Tag: Cookies

Categories
Cakes coffee dessert Master Chef India Uncategorized

Perfect coffee Madeleine – a delicious cake

I love coffee, not so much to drink but love all coffee flavored desserts, chocolates. Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts to make and eat and coffee biscotti is my fav thing to pair with a cup of hot cocoa. Another fancy looking recipe which is a hit amongst my friends is this Spiced nut Baklava with Coffee Syrup

Today we are making another coffee flavored treat, Coffee Madeleine , you can check out the video here on my instagram reel

Coffee madeleines
Jump to Recipe

Story: We have a cute little coffee shop near where I live. Mission coffee has been a hangout place for many years, fondly called Fremont’s living room. Its run by this incredible lady Gael who at 75 still is passionate about her shop and works incredibly hard. She decided to finally close down the shop. It was heartbreaking for us all. She is a very kind person, when I went to meet her, she gifted me this beautiful antique kettle. I thought what better way to showcase and say thank you than make something using coffee, an ingredient that connected me to Gael

What are Madelines ? Madeleine are tiny butter cakes that originated in Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France. Madeleines are baked in a special pan that gives them a unqiue shell-like shape. These are often flavored with lemon, almond and served at tea time

Today’s recipe is super easy to make, looks fancy and the best part, you can make the batter ahead of time, take it out of the fridge and in 10 mins you can have warm bite sized cookies/cakes that are flavored beautifully with coffee. I add nutmeg to this, which I feel enhances the coffee flavor

Print

Perfect coffee madeleines

Super easy to make these coffee flavored Madeleine are perfect to pair with coffee after diinner or to be served at high tea. A hint of nutmeg adds to the robust coffee flavor.

Course cake, cookies, Dessert, Snack
Cuisine French
Keyword cake, coffee, cookies, dessert, madeliene
Servings 40 Mini cakes

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients

  • 2/3 Cup All purpose flour
  • 2 Tsp Instant coffee granules
  • 1 Tsp Baking powder
  • 1/4 Tsp Nutmeg powder
  • 1/4 Tsp Salt
  • 110 Gms Unsalted butter Melted, and warm

Whisk to ribbon stage

  • 2 Eggs at room temperature
  • 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

Instructions

Make the batter

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients

  2. Whisk the eggs and sugar till a ribbon is formed. Alternatively you can also use hand mixer with whisk attachement

  3. Melt the butter in a pan, and let it cool down a bit. It should still be warm when you use it

  4. Fold in the dry ingredients into the whipped eggs sugar mixture

  5. Add the melted butter and incorporate well

Rest the batter

  1. Let the batter rest in the fridge at least for an hour, upto over night

Bake the madeleine

  1. Preheat the oven to 400F

  2. Brush the madeleine pan with butter

  3. Fill the pan with about 1 tbsp of batter for the regular pan. If you are using the mini pan, reduce the amount

  4. Bake for 12 min ( lower the time if using the mini pan)

  5. Let them cool for a few mins, take out of the pan and serve warm

  6. Optional: If you would like you can dip these in melted dark chocolate

Check out the recipe video here

Categories
Cookies dessert Mexican

Churros

I love Mexican food, in fact the whole family loves it very much. Sometimes I wonder if I was Mexican in my previous birth, because just as much Indian food, Mexican food is a constant feature in my kitchen.

IMG_7003.JPG

It’s Cinco de Mayo and I love to celebrate it. I never need an excuse to make something tasty, but when it’s fiesta time, it’s so much more fun! Such celebrations remind us that we live in the land of the free where many cultures have blended so well.

Anytime I visit a new place, the first thing I do is visit the local markets. I feel like I can learn so much more about the culture and the people of that country. Sometimes, people outside a country get a very limited view of that country’s cuisine. There were so many things in this Mazatlán market that I had never seen in the US! I ate these amazing churros in that market. They were perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the cinnamon sugar that they were dipped in was at the perfect level of sweetness to make you crave for just one more! Ever since I had those churros, I have been meaning to try them in my own kitchen.

IMG_5079

Most of the recipes for churro call for eggs, but the street vendor didn’t use eggs in his dough. So I am taking that vendor as inspiration and bringing you an eggless churro recipe. Seriously, this comes together in an hour from start to finish (including the cooldown time).

