Rasam powder

I have been taking my stash of spice-mixes for granted. And then, one fine day, when I was scraping at the bottom of the rasam-powder-bottle, I nonchalantly walked over to the fridge and opened the freezer to retrieve a nicely packed  bag of home-made rasam-powder. Except this time, my hands groped at nothing... no more bags labeled "rasam powder" showed itself. Horror of horrors! I had actually run out of home-made rasam powder! But before I let myself panic, I just called my resourceful mother-in-law and noted down the recipe to make some rasam-powder at home. 

And here is the actual recipe!

Ingredients:

1. Coriander seeds / Dhania - 250 grams
2. Dried red chillies -  100 grams
3. Cumin seeds / jeera - 50 grams
4. Black pepper corns - 50 grams
5. Bengal gram dhal / Kadala paruppu - 50 grams
6. Turmeric - 50 grams

Dry roast each spice separately until they roast a little and emit their essential oils and flavors. Grind, mix, and store in an airtight container!

This makes a big bottle of rasam-powder. Just to approximate, I equated 50 grams to 1/4 cup.

Some families don't really use separate spice-mixes for sambar and rasam. One versatile powder is used for sambar, rasam, and other dishes that take curry powder. But, I think the addition of cumin and pepper in rasam powder makes a delicious difference in the way your rasam turns out. 

Rhubarb Chocolate Brownie

It's that time of the year when we start receiving and (hopefully harvesting) some local produce. Anand's colleague faithfully gives us some fresh rhubarbs from his garden. And every year, I wonder what to do with them. Rhubarbs are quite sour, so they are mostly used in sweet preparations. Rhubarbs and strawberries are a favorite combination. It is cooked down with strawberries and sugar to make compote (sort of like jam), baked with strawberries in a pie crust to make awesome pie, or made into crunchy, delicious crumbles/crisps. But I chanced across this recipe which uses rhubarb compote to make chocolate brownies! I was sold!

I did make some changes to the recipe. For one, the brownies were not Mexican, they turned Indian, of course. Instead of Mexican chilli powder, I added 2 teaspoons of cardamom powder. Secondly, I had two cups worth of cut rhubarbs, so I used all of the resulting compote in the brownie batter (instead of just 1 cup worth) - and it arguable made the batter & brownies more moist and fudge-like (my rhubarb compote was prepared by cooking 2 cups of peeled and chopped rhubarb in 1/2 cup of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar until soft and mushy. I then add pureed the cooked rhubarbs). Finally, instead of melting 4 ounces worth of chocolate bars, I used 1 cup of Ghirardelli's unsweetened cocoa powder. Due to these changes and additions, the brownies took 80 minutes (1 hour and 30 minutes) to bake at 350 F. Even then, the center of the brownies remained a tad fudgey, so my cake tester never came out clean.

So, my version is more of a fudge-brownie. Vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, and chocolate baked with the sour rhubarb compote has conjured up a uniquely tasting moist brownie! I am hoping this would be a good sweet to welcome a newly-married-chocolate-loving friend and his wife!

Spicy Cheddar Scones

Too many desserts have gone by without something spicy and savory. So, in the birthday spirit of a good friend, I prepared these savory scones that I adapted from here.

 Ingredients:

1. 2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1 tablespoon baking powder
3. 1 teaspoon salt
4. 1.5 teaspoons chilli powder
5. 1 teaspoon pav-bhaaji masala powder (optional)
6. 1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces
7. 1/2 cup buttermilk
8. 2 tablespoons flax-seed whisked in 6 tablespoons lukewarm water
9. 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese 

 Preparation:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together - the flour, baking powder, salt, chilli powder, and pav-bhaaji powder.
2. Work the butter into the dry ingredients. Use a fork, or your fingers to mash and mix the butter into the flour until the butter is the size of peas.
3. Slightly whip together the buttermilk and flax-seed mixture. Add it to the above mixture and gently fold everything together until the dough comes together. 
4. Finally, add the cheese and gently mix. 
5. Empty the dough onto a floured board and knead it a couple of times to pull it together. 
6. Pat the dough evenly into almost 3/4 inch thickness. With a blunt knife, cut the dough into triangles (or use a cookie-cutter to cut into rounds). 
7. Arrange the pieces on an oiled baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes on a preheated 400 F oven until the scones are brown around the edges.

