Alphonso mango milkshake

Ok, I’m just boasting because I had Alphonso mangoes to spare (because they were too squishily ripe to eat, really, by the time I got to the last two or three.) If you don’t have Alphonsos, don’t fret, you can still make this recipe. Just use any really ripe mangoes, although preferably the kind that aren’t stringy. Meanwhile, I’m going to continue calling this recipe “Alphonso mango milkshake”, because yeah, I’m still boasting. Those Alphonso mangoes are just SO gorgeous!

Anyway, I like my home-made mango milkshakes (or smoothies – what’s the difference, if any?), Alphonso or otherwise, to be on the liquidy side rather than thick; or if not, I like them to be whizzed with plenty of ice, like frappes.

Sometimes I combine the two styles. I don’t have a name for this hybrid, mainly because I haven’t found a way to combine “frappe” and “shake” to make anything meaningful or catchy, no matter which way around I try it. Could “shakeapp” mean anything to you, apart from sounding vaguely like something that might be downloaded onto your iPhone or Android?

Okay - remember, if you come across the term on either appliance, the copyright belongs to ME and if I’m not acknowledged as the creator, I shall sue for millions! Yes, MILLIONS (of £££s)! You heard it here first, Steve Jobs.

Yeah, that threat should really “shake” ol’ Steve “app”.

HAHAHAHAHA.

*koff koff*

Recipe for: Alphonso mango milkshake

Ingredients:

2 ripe alphonso mangoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup vanilla icecream
1-2 cups cold milk (as required)
A couple of drops of vanilla extract OR rosewater OR 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Sugar if required
Ice cubes or crushed ice as required

Method:

1. Put the mangoes, vanilla icecream, 1 cup milk, sugar to taste and ice-cubes/crushed ice in a blender.

Blitz them till they are liquidised.
2. Blend in more milk or crushed ice as required to make the milkshake the consistency you like.

Blend in the vanilla extract, rosewater or cardamom powder, if using.
3. Serve the milkshake immediately in tall glasses.


RECIPE: ALPHONSO MANGO MILKSHAKE

Ingredients:
2 ripe alphonso mangoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup vanilla icecream
1-2 cups cold milk (as required)
A couple of drops of vanilla extract OR rosewater OR 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Sugar if required
Ice cubes or crushed ice as required

Method:
1. Put the mangoes, vanilla icecream, 1 cup milk, sugar to taste and ice-cubes/crushed ice in a blender. Blitz them till they are liquidised.
2. Blend in more milk or crushed ice as required to make the milkshake the consistency you like. Blend in the vanilla extract, rosewater or cardamom powder, if using.
3. Serve the milkshake immediately in tall glasses.

Eggless banana almond fruitcake

My husband loves fruitcake in all forms – heavy and dense, light and fluffy, dry and crumbly, with exotic dried fruit or just with currants, with nuts or without, egg-free or eggful, fancy or homely, buzzing with alcohol or completely teetotal… you name it, he’ll eat it. Of course it goes without saying that he prefers fruitcake that's well-made to one that's second-rate... but in a pinch he'll eat the second-rate one too. In general he can be as nutty as a – pardon me for this – fruitcake when it comes to this variety of cake. Me, on the other hand… I can take fruitcake or leave it. It’s marginally more “take it” if it’s got nuts in it that cut the sweetness of all the dried fruit, so I usually add some to most fruitcakes I make.

And because Pete mostly doesn’t mind how his fruitcake turns out, as long as it’s not turned to coal, I feel free to experiment without worrying about “what ifs” like “what if the cake’s heavy like a brick”, or “what if it’s so crumbly that you choke on fruitcake dust”, and so on. (I’ve even made fruitcake with dark chocolate that needs to see the light of day at some point.)

Anyway, this cake combines the best of what Pete likes (dried fruit) with the best of what I like (banana) with some dried sour cherries (bought in the YewYessYay, naturally) thrown in for that “exotic” touch. The addition of mashed overripe bananas was a touch of genius if I do say so myself, because the flavour it gave the fruitcake – helped by the addition of cardamom powder – was luvverly. It was almost like an Indian fruitcake, if there is such a thing. If there isn’t, there is now.

