7 cups to Heaven - 7-cup Barfi for Janmashtami

For the longest time, I stayed away from even attempting to make Indian sweets. I even stayed away from thinking about making them. When it came to celebrating festivals, I always made my own rules. Why might Krishna only want uppu seedai and vella seedai for Janmashtami. Why not chocolate cookies? Or buns? Why make Indian sweets and savouries for Deepavali. Why not cookies and cakes again? You get the drift, don't you? I simply didn't want to move out of my comfort zone. So, I found every excuse not to.

A few years ago, I was a visiting with a friend and she had made a snack with beaten rice and a sweet. I asked her if she'd brought the sweet from India or if one of her family members had visited. She told me that she'd made it herself. I immediately asked her for the recipe and made it soon after. Three years later, it remains the only Indian elbow greasy sweet I can make confidently. 

1 cup Ghee
1 cup Besan
1 cup Milk
1 cup Almond Meal/ Dessicated Coconut (or a combination of the two)
3 cups Sugar
Cardamom and Saffron to taste
1 tbsp Ghee for greasing the plate/cake tin

Grease a large thali or plate and keep aside. (I've even used cake tins when I didn't own a thali.)

Heat 1/2 cup ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. Add the besan and fry it until the raw smell of besan goes and you are left with the wonderful aroma. To this, add the milk carefully. Add all the other ingredients, including the remaining 1/2 cup ghee. Keep stirring until the mixture comes together and begins to leave the sides of the pan.

Transfer to the greased thali/plate and smooth the mixture down carefully. Cool it a little. Cut it into diamond shapes with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. When fully cool, store the pieces in an air tight container.

Be sure to share this with your friends and family. You may want to hand out recipe cards with this as people are bound to ask you for the recipe. Especially if you're like me and no one associates any traditional sweets with you, they're probably thinking - if she can make it, why not I?

On that happy note, let me sign off while wishing all of you a Happy Janmashtami.

Check out some other not so traditional Janmashtami recipes on the blog here.

Kesar Pista Kulfi

A couple of weekends ago, we visited a friend for a potluck dinner. I had made a lot of Bisi Bele Huli Anna and my friend decided to make some curd rice. She had also made some very nice sabudana tikkis as a starter. And just when we thought we could eat no more, she brought out some kulfi.


The kulfi tasted so good that I had to try it out at home. The recipe is so simple, it is almost as if there is nothing to it. Also, my traditional way of making kulfi involves boiling the milk with condensed milk. This method involves no cooking. I blended all the ingredients in a blender, but I think I should use a hand whisk the next time. The blending left some froth on the top of my kulfis.


1 can Evaporated Milk
1 can (400g) Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 tin (170g) Cream


For the topping, grind together:

1 tbsp Pistachios
1 tbsp Almonds
a pinch Saffron
1/4 tsp Cardamom


Mix the evaporated milk, condensed milk and cream. Whisk together until well blended. Add the topping and mix again. Fill the kulfi moulds with this mixture and freeze until set. When set, dip the moulds in warm water, unscrew and hold over a plate. The kulfi slides out effortlessly.


This is a keeper recipe for me even if everything came out of a can!

Instant Microwave Banana Nut Cake

I've resumed cooking. It was something I had to do to bring in a sense of "normalcy" into my life. Attempting to cook in the serviced apartment without a pressure cooker was an experience in itself. I realized how much I took my kitchen in Gurgaon for granted. But I also realized that healthy meals are possible even if you have almost no appliances and only three utensils.

After we moved into our apartment, the first set of boxes we opened were the ones which would help me start cooking. Slowly, all my appliances came out of their boxes and I was thrilled to see the pressure cookers, the mixer-food processor and my wet grinder. Once I got into the groove of day to day cooking, I started missing baking. And I started missing my oven. For the moment, I only have a basic microwave. I decided to stick with it for the time being and invest in a combination oven in a couple of months. But (my friends know this) I needed to bake to feel really normal.