Serve with ketchup and some tea/coffee.

Nutella Mug Cake

Anand finished his first half-marathon today! He was so disciplined about the training and enthusiastically counted down the days. And, of course, he has shed even more weight. Those who see him would have no idea that his wife does feed him. 

To commemorate his strenuous accomplishment and to re-fatten him up a little, I thought I would bake this 5-minute chocolate mug cake. I came across this recently and immediately noted it down. It sounded simple and easy, and it seemed like a good idea to bake a couple of small mug-cakes to nibble on for a day or two. So, I tried it today and it turned into a gigantic, souffle-like chocolate lava that set in mid-eruption. Hmm, and I thought this would be a "small" treat. The cake rises quite a bit, so grab the biggest mug on hand.

But, this is still a great recipe! I recommend it.  It's super easy to make, and the cake turned out to be super moist and super chocolatey. It took exactly 3 minutes on my microwave to bake this cake. It really is a 5 minute cake! One thing that I should mention (just common baking lesson) - mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not over-mix.

Of course, in our case, two overflowing mug-cakes didn't really help with my motivation to make a simple and small dessert. I would advise dividing the batter (that's needed to prepare 1 mug-cake) into 2 mugs and baking them for one and a half minutes each.

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake

It's no secret that Anand loves chocolates. So, to celebrate his milestones and achievements, I have been trying different variations of chocolate-based desserts. I gave him a few options for his recent achievement, and he picked this one - a chocolate tres leches cake. A Tres Leches cake is a South-American cake that is made with three types of milk (tres leches) - condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk/cream. After a bit of research, I followed the recipe from here. The recipe is pretty accurate and reliable - if you faithfully follow every step and reserve a whole day to get this cake ready.

This cake has an ice-cream like custard sandwiched between two layers of rich chocolate cake. Putting together the entire cake is a bit time-consuming. It's not really labor intensive as the individual steps are mostly easy and straightforward. But, time was a major battle for me because the custard in the middle took forever to complete - the milk and cream had to be heated up and cooled, then mixed with lots of egg-yolks, then baked for 50 minutes, then cooled at room temperature for some time, then cooled in the freezer for sometime, then transferred to a plastic-wrapped plate and frozen for 4 hours. Then, it is assembled between the cooled chocolate cake layers. A creamy rum sauce is poured over it and again chilled for 2 hours. So, I was scrambling for bits and pieces of time to get this done, and as fate always has it, everything something had to go wrong! For one, the trusty oven mysteriously turned itself off in the middle of baking the chocolate cake that was rising beautifully. My dim-witted brain took 35 minutes to figure out something was wrong with the oven after pondering hard over why the cake took so long to bake... it took three times as long to get this delicious cake to finally bake - which meant, more frantic scrambling of time. This is the day when I also get to hear of parties and visitors and deadlines within the next 12 hours. Wait, there's more. As I transfer the custard onto the plate, part of it falls off the plate, almost ruining 2 1/2 hours of work. I try to think quick, pull the broken/fallen custard into a mass, wrap it in plastic and freeze it at the highest setting, periodically shaping it to resemble a nice disc. 

Anyway, after all the frustration with the custard, I wasn't wowed by the final product. The custard doesn't seem worth the effort. I would recommend skipping it. But then, my personal goof-ups could have been the reason for the sub-par custard.The chocolate cake is pretty delicious, though - but then, it isn't a tres leches cake without the custard. Well, maybe the sauce that's soaked into the chocolate cake would make up for it. 

Finally, I macerated some berries in a couple of teaspoons of sugar and Grand Marnier for an hour, and topped them on the finished cake. 

P.S: Thank you so much Sindhu, for the many lovely pictures of the cake!