Chocolate Pudding

 I love the fact that my family is waiting for me to unveil the desserts these days!

 Normally I do not make desserts.  I live with a family of picky eaters (who does not) but my elder one, Apeksha   does not eat sweets, younger one, Akanksha is not predictable, dairy milk and she is happy, hubby avoids them and FIL is diabetic. It’s too much trouble for the one person left ...me!

I would rather rack my brains for something that we will all eat. This rarely happens!

In preparation of BM #20  I make this pudding and un-moulded.  Was I in for a surprise? I had absolutely no expectations from it. In fact I was not expecting it to come out so beautifully ... no sticky mould, And so very smooth....

Even as I was admiring it I was wondering what the topping should be when disaster struck! Akanksha tasted it and gave me a lot of “bad press.”

Mocha Mousse Cake

This is one dish that I enjoyed making.

 Why? My daughters helped me, one of the few rare times when they came in willingly and helped me happily. This was my best Valentine gift from them both. Thanks Kiddos! I love you “gais” (in case you want to misunderstand I am talking about the cow)J.

This one is a Tarla Dalal recipe something that I had bookmarked long long ago. Need I say more?

Egg-less Crème Brulee

Egg less Creme Brulee

Over the years I have collected many cookbooks and have used a few, very few. So my resolve was to try at least a few of the recipes that I have read about. So with Valentine down the corner I decided to make something sweet.


The moment I say I am making something sweet my family starts distracting me. The idea is to get me out of the mood and they generally succeed. This time however they did not know what I was up to so I made this easy recipe from Tarla Dalal’s “Cooking and More” that my Dad had gifted me. And they loved it.


Crème Brulee that I had read about you need to steam the custard and eggs here you need not. As I do not have ramekins I did not set them in individual. This had me serving the caramel in the form of a biscuit.


Ingredients:
3 cups milk
1 tblspn vanilla custard powder (as I did not have custard powder I used corn flour and 1 drop of yellow food colouring)
1/3 cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
5 grms agar agar cut into small pieces
¼ cup nuts (I used some almonds and cashew nuts)
½ cup sugar


Method:


1. Soak the agar agar in ¾ cup of cold water for a minimum of 5 minutes. Cook on low flame till it dissolves and keep aside.
2. Mix the corn flour with ½ cup cold milk and keep aside.
3. Heat the remaining milk on low flame with 3 tblspn sugar, when it starts boiling add the corn flour mixture and continue cooking till you get a smooth sauce.
4. Add the agar agar to the custard and boil again for 2 minutes. Strain the mixture and d cool slightly.
5. Add the nuts and mix well. You can at this stage add to individual serving bowls and refrigerate till firm. I used one bowl only to refrigerate.
6. Just before serving heat the ½ cup sugar with 1/3 cup water stir till sugar dissolves. Then let it heat on low flame till the colour of the syrup is light brown and is caramelized.
7. Pour over the set custard serve immediately.


I am sending this to http://www.brendascanadiankitchen.com/p/cookbook-sundays_01.html