I've only baked two cakes in the microwave before this. I also don't have a fully stocked pantry as yet. So, I quickly stocked up on baking powder, baking soda and some vanilla essence. I started scouting for more microwave cake recipes with easily available ingredients. My research brought me to cooks.com and I found a banana nut cake recipe that seemed to call out to me. I decided to improvise with what I had on hand and also made several substitutions to make it a very healthy cake.

The final result was fabulous. The cake wasn't crusty on top, but I know not to expect that from a microwave cake. The texture of the cake was as good as, if not better than, most banana cakes I have baked in the past. This recipe is a sure shot keeper.

1/4 cup Oil

1/4 cup Low Fat Milk

1 Egg

1 Ripe Banana

1/2 cup Jaggery, grated

1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/4 cup Flour (Plain)

1/2 cup Mixed Nuts, chopped

1/4 cup Raisins

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

In a blender jar, beat the egg until fluffy. Add the banana and blend until there are no lumps. Add the jaggery, oil and milk and blend again. Add the flours along with the baking powder and baking soda and blend for a minute or two.

Grease a microwave safe baking dish. Pour the batter into the dish and stir in the chopped nuts and raisins. Bake on high (800) for 8 minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes. Cut into slices and dig in.

I'm glad to be back to cooking, baking and blogging as well. I'm even happier to be able to send this to an event I regularly participated in: The Monthly Mingle. This month, Deeba of Passionate About Baking is hosting this event and I am sending this to Deeba as my entry to Fruit in Baking.

Eggless Chocolate Almond Cookies

Janmashtami! One of the more important festivals for my family. There seemed to be some confusion with the dates. Apparently, it was to be celebrated on the 13th, but everyone around me at work, was celebrating it on the 14th. Then Amma dropped the bombshell last afternoon. She said some folks were celebrating it next month. So, it didn't seem wrong to celebrate it on the 14th after all.

I didn't have the day off as many people in the city did. I thought a lot about what I wanted to make. Two years ago, I made chocolate chip buns for little Krishna. My philosophy is that had Krishna lived in this day and age, as a child he'd have loved Cadbury's. Along the same line of thought, I decided to make chocolate almond fudge this year. But I changed my mind and decided to bake cookies instead. They turned out absolutely divine and I do hope that Krishna had a bite too. A plate of chocolate almond cokies was my neivedyam this year.

¾ cup(generous) Flour

2 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1/8 tsp Cooking Soda

¼ cup Powdered Sugar

1/3 cup (generous) Ghee (Clarified Butter)

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

2 tbsp Almonds, slivered

Cream the sugar and the ghee until well blended.

Sift the flour with the soda. Add this to the sugar-ghee mixture. Add the vanilla essence. Make a dough and divide into small balls. Flatten each ball onto a cookie sheet and sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 C.

Allow to cool and enjoy.

Chocolate Almond Cake

Impromptu dinner invitations. I’m almost always game. I like to have about an hour’s notice though. That is enough to make cake batter, put it in the oven, get ready, get the cake out of the oven, pack it and leave for the venue. I get the feeling that folks who have us over regularly will soon be tired of eating cakes that I take along. Until that happens, I probably will not experiment with other goodies.


Our dear friends were moving to another apartment. They were going from across the street to several streets and main roads away, in the same city. So this was an impromptu “last” get together at that address. I quickly baked this cake to take along. Everyone loved it. We brought some back home and quickly distributed it to friends and colleagues. This is a cake meant for almond lovers. If you don’t like the slight bitter taste that almonds add to your dessert, I would suggest you omit the ground almonds and replace the almond essence with vanilla.

1 1/2 cups Flour

1/3 cup Cocoa Powder

3 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 cup Sugar

a Pinch Salt

1/2 cup Oil

2 eggs

1 cup Milk

1/4 cup Almonds, ground

1 tsp Almond Essence (or Vanilla, if you find Almond essence bitter)

Butter and flour for dusting

Almond slivers for decoration

Sift all the dry ingredients for the cake together into a food processor jar with the dough blade. Pour in all the liquid ingredients and run the processor for 2 minutes.

Prepare two 8 inch round cake tins by first smearing a little butter all over the tin and then dusting it with flour.

