Cake House

F rom childhood, I loved to eat corn in any form. Even now when ever I see a road side corn wallah, I will make sure I buy the roasted corn and eat it all on my own without sharing even with my daughter :-) Now there are so many sweet corn stalls in every corner and there are so many varieties of corn dishes we get. Also, the use of sweet corn has been on the rise in the various cuisines.  This chat is one such recipe, which we ate when we went to a restaurant called Jarokha. This was served as a starter and as soon as I saw the corn I just couldn't stop myself. Even my husband, who is not a big fan of corn, loved this and asked me to try this at home. The ingredients of the chat was very clearly visible in the plate and I had no trouble identifying the recipe :-) This corn chat is a feast to the eyes with the lovely color of corn, tomatoes etc. This easy to prepare, a flavorful dish with the lovely combination of corn and veggies is sure to leave your taste buds craving for more. ...

I n most of the baking recipes(bread), yeast plays an important role. There are 2 types of yeast, Active dried yeast and instant yeast. With instant yeast, no need of proofing, we can directly add this to the flour mixture while making bread. With dried yeast, we need to dissolve in warm water for some time to become active. In the beginning there will be quite some chaos with using the right yeast in right quantities. I use dry yeast and for me yeast is quite a familiar ingredient since past few years. Thanks to my frequent endeavours with Appam :-)  Now a days we prefer to eat whole wheat bread / brown bread as it contains loads of fibre when compared to white bread. Fibre-rich food is known to prevent heart diseases, cancer and so on. While buying the brown bread from market, you need to check the ingredients because in most of the brown breads they add colour ( caramel colouring, brown colour) with which the brown colour comes and we take it as wheat bread. We have to ask for ...

L ast week our house was getting repainted and I was not too much into cooking. Recently my brother bought me loads of dark and white cooking chocolates and along with the house painting, I thought of preparing some easy stuff with those chocolates, before the kitchen got messier with the painting work. I was in search of chocolate recipes and I stumbled upon this really simple and easy preparation. This can be prepared with just 2 ingredients that are very common and handy. Even a small kid can make this with the help of an adult to melt the chocolate. In the original recipe which I saw, the chef adds all kinds of nuts. But as I am very fond of peanuts, I added only those. In general I love adding peanuts in certain desserts like the hot chocolate fudge (which is my most favorite ice cream). This preparation is ideal for a gift. Taking a bite into the melted chocolate along with the crunchiness of peanuts is just amazing. Ingredients: Dark Chocolate- 250gms White chocolate- 250gms Pe...

I never knew that something like basbousa ever existed till I saw cookery show in TV and I liked the end result (the cake after coming out of the oven), but as I didn’t see the show from start, I didn’t know what are the ingredients which went into this delicious dessert. The next moment I googled and got so many recipes for this. Basbousa is an Egyptian dessert which can be made without any effort and with less ingredients. The main ingredient is semolina. Adding of sugar syrup will induce the cake to be soft and full of flavors. Lemon juice is added so that it will prevent the sugar from crystallizing.  This is found in eastern Mediterranean cuisines under different varieties of names. This is such a rich cake, very moist and exceptional too. Adapted from Arabic Food : Ingredients: Semolina- 2cups Sugar- 1cup Coconut flakes- 1cup Butter- ½ cup Milk- 1cup Yogurt- ½ tbsp Slivered Almonds- ½ cup Sugar Syrup: Sugar- ½ cup Water- ½ cup Butter- 1tbsp Lemon juice- 1tbsp Rose essence- 2-...

A fter a short trip to Kerala, I am back with a spicy, tangy recipe which is my favorite one. This is the first time I tried making pickle on my own. Pickles are an inevitable part of our meal. I used to think that I could never make a pickle as they will get damaged soon, till I tried this. My friend gave me lemon and I was in a dilemma on what to do with these many lemon and then I thought of pickling them. I took the courage and with the help of my mom and a bit of googling I made this yummy pickle, which I am sure will be loved by all. This is actually a combination of Andhra and Kerala style recipes.  Salted Lemon This can be stored for months in air tight jars without any damage. It is best served with rice and curd. My Husband likes to have this pickle along with biryani.... :) Now I am confident about preparing pickles and I will try to come up with more such recipes. But I can never beat the famous fish pickle made by Mom and the prawns pickle made by my M-I-L, with all t...

After so much of baking, I am back with my curry recipes. This is a delicious side dish with rice which every one must try. Pachadi is a side dish and a most wanted dish in all the sadhyas. We can make pachadi out of many vegetables, and mango is one of them. This can be made with ripe mangoes also. We can also add curd, depending upon the sourness of mangoes. In most of the places raw mangoes are available almost all through the year. So once when I got mangoes to make pickle, my M-I-L made this pachadi out of one of the mangoes and turned out to be delicious. I had never tasted this before. Hmm.. my M-I-L was holding this recipe for last so many years... :) This is one of the easiest recipes to make. This is not the season for mangoes but I couldn’t resist taking at least one mango when ever I see them in market, to make this yummy, tangy and delicious pachadi. Hope you all enjoy this. Ingredients: Raw mango- 1no(big) Coconut- 1cup Mustard seeds- 1tbsp Oil- 1tbsp Mustard seeds- 1tsp ...

I ts been quite some time since I wanted to start writing about some amazing places which we have been visiting in search of good food. We visited several places over the past year, but never got a chance to start writing. It was by accident that we saw this small tea shop in Indiranagar called Chai Patty. We were in fact early for doctor’s appointment and we thought of just going to this tea shop and see what they have. The view inside was just superb and just  by the look of it we decided to have at least a tea over there. The shop in general is quite open and done beautifully with the book shelves and the impromptu seating arrangements.  It gave us all the ambience of an old time college canteen. There is a reading section too with a reasonable variety of books for book lovers. The racks decorated with lovely and colourful showpieces. We decided to order a Kullad Chai and some hot and crispy potato bhajjis. The hot steaming kullad chai is just amazing. The masala chai was r...