Plum and Apple Cobbler

Plum and Apple Cobbler

I wanted to make a cobbler for ages. 

But I just could not get the required ingredients the plums were not good enough or the peaches just disappeared in a blink of my eyes. 

 Just as a last try I googled and found this yummy plum and apple cobbler here.

The recipe needed Bramley apples which are cooking apples…hmmm a quick query to Mir,  who is a Chef  by profession and a good friend solved my problem.

Now I do not have self- rising flour at home so I mixed cup maida with 1½ tsp baking powder and skipped adding the ½ tsp salt as I was using salted butter. By the way I forgot to peel the apples but that has not bothered anyone and the cobbler has just disappeared. The girls started on it when it was still warm and out of the oven!!

A good enough reason to “#FireUpYourOven"

Plum and Apple Cobbler

Serves: 4-6      
Preparation time:  15 minutes
Cooking time:  50 minutes

Temperature: 180°C/350 F

Recipe Source: Here 

Ingredients:

• 500g plums, stoned and quartered
• 300g Granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
• 160g / 2/3 cups + 1 tblspn caster sugar
• 2 tbsp water
• 300g/2 ½ cups self raising flour, sifted
• 85g / 6 tblspn unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tbsp milk+2 tblspn
• 150g/ 10 tblspn curds

Method:

•  In a kadhai/wok mix the plums, apple slices, 100 grams/ ½ cup  of the sugar and add the water, cook until the plums and apples soften.
• To make the cobbler, add the sifted flour, butter, baking powder and rest of the sugar and using a food processor pulse to get fine crumbs form but if like me you don’t have a food processer don’t fret, add all the ingredients to a big bowl and with your fingertips rub the butter in the flour to get fine crumbs.
• Add the milk and curds and mix to get  a soft dough forms.  I needed the 2 tblspn of milk to get the droppable dough  You may need or need the extra milk.
• Now the choice is yours you can spoon the mixture in scattered clumps over the fruit leave some gaps for the cobble effect. Or add a little more flour and roll the dough.
• Bake the cobbler for 50 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is visibly bubbling beneath.

Plum and Apple Cobbler

Day 17

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51

An InLinkz Link-up

Hi! First time here? Well then you are Most Welcome! I hope you keep coming back for more here. If you are my regular visitor then Thanks, for you encourage me to experiment more!! I would like you to please click on my link below and like my Facebook Page. I will be happy if you can follow me on on Twitter too!

 

Cauliflower Cheese with Walnuts and Bread Crumbs

Cauliflower Cheese with Walnuts and Bread Crumbs

“Not cauliflower again!!”

Familiar words?

Then you will love this cheesy bake, rather your kids will love it. I was wondering what will happen to my waist if I indulge in so much cheese every other day.

Anyway it is the perfect side to meat preparations as well. If you’re short on time, you can prepare a day ahead and leave the baking for later.

Cauliflower Cheese with Walnuts and Bread Crumbs

Recipe Source: Good Food Magazine

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 200 grams cauliflower
• 125 ml milk
• 1 tblspn butter
• 1 fresh folded to break the spines bay leaves
• 1 tblspn corn flour
• 40 grams   cheddar, grated
• A handful, torn into chucky bits of bread
• 1 tbsp walnuts chopped
• ¼ tsp salt
• A pinch pepper

Cauliflower Cheese with Walnuts and Bread Crumbs

Method:

• Separate the cauliflower to even sized florets.
• Bring a large pan of salt water to boil.
• Add the cauliflower and boil for 8 minutes or just until tender and allow to steam and dry.
• Air dry the cauliflower on paper napkins, to remove as much water from the cervices as you can. (I did the boiling and drying in the night before I made this).
• Arrange the cauliflower in a large casserole dish.
• To make the sauce, pour the milk into a pan along with the butter, bay leaves and corn flour, and heat gently, stirring at all times until it thickens in to a smooth creamy dish.
• Remove the bay leaves, add 25 grams of cheese and season to taste.
• Pour over the cauliflower and scatter with the remaining cheese.  Preheat oven to 220°C.
• Scatter the bread and walnuts over the cauliflower and bake for 25 minutes until golden.
• In case you are preparing ahead then pour the sauce and refrigerate, when you needed scatter the bread and walnuts over the cauliflower and bake for 25 minutes until golden.

Do check my other friends at “#FireUpYourOven“! Come back tomorrow for a new bake…

Day 13

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51

An InLinkz Link-up

Hi! First time here? Well then you are Most Welcome! I hope you keep coming back for more here. If you are my regular visitor then Thanks, for you encourage me to experiment more!! I would like you to please click on my link below and like my Facebook Page. I will be happy if you can follow me on on Twitter too!

 

Berry Short Cakes

Berry Short Cakes

Berry shortcakes was a Baking partners challenge. The July month challenge (I know I am late) was suggested by Reeni of Cinnamon nice and everything nice.  This eggless recipe is a simple one and you can use any berries of your choice.  

I agree that there is no better way to showcase them then with fresh whipped cream and classic shortcakes. These shortcakes are like biscuits only instead of butter they use heavy cream.

My family love them a lot. In fact by the time I came back from a bloggers meet they were all gone. 
Thanks Reeni and Swati!

