Eggless Cookies

My friend Vidya was on a lookout for cookies without using refined flour or maida. One evening, she came to my place with balls of cookie batter and told me to preheat my oven to 180C and bake them.
The cookies got fantastically burnt as we were chatting and forgot about them; also since I always use auto bake option I am not sure about the time I need to bake them.
But we managed to taste the one lonely cookie that had managed to escape charring and loved it.
So I baked a small batch the next day on of course auto bake and they were good. (it requires 15 minutes) You could try baking at 120 C till they are golden brown. My daughters, the chocolate worshippers since they wanted chocolate flavor so I made them with cocoa and chocolate chips. Next time I am going to smuggle in a few oats.

The ingredients are very simple
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup Bombay Rava
1 cup besan
1 cups ghee
1 cups powdered sugar
1tsp baking powder
2 tblsps curd (optional)
4 tblsps cocoa
Chocolate chips
Method:
1. Beat the sugar and ghee till fluffy.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well to form soft dough.
3. Since my dough was very dry I used curd to bind the mixture.
4. I let the dough rest in the fridge for 1 hour and baked about 12 cookies. As I was feeling lazy I let the dough stay in the fridge for 1 day and baked again I was surprised that they turned out much better than the earlier days.

Grape Jam

I made Strawberry Jam and posted the recipe. I also mentioned that I made “Grape Jam”. Grape Jam I made was out of black grapes and got a lovely purple colour.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 kg Black grapes (seedless)

A little less than ½ a teacup sugar.

Method:

1.  Remove all the stalks and soak the grapes in salted water of about 1-2 hours. Change the water once in between. (This is to get rid of all the pesticides).

2.  Transfer al l the grapes to a container and pressure cook, 1 whistle.

3.  Cool the grapes and strain them. Reserve the water.

4.  Grind the grapes to a fine paste in the mixer and transfer to a thick bottomed pan. Add the reserved water and the sugar.

5.  Stir and cook on medium flame. Till the mixture thickens a bit.

6.   Lower the flame and now stir continuously till the mixture clumps together. You could perform the plate test here.

7.  Transfer to dry bottles. Take care to keep the bottles on wooden surface while transferring the jam and let it cool on the wooden surface only.

Plate test for Jams

This is the plate test to test the readiness of jam.

In the plate test  pour a small quantity of jam on a cold plate. Chill it in the freezer for 30 seconds. If your jam is ready it will be firm to touch. Remove the pan from heat.

Strawberry Jam

 I enjoy having food with my colleagues in the afternoon. It’s not a big assembly but all the same enjoyable all of us share what we carry and food tastes better and of course you learn new recipes or learn a modification.

Alba had brought “Strawberry Jam” and also “Grape Jam” and of course I had to try it out.

The best part is both the jams don’t need any colour.

I will post the pictures next time I make them.

Ingredients you will need are

450 grms strawberry

225 grms sugar.

Method:

1.   Crush strawberries in the mixer (only one round).

2.   Transfer to a thick bottomed pan and add sugar.

3.    Heat on medium flame till the mixture stars to thicken. Till this point you can stir occasionally.

4.  Once the mixture starts to thicken lower the flame and stir continuously till the mixture clumps together.

5.  Transfer to dry bottles. Take care to keep the bottles on wooden surface while transferring the jam and let it cool on the wooden surface only.

PS. This is the plate test to test the readiness of jam.

In the plate test  pour a small quantity of jam on a cold plate. Chill it in the freezer for 30 seconds. If your jam is ready it will be firm to touch. Remove the pan from heat.