Masala Macaroni with Cheese and Tomato

How cool is that , a masala macaroni loaded with desi flavors and completed with a glass of ,well couple of glasses of Red,Red wine. That mes amis was also so desi...from the vineyards of Grovers in Nasik, Maharashtra.Frankly, I don't understand the concept of a glass of red wine. Its best enjoyed by the bottle. Desi I am, I don't really appreciate the taste of too much wine,"keep it simple babe...lets do vodka"!Fruit to me is meant to be eaten,not made into alcohol.

Unfortunately mum did not get the idea of the wine, and with Sanskriti around...we were on almost a no wine now diet. So the only sipping we did ,was what was poured out in the glasses for the pictures.
For parents, I don't think children will ever cross the "drinkable" age of 18.
Any thing that keeps you young is good, and then there is always clandestine!LOLZZ!

This meal was a filling ,OK, not so healthy,meal. Loads  of tomatoes -lycopene is good, and tons of cheese...the only thing not so healthy about this is the pasta..whole wheat is not so easily available in Ranchi. But the saving grace, semolina is easily digested by the body, so if you do not use too much pepper or spice ,this is something any little baby can also eat.

for the

Masala Macaroni with Cheese and Tomato...

you need

400 gms/4 cups (approx) elbow macaroni/penne pasta
240 mils/1 cup milk
2 tsp butter
2 tsp olive oil
1 small onion diced
3-4 garlic cloves finely chopped
2 tbsp flour
2 cups cooked and strained tomato puree
100 gms or more cheddar cheese
a few pinches freshly grated  nutmeg
fresh /dried herbs to taste-I used garlic chives and basil
salt ,pepper,red chili flakes to taste

The tomato puree,was made fresh. I boiled actually pressure cooked about 1 kilo of fresh tomatoes and then strained them through a strainer to remove all seeds and skins.

Fresh from the backyard ,these are tomatoes and garlic scapes. That is the reason why all my cooking has an overdose of garlic and tomatoes....waste not!And I've been feeding all around me tomatoes...

Heat the olive oil in the pan and to that add the chopped onions and the chopped garlic and saute till it turns pink. The aim is not to make a subzi...we are still continental here.

To this add the tomato puree and cook till the puree thickens a bit and a bit of oil floats on the surface.Season the sauce with salt, pepper and red chili flakes. Also pop in the dried herbs.

Cook till the sauce is thick,you may want to sweeten it with a wee bit of honey,but the tang of the tomatoes will be balanced by the cheese sauce.So no worries...

That's the butter ,OK,I could have used more...but remember the battle of the bulge??

To which I added the flour and cooked it lightly to make a roux,on a slow flame...we don't want burnt offerings here.

That's the roux cooking.

To which you need to add the milk. Standard Bechamel, minus the eggs,and of course with lesser butter. More is always merrier, but we have calorie constraints here.Grate the nutmeg fresh for maximum flavour.

Boil the pasta till al dente. A bite...just a tad undercooked.

To this sauce add the cheese,about three quarters of it.Most of it will melt ASAP!

Now mix the Bechamel and the pasta to the red sauce.

Pour into a buttered dish,Add the fresh herbs in and on the pasta.The remaining cheese gets used here. Oven should be at 200C/400F and if you intend using a combo microwave, I used grill+micro at 70% power for 10 minutes. The oven should take about 20-25 minutes for the cheese to melt.

Enjoy this warm with even more butter and cheese if you will and the whole bottle of red wine. Make this kid friendly recipe Adult.

Baby food ,because Sanskriti munched on a much buttered bowl of this pasta, she too was interested in the bottle of red wine, but mum still dishes out dirty looks.
This is a slimmer version of friend Kanchan Bhartari's Red and White pasta, which all the kids and adults alike love around here.
Cheers to good friends and neighbours.

So what are you baking today???

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Death by Chocolate with Hershey’s Chocolate Cake

Back with a vengeance…

By god, being without a dongle for an internet connection is almost as though I’ve been  a zombie…

And I’ve been one.

I knew that when hubby dear took the dongle for a week…that feeling of being bereft. It’s not that I am a net junkie or whatever, but the fact that I’ve not been able to even check my mail (as if Barak Obama was writing to me regularly and I needed to be in constant touch with him. But you can’t blame a girl for hoping.)

This cake was a welcome home present for sweet Romeo.

He was HAPPY to see us back after 20 days.

The person who looked after him while we were not around fed him lots, but I guess he missed us a ton. Instead of chicken, he is happy munching on kidney beans –raja and chick peas-white Chana. It’s almost the Ramayana and the episode of Shari key beer.

Ram was fed berries after Shari tasted them. She bit into them to taste them and she offered them to him lovingly, only if they were sweet, and he relished them. That’s what’s happening here…I’m just cleaning the gravy off the beans and Romeo the dog laps them up.

Yum, yum, yum.

A week without internet access has been painful; thank god the dongle is coming back tomorrow! Yup, hubby dear is back too…

I had tasted Death by Chocolate at Nirula's Ice Cream Parlor,Delhi, last summer and have been wanting more…only without the cold ice-cream flavor….love chocolate but I am not a big fan of ice-cream. This recipe in the Hershey’s Cocoa container seemed interesting. I’d not encountered a full spoonful of salt in a 2 egg cake before, so was tempted to try it out. Then there was this recipe of whipped chocolate cream from my cake bible-500 Cakes and Bakes, that had been eluding me, and there always is ganache.

Death by Chocolate this was supposed to be, but I took a short cut. When I sort of counted the calories, I stopped just short of the ganache. The ganache will be another time.

I also realized I need the small 9” sandwich tins, cuz this cake needs them.

