Chocolate Brownies

My most favorite dessert is the brownie. I love their rich and dense chocolate texture. I was first introduced to brownies during my Undergrad days. My friends and I often visited a coffee shop next to our college. I hate coffee, but at that time cold coffee was quite the fab! We also had the brownies, which when zapped in the microwave for 10 seconds, tasted like molten lava cakes! I fell for these square pieces of heaven on my first bite!

I love baking brownies for 2 reasons. One, It is very hard to mess up a brownie recipe. Two, everyone loves brownies!

This is my go to recipe for brownies! Thank you www.browneyedbaker.com for this wonderful recipe.

Hershey's Baking chocolate.

Melting the chocolate with butter oven a pan of simmering water.

So I hope you give this recipe a try and share the baked goodies with your friends. They will love you for it.

Chocolate Brownies:

http://chitra-frommykitchen.blogspot.sg/

Yeild: 24 Brownies

Ingredints:

1¼ cups - Plain flour
1 teaspoon - Salt
2 tablespoons - Cocoa powder
11 ounces - Baking chocolate, coarsely chopped (i used Hershey's Baking Chocolate Bar)
1 cup - Unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon - Instant Coffee powder (I used Bru Coffee)
1½ cups - Sugar
½ cup - Packed light brown sugar
5 eggs - At room temperature
2 teaspoons - Vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9x13-inch baking pan. Line the pan with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and cocoa powder together.
3. Put the chocolate, butter and instant coffee powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. 
4. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
5. Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.
6. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon (not a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then lift them out of the pan using the parchment paper. Cut into squares and serve.
8. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for upto 3-4 days.
9. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks. While serving, heat in microwave for 10-15 seconds, and top it with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.
10. For freezing, cut into squares and store in individual bags, and store in the freeze for up to a month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and serve warm.

Custard & Jelly Cups

 Here is easy-peasy Valentine’s Day special treat! I wanted to post something sweet and red and quick for the heading lover’s day. This is a dessert that you can out put together in about 10 minutes. But it takes a bit of thinking ahead.

There are two layers involved here; the bottom is a jelly layer. The top layer is custard. You can choose any flavour of jelly you want. I used cherry flavoured Tropical Jelly mix for my jelly layer, although it took like 2 minutes to make this jelly, I did not like the flavour much. So you might want to experiment with some other brands. I choose the cherry flavour because I thought the red colour looked great with the cream coloured custard. Just sprinkled some pomegranate seeds on top to make the contrast pop!

The custard layer is my favourite, I have made this a million times. I use store bought custard powder to make my custards. They are quick and taste great. You can definitely make custard from scratch but it is a tricky process.

I used these cute little shot glasses. They are so convenient when dealing with guests who whine about being too full for desserts. I filled a ¼ of each cup with the hot jelly mix and let it set for a while in the refrigerator. 

In the meantime you make the custard. After the custard had cooled, store it in the refrigerator.

Alternatively: You can make diagonal layers of jelly and custard. Use a box filled with rice, and arrange your cups in a diagonal position, as seen in the pic below. Then you can pour in the hot jelly mix and set it in the fridge .

When you are ready to serve, take out the set jelly cups and spoon the custard carefully on top of the jelly. Top of with the pomegranate seeds, or your any topping of your choice like chocolate chips, cherries, chocolate sauce or whipped cream.

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!  

Custard & Jelly Cups:

http://chitra-frommykitchen.blogspot.sg/

Jelly Layer:

Follow the instructions on your Jelly mix package.

Custard Layer:

• Take 500ml of milk.
• From this take ¼ cup of milk and mix in 2 table spoons of custard powder and make a smooth paste.
• Boil the remaining milk in a milk pan.
• Then add 4 table spoons of sugar
• Keep the flame low and add the custard paste slowly into the milk.
• Stir continuously to avoid burning.
• Cook for 4-5 minutes. Stir it a bit longer if you want a thick consistency.
• Let it cool and store refrigerated. Serve cold.

Wild Honey Lemonade

Finally back to blogging! My apologies, for being away for almost two months! That is because we moved to our new place a couple of months back, and it has been hectic with packing and unpacking. Seriously, if I ever have to unpack one more box gain, I am going to flip out!

I love my new house and my new kitchen has so much spaceJ. But I do miss my old house. Speaking of the old house, Mr.David, who was our next door neighbour, lived there with his two adorable dogs – Ginger and Hutch. He was always so nice to us. A few months before we moved out, he gave us this huge pack of wild honey from China, given to him by one of his friends.

