Watermelon Slush Puppies Without Sugar

This is something which I made for Iftar, actually I have got lots of recipes to post which I made for Iftar. Anyway I can say this is almost like a slush puppies which you can have  in Mcdonald's or any other restaurants. The actual slush puppies are with loads of sugar and ice. This one I just made with watermelon and a couple of spoons of agave syrup.

 I used the rind i.e. the inner white part, not the outer green part. The inner white part gives a good texture so don't skip that part, it's also good for health.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
Watermelon- 1 cup ( sliced into cubes along with the white rind part)
Agave syrup- 1/2 tbsp ( If you think your watermelon is very sweet, you can avoid this too)
2 or 3 fresh mint leaves
Few crushed ice cubes
Method:
Blend the watermelon, agave syrup, mint leaves and few ice cubes like 3 to 4  until it's smooth. Pour it in a freezer container, cover and freeze for 1 hour. After 1 hour take it out, mix well and freeze for another 1 hour. When the mixture is like half frozen and half liquid, take it out, just give 1 whizz in a blender to break the ice crystals. Pour it in a serving glass and serve immediately.
Tip:
Don't let it freeze for more than 4 hours, it'll freeze completely and will become like a normal ice.
Instead of agave syrup you can also use normal white sugar according to your taste.
This recipe goes to Only Low Calorie event hosted by Priya Mitharwal originally started by Pari.

My First Challenge With Daring Bakers- Nutty, Toasty, Creamy and Cool

August 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge- Nutty, Toasty, Creamy and Cool


Baked Alaska

 This is my first challenge with Daring Bakers, I don't know we need any introduction about Daring Bakers any food blogger or non-food bloggers who is interested in baking will definitely know about Daring Bakers. Even before blogging I used wait for every month Daring Bakers challenge to see the recipes they come up with.
 Daring Bakers was started by two lovely ladies Lisa and Ivonne, when they first challenged themselves for baking Pretzels in back 2009, now Daring Baking  has members all over the world to try something new once a month in their kitchen.
Petit Fours

  This month the challenge is brought to us by Elissa of 17 and baking. You can understand how young she is from the title of her blog. This young, talented cook has given us some amazing challenge for this month.
 There are two desserts in the challenge, and we have been given a option to make any one of them. Since this is my first challenge, I went ahead and made two of them.
  Our challenge for this month is Baked Alaska and Petit Fours. I never made either of these desserts. Baked Alaska is always been a challenge to me, I never dared to try that, but with Elissa's step by step clear instructions I managed to get it right.
  Actually I'm bit busy today, so I have to be really quick so my pictures are not that appealing and I haven't given step by step pictures. Okay now let's get straight into the recipe now.
For Baked Alaska you need:

• Cake Base
• Ice cream
• Meringue

For the Petit Fours you need:

• Cake
• Ice cream
• Chocolate glaze

For both the desserts same cake and ice cream, so I'll start the recipe with cake and ice cream, then we'll look for assembling instructions.

Browned Butter Cake:

Ingredients:

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) (See “Note” section for cake flour substitution)
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Stawberry Icecream

Ingredients:
Light cream- 300 ml
Milk- 300 ml
Egg yolks- 3
Sugar- 200 g
Cornflour-1 tsp
Strawberries- 150 g( pureed)

Method:
Beat the egg yolks , sugar and cornflour until thick and creamy. The sugar has to completely dissolve in the mixture. Combine the milk and cream together and heat it just under boiling point. At this stage immediately pour the milk into the egg mixture little by little whisking continuously.

 Once it's well combined, return the mixture to the heat again and heat it in medium to low heat whisking continously until the mixture coats the back of the spoon.
 Remove it from heat and let it cool down completely. Then add the puréed strawberries and stir well. Churn in the ice cream machine according to your machine instructions.
Allow it to set in the freezer until required.