Divide the batter equally between the pans and sprinkle the almond slivers over the batter. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. The cakes are done when a knife or skewer inserted into them comes out clean. Transfer the cakes to a cake rack and cool completely.

Cut into wedges and enjoy while the cake is still warm. As always, I'm sure this would be divine with some vanilla ice cream on the side. But that's just a serving suggestion!

Strawberry Almond Cake

Although it was Arundati who sort of pushed me to use fresh fruit in my cakes, Pritika is the one who has eaten the fresh fruit cakes that I've baked. She is most definitely my best PR person. She places orders for cakes with amazing regularity and gives them away to others. It's her way of "getting them hooked", she says. We moved from being just colleagues to being good friends and it has been a wonderful journey. She celebrated her birthday in March and a week later, we invited her along with her husband for dinner. Since she loves fruit in her cake, S brought a box of strawberries. I made this cake by giving a little twist to the strawberry cake I made earlier.

1 cup Flour

1/4 cup Almonds, coarsely powdered
1/2 cup Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda
a Pinch of Salt
1/2 cup Milk

1 cup Strawberries, chopped
1/4 cup Oil
1 tsp Almond Essence
1 Egg, beaten

Slivered almonds for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350F (180 C).

Grease and flour/line an 8-inch cake tin.

Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the powdered almonds and mix well.

In a mixing bowl, add the egg, milk, sugar, oil, and almond essence. Beat well together. Add the flour mixture to this and blend well. Add the chopped strawberries and mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin. Decorate with slivered almonds and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife/skewer, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.

We cut the cake after dinner and relished a slice each. I packed the rest of the cake for Pritika to take back with her. (She told me later that she wouldn't have had it any other way.) Have a lovely year ahead P!

I'm sending this to Go Nuts-Almonds hosted at Tasty Treats.

Beetroot Cake

Just like I'd wanted to try making a carrot cake for ages, ever since I discovered blogosphere, I have wanted to try a beetroot cake. I kept reading the different recipes that people put up and I kept buying beetroots. S didn't seem to like the idea of a beetroot cake and so each time I bought beetroots, I ended up making soup. One time, I made a beetroot kurma of sorts. I put it in sambar. In short, everything but the cake.

Since I also feel that whatever the carrot can do the beet can beat! As Amma and Appa were getting ready to leave yesterday, I decided I had to make something for them to take back. This was my chance to experiment. And what a lovely experiment this turned out to be. I will make this again for sure.

1 cup Beetroot, grated

1/4 cup Carrot, grated

1/4 cup Cashews, powdered

2 tbsp Almonds, powdered

¾ cup Brown Sugar

½ cup Oil
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder
A pinch of Nutmeg Powder
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup Flour

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

¼ cup Raisins

Preheat the oven to 400F (200 C).

Grease and flour/line two 8-inch cake tins.

In a bowl, beat the eggs until light. Add the sugar and oil and beat well. Add the beetroot, carrots, almond and cashew powders and raisins.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and the cinnamon and nutmeg powders. Fold in the beetroot-egg mixture and mix gently until the dry ingredients are moistened. Pour into the prepared cake tins and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife/skewer, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.

Transfer the cakes to wire racks and cool.

This is a great tea-time cake. It would also pair very well with a glass of milk for an after dinner snack.

Carrot Cake

Chitra did it. I can safely put the blame on her this time. This woman had been chasing me for a carrot halwa recipe since the time her little one, D, turned one. I think I gave her some vague inputs as I had never attempted making anything close to a halwa in my life. Finally, she made it last week when her little one turned 18 months. I had other plans. I’ve been wanting to make use of carrots before they go out of season. Sunny days in Delhi can only mean that summer isn’t too far away. And that means that we’ll soon be back to gourds and potatoes and the colourful mandis and redis will have become a thing of the past. But as with everything else in life, I know that winter and spring shall return.


Carrots. I have always loved them. The only thing I haven’t done with them is make upkari. For some reason, I have never liked it. Amma didn’t make it and I had it once at a friend’s place and thought it wasn’t exactly worth it. I can eat carrots in pulao, in salads, in mixed vegetable stir fries, in soups, you get the picture, don’t you? But the upkari/poriyal/karumadu type of thing is just not my stick of carrot!

