Pound Cake French Toast Recipe

In my opinion, Pound Cake French Toast is The King of all French Toasts.. You can't beat that, can you? This is so easy yet so impressive(if you have already made pound cake at home). You serve it with a sauce, cream, syrup, fresh fruit or a fine dusting of sugar it JUST doesn't matter. 

So here is how we do it.(pssttt....this recipe is for one person)

Ingredients :-

2 slices of pound cake

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp sugar

1 tbsp butter

 Fruit of your choice

Confectionery sugar/maple syrup/caramel sauce/whipped cream/ice cream (optional)

Method

In a bowl, crack an egg open and add milk and sugar, Beat well for a minute. Heat a pan and let the butter melt(medium heat).

 While the butter is melting, slice the 2 pieces of pound cake and soak each slices of pound cake in the egg mixture making sure they are well coated, 

Place the pound cake slices on the hot pan(Ahhh..that sizzling sound..party on the pan). Toast each side for 1 minute or till golden brown.

Serve it fruits and maple syrup/caramel sauce/whipped cream/ice cream.

If you are dusting it with powdered sugar make sure the french toast has cooled down a bit.

Click here for the pound cake recipe and Grilled Pound Cake with Nectarines and Ice-cream

Happy Cooking!

Pal Payasam Recipe (Keralean Rice Pudding)

Paal(Milk) Payasam(Kheer/Pudding) is a rice pudding made in the southern parts of India. In Kerala cuisine there are different kinds of payasams but this is one of the easiest,trust me! Usually this is served when you have a sadya(kerala feast) for a wedding or Onam, I made this recently when we had a get together at my cousin's and my husband loved it. 

The difference between the western rice pudding and the Keralean rice pudding is that Keralites use cardamom as flavouring instead of cinnamon or nutmeg. I have never seen my mom making payasams without cardamom.She uses 'broken' brown rice which is the best but I couldn't get that so I used brown rice. But I have seen people using basmati rice and sona masoori rice. The point is you have to cook the rice in milk till its soft. I will always prefer making payasam with rice which takes a long time to cook beacause I want the milk to reduce down.

Ingredients:-

1/2 cup Rice

2 liters milk

1 can condensed milk

4 Cardamom(1/4 tsp of cardamom powder)

1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp Ghee 

1/4 cup Raisins 

1/2 cup chopped cashew nuts

Methods

1)Pressure cook rice, cardamom and milk for 20 minutes and leave this to rest for another half an hour, After the resting time is over, mix in the condensed milk. Check for the sweetness and garnish with raisins and nuts fried in ghee

OR

2) In a heavy bottomed pot cook rice with cardamom, milk and condensed milk over medium low flame.  I cooked this for one and a half hours. Keep checking the sweetness of the payasam and add sugar if required. I had to add 1/4 cup of sugar. Fry the raisins and cashew nuts in ghee and mix with the payasam, This is the method I used because I had to double the quantity and my poor lil pressure cooker was not big enough.

Serve chilled!

HAPPY COOKING!

Fudgy Brownie Recipe

I love brownies and I enjoy baking them too. I was going to see my niece last weekend and I wanted to make something for her-something easy yet rich.  If you are a 'chocoholic' like my family give this a try, you won't be disappointed.This has a thick crackle top with a dense moist inside. And I don't know why I feel brownies taste better the next day after its baked!! 

There are three types of brownies- 'cakey', chewy and fudgy. Fudgy brownies are my favorite because of its richness. I have always felt that this brownie tastes the best after a day or two. Secrets? Well, the overload of melted chocolate and the really well beaten eggs. You have to beat the eggs with the sugar on high speed till it becomes pale and frothy. This gives the meringue like texture to the brownies yet so dense and rich inside because of the melted chocolate and egg yolks.

These brownies can be frozen and this recipe makes about 16 large brownies.

Let get right into the recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips(I substituted 1/2 cup with dark chocolate)

1/2 cup or 110 g butter at room temperature

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

Plain flour 1/2 cup

Almond meal 3/4 cup

salt 1/4 tsp

cinnamon powder 1/4 tsp(optional)

Brandy or rum 2 tsp (optional)

1/4 cup chopped nuts(optional)

You can even add some white chocolate chips. However, I like this plain :-)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F(180 C)

Butter an 8 inch square pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Mix flour, almond meal, salt, cinnamon powder and nuts(if using) and keep aside.

Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring (double boiler method). I always melt the butter a lil bit and then add the chocolate chips. I don't want the chocolate to get burnt you see.

When the chocolate and butter has completely melted, remove from heat and keep this aside to cool.

 Meanwhile, put sugar and eggs into a bowl and beat this till pale and frothy. 

I used an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. This takes about 3 minutes. This will make sure that our brownies will get a crackly top.Add vanilla essence.

Add chocolate mixture to to the egg mixing well.  Fold in the flour mixture. If you are using any alcohol and add that too.

Bake this 30 to 40 minutes. Do not over bake this.

 The top will be cracked and when you insert a tooth pick 

it should come out with moist crumbs,

 Cool this  and cut this into pieces serve this plain or with vanilla ice cream. You are supposed to cool this for a few hours but I couldn't wait to get my hands on these. 

Happy Cooking!

Silky Smooth Creme Caramel Recipe

When I was growing up, my mom used to make creme caramel a.k,a caramel custard pudding. This is one of my cherished memories because this is one of the most delicious dessert yet one of the simplest. The silky-smooth-melt in your mouth texture is just divine, 

   There are different ways of making creme caramel. For this recipe I used condensed milk.
                             

Ingredients

For the Caramel

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

For the Custard

1 can condensed milk

3 eggs

325 ml milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 pinches of salt

Method

Butter the ramekins and keep aside

Making the caramel will take only about 5 -6 minutes.In a heavy bottom pan, melt the sugar and butter on medium high heat. You can brush the sides of the pan  as it prevents the sugar from crystallizing. 

When you see the color changing to orange-brown on the side of the pan, give the pan a swirl. In seconds, you will see the entire sugar syrup turn orange-brown.

 Quickly and 'CAREFULLY' pour the caramel syrup into the ramekins,

Now, in a blender mix the condensed milk, milk, eggs and vanilla essence for not more than a minute,

Pour the custard through a strainer into the ramekins

Carefully cover each ramekin with aluminium foil*. This is a very important step that you should not avoid. Otherwise you will end up having tough and grainy creme caramels instead of soft- smooth -melt in your mouth creme caramels.

You can either steam this for 20 minutes or bake this for 25 minutes at 325 degrees on a water bath. I prefer the steaming method because that's how my mom makes caramel pudding.

If you don't cover the ramekins with an aluminium foil properly you will end up getting  a creme caramel on the right side in the picture below. We want the left hand side one! 

Cool this in the fridge for 2 hours. To unmould, run the knife around of each ramekins and invert onto the serving plate, gently shaking our creme caramels to release from the bottom of the ramekins. You can tap on the bottom of the ramekins. I did!

And this happend!

And it kept on happening

Yumm,..Silky smooth..

It never fails! Try it!

  

                                                           HAPpY COOKiNG!

Gorgeous Lemon Bars (A Laura Vitale Recipe)

If you want to make something that would tickle your taste buds, try these GORGEOUS lemon bars. You wont be disappointed. 

When guests were coming home yesterday I made this 'yummy custardy lemony' lemons bars. This turned out so good that I cant stop myself from having these bad boys. This is one of my favorite Laura Vitale recipes and I have made these SOOO many times . Her recipes are so easy to make and turns awesome whenever I make. Thank you Laura.  

Ingredients

Step1:- Crust

2 cups Flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cuu unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 180 degree celsius and line the pan with an aluminium foil

Now, combine all the above ingredients with a wooden spoon till it forms a soft dough. Do not overmix this. This willl not take more than 2 minutes. pres

Press the dough to the botteom of the pan. Bake this for 20 minutes and cool.

Step 2:- Filling

1 can condensed milk

4 eggs

Fresh lemon juice -a little less than 1/4th cup

Zest of half an orange*

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp flour

Mix all the above ingredients. Pour this mixture onto the baked crust and bake for another 30mins. Cool this in the fridge before you cut this into bars and serve. Dust some powdered sugar on top for a frosty look.

*Laura Vitale uses zest of a lemon. However, I used orange since I had oranges at home and I   thought this would give lemon bar a more subtle citrus flavour. Also, I did not use yellow food colour since the eggs I bought had nice orange yolks.

Here is Laura Vitale's video for lemon bars:-

http://youtu.be/BEwwiZfg6Tg

Happy Cooking! :)