The cake keeps well and stays moist at room temperature (under cover, that is, not left open to the elements) for at least a week that I can vouch for. We both think it tastes gorgeous too – let me put it this way, we’re all three made for each other because if he’s nutty about banana fruitcake, I’m bananas about nutty fruitcake, and the fruitcake is bananas and nuts anyway. See what I mean?

Recipe for: Banana almond fruitcake



Ingredients:

2 medium overripe bananas, mashed well
1-1/2 cups plain flour or wholewheat cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp ground cardamom seeds
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup Splenda 1/4 cup sugar
2 cups dried fruit (I used currants, dried sour cherries, chopped mixed citrus peel)
1/4 cup almond slivers
1 cup + 2 tbsp milk (or as needed)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Sift the flour and spices together with the Splenda, sugar and salt. 2. Add the dried fruit



and the dried cherries, mix them into the flour.



3. Make a well in the flour-fruit mix, then add the almond slivers and the mashed banana.



Mix again.

4. Add milk little by little, mixing as you go.



The batter should be thick. It is the correct consistency when it drips slowly off the back of a spoon. Mix in more milk if it's too thick, to get it to the right consistency,



5. Pour the batter into an 8" square or round pan sprayed with Pam or greased with butter.



Bake at 180C for about an hour, or till the cake tests done. Start checking at the 45-minute mark as different ovens work differently. 6. Remove the cake tin from the oven, and let the cake sit in the tin for 10 minutes.



7. Unmould the cake onto a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. This cake stays good at room temperature for a few days.

RECIPE: EGGLESS BANANA ALMOND FRUITCAKE

Ingredients:

2 overripe bananas, mashed
1-1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom seeds
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup Splenda
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups dried fruit (currants, dried sour cherries, chopped mixed citrus peel)
1/4 cup almond slivers
1 cup + 2 tbsp milk (or as needed)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Sift the flour and spices together with the Splenda, sugar and salt.
2. Add the dried fruit and the dried cherries, mix them into the flour.
3. Make a well in the flour-fruit mix, then add the almond slivers and the mashed banana. Mix again.
4. Add milk little by little, mixing as you go. The batter should be thick. It is the correct consistency when it drips slowly off the back of a spoon. Mix in more milk if it's too thick, to get it to the right consistency,
5. Pour the batter into an 8" square or round pan sprayed with Pam or greased well with butter. Bake at 180C for about an hour, or till the cake tests done. Start checking at the 45-minute mark as different ovens work differently.
6. Remove the cake tin from the oven, and let the cake sit in the tin for 10 minutes.
7. Unmould the cake onto a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. This cake stays good at room temperature for a few days.

Redcurrant-strawberry jam

Of all the recipes that I’ve tried with redcurrants, this jam is probably the best by far. I’m no jam maker, in part because it seems like a complicated procedure requiring sugar thermometers and pectin and setting temperatures and water baths and ultra-pasteurised (is that the right term for glass jars or is it only used to describe milk?) glass jars and so on. I’m not that big a fan of jam, in any case – although I guess I must confess to sometimes being taken over by a strawberry-conserve-“veri” (Tamil word for “frenzy”) and eating posh strawberry conserve straight out of the jar with a spoon, never mind the toast. I get that way with orange marmalade too, occasionally. But those are pretty rare occasions.

Like I’ve said earlier, when it came to redcurrants, I’d only ever heard of redcurrant jelly, but never tasted it – and still haven’t, if it comes to that. I’m still unsure if “redcurrant jelly” is the American for “redcurrant jam”. In any case, when I decided I would try making redcurrant jam, I also had a box of strawberries in the fridge, slightly too overripe for consumption but not yet at the stage of supporting fungus colonies. I googled redcurrant-strawberry jam recipes and bingo! up popped this one. It wanted 600 gms each of redcurrants and strawberries and twice as much sugar. It also came with jam-making instructions incorporating the use of a sugar thermometer which I don’t have and doubt I’ll be getting any time soon. So I did what I normally do in when there are instructions that I don’t care for – I ignored them.

I used a mixture of Splenda and sugar for the jam. I didn’t use pectin-rich sugar because I didn’t have any and to my mind I wasn’t making “serious” jam – I was just going to cook up two kinds of berries for an impromptu jam… but I also had the vague idea that strawberries naturally contain pectin anyway. So be warned, my instructions for this recipe are:
1. Kind of vague
2. Definitely not what serious jam-makers would approve of or follow.
But if you don’t care about that, you’ll end up, like I did, with about 200gms of a sweet-tart jam that sort of explodes on your taste buds. It is just SO right on toast and for rolling up inside chapaties. Jam to my mind can’t really be filed under “mouthwatering” but I’ll make an exception in this case. It IS mouthwatering.


