Easy Christmas fruit cake (Alcohol free)

Hello to all my readers.  This is the last day of this year and I have already started making it special.  As I had promised you to post an easy peasy Christmas fruit cake recipe, here it is for you all.

Its a very easy n no fuss cake.  Everything you would find in your very own kitchen.  No fancy ingredients but the taste is simply divine. Unlike other Christmas fruit cakes this one is completely alcohol free. 

My cake came out so soft and yummy and the aroma had just filled my entire home.  I had again experimented here but this time I was so sure about the success as the ingredients were sure shot :)  Unlike my other bakes, this cake is made with egg but I used only one (as usual) and I can bet you are not gonna smell it due to the aromatic Indian spices.  Its a must try.  I had soaked my fruit mix in orange juice, instead of Rum, for three days but if you dont have much time you can soak for 24 hrs.  Even if you dont have 24 hrs. then also you can make this cake :) Yes you are reading correct YOU CAN MAKE THIS CAKE :)  Now no excuse please :D  If you dont have time for soaking you can add your dried fruits with boiled sugar butter mix that I have used in the recipe.  This cake is gonna rock your parties or you can simply make it to treat yourself.  This is a no fail recipe trust me. So I am leaving you here with the recipe of this awesome fruit cake.  Do try. Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour	1 cup
Brown sugar	½ cup
Salted Butter	Little less than ¼ cup
Oil	1 tbsp
Baking soda	Little less than ¾ tsp
Egg	1
Cinnamon powder	Little less than ½ tsp
Nutmeg powder	Little less than ¼ tsp
Clove (powdered)	3 or ¼ tsp
Ginger grated or powdered	¼ tsp
Vanilla essence	¼ tsp
Cashews (chopped)	15
Glazed cherries (optional)	3 (chopped)
Dried fruit mix (raisins, black currant, golden raisins,orange peels)	1 cup
Orange juice (I used store bought orange juice)	1 ½ cups (To soak the dried fruit mix )
water	1/2 cup + 1/8 cup

Method:

• In a mixing bowl, sieve together all purpose flour and baking soda.  Keep aside.
• If you have time, soak dried fruit mix in orange juice atleast for 24 hrs. 
• Take a sauce pan, add sugar, butter, water, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, powdered clove and ginger powder and mix well.  Put on the stove and let it boil till sugar dissolves.  Once its boiled and sugar is dissolved, remove from stove and let it lukewarm.  Beat the egg lightly and add into the prepared sugar butter mix. Also add vanilla essence and mix.  At this stage, separate the soaked dried fruit mix from orange juice and add it to the lukewarm sugar butter mix and give a quick stir.  Discard the orange juice.  ( If you dont get the time to soak the dried fruits you can directly add them to the sugar water mix before boiling).
• Set the oven at 180 degree.  Grease your cake pan with oil or non stick spray and dust the same with flour. Keep it aside.
• In the sugar butter mix, add all purpose flour little by little to avoid the formation of lumps.  Mix well to make it a smooth batter.  Add oil, cashews and chopped glazed cherries.  Mix well.
• Pour the cake batter to the greased cake pan and bake for 55 to 60 minutes. 
• Keep checking the cake after 40 minutes by inserting a knife in the center of the cake.  If the knife comes out clean, cake is baked, if not keep increasing the baking time by another 10 minutes.
• Once the cake is baked, remove it from the oven and let it cool down at least for 10 minutes.
• Carefully shift the cake to the serving plate and enjoy.

Notes:

1. You can use white sugar in place of brown sugar.  Brown sugar gives the deep brown color to the cake.
2. I have used 1 cup of dried fruit mix, you can use more.  You can use tutty fruitty as well. You can add almonds instead of cashews or both.  You can use your choice of dried fruits in this cake but do not overload the cake with them.
3. Spice level can be increased or decreased as per your choice.
4. If using unsalted butter, add 1/4 tsp of salt in the batter.
5. My cake took exact 60 minutes to bake but baking time differs according to the oven so keep checking your cake after 40 minutes. Do not over bake the cake.
6. You can soak your dried fruits in rum also.
7. Do not skip egg as it would help in raising the cake and making it fluffy.  You would not get the eggy smell due to the use of spices.
8. You can make the icing for the cake or have it with simple chocolate sauce or vanilla icecream.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies

Hi friends.  Marry Christmas to all of you.  I know its a bit late but there is no time constraint for sharing the good wishes :)

I had planned to make a fruit cake on this Christmas but couldn't manage the time for the same so now I will make it for the new year.  It would be an easy peasy recipe with no fuss.  No alcohol and nothing fancy going around.  So keep checking my space for the recipe.

