced cucumber. It is so simple to make  yet the finish looks really professional .

You will need:

14 paper this slices of cucumber ( will make 2 roses)

If you want to try your hand at this click here for the tutorial.

Submitting to:

Create n Carve~ Fruit and Veg event by simply food, guest hosted by Mina

You may like:

Fruit and Veg carving

Carrot Paratha

Delicious parathas with the goodness of carrot .Delicately seasoned with ajwain and a hint of spice with chillies these parathas are delicious accompaniment to any curry.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 medium carrots
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon oil
4 tablespoons oil for cooking paratha in
2 tablespoons plain flour for rolling parathas.
1/2 teaspoon ajwain seeds ( bishops weed seeds)
1/2 teaspoon green chiili paste (omit for kids)

Method:

1.Wash and peel the carrots and grate them.
2. Place in a heat proof bowl, add 2 tablespoons water and microwave on high for 4 minutes.
3. Remove from microwave and place in blender and puree.Cool.
4. In a bowl add the wheat flour, salt and turmeric and ajwain seeds and green chillies.
5. Rub in 1 tablespoon oil and add the carrot puree as needed to make a soft dough.(Depending on the wetness of the puree and the brand of flour used, you may have a little left over or you may find to bring dough together you may need to add 1-2 tablespoons water.Judge this yourself)
6. Knead the dough, cover and leave aside to 15-30 minutes.
7. Divide the dough in to 10 balls.
8. Take one of the balls dip in dry flour and roll out in a square / round  shape paratha.(I made square)
9. Heat a tava and place the rolled paratha on it, when bubbles start to form flip the paratha.
10. Spread a little oil on to this side and flip again . Repeat for 2nd side.Paratha is ready when brown spots start to appear on it.
11.Remove from tava and repeat for rest of dough.

Serve with  vegetable curry, yoghurt and mango pickle or simple rolled up with jam, chocolate or cream cheese.

NB-If seving to kids or lunch box you can roll partha with a little jam or cheese spread .

You may like;
 aloo paratha

Submitting to:
CWS Event -Ajwain event by Priya , hosted by Kavita
Wholesome Lunch box event by  coffe and vanilla

                                   

Vegetable Flower arrangement~ Create n Carve.

This beautiful  Flower Arrangement centre piece  is made totally from carved vegetables such  as spring onions, white and red radish, carrots, cucumber, pumpkin, chillies, baby corn and yellow capsicum.The arrangement is secured using tooth picks and bamboo skewers .Click on the links for the tutorials.

To create this arrangements you will need:

Spring onions
Carrots
White Radish
Red Radish
Baby corn
Red Chillies
Few red peanuts or small red grapes
Yellow Capsicum
Cucumber
Pumpkin 
Tooth Picks  and long bamboo skewers
Carving Knife.
Bowl of iced water ( for making your  flowers stiffen and bloom)

Spring Onion  Flowers

Radish  and Carrot Flowers

Yellow capsicum  and baby corn flowers

Radish Flowers and Leaves

If you want to try simple carvings click here for some basic tutorials.

Submitting to;
Create n Carve ~ Fruit and Vegetable event by simply food, guest hosted by Mina

You may like:

Fruit and Vegetable Carving



Pineapple Sundae.

Pineapple sundae-A refreshing guilt free dessert. Juicy pineapple and cantaloupe melon chunks layered with delicious low fat tropical Soya yoghurt and topped with delectable pineapple coulis. Enjoy this as a dessert after a heavy meal or as a nutricious healthy breakfast.

Ingredients:

1 small tub tropical flavour alpro soya yoghurt (Can use dairy fruit yoghurt.)
1 cup fresh diced pineapple
½ cup fresh diced cantaloupe melon

For Pineapple Coulis:

½ cup fresh diced pineapple
1 teaspoon icing sugar.

Method:

1. Place ½ cup diced pineapple in the blender with the teaspoon of icing sugar and blend till smooth. Keep aside.
2. Reserve a few pieces of melon and pineapple, the rest of the pineapple and melon mix and put in a serving dish.
3. Pour the tropical Soya yoghurt over the fruit.
4. Top the yoghurt with 1 tablespoon of the pineapple coulis. Remainder of coulis pour into a smaller dipping dish to serve with the reserved fruit and a couple of cookies.