Recipe for: Redcurrant-strawberry jam




Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups redcurrants
1-1/2 cups strawberries
3/4 cup Splenda
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice


Method:
1. Chop the strawberries into 1-cm pieces. Place in a lidded container along with the redcurrants.





2. Add the sugar and Splenda to the berries.





3. Toss together till the ingredients are mixed.





Place in a fridge overnight, tightly covered, so that the sugar melts and the berries release their juices.


4. The next day, place the fruit in a heavy-based saucepan along with the juices. Scrape out any sugar that may be stuck to the container. Bring the fruit to a gentle simmer to make sure that all the sugar is dissolved.


5. Once the sugar has all dissolved, bring the fruit to a boil.





Cook for 12-15 minutes, scraping around the sides of the pan once in a while, to stop the sugar crystallising. The jam is done when the juices are reduced and the fruit is no longer watery.


6. Turn off the heat, then add the lemon juice.





Mix well. The jam should be quite thick. It should thicken further on cooling.





7. Transfer the jam to a clean glass jar and let cool completely. It's lovely spread on scones along with thick cream. Or on toast. Or rolled up in chapaties...

RECIPE: REDCURRANT-STRAWBERRY JAM
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups strawberries
3/4 cup Splenda
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice


Method:
1. Chop the strawberries into 1-cm pieces. Place in a lidded container along with the redcurrants.
2. Add the sugar and Splenda to the berries.
3. Toss together till the sugar is evenly distributed. Place in a fridge overnight, tightly covered, so that the sugar melts and the berries release their juices
4. The next day, place the fruit in a heavy-based saucepan along with the juices. Scrape out any sugar that may be stuck to the container. Bring the fruit to a gentle simmer to make sure that all the sugar is dissolved
5. Once the sugar has all dissolved, bring the fruit to a boil. Cook for 12-15 minutes, scraping around the sides of the pan once in a while, to stop the sugar crystallising. The jam is done when the juices are reduced and the fruit is no longer watery.
6. Turn off the heat, then add the lemon juice. Mix well. The jam should be quite thick. It will thicken further on cooling.
7. Transfer the jam to a clean glass jar and let cool completely. It's lovely spread on scones along with thick cream. Or on toast. Or rolled up in chapaties.

Eggless chocolate orange cake

The orange chocolate cake I’d made previously was so nice that I decided I’d take up a reader’s suggestion (thanks, Shvetha) and try out an eggless version. This time around, I boiled the orange in the microwave for about 10 minutes, in two tranches of 5 minutes each. It could take a couple of minutes more or less, depending on your microwave’s wattage/power, so go easy after the first 5 minutes. Of course, make sure to “drill” the orange through with a skewer, before microwaving it.

I don’t really know first-hand what would happen if you microwaved an orange that was not hole-y (what, did you think I’d pass up the opportunity for a godawful pun?). I don’t think it would explode, at least going by a video I watched on You Tube of three idiotic guys doing exactly that experiment. (I did my research, as you can see.) The orange didn’t explode for them - much to their disappointment - but since I wasn’t sure that my orange would refrain from creating an unhole-y mess in the microwave, it went in sanctified, thereby NOT going kablooey.

Anyway, microwaving the orange is MUCH quicker than cooking it on the hob till it’s soft, and I totally recommend it.

The rest of the ingredients are more or less the same as for the previous cake, sans eggs, of course. I substituted some of the sugar with Splenda, but it's not a "must-do" thing at all.

This cake was actually even better than the eggy version, in my opinion – it tasted gooey and moist while looking quite deceptively fluffy. The cake keeps well for a couple of days under cover. I didn’t make any frosting this time, because I didn’t have any chocolate left, but I added ½ cup mini chocolate chips to the batter to intensify the chocolate experience.