Getting back to today's recipe i.e. whole wheat peanut butter cookies.  I had a bottle of peanut butter which I bought for some baking recipes.  I like peanuts but I can't have peanut butter on the bread.  So the bottle was almost full. Yesterday I was in baking mood so I mixed up different things with peanut butter and got these nice peanut butter cookies.  I added healthy flours to make it anytime craving snacks.  Fat is also very less.  Crushed peanuts gave a nice crunch to these cookies.  I used brown sugar for the deep brown color but you are free to use white sugar instead.  You can also decrease the sugar level, there wont be any compromise with the taste I bet.  We enjoyed these cookies with tea.  You also try out.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour	½ cup
All purpose flour / Maida	½ cup
Oats flour	¼ cup
Brown sugar	¾ cup
Peanut butter	½ cup
Dessicated coconut	2 tbsp
Baking soda	¼ tsp
Roasted peanuts (crushed)	2 tbsp
Golden syrup	1 tbsp
Cardamom (crushed)	1
Vanilla essence	1 tsp
Ghee/butter	3 tbsp
Water	3 tbsp

Method:

• Take a bowl and mix together wheat flour, all purpose flour, oats flour,coconut, baking soda and cardamom powder.  Keep aside.
• In another bowl, take brown sugar, peanut butter, golden syrup, vanilla essence and water.  Mix well and keep aside for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, mix together sugar batter and flours.  Add butter little by little. Add crushed peanuts and mix again.  Check the consistency.  The mixture would come together if you press it with your fist but it would not form a soft dough.  The texture would be a little crumbly. 
• Take a small portion of mixture and form a ball and press it between both your palms and shape it into cookies.  You can use a cookie cutter also as I did.  As the mixture is crumbly, forming cookies would take a little more time.

 

cookies ready to go in the oven

• Preheat the oven at 180 degree. Take a baking tray and line with an aluminum foil.  Grease the foil with butter.
• Arrange the cookies in the tray and bake for 15 minutes or till the cookies start getting brown.  Do not bake for more than 15 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest for 2 minutes. 

Just out of the oven

• Shift the cookies to cookie rack and let them cool for 15 minutes.
• Enjoy with tea or coffee.

Notes:

1. Sugar level can be adjusted according to your taste.
2. White sugar can be used.  Brown sugar will give the deep brown color to the cookies.
3. Use the butter/ghee at room temperature.
4. If you find the mixture is too crumbly to shape into cookies you can add some more butter.
5. Do not over bake the cookies else they would burn.

Sweet Corn Idli

Hi friends. As you know, through my previous post of Sweet Corn Kheer that I love sweet corns. Today also I am gonna post a new dish with sweet corns. 

I had just two sweet corns left and I wanted to make something with it for lunch that too something which my baby could also have with us so decided to try this innovative dish called sweet corn idli.  At first I was apprehensive about the taste as sweet corns give a bit sweetness to any dish but when I tasted the idli, it was super soft and taste was just so good. We all liked it very much including my LO :) I accompanied it with Sambar and it turned out to be a perfect lunch. These idlis are delicious at the same time very healthy as it has no oil and I have added oats flour in it. These soft and spongy idlis will just melt in your mouth provided you dont forget to add fruit salt in the batter :D  Generally I do not like idlis much but these sweet corn idlis has just stolen my heart and I ate up more than usual.  I strongly recommend you to try it atleast once.  So here is the recipe for you to try.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Fresh sweet corns	2 medium
Semolina / Suji/ Rava	1 cup
Curd	1 cup+ 1 tbsp
Oats flour	¼ cup
Ginger (grated)	1/2 cup
Salt
Oil	1 tbsp
Curry leaves	5-6
Mustard seeds	½ tsp
Urad dal	1 tsp
Eno fruit salt	1 tsp