For Assembling:

For Baked Alaska:

For Baked Alaska cut a circle out of the cake using a tea cup. Line the inside of the tea cup with a cling film hanging outside, fill the cup with ice cream and cover the edges, freeze it completely.
Take the ice cream after it's completely frozen, pull the cling film out and remove it from the cling film and flip it upside down.
For making 1 tea cup Alaska you'll need two eggs whites for meringue layer.
Meringue:
Egg whites- 2
Sugar- 50 g
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks forms , add the sugar little by little and keep whisking until stiff peaks form.
 Spread the meringue layer on top of ice cream layer using a spatula or using a piping bag. Bake it in the preheated oven at maximum temperature until it's slightly brown on top. Serve immediately.

For Petit Fours:
For the Chocolate Glaze;
I din't use any cream I just melted 200 g of dark chocolate and white chocolate.

Cut the cake into half, spread the ice cream layer, i also sliced some strawberries and placed them in the middle and top it with the remaining half. Cover tightly with a cling film and freeze it overnight. Cut the into squares and dip it in the melted chocolate. Serve immediately.
Both the desserts were amazing, have fun in making them.

Cherry Falooda

Falooda is a popular bevarage in Asia, it is also a cooling summer dessert. Falooda is normally made with falooda sev, tapioca seeds and flavoured with rose syrup which gives it a rich flavour. However there is also a Persian version of falooda which is completely different.
In this recipe i have used sago, vermicilli and flavoured with rose water, use your creativity and imagination to have enormorous flavour for this falooda.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the jelly:
Frozen cherry- 1 tbsp
Vegetarian or halal jelly- 1 tbsp
For the milk
Whole milk- 1/2 litre
Sugar- 5 tbsp
Cherry- 1 tbsp
Sago- 1 tbsp
Vermicilli-1 tbsp
Rose water- 1 tsp
Method:
First prepare the jelly by adding the cherries and jelly powder in a bowl. Boil about 1/2 cup of water and add it to the jelly powder and cherries, mix it well. Allow it to set in room temperature.
Now blend the cherries with little bit of milk and keep it separately. Soak the sago in water for 15 minutes( soaking the sago will reduce cooking time). Boil the milk along with sago, vermicilli and sugar. Keep stirring and cook until the sago and vermicilli are completely cooked. Finally add the rosewater and switch off the flame. Let it cool down for while. After it gets cooled down a bit add the pureed cherry and mix well. When it's completely cooled, refrigerate it until you serve.
To serve in a tall serving glass add the jelly mixture at the bottom of the glass and top it up with milk. You can also use a scoop of ice cream on top.
This recipe goes to the event Cooking With Seeds- Sago hosted by Kitchen Samraj originally started by Priya's Easy and Tasty Recipes.

Carrot and Almond Kulfi

This is the most simple and easy way of making ice cream without any icecream machine, yet taste delicious.
These kulfi's will be a perfect summer treat for both kids and grown up.

Ingredients:
Unsweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk- 1 cup
Whole milk- 1 cup
Carrots- 3 medium sized grated
Brown Sugar- 1 cup or Goldklare syrup- 3/4 cup
Ground Almonds with skin- 1/2 cup
Powdered cardamom- 1/2 tsp.
Method:
Boil all the ingredients together in a saucepan without burning. Keep stirring in medium heat. Reduce the mixture to 3/4 th of it's original quantity. Switch off the flame. Let it cool down completely. Pour into icelolly moulds. Freeze it for more than 8 hours to freeze completely.
To serve dip the moulds in warm water, carefully remove the outer cover and serve.

Note:
You can also use sweetened condensed milk and avoid the sugar completely.

This recipe goes to the event Healing Foods- Carrot hosted by Veggie Platter originally started by Siri.

