Sugar et al, Author at Sugar et al

Mixed Berry and Cardamom Kulfi (Ice Cream) Popsicle

28|08|2013

Ever since I came back from my trip to India I have been craving more and more Indian food…the spicy curries, the mouth-watering street food and most of all the sweet treats. The part of India where I have lived for the most part of my life is famous for its sweet shops that fill up every nook and corner of the city. The variety is immense and choices unlimited. Perhaps, that is where my fascination for dessert stems from. I hope to try and recreate as many as I can.

To be honest, I have never enjoyed Indian summers as it tends to be humid and sticky and makes you feel tired easily. But there are some delicious ways to beat the heat and that makes up for everything. Kulfi is a frozen dairy dessert, popularly known as an Indian ice cream. It is very simple to make and does not require an ice cream maker. Traditionally Kulfis are flavoured with spices and/or nuts which makes them aromatic and downright delicious. A lot of people make them at home but the best way to enjoy them is from the street vendors who make them look all the more vibrant with different coloured syrups and condiments.

During the trip, I enjoyed the street side Kulfi as much as I could, eating two or three at a time but I don’t think that I’ve had enough of them. I made them the very next day I arrived in Sydney. But with a berry twist (Spring, I embrace you with open arms)! Cardamom powder is an integral part of Indian sweets. If you do not have access to it, you can easily make it at home by cracking the pods open and passing the seeds through a food processor. The skins can be added to tea to get a wonderful flavour and aroma.

I personally loved the pairing. I was careful not to overpower the authentic flavours of the Kulfi by adding too much berries. As soon as you remove the moulds you can smell the cardamom. One bite into the dessert you can taste the raspberries and blueberries along with the smooth, creamy milk. And you will want to go back for it..over and over again!

Mixed Berry and Cardamom Kulfi Ice Cream Popsicle
Makes 8 popsicles

500 ml full fat milk
1/2 cup condensed milk
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 cup mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)
1 tbsp sugar

In a heavy bottomed, shallow pan heat the milk and bring it to a simmer (on medium heat). Stir the milk from time to time to avoid burning. Simmer the milk till it is reduced to half its volume and turns a beige color. Add the condensed milk and simmer for 5 more minutes. Remove from heat and add the cardamom powder. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
Meanwhile, process the berries and sugar in a food processor till completely pureed. Add the puree to the cooled milk mixture and process to blend together. You can use a stick blender or a food processor. Strain to remove seeds (optional). Pour into popsicle moulds and freeze for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Eggless Chocolate and Passion Fruit Melting Moments

21|08|2013

I am back home after a super hectic yet wonderful trip. After eating plenty of good food and gorging on sweets, I would have loved to post a few Indian recipes. Those are sure to follow but today I wanted to post these Melting Moments. Sugar et al has completed 6 months today and a half anniversary was the perfect excuse for me to look back, go through my previous posts and recipes and assess how far I have travelled since I started out.

Its been such an amazing journey with the new things that I learnt along the way, the wonderful people who I came across, the different cuisines, creativity, thoughts, ideas that I find everywhere. Funny that I didn’t even know that such a beautiful place existed on the Internet before I started. I so love this blog-o-sphere as much as I love you all.

I am my own critic. Will it be exaggeration if I tell you that so much of the food I cook and photograph don’t make it to my blog? If I am not happy with the way a dish looks it will not be posted and I will start working on something else. I make a rare exception if the recipe is unique or has taken a great deal of effort to make or the gap between my posts are significantly long. So today I have recreated these cookies, with variations of course. My Strawberry Melting Moments is one of those posts which I was never proud of. I was experimenting with my camera and they were photographed badly. Do you also have such instances? Are there posts that you wish you had done differently?

That being said, I am totally in love with these cookies. The crumbly melt-in-your mouth texture makes them so special. Passion fruit pairs beautifully with chocolate in these cookies and look how bright they look together! This months Sweet Adventures Blog Hop challenge is also about cookies. I have missed the last few challenges so I was excited to find out about the Cookie Monster theme in August. The event is being hosted this month by Sophie from The Sticky and Sweet. Do check out the fantastic creations that all have put up at the end of the post.

Eggless Chocolate and Passion Fruit Melting Moments
Makes 7 large sandwich cookies

125g unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
1 cup flour
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder

For filling
60g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp passion fruit puree, strained to remove seeds
2 drops yellow food colouring

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Using an electric mixer or with a hand mixer, beat butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift flour, custard powder and cocoa powder over the butter mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until just combined and a soft dough forms. Using 1 heaped tbsp of dough per ball, make balls. Place on prepared trays leaving room for spreading. Using a fork dipped in cocoa, lightly flatten each biscuit until 1 cm thick. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until cooked through. Cool on tray for 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile make the passion fruit filling: Using an electric mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the butter till fluffy. Add the sugar gradually and whisk to combine. Add the passion fruit puree and mix well. Tint the frosting with food colour. Spread or pipe the filling on the flat side of a cookie. Sandwich with another cookie. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. Serve dusted with cocoa powder.

Mocha Mousse with Coffee Glazed Hazelnuts and Cocoa Tuile

5|08|2013

Isn’t it ironical that I am posting about coffee when my morning coffee has just been replaced by a cup of masala chai (spiced tea)! Life has been wonderful. Despite travelling 5000 miles over, I am anything but jet lagged and loving every bit of my break. So have I been missing coffee? Well, not really. I did make sure I had loads of it in my dessert, before I left.

This is the first time I am contributing to the Chocolate Party hosted by Roxana’s Home Baking and I couldn’t be more excited. Chocolate is one word that is probably scribbled all over my blog and has the most number of recipes dedicated to it. When I learnt the secret ingredient for August was coffee, I didn’t want to miss it though I knew it would be a little early on a vacation to open my laptop and think ‘blog’. So I prepared my dessert and photographed it well ahead in time.