Method:

• Take the sweet corns and wash them well. Grate them and get the pulp. (I got exact 1 cup of pulp).  Keep it aside.
• In a mixing bowl, add semolina and curd.  Mix well. Add oats flour and mix.  Add sweet corn pulp and mix again.  Let it rest for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, add salt and grated ginger in the mixture. Stir well.
• For tempering, take a tadka pan and heat oil in it.  Add mustard seeds and urad dal and let it fry till dal changes the color to brown.  Add curry leaves and let it fry for 5 seconds,  Tadka is ready.  Pour it to the prepared idli batter and give a nice stir. Keep it aside for another 10 minutes.
• Take  the idli cooker/rice cooker / pressure cooker and put 3 cups of water in it.  Let it boil.  Till that time, take the idli stand and grease the moulds. 
• Take the idli batter and add in eno fruit salt and mix (do not over mix).   Fill the greased idli moulds with this batter and put it inside the cooker.  Keep the flame on high and let it cook for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, check if the idlis are prepared.  
• Remove the stand from the cooker and let it cool down for 5 minutes.  Remove the idlis from the moulds with the help of a greased knife or dinner knife.
• Arrange them in the plate and serve hot with chutney or sambar.

Note:

1. If you do not have the fresh sweet corns you can take frozen ones and grind them with the help of a blender and make a one cup pulp with it.
2. If you wish you can add green chilly and red chilli powder to the batter.
3. If using pressure cooker, do not put the whistle on it while cooking the idlis in it.
4. Do not forget to add eno fruit salt else your idlis would become dense and hard.
5. If you do not have eno fruit salt you can replace it with same quantity of baking soda though I have not tried with the baking soda.

Sweet Corn Kheer / Sweet Corn Payasam

I like sweet corns in any form. So whenever I see fresh sweet corns in the market I just grab it.  Its not always that I find fresh sweet corns in the market so I always keep a packet of frozen sweet corns in stock. Yesterday the vegetable seller came with fresh sweet corns and I bought it with no second thought.  As I can't keep it in stock for long I decided to finish it up as soon as possible.  But this time I wanted to make something sweet with it.  Then came this sweet corn kheer or sweet corn payasam in picture.  I must say its a very easy and simple recipe that you can make for any occassion. I recommend to use fresh sweet corns but if you dont have the same you can use frozen ones.  You will surely love this creamy and delicious dessert.  It is good for babies also and kids will love it for sure.  This recipe is a keeper.  So whenever you want to make something sweet for your loved ones you can always rely on this sweet corn payasam.  Do try and enjoy.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Fresh sweet corns	2 (medium )
Sugar	¼ cup
Milk	350 ml
Ghee/clarified butter	1 tsp
Cashews	1 tbsp (chopped)
Raisins	1 tbsp
Cardamom	2 (crushed)

Method:

• Take the sweet corns and wash them well.  Coarsely grate and keep aside.

grated sweet corn pulp

• Take ghee in a non stick pan and let it melt.  Add grated sweet corn pulp in it.  Fry till raw smell of corn goes. Keep the flame medium to avoid burning.  After 3 - 4 minutes, color will start to change.  At this stage, remove it from the stove and keep aside.
• In another pan, take milk and let it boil.  Once boiled, add fried sweet corn paste and mix well.  Keep stirring, on medium flame, till the milk reduces and kheer starts thickening.  Add cardamom powder and chopped cashews.  Cook for 1 minute.
• Add sugar and mix well.  Cook till the sugar dissolves.  Add raisins and cook for 2 more minutes.
• Remove from stove and let it warm.  Shift to a serving dish and keep in the fridge for atleast 1 hour.
• Garnish with cashews and serve chilled.

Notes:

1. You can take frozen sweet corns also but there would be a slight difference in the taste.
2. Sugar level is dependent on the sweetness of your sweet corns so first add less sugar and check the sweetness.
3. Cook the kheer on medium flame else it could get burnt.
4. Addition of dried fruits is all on your choice. You can omit it or increase or decrease the quantity.
5. If making it for babies do not add hard nuts. Raisins are okay to add.