He sounded so excited about the wild honey, which was in small cubes. I had no clue what to do with it. I was also doubtful about the taste. My hubby suggested we try it with lemonade first. We both love lemoades, and it turned out great, sweet and refreshing. It tasted more like sugar, not as thick as the normal honey that we are used too. Now we use it with milk and tea too.

Later when I researched online, I found that wild honey has seven times the benefit over the usual honey. It is not as sweet as the usual honey, and when mixed with water, wild honey appeared clear and transparent.

So next time when you come across small cubes of wild honey, do give it a try and enjoy the health benefits!

Happy Diwali

Hope you have been preparing a lot of sweets and snacks for Diwali!! This year I couldn't find time to make any thing special for Diwali. Just made some simple snacks over the past two weeks. 

Fortunately, we get a lot of good snacks flown from India to Singapore! We didn't have this luxury before, but now I see Adayar Anandha Bhavan, Grand Sweets, Haldirams Snacks all over the city! Last weekend we bought sweets from Adayar Anandha Bhavan and Haldirams. I love Sree Mithai ladoos back in Chennai. So I was a bit skeptical when buying Haldiram's Ladoos. But they were perfect! I love them. (seen in the pic below).

So have a fun filled Diwali. And be mindful of the noise pollution, and make sure to clean up after all the crackers! God Bless!

NOTE: The ladoos are from Haldiram's.

Whole-Wheat Bread

Seems like a long time since my last post. I have been busy with a lot of stuff at home lately. But I am still trying out new recipes, just couldn’t find time to post them online.

I am so bored with the store bought ‘wholemeal’ bread. When you read the ingredients list printed on these breads packages, you can notice that white flour still has the major percentage than the whole-wheat flour.  I also like my bread with a bit of chewy texture. Believe it or not, I hate white bread!! I know most of you out there remain sceptics when it comes to brown bread, but you have to give it a try, I promise you will start to love it! Brown bread has so many layers of rich flavour and texture, which you cannot get in a plain white loaf!! Previously I have been successful in converting a lot of my friends to switch from white bread to wholemeal!! And I hope after reading this post, more of you join this fab guilt free option.

Baking with yeast is not my forte, I tried two recipes before with no good results. But this recipe is from www.annies-eats.com seemed easy enough. I agree making homemade bread seems too much of a work. But the result is so worth it. I won’t be baking this every week, but it will be a nice switch once in a while from the god awful NTUC wholemeal bread.  FYI I tried dark rye bread from Giant a few times, and I love it.

The dough doubled in volume after 1 hour.

Dough in pan, doubled in volume after 30 minutes.

Whole-Wheat Bread

Yields: Two 9-inch loaves

Ingredients:

2+1/3Cups– Warm Water (around 100°)

1 ½ tablespoon – Instant Yeast

¼ cup – Honey

4 tablespoon – Unsalted Butter, melted

2 ½ teaspoon – Salt

¼ cup – Rye Flour

½ cup – Toasted Wheat Germ* (Toasted the wheat germ in a dry pan on the stove)

3 cups – Whole-wheat Flour (I used Aashirvaad Atta)

2 ¾ cups – Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (I used Plain Flour)

*Wheat Germ - The germ of wheat is the reproductive part of the seed that germinates to grow into a plant. Removal of bran is aimed at producing flour with a white rather than a brown colour, and eliminating fibre.
 Wheat germ is a concentrated source of several essential nutrients including Vitamin E, folic acid, phosphorus, thiamin, zinc and magnesium. It is a good source of fibre.  White bread is made using flour that has had the germ and bran removed. Wheat germ can be added to protein shakes, casseroles, muffins, pancakes, cereals, yogurt, smoothies, cookies, and other goods. 

 Directions: 

• In a bowl, mix the water,yeast,honey,butter and salt with a rubber spatula.
• Mix in the rye flour, wheat germ, and 1 cup of the whole-wheat and all-pupose flour.
• Add the remaining whole-wheat and all-pupose flour, attach the dough hook and knead at low speed until the dough I smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. (If you don’t have a dough hook, then use your hands to knead).
• Transfer the dough to a lightly foured surface and knead the dough for another 30 seconds, until it is soft and smooth.
• Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough inside and cover with plastic wrap or a moist towel.
• Let it rise in a warm area until the dough has doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Heat the oven to 190° C.
• Gently press down the dough and divide it into two equal pieces.
• Gently press each piece into a rectangle about 1-inch thick and 9 inches long. Roll the dough formly into a cylinder, pressing down to make sure the dough sticks to itself.
• Turn the dough seam side up and pinch it closed
• Place the cylinder of dough into a greased 9 X 5 inch loaf pan, seam side down, pressing the dough gently so it touches all sides of the pan.
• Cover the pan, and let it rise for 20-30 minutes, until the dough has doubled in volume.
• Bake for 35-45 minutes.
• Transfer the bread immediately from the baking pans to a wire rack to cool.