Recipe for: Eggless chocolate orange cake



Ingredients:

2-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
120 gm dark chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup splenda
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 large Seville orange
4 tsp vinegar
1 cup milk
2 tsp orange oil extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Method:

1. Pierce the orange with a skewer 3-4 times, then place in a bowl of water and microwave it for 8-10 minutes.





Throw away the water, let the orange cool, then puree it finely. Set aside till required.



2. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking sugar and salt.

3. Add the sugar and splenda and mix well.

4. Make a well in the centre, and add the melted dark chocolate, the pureed orange, vinegar and oil.



Stir this well, then add the milk and stir till thoroughly mixed.



5. Add the orange and vanilla extracts and mix them in.



6. Finally, add the chocolate chips and fold them gently into the batter.



7. Pour the batter into a 9” round baking tin



and bake at 180C till the cake tests done – this took about an hour in mine. To be on the safe side, check after 45 minutes.



If desired, split the cake and fill with ganache frosting.

RECIPE: EGGLESS CHOCOLATE ORANGE CAKE

Ingredients:

2-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
120 gm dark chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup splenda
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 large Seville orange
4 tsp vinegar
1 cup milk
2 tsp orange oil extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Pierce the orange with a skewer 3-4 times, then place in a bowl of water and microwave it for 8 minutes. Throw away the water, let the orange cool, then puree it. Set aside till required.
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking sugar and salt.
3. Add the sugar and splenda and mix well.
4. Make a well in the centre, and add the melted dark chocolate, the pureed orange, vinegar and oil. Stir this well, then add the milk and stir till thoroughly mixed.
5. Add the orange and vanilla extracts and mix them in.
6. Finally, add the chocolate chips and fold them gently into the batter.
7. Pour the batter into a 9” round baking tin and bake at 180C till the cake tests done – this took about an hour in mine. To be on the safe side, check after 45 minutes.
If desired, split the cake and fill with ganache frosting.

Honey cake

If someone gave you an orange, an apple, some brewed coffee, cloves and some honey, would your first thought be: “Oooh, now I can bake a cake!”? No? Thought not.

No surprise, it would certainly never have crossed my mind that these were actually ingredients for a very special cake, had I not come across these items in a recipe on the Net, led there by a series of blog hops (starting with Shankari & Rajesh’s blog, Sacramento Spice, where she has a regular feature called “Sundays with Marlena Spieler”, showcasing Jewish recipes).

Eventually I moved on to google for general information on Jewish culture and Jewish food traditions, and pretty soon I was goggling at a cake recipe that called for the apparently random selection of ingredients I'd mentioned earlier. This cake is traditionally baked on the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, and symbolises a sweet start to the year.

When I made the cake, even knowing that it was from a tried and tested traditional recipe didnt stop me wondering how it would turn out. I had to use a small can of mandarin orange rather than the whole fresh orange (peel pith and all) the recipe called for (because I didnt have it), and I substituted strong instant coffee for the brewed stuff (because ditto)... and decorated the top of the cake with whole pecans, but those were the ONLY changes from the original.

The cake was surprisingly good - surprising to me, because I couldn't help considering the combination of ingredients somewhat outlandish - very moist and with deep flavours, and it stayed that way for the couple of days that it survived before being demolished.




It's too late - or maybe too early? - to offer good wishes for a happy Jewish New Year (because it occurs around September)... and it's wee bit too far into this new year 2010 as well for new year wishes, but I'll take the opportunity to wish everybody many happy cake experiences, both baking and eating, for the year and the decade to come. I can do that, can't I?

Recipe for: Honey cake



Ingredients:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark honey
1 egg



1 small orange, left unpeeled and cut up small (I used a small tin of chopped mandarins without peel)
1 small apple, cored and chopped (no need to peel)
1/2 cup strong brewed coffee (I used instant)
1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup raisins
15-20 whole pecan nuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Spray a nonstick 1.5 pound loaf pan with Pam.

2. In a large bowl, combine the oil, sugar, honey and egg.



Beat till mixed. (I used a manual beater).



3. In a blender, combine the orange and apple, add the coffee



and puree the mixture. It doesn't have to be very smooth.



4. In another bowl, place the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.



5. Add a third of the fruit and coffee mix to the oil-honey-egg mixture, stirring well.



6. Add a third of the flour mixture, stirring again.



Continue adding in this manner till all the ingredients are combined.



