HOT CROSS BUNS & I.N.R.I. Appam

It's only a few months ago did I realise that people ate Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. I thought it was for Maundy Thursday as we break bread at church and at home. I am not a big fan of the traditional unleavened passover bread I.N.R.I. appam/ Indriappam, we Catholics make in our homes (in Kerala) on Maundy Thursday. I was proved wrong when I tasted the Indriappams they served in our Cathedral in Kannur.

It was really good, filled with grated coconut.Till that year, Amma used to buy hot cross buns from the local bakery and serve it with Pesaha Paal. She didn't want Indriappam to be wasted as no one would like to eat it the next day even though we drink Pesaha Paal like Payasam till it's over. But this year, Jobin asked me if I could make a small Indriappam just for the two of us.

Of course, I obliged but the thought of not having buns with the Pesaha Paal haunted me. Big deal! I'll make both! I remember seeing a recipe on Pioneer Woman's website a few years ago and thought of making that one because whatever I've tried so far from her blog never failed me. I'm not the one who fears yeast because I was never made to fear one! Amma bakes with yeast like there's no tomorrow and everytime I was there next to her she used to chant the mantra,'Make sure you use yeast which is still fresh. Always check for the expiration date'.



Those little mantras made me venture into baking with yeast without even me realising it. It was only after I started food blogging did I realise that many fear or feared yeast at one point in their lives. When people write to me about how I go ahead with recipes and come out with success, I tell them my mantra,'Do not fear the ingredients, they can sense it!' Atleast that's what I have been doing. If I see a recipe I want to try, I just try it. I never think about the what if's, but how's etc. Why waste your precious time pondering over such petty issues? ;-)

So the silky soft  dough was made and then sprinkled with spiced sugar, raisins and rolled into small buns. They were left to rise and that's exactly when he called and told me he's on his way home. He reached home while the buns were baking and when I was in the Cinnamon haven! I was never a fan of Cinnamon and it worsened after moving to the United States. Now, after living here for sometime and eating the best possible Cinnamon Rolls from Tobies, I'm in love with Cinnamon.

HOT CROSS BUNS
Makes 20 buns

Ingredients:
For the buns
2 c milk
1/2 c oil
1/2 c sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
4 c + 1/2 c flour/ maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1/2 c raisins
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Glaze
1/2 egg white
Splash of milk

Frosting
1/2 egg white
5-6 tbsp powdered sugar
Splash of milk

Method: In a big pot, scald the milk along with oil and sugar. Leave it aside for 30 mins. Add yeast, 4 cups of flour and mix well. Cover it with a tea towel and let it rise for 30 mins. Add the remaining 1/2 c flour, baking soda, baking powder & salt. Mix well and dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat it out lightly with your finger.Mix the sugar with the ground spices and sprinkle 1/3rd of it over the dough.Sprinkle some raisins over it. Fold the dough from 4 sides so that the raisins and sugar is inside the fold. Repeat the process twice more till the raisins are over. You may not use all of the spiced sugar. Pull out small balls of dough and roll them into small buns. Place them on a lightly greased baking/cookie sheet and let rise, covered with a tea towel for 1 hour. Brush them with a glaze made using egg white beaten with milk.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F and bake the buns for 18-20 mins or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool completely. Once cooled, frost them with egg white beaten with powdered sugar & thinned with milk if needed. It should be a thick frosting so that it doesn't drip away from the buns.

I.N.R.I / INDRI APPAM
My own recipe
Makes a 6 inch round appam

Ingredients:
2 tbsp urad dal
3/4 c grated coconut
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 large pearl onion/chummanulli
1/2 a clove of garlic (if big), 1 clove (if small)
1 c fine rice flour ( Idiyappam/Pathiri/Appam flour)
1 1/4 c water

Method: Soak urad dal in 1/2 c water for an hour. Grind it to a smooth paste with a teaspoon or two of water. Grind the coconut, cumin, pearl onion and garlic to a smooth paste using very little water.Bring 1 1/4 c water to a rolling boil and add the rice flour to it. Switch off the heat & stir well to mix. Add the ground coconut & urad dal to it and mix well. The batter should be of an Idli batter consistency. Pour into a greased tin, place a cross with the palm,cover with foil and steam for 25-30 mins on medium high heat.