Carrots as dessert: I’ve always liked them. Carrot Halwa and Carrot Kheer. I haven’t ever attempted to make these. I’m not sure I will. But who knows. Much as I am not a kheer person, I quite liked carrot kheer the one time that I was served it. But the one thing I’ve been wanting to make for over 3 years now since the very first time I tasted it at Barista is the carrot cake. I’ve seen umpteen recipes for this cake. Many called for ingredients I didn’t have at hand. Many seemed unnecessarily complicated. Each of the four books that I acquired over the last few months has at least one recipe for carrot cake. I spent most of last evening poring over each book to come up with a recipe that combines just about all of them. The cake turned out really well and I’m over the moon.

1 ¼ cup Carrots, grated
½ cup Cashews, powdered
¼ cup Almonds, powdered
¾ cup Brown Sugar
½ cup Oil
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder
A pinch of Nutmeg Powder
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup Flour
2 ¼ tsp Baking Powder
¼ cup Raisins

To Decorate:

1 tbsp Icing Sugar, sifted


Preheat the oven to 400F (200 C).

Grease and flour/line an 8-inch cake tin.

In a bowl, beat the eggs until light. Add the sugar and oil and beat well. Add the carrots, almond and cashew powders and raisins.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and the cinnamon and nutmeg powders. Fold in the carrot-egg mixture and mix gently until the dry ingredients are moistened. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes or until a knife/skewer, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.

Transfer the cake to a wire rack and cool. Sprinkle icing sugar over the cake using a small sieve.

My first attempt at making a carrot cake has been successful. I will probably try making a beet cake next. There’s ample time for all that.

I made this little cake to wish my friends S and R a very happy anniversary. And of course, this is also to wish all of you a very Happy Valentine’s Day! We cut it at midnight and relished it. This morning it was neatly cut into several portions to be distributed to friends.

Fruit Cake

There are cakes and then there are cakes... and then there is the fruit cake. The market always fills up with fruit and plum cakes this time of the year. And I while I have this strong urge to buy a cake and eat it, the urge to bake my own is stronger. This year, while I began preparations for my cake in the first week of December, the thought of making caramel put me off. You might all remember the mental fatigue that I experience when I am faced with a slightly arduous task. This seemed to be yet another classic example. I wanted to bake my cake a week before Christmas, so we could eat it on Christmas Day. I finally got down to it on Christmas Day. The picture above is of the cake I've saved for tonight. The one below is of the cake we devoured the very day it was made.

This recipe has been in my family for about 20 years now. And I made it almost every year from the time I discovered it. And exactly where did I discover this oh-so-simple recipe? On the reverse of a Rex Baking Powder label. I think this was about a year after I took an active interest in baking. I figured the recipe had one major error because of which I got pristine white cakes year after year with a generous sprinkling of fruits. The recipe asked me to mix the sugar and water and then boil it to form caramel. It just formed sugar syrup. After a few years, I started burning the sugar to form caramel and from then on I got a totally different avatar. And we were hooked.

This year, however, I made a few more changes to the recipe. I soaked my dry fruits in rum instead of in lime juice (and used twice the quantity of dry fruits and nuts the original recipe called for). I also substituted brown sugar for white sugar.

2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 cup Dry Fruits (figs, apricots, prunes, raisins, currants and sultanas), chopped
1/4 cup Candied Peel
1/4 cup Tutti Fruiti
1/2 cup Mixed Nuts (Walnuts, Cashews, Almonds), chopped
1 cup Dark Rum (optional - you could use 2 tbsp Lime Juice to soak the dry fruits)
1 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
4 eggs
3/4 cup Oil
3 cloves
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

For the Caramel:
1/2 cup Sugar
3/4 cup Boiling Hot Water

Soak the dry fruits, candied peel and tutti fruiti along with the cinnamon powder and cloves in 2/3 cup rum for anywhere between 24 hours and 1 year. (I soaked them for 3 1/2 weeks.) Do remember to remove the cloves before using the fruits.