Fruit Salad

Fruit Salad is always been my comfort food which i like to have it any time of the day. Munching a bowl of fruits is much better than a plate of cake. These days i really forget about this simple comfort food. When i think of fruit salad i have to think of my college days, whenever i go out in a hot sunny day, this bowl of fruit salad along with some jelly and ice cream would be a great treat for me.
I have just used a few combination of fruits, use as much varieties of fruit to make a healthy and delicious bowl of salad. To read about the health benefits of fruit click here.
Serves 2 to 3
Ingredients:
Watermelon- 1 slice chopped
Kiwi- 2 fruits sliced
Strawberry- 8 fruits sliced
Galia Melon- 1 slice chopped
Vegetarian jelly- Make it according to your package instructions to fill quarter of the bowl
1 scoop of Cherry Porridge Ice Cream or any ice cream of your choice.
Method:
In  two serving bowl, add the jelly at the bottom of the bowl, until it fills quarter of the bowl. When the jelly is set add all the fruits to the two bowls. Finally top it up with ice cream. Serve immediately.

Golden Peach

This is one of the recipe which i got inspired from MasterChef ( a television show in UK). This was some special dessert with lots of technical skills, so i din't even reach somewhere near to that recipe. The taste was good, but i couldn't get the proper shape, still i made up my mind to post this recipe to share one of my trial and error recipe. I even tried hard to get some good looking pictures but this was the maximum i could get, i know it dosen't look that good.
Any way coming to the recipe, Golden Peach is nothing but, poaches peach filled with vanilla ice cream and resting in sugar snap biscuits, finally enclosed with spun sugar baskets, although it din't look like a basket just because of a tiny mistake.
I'll explain the recipe step by step starting from sugar snap biscuits, this was quite easy.
Sugar Snap Biscuits:

Caster Sugar- 100 g
Butter-100 g
Goldklare sirup or Golden Syrup- 100 g
Plain Flour- 90g
Method:
 Cream the butter in a large bowl until it looks pale. Then add the sugar and beat well, then add the sifted flour and mix well. Heat the golden syrup in a pan until it goes runny, let it cool down for a while. Add the warm syrup to the Butter mixture and mix well. Cover the bowl with a cling film and refrigerate for 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180 degree celsius. Take a small ball of the mixture, flatten it slightly. Place it in a greased and lined baking sheet. Leave minimum of 5 cm between each round as it spreads a lot. Bake it in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until it's golden brown and lots of holes on top.
Meanwhile grease the bottom of 4 ramekins or glass bowl with butter. As soon as you take it out from the oven, immediately flip it on top of the ramekins and press the sides then carefully remove the baking paper.
Let it cool down completely. Then gently lift the biscuits off from the ramekins. Store it in a air tight container.

Spun Sugar:

This is like one of my dream  ever since i saw James Martin( Celebrity Chef)  doing this in Ready Steady Cook( a television show in UK). He made it look so easy everytime when he used to that in Readsteady Cook in less than 5 minutes. So I tried making that and after a few struggle i got something. To view the step by step clear instructions on how to make this  spun sugar click here.
Ingredients:
Caster Sugar- 100 g
Boiling water- 100 ml
Lemon juice-1/2 tsp
Method:
Combine all the ingredients together in a clean saucepan, heat in low heat and keep stirring until all the sugar is dissolved completely. Now start boiling in medium to high heat, while boiling keep brushing the sides of the pan to avoid crystallisation of sugar. The syrup will start boiling, then it will slowly reach a caramel colour. Switch off the flame when it's golden in colour. Don't let it too dark which will give a very bitter taste.

Now to get basket grease a laddle or ramekins. When the syrup is cooled down for about 1 minute, quickly lift it with a spoon and rapidly coat the back of the laddle moving the spoon forwards and backwards. Let it cool down for 30 seconds and gently remove it off from the laddle. If you leave the caramel even 1 minute longer you can't get that.

To Assemble The Golden Peach:
Serves 1
Ingredients:
Peach-1
Sugar Snap Biscuits- 1
Spun sugar Basket-1
Vanilla Ice cream- 1
Few Fresh Fruits To Serve
Method:
First poach the peach in plain water or with vanilla pod for 15 minutes. Let the peach cool down completely. Then peel them and split them into half and remove the seed in the middle. To serve in a serving plate, place the sugar snap biscuit and on top of it place 1 half of the peach, then a scoop of vanilla ice cream top it with the other half of peach. Finally place the spun sugar on top it and serve with some fresh seasonal fruits.
Serve it immediately before the ice cream melts.
This recipe goes to the event Sizzling Summer Contest.