There's something so therapeutic about baking breads at home. I think it's the pleasure of seeing the dough rise in bulk while proving and rising again while baking. What do you think? On the contrary, the Indriappam doesn't even rise an inch higher from the batter level :-) Jobin loved the Pesaha paal and Indriappam so did I. How can you not enjoy it when the other person dips the appam into the paal and takes every bite saying 'The paal and appam is delicious!? :-)

We will be celebrating Easter in Chicago this year, with family. I am super excited about the trip and meeting all of them. My oven has been busy baking a lot this week, most of which is for the family in Chicago and some for the road as we are driving down. It's been a while since we did a road trip and I'm always hungry once the tires start to roll :-)
Tell me, how are you all celebrating this weekend? Any plans?

These Hot Cross Buns are Yeastspotted!

VANILLA SCENTED PLUM CLAFOUTIS

Now a days, I'm trying to incorporate more fruits into my diet and end up picking quite a lot of fruits thinking they all would go into my belly in their raw state. It doesn't happen like that most of the time.No matter how much I try, I end up pairing them with flour, butter & sugar. This one was no exception. Everytime I opened my fridge, I would see the ripe plums sitting pretty in a bowl and staring at me.

Enough of staring dear plums, come to me, let me put you into good use! So I searched a way of using them up, a way I haven't travelled before. Of course, the Google came into my rescue! Just type in those magical words you want to see and there you have it, in all forms right in front of you!

I've noticed that Jobin loves desserts with fruits in them. He scrapes his bowl clean whenever I've made Orange-Blackberry Cobbler, Cherry Crumble, Nectarine-Blueberry Galette,Lavender infused Stone Fruit Tartelettes, Pear & Chocolate Crumble etc in the past. This time, I decided to go with a soft filling like a custard with plenty of fruits in it and see how he would enjoy it. It was a winner all the way!

Clafoutis is a French dessert of  Black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a flan like batter. It is then dusted with powdered sugar and served warm. Source - Wikipedia.

Cherries are not in season here right now but a lot of other stone fruits are. Plums, peaches,nectarines etc are available in plenty. I think most of them are imported as it's still not the season here for the local fruits. The plums which I bought were from Chile. They were the size of an orange we get in India.



The original recipe didn't call for Vanilla but I love using them in everything.I still have a big bag of Organic Vanilla Beans that I carried with me all the way from India. So I pulled out a bean, split into half, scraped it out with the blunt side of my knife and added it to the custard mix. The empty bean was then cut into 4 and was dumped into my sugar container to infuse my regular sugar and convert them into the fragrant vanilla sugar.

The pale yellow custard fleckled with vanilla paired with plums sautéed in butter and sugar was a real delight to our senses. There were some pan juices left behind and I made sure it was all added to the pudding dish along with the plums so that they remain juicy and nice. This is a very quick dessert that you can assemble and bake in a few minutes notice provided you have some ripe fruits on hand.

VANILLA SCENTED PLUM CLAFOUTIS
Recipe source : La Tartine Gourmande

Ingredients:
450g plums
2 tbsp butter + 2 tbsp sugar
2 eggs plus 1 yolk
1/2 c sugar
100 ml cream
3/4 c milk
50g cornflour
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 410 F . Butter your pudding dish and sprinkle some sugar in it.
Wash and stone the plums. Cut them into 2 inch pieces. Melt butter in a pan and add 2 tbsp sugar and fruits to it . Let it cook on med-high for 5 mins.
In a bowl, mix milk and cornflour.In another bowl, beat the eggs + yolk together. Add sugar and mix well. Add cream and mix. Next,add the milk and vanilla to it. Arrange the fruits in your pudding dish and pour the custard mix over it. Bake till golden and puffed,about 28-30 mins. Once they are out of the oven, sprinkle with sugar and eat lukewarm, preferably.

This dessert is good. It's like eating a soft warm pudding filled with fruits. Since the ingredients are pretty basic, I'm sure it will be loved by almost anyone. I cannot wait for the cherry season to begin here so that I can bake these as much as I want to!