When you are ready to bake the cake, start by making the caramel. In a heavy bottomed pan, place the 1/2 cup of sugar and heat slowly. The sugar will begin to melt. Stir this mixture with a spoon slowly as the caramel forms. When all the sugar crystals have melted, slowly add the boiling water and stir to form a smooth mixture. Cool this completely.

Sift the flour along with the baking powder. In a mixing bowl, add the oil, eggs and brown sugar and beat well. To this, add the flour mixture, the fruits and the nuts by turns. Whisk well and then add the cooled caramel.

Grease and line two 8 inch baking tins and divide the batter between the two. (I used a loaf tin and an 8 inch square tin.) Bake at 190 C/375 F for about 50 minutes. When baked, make small slits in each cake and pour the remaining rum over them. While this cake is delicious straight out of the oven, try storing it for a week before consuming it. (To do this, wrap the cake in foil and then cover it with cling film.) This cake ages beautifully. In the past, I've never been able to save it long enough as it always disappeared in 2 days. This time around, I have put one cake away and we'll cut it at midnight tonight. A friend ate her bit last night and told me it was wonderful. I really can't wait.

I couldn't have chosen a better item for my last post of 2007. The time of the year demands such a cake and I got a chance to share one of my most treasured recipes with all of you. It is by far the simplest recipe for a fruit cake that I have come across and it tastes divine. Off this goes to Lakshmi and Latha of The Yum Blog as my second entry to AFAM - Dry Fruits.

Just as I have always believed that one can find love in the most unusual of places (and my own life stands testimony to this), I firmly believe that one can find the best of recipes in the most unusual of places. If only we cared enough to look!

Happy New Year!

Badam Kheer

I am not a kheer/payasam person. Whichever way you look at me. But there are a few that I love. Vermicelli and Cream of Wheat (Rava/Sooji) I can relish. The rice, sago and other varieties I really don't care much for. I have never made them and would jump at the idea of eating it should someone offer it to me. I do have a liking for the amchi kheers like Madgane, but I hardly ever make the stuff.

Having said all this, I must admit that there is one beauty that never fails to make me go weak at the knees. I love it so much that I can have it everyday (like that's going to happen!). I even had it served at my wedding as one of the desserts for the muhurtam lunch. (Yes, I had a traditional banana leaf lunch and a traditional banana leaf reception dinner too!) The first time I had this was many years ago. My parents had returned after Appa's brief stint in Eindhoven, Holland and we suddenly had more almonds than we could use. After S and I got married, we somehow never had almonds at home. About 6 months ago, we got a packet of almond slivers from my cousin in Canada. And recently, I decided to buy a packet. And the very next day, I made badam kheer.

1/4 cup Almonds, soaked overnight and peeled
1 tbsp Cashews, soaked overnight
1/2 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (Milkmaid/Mithai Mate)
4-5 cups Milk (I used a litre)
1 tbsp Clarified Butter (Ghee)
2 tsp Raisins
2 tsp Cashews
a pinch Saffron, dissolved in some milk

To garnish (Optional):
Almond Slivers
A few saffron strands

Grind the soaked almonds and cashews to a fine paste adding a little milk.

Bring the milk to a boil in a large vessel and add the condensed milk to it. Keep stirring until the mixture is even (else you'll have burnt condensed milk). Add the cashew-almond paste and the saffron paste and simmer the mixture for about 10-15 minutes. It will begin to thicken nicely.

In a small frying ladle, heat the clarified butter and add the raisins and cashews and fry for a minute or two. Add to the milk mixture.

Garnish with the almond slivers and the saffron strands, if using.

As we complete 13 months of marriage today, I send my favourite kheer to Sunita for her Think Spice... Think Saffron event.

My last post was about how I've been inspired. Now I'd like to introduce someone who has been inspired by me and my blog. My friend and neighbour, S, has just started her own food blog. Please visit http://thedreamingcook.blogspot.com/ and give her the encouragement she needs.

I'm off to the Himalayas again for a weekend of treks and white water rafting. I'll see you all when I get back. Have a happy Dassara.