Chana Dal Burfi

Making sweets at home is fun. Relishing homemade sweets on festivals, parties or just like that is really awesome. I love to make sweets at home and if you have noticed, my blog is mostly having sweet dishes :D
Last week I tried Chana Dal Burfi and fell in love with it. It was  so delicious. We were so tempted to finish it up on the same day but had to control as having too much chana dal in one go is not good for stomach :)  So watch your consumption as its strictly addictive.
Here I used my favourite ingredient Condensed Milk. Its a wonderful thing. Gives any sweet a rich taste in no time. As usual I tried to use less ghee still the burfi came out so nice. Its a perfect festive sweet.   I didn’t use any mawa in it as it was not available here. But you won’t feel to add it once you would try this version of chana dal burfi. Its a very easy peasy recipe and you can make it a day before for parties or guests.
So here is the sure shot recipe for you to try. Happy Cooking :)

Makes - 10-12 pieces
Ingredients:

Chana Dal	½ cup
Milk	1 ¼ cup
Ghee	3 tbsp
Condensed milk	½ cup or  8 tbsp
Desiccated coconut	3 tbsp
Sugar (if required)	2 tbsp
Cardamom (crushed)	4
Melon seeds	1 tsp (optional)
Yellow food color	Few drops (optional)
Almonds(to garnish)	5-6 (chopped)

Method:

• Wash chana dal and soak it in water for 3-4 hours.
• Once soaked, put it in pressure cooker alongwith milk and cook for 2 whistles. Remove and let the pressure go by itself.
• Grind the dal with remaining milk left in the pressure cooker. (Do not add more milk, the consistency should be very thick). Remove it in a bowl and set aside.
• Grease a tray or pan with ghee.  Set aside.
• Heat ghee in a non stick kadhai, add dal paste and fry on a medium flame for 4-5 minutes or till raw smell goes. Keep stirring. Add condensed milk and mix well. Cook for 2 minutes.  Add desiccated coconut with 1 tsp melon seeds and food color (add the remaining milk (if any) left from the boiling of dal at this stage) and mix again.  Cook for another 2-3 minutes.  
• Take half tsp burfi mixture from the pan and put it on a clean dry plate.  Let it sit for 1 minute and check if it is getting a firm texture like a burfi after cooling down.  If not, then cook the mixture for another 2-3 minutes and check again likewise.
• Once you get the desired consistency, remove the mixture from the stove and immediately shift it to the greased tray/pan.  Spread the mixture evenly in the tray.  Even the top with a greased spatula to avoid sticking.  Sprinkle chopped almonds on the top and press them slightly.  Let the burfi mixture warm.
• Once warm, cut it in desired shape and put the tray in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.  
• Remove the burfi slices in the serving plates and serve.
• Store the remaining burfis in an airtight container.

Notes:

1. Do not over cook the dal.
2. Condensed milk would give sufficient sweetness so taste the sugar level before adding the sugar.
3. Do not tempt to use more ghee, 3 tbsps would give you perfect burfis as you can see in the pics :)
4. Instead of almonds you can use cashews and pistachios for garnishing.
5. Do not consume a big amount at a time.  Consuming more chana dal at a time is not good as it takes long time to digest.  You may get tummy ache.

Eggless Molten Choco Lava Cake

A big hi to all my readers.  Hope your new year is going very well just like mine.  These days I am going very busy with Mishi (my LO). And whenever I open my laptop to post something she starts banging her fingers on the keyboard.  She simply loves it.  If she is with laptop, it is almost impossible to divert her mind to any other thing.  Anyways, I shall keep trying to write whenever I find it possible. 

Lets come to today’s recipe.  Today I am going to post a very special recipe i.e. molten choco lava cake. Its my all time favourite and is very close to my heart.  Actually the thing is, during my pregnancy, I used to have sudden cravings, mostly in the odd hours.  So one night I had suddenly started craving for this cake..that too very strongly.. the molten chocolate had started filling my mind  hehehe.  That time I was with my sister-in-law (big sister of my hubby) so I shared my wish with her..and even  at that odd time she immediately taken me to Dominos and satiated my crave .. it had happened so many times for different things but she never ignored my silly demands even once... that was so sweet of her.. she is such a darling... .. love you didi J

So that was the story behind my extra love for this cake.  I was thinking to try this cake for a long time but was a bit hesitant.  And two days back when I finally gathered courage to try it, it came out soooooooooo yummy and I was more than happy on my success.  I had never thought, even in my weirdest dream, that I would ever be able to make it at home but see I had made it all by myself  J 

I generally do not like chocolate cakes much but the molten chocolate oozing out from this cake is just irresistible for me.  This cake is a visual treat.  I am 200% sure that you guys will surely love this cake.  It is totally eggless and the taste is awesome (just like the Domino's).  In short, its an Insanely delicious dessert that is incredibly easy to make.  

Here I am posting the full procedure to make this cake.  Please please please try it out and enjoy with your family.  Happy Cooking  :)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/Maida	½ cup
Cocoa Powder	6 tbsp
Baking powder	½ tsp
Baking soda	½ tsp
Dark chocolate chips or grated dark chocolate	¼ cup + 2 tbsp for filling
Butter	¼ cup
Castor sugar	½ cup + 1 tbsp
Curd	½ cup
Milk	½ cup

Method:

• In a mixing bowl, sieve together all purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder.  Set aside.
• Melt chocolate and butter together in a microwave safe bowl or in a double boiler. Once chocolate is melted, add castor sugar in it and mix well. 
• Preheat the oven at 180 degree and grease some silicon muffin moulds with butter and dust with cocoa powder.  Keep aside.
• In the chocolate mix add half of the curd and milk and mix well.  Add flour mix and fold well.  Then add the remaining curd and milk.  Mix everything again.
• Take the muffin moulds and fill the same till 1/4 with the cake batter, put some grated chocolate in the middle and pour some more batter over it.  Fill the mould till half.  Repeat the process with remaining batter as well and bake it for 9 minutes.

half filled moulds

• Remove from the oven.  Let them slightly cool and unmould carefully in the serving plate.  
• Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.

Notes:

1. If you wish you can make this cake without filling the grated chocolate in the middle.
2. Do not experiment with the quantity or ingredients mentioned here.
3. I recommend to use silicon moulds or porcelain ramekins to make this cake.
4.  Do not bake the cake more than the mentioned time or it would be baked from the inside and would lose its molten texture.