A CAKE FOR A BABY SHOWER - 2

Last time, it was just the cake whereas this time, we hosted a baby shower on Saturday for a dear blog reader turned a very good friend of ours, R & R. It's really amazing how people get to know each other and how things turn out to be in a matter of  a few months!! R & R are expecting their first baby GIRL in April and we are super duper excited to have hosted her baby shower and also cannot wait to hold that precious little thing!

If you know me any bit, you will know that I can really get into the details of each and everything if I wanted to.That reminds me of our wedding. I was a bridezilla. I went crazzzyy with details and still feel that I could have done a LOT better.I really feel sad for all those who were a part of that journey with me.I must have fought with every possible person who I came across to get those things done :-) I think everything would have been under control if we lived anywhere other than Kannur because sourcing anything is a big thing there :-) Whatever said and done, Kannur is my most favourite place on earth!!

This time, I was bent upon finishing all the baking, decorating and shopping a day before R's big day. I couldn't afford to miss on anything and then have a panic attack at the last minute. I have had enough of those and I'm not up for any more of it ;-) So 2 days before their big day, we both sat down and sorted out all what we bought. I was telling Jobin that I love doing such stuffs and that it reminded me of my birthday parties Appan & Amma used to host when I was a kid. I remember fighting to get a 'carry home' gift for myself.

So that night once I finished baking the all the cakes and cupcakes, I sat down to pack the cupcakes up which would be the favors. I asked Jobin to help me with it because it was already late in the night and I was really sleepy after the productive day. But once I was on it, there was no looking back, I don't know where I got the energy from and where all the tiredness went off to.

Jobin told me we could finish the later next day. I just smiled and told him,'I could do this all night!' :-) Give me something to do creatively and I can be up all day all night!

I baked 2 x 8inch  Chocolate Fudge Cakes , 2 x 6 inch Chocolate Fudge Cake cakes which were sandwiched and covered with a rich chocolate buttercream. The cakes and 24 cupcakes were later covered with fondant. It's that simple! : ) 

I really hope you enjoyed looking at the cake as much as I enjoyed baking and decorating it. I just love such days. It gets the best out of me. Once again...oh how I love saying this...I'm not a Wilton product :-)

TROPICAL MANGO PUDDING CAKE

The weather is so good right now in Minneapolis. It's perfectly warm during the day and cool during night.The Spring has sprung all over and we are enjoying this beautiful weather before Summer hits here. We get extreme temperatures so we are really not sure which season are we actually looking forward to! Anyhow, when I decided to make this dessert, I thought of sticking to one of my current favourite colours, Yellow!

So for the pudding cake, I stuck to mango as  it is definately the top choice at the moment for colour & taste and since I had a big can of puree with me, I did not see a reason why I shouldn't be using it! Plus, it's the best thing to use when you are not sure about the sweeteness of the mangoes you get in stores in Spring.That way you are sure to have a consistency for your recipes every time you need to make one!

This was meant to be a birthday cake for my relative who is also a grown up like us. So I made it less fancy and kept it simple. The cake was baked in a jiffy with the recipe that's engraved on my brain which is also the same recipe I used for the Mixed fruit Swiss Roll,Coffee - Chocolate Triangle Cake,Checkerboard Cake etc. The pudding hardly took any time to make and once it was layered up, I left them in the fridge to set. It's a quick cake - dessert if you have things handy.

I baked this cake having a totally different plan in mind but in the end, it was cut out into circles and got stuffed into my little cake rings. I love using cake rings because it gives you  your personal share of the dessert which clearly means...no sharing! It was a birthday gift  from Jobin 2 years ago and I've not been using it much as he would love me to. Mocha Marble Cheesecaklets were baked in it but other than that, none of them have appeared on the blog :-)

If you don't have the puree, you can always use the fresh ripe mangoes and puree them with sugar to taste. I usually use that but this time,like how I mentioned before I had a tin full of pulp with me which I bought a while back to make some Mango Lassi. Talk about that lassi,it's the most popular flavour in stores here and I love it!

TROPICAL MANGO PUDDING  CAKE
Recipe source for the cake : Amma
Ingredients for the cake:
1 c flour minus 2 tbsp
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 c sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F and line a jelly roll pan.
In a clean, dry bowl beat the sugar and eggs on high for 12 mins. Add the vanilla and beat for 10 secs. Fold in the flour and cornstarch, carefully without deflating it. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 15-18 mins or until the top is pale brown and is springy to touch.
As soon as it is out of the oven, loosen the sides if need be and invert the cake onto a kitchen towel which was sprinkled with some sugar before. Remove the parchment and let the cake cool.Brush the cake with some water just to moisten it. Cut out rounds to fit your small cake rings.