Condensed Milk Chocolate Pedas

I love Indian sweets. Unfortunately in Singapore, the so called Indian sweets are a bad concoction of food colouring and sugar! But I have to say some of our sweets are soo tedious to make, and it takes many trials to get it just right. There was this one time I tried hot jalebi, it was so much work, and at the end of two hours it turned out to be soggy!

  So here is a quick and easy recipe to help you through your sugar craving moments, and it gets better with an added touch of chocolate! This recipe was adapted from Niya’s World. 

Condensed Milk Chocolate Pedas:

Makes  18 pedas.

Ingredients: 

• 2 teaspoon – butter/ghee
• 1 tin (400 g) – Milkmaid Condensed Milk*
• 1 Tablespoon – Cocoa Powder
• 2 tablespoon – Sugar
• 2 teaspoon – more ghee

*I used Evaporated milk for a richer taste. 

Cooking the milk and cocoa mixture,
stirring continuously.

Directions:

• Grease a steel/glass plate with a little bit of ghee/butter.
• In a non-stick pan, heat the 2 teaspoons of butter/ghee, on a medium flame.
• Add the condensed milk along with the cocoa powder and sugar. Mix well
• Stir continuously for 20-22 minutes on a low flame, or until the mixtures thickens and leaves the sides of the pan.
• Pour the cooked mixture into the greased steel/glass plate and keep aside to cool completely, about half an hour.
• Apply the remaining ghee on both palms and shape the cooled mixture into small balls/pedas.
• Garnish with slivered almonds or cashews.
• Store in the refrigerator,  for up to a week.

Fluffy Blueberry Lemon Cookies

Sorry I have been away for so long. Went to India a while back, and I still haven’t gotten back to blogging. Last week, I picked out these lovely blueberries at the supermarket. Since they were in a really good condition, I wanted to try freezing them, for future.

I know all of us are new to SOFT cookies. I was a bit worried as to the texture of the cookies. When I baked them, it was a bit crisp, but after a few hours it became so soft, almost like cupcake tops! This is a new texture of cookies, I enjoyed the fluffiness and the zingy taste from the lemons. I love blueberries, so this was a win win recipe for me!

Cookie dough ready to be refrigerated.
The green specs seen are the lemon zest.

I had saved this recipe for Blueberry lemon fluffy cookies a month back from http://bakerbettie.com/. And thought I would give it a try. I got a new zester from India during my recent trip. So this would be a perfect recipe to give my new zester a go, along with the frozen blueberries!

Spooned and flattened cookie dough.

You don’t have to have blueberries and lemons to make these, you can use the base recipe and make your own flavours, like chocolate chips, or even just plain vanilla. The cake flour mentioned in this recipe gives these cookies their fluffy texture. Cake flour has a low gluten content with allows the cookies to rise while baking.  

Frozen Blueberries

Thawed Blueberries

Blueberry and Lemon Cookies

Makes – 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 cup - unsalted butter, softened

1 cup - sugar

2 - eggs, room temperature

2 tsp-  vanilla extract

Zest of one lemon

Juice of one lemon

1/2 tsp - salt

1/2 tsp - baking powder

1/2 tsp - baking soda

1/2 tsp - cinnamon

3 1/4 cups - cake flour*

1 1/2 cups – blueberries (frozen or fresh)

*NOTE: Cake flour has a lower gluten content than all-purpose flour and therefore creates a lighter and fluffier cookie. However, you can sub all-purpose flour.  Decrease the amount of flour to 3 cups minus 2 tbsp.  The cookie will still be tasty, but the texture will be slightly different.

Instructions

• In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  
• Add the eggs one at a time, and beat after each addition.  
• Add the vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice and beat to incorporate.  
• In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.  
• Slowly add the dry ingredients into the batter.  
• Scrape down the bowl as needed and mix until incorporated.  
• Fold in the blueberries gently as to now break them.  
• Allow the dough to cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour or up to overnight.  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
• Use a small scoop (about 1 tbsp size) and place rounded mounds of dough on a cookie sheet lined with Butter paper, And flatten the round mounds slightly.  
• Bake for 14-16 minutes until the bottoms look slightly browned (the edges should not brown).

Enjoy this pillowy soft and fluffy blueberry and lemon cookies. So unique and delicious! Perfect with your morning cup of coffee.