Cherry Porridge Ice cream

Recently i have started  replacing honey for sugar, which i find it very good and i don't have the guilt feeling (of using excess sugar) at the back of my mind. This is yet again another recipe which i tried without no sugar and hundred percent honey.
The creaminess of  porridge marries well with the sour cherry and sweet honey. Honey is specifically referred as a key source of treatment in the Islamic Holy text - The Quran, and also in the narrations of The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).  Honey is known to contain the therapeutic contents sugars, vitamins, anti-microbials, among other things.

Ingredients:
Coconut milk-800 ml
Rolled oats-3 tbsp
Honey- 150 ml
Egg yolks-3
Stonned fresh cherries- 1 cup
Vanilla extract- 2 tsp
Fresh Strawberries- 5 to 6
Extra fresh cherries- about half cup
Cornflour-1 tsp
Method:
Beat the egg yolks and cornflour together until pale and creamy. Heat the coconut milk along with oats until gets soft, add the honey and extract stir well, slowly pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture whisking continously. Return the mixture to the pan again, keep stirring in medium to low heat until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. Switch off the flame, let it cool down completely.
Puree the 1 cup of fresh cherries, mix it with half off the milk mixture. Churn the cherry mixture and milk mixture separately in a ice cream machine according to your machine instructions. Put them in two separate container and freeze them for about 1 to 2 hours.
Freeze a deep bottomed glass bowl  5 to 6 hours  before making the ice cream, this step is very important  or icecream will start to melt when you are layering.

Take out both the mixtures from the freezer and start layering. Line the inner side of the bowl with a cling film. Carefully spoon the cherry mixture around the sides and bottom of the bowl as shown in the picture, leaving the middle part hollow( save a small amount of cherry mixture for the topping), cover with a cling film and freeze again for 1/2 an hour.
Fold in the fresh cherries and strawberries into the milk mixture. Remove the bowl from the freezer, spoon the mixture till the rim. Now carefully spoon the remaining cherry mixture on top of it and cover it completely with the cherry mixture. Cover the bowl tightly with cling film and freeze for another 2 to 3 hours.
Before serving remove the bowl from the freezer, pull the cling film on the sides, invert it in a serving plate, top it with more pureed cherries and fresh fruits( optional). Run a knife in warm water, carefully slice the ice cream like wedges serve with more fresh fruits.
Note:
I have used here honey, if you are not comfortable with the flavour of honey, replace it with 200 g of sugar.

This recipe goes to the event  Yasmeen Health Nut Challenge ' I Scream For Ice cream'. 

This recipe also goes to the event  Colouring your Kids Delight by Spice your Life.

Soy Banana Ice cream

Normally i used to make pancake or muffins in this combination of flavour, this time i have tried with ice cream and it worked ta da. I have used here ice cream machine to churn the ice cream, but if you are making it without icecream maker once the custard is ready, let it cool down, pour it in a box and keep it in the freezer, after one hour take it out and beat the ice crystals, then put it back again. Repeat this process for 6 to 7 times for every 1 hour then keep it in the freezer for about 6 hours. Take the box out from the freezer and put it in the refrigerator  20 minutes before serving. Hope i have made it clear without ice cream maker, if you have any doubts or questions, please feel free to comment.