Ingredients for the Eggless Mango Pudding
My own recipe
1 1/2 c heavy whipping cream
1  c sweetened mango puree
4 tbsp sugar or to taste
1 tbsp gelatin dissolved in 3 tbsp water

Method: Whip the cream to stiff peaks along with sugar and then fold the puree in. Melt the gelatin, cool it for a minute and then fold  it into the pudding / mousse.

Assembly: Place a round of the moistened cake in the cake ring and pour some mousse over it, cover it with another piece of cake and repeat. The top layer should be the mousse.Decorate as you wish. Refrigerate till set, for about 4-5 hours. Serve cold.

After the circles were cut up, there were some odd shapes left behind. So Jobin & I slathered some pudding over it and popped them into our mouths. It was seriously yummy! Infact I do it all the time to know how the end product would taste like :-) Try this quick dessert for your next party and make sure you eat the scraps too!

KABULI CHANNA BIRIYANI

I've been getting a lot of complaints these days from friends and family alike. It's just because I'm not posting any veggie recipes during this season of Lent. They said they are loosing their control seeing the Fried Chicken Kabab!So I posted a Lemon Yogurt Cake and the complaints increased because a lot of them have given up sugar for lent! :-) Some of them did try the Garam Masala Pulao but for some , they needed something more than just a pulao!

I love Channa, in any form. Some of my favourites are Sundal, Channa Masala, Papdi chaat or even just plain salted boiled channa. The black channa is also dearly loved in the form of a Kannur curry called Kootucurry. I use Kabuli Channa/ White channa/ Chickpeas more than the black ones. Jobin loves a good Chana Masala with Batura,so do I. Luckily the weather is super good in Minneapolis now and I can make Baturas to our hearts content without thinking of the fact that the oil smell is going to hang around in our condo for the next two days...just leave the balcony door wide open!

It's been a while since I've been thinking about a pulao/biriyani with this wonderful source of protein. I've seen quite a few recipes in cookbooks and on foodblogs but nothing tempted me as I wanted a greenish tinge to my rice. So last night, I went ahead and soaked some channa so that things would be easier the next day.

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This recipe might look like it's lengthy but trust me, it isn't. You can easily pull it off in less than 45 mins, if you plan as I planned :-) As much as I love to cook, I hate spending a lot of time in the kitchen, especially near the stove!

DELICIOUS CHANNA BIRIYANI
My own recipe

Ingredients:
1 c channa, soaked overnight
2 c basmati rice
5 green chilies
1/2 c grated coconut
2 tsp ginger-garlic paste
4 cloves, 4 green cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick
1 large onion, diced
1 tomato,diced
2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 bunch mint leaves,chopped fine
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped fine
2 tsp lime juice or to taste
Salt to taste
4 tbsp oil
2 tbsp ghee
4 c water

Method: While you pressure cook the soaked chickpeas with some salt for 3-4 whistles, soak the rice for 30 mins. Meanwhile, get the other ingredients ready.Grind the coconut, ginger garlic paste and green chilies together, to a rough paste without adding any water.

In a non-stick pot, heat oil and ghee together. Add the whole spices and stir for 30 secs. Add the onions and cook till they are golden brown.Add the tomatoes and cook till mushy, about 1 minute. Add the powders and saute for 30 secs. Add the ground paste and saute for a minute. Add salt & herbs. Mix well. Add the boiled channa and let it cook in the masala for a minute. Add the soaked and drained rice and fry for a minute. Add 4 cups of water to it, check for salt and finally pour the lime juice and stir to mix, carefully so that the rice grains don't break. Cover and cook on medium heat till the rice is done!

Whenever I experiment, I wait for the smell of the dish to fill the house. I think everyone can judge how good or how bad a particular dish is going to be depending on it's smell :-) This time, I was in a biriyani haven and I knew I had nailed it! Serve it with a bowl of chilled Raita and maybe some papad too.