I love this pairing! Needless to say it’s a decadent, rich mousse, heady with the triple dose of coffee. If you love coffee, this is the dessert for you. To make it totally coffee-ish I glazed the hazelnuts (along with a few cashew nuts) with a bitter-sweet coating of coffee and baked them to crispness. One spoonful of this and it takes all your willpower to stop. The tuile makes the dessert look stunning though you can leave it out if you think it’s a hassle. I added it because I wanted to give equal weightage to both the ingredients.

Mocha Mousse with Coffee Glazed Hazelnuts and Cocoa Tuile
Serves 4

Mocha Mousse

½ Cup heavy cream for the custard (Crème Anglaise)
1 tsp instant coffee powder
4 Egg Yolks
¼ Cup Sugar(or to taste)
3/4 cup Dark Chocolate, chopped
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream for whipping

1 Tablespoon Coffee Liquor, optional (I used Kahlua)

Heat the ½ cup cream over medium heat in a saucepan. Add the instant coffee powder and stir to dissolve. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl. When the cream reaches boiling point take it off the heat, add 2 tsp of the coffee cream mixture into the egg mixture and whisk. Gradually pour the remaining cream over the egg mixture whisking constantly till combined. (This is done gradually so as to ensure that the eggs don’t scramble) Return the egg-cream mixture to the pan.

Heat the mixture under a medium-low flame, whisking constantly till the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. This is called a Creme anglaise/custard.

Place the dark chocolate in a bowl. Remove the custard from heat and pass it through a sieve into the bowl of chocolate. Let the mixture remain undisturbed for a while. Stir to smoothen out the chocolate. Cool to room temperature. While the custard is cooling, whip the remaining 1/2 cup cream to stiff peaks. Add the coffee liquor if using and stir slowly to combine. Store in the refrigerator till needed.

When the chocolate mixture has cooled down completely add it to the whipped cream little at a time & fold in till no white streaks appear. Pour into serving glasses. Refrigerate till set, about 4 hours or preferably overnight.

Coffee Glazed Hazelnuts

1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
2 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup or light corn syrup
1 cup hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil.
Add all the ingredients except the hazelnuts to a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Bring to a boil stirring constantly till the mixture has blended completely and looks dark brown. Remove from heat and add in the nuts and mix till evenly coated. Spread on the baking tray in a single layer. Bake for 10 minutes, stirring once in between. Remove from the oven and cool completely. Break into pieces and store till needed.

Cocoa Tuile

20 g all-purpose flour
20 g butter, room temperature
20 ml water
20 g cocoa powder
70 g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl till a smooth paste forms. Spread evenly in a thin layer on the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about a minute. Break into desired shapes and let harden for about 2 mins.

[inlinkz_linkup id=301410]

Jaffa Cupcakes. Chocolate Cupcakes with an Orange Chocolate Ganache and Orange Buttercream.

1|08|2013

A candy inspired cupcake! That’s what I have for you today. I wouldn’t like to call myself a big fan of candies but I love what they can do to my cupcakes. Chocolate-Orange is a classic combination…they have the capacity to elevate a dessert by flavour alone. I may have liked to call these ‘double everything cupcakes’ because if you notice, they have double flavours, double frosting (a glaze and a buttercream) and even the decor is twice that of a typical cupcake. But then the stand out here is the Jaffa. Look how bright and glossy they look.

If you are unfamiliar with Jaffa, they are an orange and chocolate flavoured candy (see in the pictures), pretty popular in Australia. What sets them apart are their bright reddish-orange colour, hard exterior and unique flavour. The cupcakes I have created are chocolate cupcakes that are dipped in orange and dark chocolate ganache, topped with orange buttercream and decorated with a Jaffa. So basically, you experience a similar taste sensation as you bite into them.

So along with some speed baking and speed posting, I am super speed prepping for my upcoming trip. I am not sure if it’s all the sugar working its magic or the excitement of the trip that has set my adrenaline pumping. I have managed to prepare a few posts ahead in time so I will stay connected and continue to visit my blogger friends. I hope to, at least for now.

See you soon, my friends….under the same sun, on a different soil, breathing the familiar air, to warmer temperatures

…..and the warmest place on earth…. FAMILY!

Jaffa Cupcakes. Chocolate Cupcakes with an Orange Chocolate Ganache and Orange Buttercream
Yields 12

Chocolate Cupcakes – I have used my basic chocolate cupcake recipe.

Orange Chocolate Ganache

120 g dark chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp orange liqueur (optional) ( I use Cointreau)

In a shallow (preferably microwaveable) bowl, place the chopped chocolate. Heat the cream, butter and orange zest over medium heat. When it reaches boiling point, remove from heat and let stand for 10 mins for the orange flavour to infuse. Bring to a boil again after 10 mins, remove from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate through a strainer to remove any solids. Let the mixture stand undisturbed for a while till the chocolate melts. Stir gently to mix together till you get a smooth glossy ganache. If using liqueur, add and stir to mix. Keep aside.

Orange Buttercream

2 cups icing sugar (230g)
1/2 cup butter (113g)
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
2 tsp fresh orange juice

In an electric mixture or with a hand mixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended. With the mixer on low-speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the orange juice and zest and beat on high-speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 mins).

To serve: Microwave the ganache or heat it slightly to get it warm and smooth again (it has a tendency to solidify as it cools). Once the cupcakes have cooled, hold each cupcake by the bottom and dip into the ganache. Let the excess drip out. Keep aside for the ganache to set. Add some coloured sprinkles if desired. Once the ganache has set (test by touching), pipe a little swirl of orange buttercream. Decorate with a Jaffa.