7. Add the raisins and stir them in.



8. Pour the batter in a loaf pan. Arrange the pecan nuts on top, pressing them very gently into the batter.



Bake for 35-40 minutes, or till a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

10. Let the cake stay in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.



Serve at room temperature.

Sweet-sour roasted egg curry

This recipe came about because of something that we had eaten at a restaurant called “Saffron” in Shrewsbury. It’s slightly different from the run-of-the-mill takeaways because it offers different types of fish cooked in a sauce chosen by the customer and spiced as specified. It also had a couple of different vegetarian dishes on offer, one of which I tried because it seemed interesting – potatoes in tamarind sauce.

It was interesting – in fact, it was better than that. It was superb, the sauce a perfect balance of sweet and sour and spicy... but the chilli hit snuck in very quietly behind the tangy explosion on the tongue. The only thing that stopped the dish from being perfect was the amount of oil in it, but once I had spooned out the worst of the stuff, the sauce was delicious. In fact, Pete liked it so much that I declared I would try and replicate it at home.

A few weeks later, I had still not done anything about it (big surprise). But then circumstances butted in and forced my hand. I’ll list the circs because I’m sure y’all would want to know – hey, it’s interesting, allright?

Circ 1 - Nearly a dozen eggs that were very close to their use-by date

Circ 2 – Pete’s son’s friend who was staying over unexpectedly

Circ 3 - A nearly empty tin of Alphonso mango puree

Circ 4 – Some new potatoes... oh all right, potatoes that had been new awhile ago, but were now on the verge of parenthood right there in my potato bin.

Circ 5 – Pete, who had been persistently NOT forgetting to remind me to make “that tamarind thing” for the umptyninth time (and that was just counting that week).

(Told ya the circumstances would be interesting. Or perhaps not. But this post needed content, and one way or the other it's now got a decent amount of text in it.)

Anyway, given all that, what could I do but get down to making that tamarind thing. Which incidentally turned out very nicely, thank you for asking.

PS. I read on somebody's blog that making slits in the boiled eggs would allow the sauce to flavour the interior of the eggs while they were simmering in the sauce. I am here to say that the slits did nothing of the sort. But this didn't detract from the taste, so I didnt worry about the unreceptive eggs one bit.

And if unreceptive eggs should happen to happen to you too, neither should you. Not one bit.

Recipe for: Sweet-sour roasted egg curry



Ingredients:

8 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
3 tsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 onions - 1 chopped fine, 1 pureed
1 tomato, chopped fine
1/4 cup slow-roasted tomato puree (or just puree one tomato)
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks
3 tbsp mango puree (if this isn't available, use 1 heaped tbsp jaggery or dark brown sugar)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp tamarind paste
3/4 cup milk
Water as required
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp red chilli powder (or to taste)
Salt to taste

1. Heat 2 tsp oil in a large pan and add the 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp coriander powder and turmeric powder. Let them sizzle for 20 seconds.


2. Make four deep vertical slits in the hard boiled eggs, being careful not to cut all the way through to the other side.


3. Fry the eggs in the tempered oil over medium heat, turning them over gently from time to time, till they are lightly golden all over and the surface is slightly blistered.

Remove the eggs from the oil and reserve.

4. Add the remaining 1 tsp oil to the pain now and fry the chopped onions for 2-3 minutes.


5. Then add the chopped tomatoes and let them cook till they begin to turn mushy.


6. Meanwhile, in a small jug or glass, put in the tamarind paste and 1 tbsp sugar, add 1/2 cup warm water and whisk to mix.


7. Then add the mango puree (or jaggery/brown sugar) and red chilli powder and whisk again.


8. Pour this into the pan over the tomato-onion mixture,


then add the peeled chopped potatoes


and the pureed tomato and onion.


9. Stir it all in, then pour in the milk, and mix.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and cover the pan and let the contents simmer for 10 minutes, or till the potatoes are nearly done.

Taste the sauce now for the sweet-sour-hot balance. Add some lemon juice if required (or amchur if you have it) if it needs to be a bit more sour.

10. Now add the garam masala and stir it in, then add salt to taste and finally the roasted boiled eggs. Simmer the eggs gently in the masala for 7-10 minutes, turning them over occasionally and being careful not to break them, until the potatoes are completely cooked.

Let the curry rest for 5 minutes, then garnish with chopped coriander and serve with any simple pulao or plain white rice.