All you meat lovers...make it and eat it because you will not miss meat in this atleast during this season of Lent! :-)

MY LEMON YOGURT CAKE

Ibaked my very own cake,for the first time! When I say that, I mean, I didn't use anybody's recipe but my own proportions to bring it all together.Don't ask me how I got till there...it was a long bumpy ride on a very dull Thursday. Fortunately the end result was mind blowing that being sad the whole day didn't matter after all! All the thoughts, worries and confusions yielded in an awesome sauce lemony cake!
OK. I have to tell you that long story and I am not going to cut it short :-)

Last Thursday was quite eventful at home, on the lines of baking. I tried my hand at baking a piped cookie whose dough was just not pipe-able so I rolled them into small balls and baked it. It came out just OK and not so good as the recipe stated. It was a butter cookie and there was a lot of butter in it. I cannot waste butter even if I have to waste the rest of the ingredients. Yeah! I'm like that.

So after a so-so butter cookie, I thought I'll do something to get me going.It's been days since I've been longing to eat a lemon flavoured cake. The hunt was on for a good recipe but seriously, I couldn't get one. During our many e-mails throughout the day, Jobin mentioned he was going for out with his colleagues after work and will be late to get back home. I got that email right after that stupid cookie and when all my search for the perfect lemon cake came to a full stop.

I whined. I wrote back saying 'I'm sad.I want to eat a nice plain lemon cake.I cannot find any recipe.Tried baking a cookie. Flop aayi. Sad.' I mean, seriously...when there are so many food blogs and recipe websites, how is it that I cannot find one recipe which sounded good to me??? Most of them had some sort of a topping going over the hot cake and I didn't want that extra sugar going into our bodies, if I could help it. So I thought I'll compromise and start on with Amma's recipe for her famous cake. That was the beginning...just the beginning of everything!

I took out my brand new digital weighing scale that I was sent for a review and started off measuring butter and sugar. I dumped them into my Reddie to do it's work. Then I moved onto measuring the flour and I painstakingly realised that I was short on it! The butter and sugar was busy creaming up and I don't have enough flour! Ok, let's move onto Plan B...I shall make do with some wheat flour then. Hmph! Ok, now grab the eggs...and for some strange reason, I knew there were not  many eggs left in the fridge. Sadly,it was true.I looked back at my Reddie and couldn't even think of dumping that butter!

Seriously, that was not my day! I am usually very careful and pull out all the ingredients before I start baking and I have no clue what was going on with me that day! I was so let down that I couldn't get a simple cookie right and finally this cake too? Like I said before, the end result changed everything! :-)

RIA'S LEMON YOGURT CAKE
My own recipe

Ingredients:
180g unsalted butter, softened
240g sugar
3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
Zest & ( 3 tbsp ) juice of  1 lime or lemon
200g maida/all purpose flour
40g whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp yogurt

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Line a 9 inch baking tin.
In a bowl, whisk together flours, salt, baking powder & baking soda.In another large bowl, beat together butter and sugar till creamy,for 2 mins. Add the eggs one by one and beat for 30 secs after each addition. Add the lime juice and zest and beat for 30 secs. The mixture will curdle but it doesn't matter. Add the flour mix and beat to incorporate. Add the yogurt and beat on high for a minute or two. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 1 hour 10 mins. Your oven timings maybe different, so keep checking from 45 mins.

*Updated on 26/4/2020 - Over the years I revised the method for making the cake batter. Add all the ingredients into a bowl and beat it on high speed using a hand mixer for 2 minutes.

• My current oven bakes the cake in 45 minutes.
• You can use 4 whole eggs instead.
• You can use 240 grams of maida/ all purpose flour instead.
• My 1 cup flour measures 120 grams and 1 cup sugar 200 grams. 

I always dreamt about creating my own cake recipes and never did I even dream that it would be through an accident, a very careless accident! I've actually had a successful accident a while ago and it grabbed me 1st place at a competition too! So, no complaints with accidents! ;-) Don't worry, this cake wouldn't stick to the bottom of your pan as you saw in a photograph above, I was just piling up the crumbs into the tin after I got the cake out of it.

This cake was so so soft that I feared it would crumble in my hands when I unmoulded it. The lemon taste was spot on and the cake was so buttery & incredibly moist! I am so proud of myself ! :-) It really is a wonderful delicious lemon yogurt cake!