Another lesson learnt, when the batter of a cake is thin, you need to grease AND line your baking tin, for a clean bottom.

This cake is two thirds death by chocolate….

For the

Hershey’s Chocolate Cake…

You need

2 cups powdered sugar- I used 1 ¾ cups icing sugar

1 ¾ cup flour

¾ cup Hershey’s cocoa-I used Cadbury’s

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup milk

] 2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

½ cup oil

1 cup boiling hot water

Pre heat your oven to 175C/350F and grease, flour AND line your tins (2 9” pans- I had a 10” pan and another mould. MISTAKE- it pays to follow instructions!)

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.

Add the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla essence into the dry stuff and blend with a hand blender.

Now pour in ALL the hot water-yup, ALL! The batter is thinner than your regular batter, but then this is the Hershey’s Chocolate Cake.

Into the two tins, and into the oven.

The recipe said 30 minutes, but it took almost 40 minutes in Ranchi. So keep an eye out. Check for doneness with a skewer.

Bring the cakes out, and let them cool about 10-15 minutes. Then carefully take them out of the tin.

In an ideal world, the cake should come out perfect.

But as I did not bother to line my tins…they were not that ideal. So I repaired the breaks with the chocolate cream.

So thats the way the cake crumbles...what started out as a low cal snack...come on 1/4 cup of oil per cake is low cal....now had to be innundated with chocolate cream...and how.

First the

Soaking syrup...

You need

½ cup sugar

½ cup water (you can replace some water with rum- I did)

All you need to do is boil the water and the sugars.

Once the sugar has dissolved, turn off the heat and add the rum.

Cool and this is ready to use.

What should have been done the day before was make the whipped chocolate cream the day before. A few hours early is not a bad idea though. Maybe before you start the cake.

For the

Whipped chocolate cream...
You need

300 mils fresh cream- I used UHT Amul 1 ½ packs

100 Gms semi sweet chocolate- cut into pieces

2 tsp sugar

Put the cream to heat.

Once it begins to boil, turn off the heat and add the chocolate pieces.

Mix till well blended. Leave to cool and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Once cold, start whipping with a blender. I whipped this over ice as Ranchi was already blistering hot.

Whip, whip, and whip till soft peaks form. Taste for and add the sugar if you think it’s needed.

Whip some more till dome.

A word of caution, it is Difficult to pipe designs with UHT. If you intend making your cake pretty with stars and all, don’t use UHT.

for the

Ganache...

you need
200 Gms UHT cream

200 Gms semi sweet chocolate, if you can use MORDE, we can only scrounge SELBOURNE!

Same drill, bring the cream to a boil.

Cut the chocolate into chip size pieces and place in a glass bowl.

Now pour the cream over the chocolate and mix well.

That, people is your ganache. You can get the pix and the recipe here.

Now the Real Mac Coy...

Death by Chocolate cake…

To assemble.

One cake ,then another.

Our half the soaking syrup on each of the cakes. Since we ate the first cake, I had to slice the second cake. DIFFICULT. The cake is so soft and moist; it is ready to break in your hands. That’s why the sandwich tins.

It may look as though I just brushed the rum...but by god 120 mils of rum is just right for a chocolate cake...thats what these guys are all about..

Cream to join the layers…generous.

Join and cover the cake even more generously with the cream

You need to simply pour the warm ganache over the whipped chocolate cream covered cake. As for the remainder of the ganache…freeze…till needed again.

You can also cool and whip the ganache, and pipe rosettes on your cake.

Me, I got a guilt kick after the whipped chocolate cream. So I skipped the ganache...the cake was beautiful as it was too. Chocolate curls on top and chilled overnight. Ready to slice and disappear.

Beautiful…

Check how moist the cake looks,I'm sure you must be tempted...

I’m spent; it’s been a wonderfully indulgent cake, which I will complete the next time an occasion demands.

Till then…

So what are you baking today??

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Coffee and Walnut Muffins with Jaggery

Get set to go back home again...

This time spent with mum and dad...this installment is over for now.

This time ,the memories we created...all precious.

This time was full of fun ,laughter,lots of baking and good food, sadly very little shopping and lots of cupcakes and chai.

For this installment....this is the final offering.

Coffee and walnut Muffins.

With filter kapi...no less.

And lots of walnuts,just the way mum likes it.

And we also made them healthy...with jaggery-gur.
High in Iron and a different flavor all together.

I don't feel too good about leaving for Ranchi this time round.
So this post may not be even pseudo happy...cant lame me for trying. I'm the babe who calls a spade an ugly back thing which is used to dig.


for the

Coffee and Walnut Muffins with Jaggery...

you need

1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup grated brown sugar...we made them a little desi and used - jaggery
1/2 cup sugar(together the sugars should make 3/4 cup)
6 tbsp/90 mils refined vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup strong black coffee( I used 1/2 cup buttermilk to which I added coffee powder-leftovers from the melting moments fondant cupcakes)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts ,coarsely chopped

Oven at 180C/350F...and grease and flour the muffin tin and cups...
That's the grated jaggery and the flour,salt and baking powder to be sifted.

The sugars in total...3/4 cup

The eggs and the sugars, to be beaten with a hand held blender...to which the oil must be added.

The flour, in batches...to make this more liquid...add the coffee liquid.

Now the walnuts...

2 tsp of the batter now in the tin...topped with walnut quarters..

In the oven...for 16-18 minutes...

These cup cake shots are the quickest...at 15 minutes.

Unmould while warm...and serve with,

Coffee...what else!

Enjoy these coffee and walnut muffins and keep the memories high.

So what are you baking today???

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