Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Eggless Mango Cake


Ingredients
All purpose flour/wheat flour: 1.25 cups

Thick Mango pulp: 1 cup (I used 2 small mangoes)
Condensed Milk: 14 oz can
Butter:1/2 cup
Cardamom: 5 or 6 pods
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Baking soda: 1 tsp

Procedure:
Step1:
Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and baking soda)

Step2:
Melt butter in microwave for 15 seconds and add condensed milk to it.
Whisk it until both are mixed together

Step3:
Peel the mangoes and blend it in a mixer/blender along with cardamom seeds.Add 1 cup of pulp to the butter, condensed milk mixture and mix well

Step4:
Gently mix both the wet and dry ingredients. Do not over mix

Step5:
Pour the batter in a 9" cake pan and bake in a preheated oven of 350F for around 30 minutes

Notes:
  • If the mango is not sweet enough add 2 tablespoon of sugar while grinding
  • I have not tried this with store bought mango pulp. It will be slightly thinner than the homemade pulp.
  • Nuts like almonds and cashews can also be added
  • I have tried this with wheat flour as well. Though the texture may not be equivalent, it tastes good. You can use 3/4 cup of wheat flour and 1/2 cup of All purpose flour.
  • Instead of cardamom powder vanilla extract can also be used but personally I feel this goes well with cardamom flavor

Thursday, August 2, 2012

AVAL PAYASAM

This is one of the simple and easy payasam that can be prepared in no time.This can be prepared as a Neivedhyam for Krishna jayanthi and Navarathri too when we are pressed for time

Aval payasam

Ingredients
Aval/Poha/Rice Flakes: 1/2 cup
Milk:1 cup
Powdered Jaggery: 1/2 cup
Cashew: 6
Raisin: 4 (optional)
Cardamom: 2 pods
Ghee: 2 tsp

Procedure:
Step1:
Add 2 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry the cashews and raisin and keep it aside

Step3:
In the same pan fry the rice flakes until it becomes light fluffy. If you use thick variety this will take little long. 

Step4:
Add milk and simmer for around 5 minutes.Switch off the stove and allow to cool for a while.
Meanwhile boil 1/4 of water and just melt the jaggery 


Step5:
Now add the jaggery syrup and powdered cardomom and mix well

Step6:
Add the fried cashew and raisin

Notes:
The major problem with using jaggery is, the payasam will curdle if jaggery is added when it is still hot
Once the aval is cooked in milk, switch off the flame and allow it to cool for atleast 5 minutes.Similarly jaggery syrup should also not be piping hot.Both can be warm but not hot
When jaggery and milk are mixed when both are hot,the payasam will definetly curdle
If you are in a hurry, use sugar instead of jaggery. If adding sugar no need to wait until the payasam is cooled.This will also taste equally good