DrØmmekage fra Brovst or Danish Dream Cake

Yummy Danish Dream Cake

If you are a regular reader of my space then you must be aware that I am a member of egg-less baking group.  The group is the brainchild of Gayatri and we try out making baking recipes from with eggs to egg-less.

 Recently Gayatri had asked members to give suggestions for different cakes and we have been trying new cakes. Most of them I will not even dream of. Have you thought of making molten lava cake, cauldron cakes all egg-less?

Cauldron Cakes for Eggless Baking

WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

My daughters are Harry Potter Crazy! There is no word for it.

So I was not too surprised when my elder daughter suggested a HP themed party for her younger sister who was to be 11 this year. In preparation she had surfed the net for all the dishes mentioned in the books. (this was a surprise to the b’day gal boy was she bugged because we did “khusr phusr” without her!!

So I had the recipes for treacle tart, pumpkin juice, stew and this Cauldron Cake. The highlight!!

Around the same time Gayatri asked us to suggest recipes for egg less baking in a crazy moment I suggested this Cauldron Cake. I need to mention here I did not expect her to choose this recipe I was insecure of making this recipe with eggs and egg less?

As you know eggless cakes are very delicate. Handling them needs you to be deft. To exemplify I had 24 cup cakes or muffins and still I got only 2 finalists the rest were all runners up.

Did I have complaints about the cake? No sir not a pip from anyone! 

Thanks Gayatri if it had not been for this challenge I would have ordered the cake from the bakery. Of course these were not on the menu for the party! (I made another cake with eggs for that.)

Egg-less Molten Lava Cake

Just out of the oven

When Gayatri announced that for the Eggless Baking Group we were to try Molten Lava cake that  Sowmya of Nivedhanam  had suggested  this month my girls were thrilled!!

For the challenge Gayatri had provided a recipe from Noobcook. The recipe is here but in case you want to try making it egg less it will not work as it is.

I mean replacing just the eggs with the replacer that you plan like I did will not work; you will have a cake that looks like this in your hands.

 The others have successfully tried the recipe by increasing the flour and reducing the butter.

Then I decided to use the recipe that I had tried out ages ago from Vidya of Sugar n’Spice. Below is the same recipe but made egg less with a few changes.
By the way these pictures are taken in the evening after sunset kindly excuse!

Ingredients:

·       115 grms of chocolate

·        115 grms of butter (I used Amul) + for greasing 6 ramekins( I used bowls)

·        ¼ cup curd (thick)

·        ¼ cup milk

·        1 tsp vinegar

·        I tsp vanilla essence

·        1/3 cup sugar

·        ¼ cup + 1 ½ tbspn Maida

Method:

1.     Pre heat oven to 180ºC. Butter the ramekins sides and the base.

2.     Mix the chocolate and the butter in the microwave proof bowl and melt the chocolate and butter. Use short spurts of 30 secs till all the chocolate has melted. Stir in between the microwaving.  It will be faster if the chocolate is in smaller bits.

3.     Meanwhile beat the milk, vinegar, curd and sugar in a medium bowl till the sugar dissolves. Stir in the vanilla essence.

4.     Once the chocolate has melted Add the chocolate and butter mix to the milk and curd mixture and sugar mix, add the maida and fold well till well incorporated.

5.     Pour the mix till ¾ full and bake in the oven. The time taken will differ from oven to oven .Do check it out for your oven.

6.    I needed exactly 12.62 minutes for this gooey effect.

7.      Serve hot immediately with ice cream or whipped cream or dusted with icing sugar.

Thanks Gayatri and Sowmya without your push I would have never tried this cake egg-less.

Linking to

 Egg less baking.

Bake Fest

and Know your Flours ~APF started by Jagruti Guest hosted by me.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content are copy-written @The Mad Scientist’s Kitchen!! unless mentioned. Please Ask First
 

Orange Biscotti for Egg less Baking

For this month's egg less bakingchallenge, Gayathri selected a recipe Called Orange Blossom Biscotti from baking obsession.com. in her introduction she had said that,” Biscotti is one recipe I couldn't get perfect while doing egg less version.”  The idea Gayathri had was we can bookmark the best one and this can be used in future. 

I must say that she does have a point; there are many things that went wrong in my biscotti.   

My troubles started with pre-heating I put the butter paper on the tray, greased it and preheated. Since we had guest at that particular moment the only way I came to know about my blunder was when the strong burnt smell seeped in the living room.

Luckily it had not caught fire, but that was my last butter paper and being a Sunday close to lunch time I had no chance of getting more butter paper. So this time I had to line with a foil. End result was loaves underside resembled charcoal. Then the two loaves that I had made as they were baking thought I was a cruel lady, separating the two lovers so they decided to meet half way. I got no height or the lovely biscotti looks. In fact I had to cut them in half to make the few decent pieces that I got. 

You will think after all these ranting that the biscotto was not worth baking. Yes? No you are wrong.

 The biscotti I carried home when I went to my father’s place. At my insistence Pappa ate it. Do you know what he said, “You baked this? I tastes like it is professionally made.”

 This is the best compliment he has paid me so far…:)