Serve immediately.

You may like:

Strawberry Sundae

Chocolate Sundae

Submitting to :
Veggie platter-Jihva breakfast event. - Indira of Mahanandi
Breakfast Club #7 event by Helen hosted by Sarah

December 2010 ~ Newsletter

simply.food

simply.food would like to wish all my blogger friends a very Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2011.
.

Pic courtesy of nickianderson.com

The month of December has been cold with freezing temperatues and snow in the UK. It was the perfect opportunity to make most of the time spent indoors keeping warm and cooking for new event

Flavours of Goa guest hosted by Denise of oh taste and see .

December also brought the wonderful introduction of Create n Carve ~ Fruit and Veg Event. 

It is an  inspiring  event and a total of 26 entries were received .You can find the round up .here

For the month of January Create n Carve moves to Minas blog I hope you will all support her by sending your  entries for this event.

December brought the finalists list of top 30 recipes of 2010 by Chackos Kitchen  .simply.food is delighted to have its strawberry ice cream recipe selected for this list. It's a wonderful achievement and I am very proud.

The recap of posts in December is:

Create n Carve ~ Fruit and vegetable round up

Preserved lemons

Orange Flowers

Chocolate Balls

Radish and Carrot Roses

Bolinhas

Okra Fry

Apple Basket

Kashmiri Dum aloo

Three More Awards

Vermichelli Kheer

French Beans goan style

Barbecued Corn salad

Pumpkin Basket

Flavours of Goa event

Create and Carve event

Round up of Flavours of Punjab.

simplyfood’s published recipe for the month of December  in Homeobuzz magazine is Eggless whole meal cookies

Finally with the new create and carve event simply food has introduced a tutorials  page that will be updated regularly with  u tube video links to tutorials in fruit and vegetable carvings.

To visit this page click here.

There are still some dates available for the create n carve  guest event hosting if you are interested to guest host this event you can find date availibility here

...........................and finally last but not in the least as always a big  and heartfelt welcome to all new followers, and thanks to the existing .Your visits, words of inspiration and comments are most valued.

Also if you enjoyed reading this news letter please do subscribe to it so that you can get regular updates.You may do this via this newsletter or link on side bar on simply.food home page. You can also find simply.food at:

Facebook

Twitter

Create n Carve ~ Fruit and Veg Event roundup

 1st December 2010- 31st December 2011

Create and Carve ~ Fruit n Veg Event  has been an interesting event, I wasn't sure how it would be percieved with all my fellow bloggers. The up take and participation was initially slow but I am pleased to say that once word got around we have had  an astounding 26 entries.

This is an on going monthly event for the next 6 months and it will be guest hosted by Mina of Authentic vegetarian recipes for the month of January 2011.Please do support this event .To help those persons that are new to this beautiful art please click here to get some basic tutorials on how to start. If you are interested in guest hosting this event please click here for availibility and further details.

Here is the round up of all the beautiful  and amazing entries.

Apple bird carving by Shobha

Tom Yum Soup- Birds by Kavya

Cucumber  and Tomato Flowers by kavya

Onion Flower by Kavya

Tomato Cat by Shama

 

Orange Garnish by Elena

Carvings  from Nithi

Capsicum Frog, Carrort Flowers

Apple Slippers and Beet flowers

Apple Pot, Apple Butterfly

Apple Birds and Cucumber bridge.

Apple Basket -Nayna

Orange flowers by Nayna

Pumpkin Bowl - Nayna

Carrot Garnish-Jayashree

Radish Garnish  by Jayashree

Carrot and Cucumber carvings by Jayashree

 

Carrot, apple and cucumber garnishes -Sanyukta

NewYear crudites -spring onion   and melon flower by Rosemary

 

Thanks guys for your support in this new event. I hope everyone gets inspired by these awesome amazing eye catching entries. If you wish to participate for the January event  Do drop over to Minas blog .