Ingredients:
Soy milk-600 ml
Egg yolk-3
Cornflour-1 tsp
Sugar-150 g( the amount of sugar which i have added here is bit less, if you wish you can vary it according to your taste or replace it with honey or agave nectar)
Banana-1
Ground cinnamon-1 tsp
Vanilla extract-1 tsp
Ground Nutmeg-1/2 tsp

Method:
Beat the egg yolk, cornflour and sugar together until the mixture looks pale and creamy. Heat the milk just under boiling point, pour the milk little by little into the egg mixture beating continuously. Heat the mixture again, stirring continuously until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. Switch off the flame and add all the flavouring, let it cool down.
Blend the banana with little bit of the custard mixture in the blender. Add the banana puree to the custard mixture and stir well. Add the mixture to the ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer instructions. It takes approximately 30 minutes in the ice cream maker. Chill in the freezer until you serve.
For serving i have used some fresh bananas and strawberries, you can use any selection of fresh fruits of your choice or even with jelly or some dessert.

Avocado and Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Avocado with chocolate is a bit of known combination ,but if you have doubt about avocado's in frozen yogurt ,you can totally omit that part and use vanilla flavouring with same procedure.

Ingredients:
Yogurt-500 g
Egg whites-3
Honey-2 tbsp(you can replace honey with 75 g of sugar)
Dark chocolate or milk chocolate-50g melted
Avocado-1/2 of 1 avocado mashed
Method:
Strain the yogurt  wrapped in a muslin cloth for 6 hours until all the water is drained out and  yogurt looks like curd cheese.Take yogurt in a bowl and mix the honey with it.
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.Carefully fold in the egg whites with the honey mixture.
Separate the mixture into half, leave one half plain and to the other half add melted and cooled chocolate.
Churn the mixtures separately in the ice cream maker according to your machine instructions for about 20 minutes.
Now mix the mashed avocado to the plain mixture,at this step if you wish you can omit avocado if you don't want to.
Take your freezer box spoon the mixtures into the box,swirl it with a spoon to give a ripple effect,close the box and return to the freezer.
Take the box out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator  20 minutes before serving.

Saffron and Almond Ice cream

Saffron and Almond goes very well with each other and it's also one of my favourite flavours.This is my first ice cream trial,after some drama it came out really well. It almost tasted like kesar kulfi.Since this is  my first experience in ice cream making i din't want to take a chance,so i used cornflour,but if your are areal expert in making custard,you can avoid cornflour. Cornflour will avoid the mixture curdling so it's a bit easy if you are using this.

This recipe is for 'The Mother's Day Event' by Panch Pakwan. I dedicate this recipe to my mom ,she likes sweet,almond and ice cream,i'm sure she'll like this recipe.Although she is far away from me she can't taste the
ice cream atleast she can look the pictures and feel happy about it .Offcourse who doesn't remember or love their mother no matter how far away you live.
Islam says once a man went to Prophet(saw) and asked who should we give our respect  and love after God,He(saw) said: your mother,the man asked who's next He(saw) said : your mother, the man asked again who's next, He(saw) said : your mother again,three times He(saw) said  your mother and the forth time father.So every mother gives birth to a child pain after pain,not only during birth after that taking care of the child in every moment.
Anyway Jyothi thankyou  for organising such a wonderful event.

Here is the recipe.
Ingredients:
Whole milk-300 ml
Light cream-300 ml
Sugar-120 g
Egg yolks-3
Cornflour-1 tsp
Cardamom powder-1/2 tsp
Ground Almonds with skin-3 tbsp
Saffron-3/4 tsp soaked in warm milk
Chopped Almonds and saffron to decorate.

Method:
Beat the egg yolks,sugar and cornflour until it looks white and creamy.Heat the milk,cream,saffron and ground almonds in a pan just under boiling point. Pour the hot milk slowly into the egg mixture beating continuosly.Return the mixture to the pan again and heat it under low flame stirring continuosly. Keep stirring until the mixture coats the back of the spoon and slightly thicken.Leave the mixture to cool down completely.
Churn it in the ice cream machine as per the instructions in your ice cream machine.
Normally you have to churn it in the ice cream machine for 30 to 40 minutes. Return the mixture to a freezer proof bowl and put it in the freezer.15 minutes before serving put the ice cream in the fridge to soften.