Today I am planning to pair these churros with something yummy. When you think of summer, the first thing that comes to mind is ice-cream, right? Today I am making an ice-cream to go with our churros. The contrast of crunchy churros with creamy ice-cream is just yummy.

I make a weekly trip to my local Mexican store and that’s where I picked up a can of ‘dulce de leche’ (which translates to sweetened milk). Dulce de leche is a smooth, gooey goodness that I can eat with a spoon directly from a can. It goes great on your ice-cream sundaes, you can make flan with it and so much more.

Today’s ice-cream is a Dulce de Leche Ice-cream. It is a super simple recipe. Also, just like the churro, this is also an egg-free recipe.

Back to our churros. Typically, churros are a straight stick but today, since I’m planning to use them to make my ice-cream sandwich, I am going to pipe them in a spiral. I have decided to use a gadget which is very common in a Indian household, a chakli/murukku maker. It is used to make many savory snacks as well as fresh rice noodles. I love it because it’s very easy to use and clean. It comes with many discs which help you make different shapes.  I have a video on youtube which show I made it.

18199097_10213191958703007_3017445048061251461_n

Ingredients

  • 1 cup water
  • 2  tablespoons white sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 cup  unbleached all-purpose flour

Oil for frying

For

  • 1/2 cup white sugar, or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon Ancho chili powder

Directions

  1. In a small pot, heat  water, 2 tbsp sugar, salt and oil on a medium flame. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in flour until mixture forms a ball.
  2. Let the dough cool down till it’s ok to handle.
  3. While you are piping the churros, heat the oil on low heat. I have used regular vegetable oil for frying.
  4. Now it’s time to pipe out the churros. Since I am planning to make the cookies, I will be making churros with a smaller diameter. However, you can use a pastry bag with a large star tip if you are making big sized churros.
  5. Pipe out 3″ spirals onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (I like my ice-cream sandwiches to be bite-sized, so I won’t make them huge.)
  6. If the weather is hot, you can stick these piped spirals in the freezer for a few minutes. This helps the spirals stay together, or you might end up with a long churro in your pan.
  7. Fry the churros until golden brown. Make sure you don’t fry them on high heat, otherwise they will stay doughy inside and burnt outside.
  8. Combine 1/2 cup sugar, ancho chili powder and cinnamon. Roll drained churros in the mixture.

Notes:

  • I made the churros two ways:
    • The ones I fried right after I piped them were soft
    • The one I froze before I fried stayed much crispier
Categories
Cookies Persian

Cardamom-Pistachio cookie

two cookies

I am not much of a baker. I love making desserts but baking is another beast which I hope to tame at some point. I make cakes, simple ones and I am always thrilled when they come out good. 🙂 I love trying new recipes if I get some inspiration. I love going to different ethnic grocery stores and looking for ideas, I am always amazed at the various new things I learn each time.

One of my favorite grocery store near my home is a Persian/middle eastern grocery store. Any time I go there, I come back with something new and that starts my experimentations.

It is holiday season and holiday means cookies and cakes and all those yummy treats. I wanted to make cookies but did not which one to pick, they are all so tempting. Traditional chocolate chip, oatmeal resin, Italian biscotti, indian nankhatai, german spice cookie to name a few. So I thought why not a take help from everyone and took  a poll on my facebook page.

And majority of you said that they wanted to see a recipe that is ‘something different’ or with ‘innovative flavors’. I thought of many ideas but somehow this one seemed perfect for the time.

Here I present my first Xmas Cookie ( there are man

Cardamom- Pistachio shortbread with orange blossom glaze

Pistachio-orangeblossom

It stole my heart and the whole house smelt like heaven ( and  a lot like Haleh Bakery).

It is so easy yet looks very fancy and eclectic, you can make the dough ahead of time, keep it wrapped in the fridge. When you want, 15 minutes and you will have fresh batch of cookies.

Print

Pistachio Cardamom cookie

Course cookies, Dessert
Cuisine Indian, Persian
Servings 4
Author Anagha

Ingredients

Cookie dough

  • 1 1/2 Cups All purpose flour
  • 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 1 1/2 Stick Unsalted Butter cut in cubes About 12 tbsp
  • 1/2 Cup Unsalted Pistachios, slightly toasted and chopped
  • 1 unit Egg Yolk, you can use chilled milk for vegetarian option)
  • 1/2 Tsp Ground Cardamom

For Glaze

  • 1 Cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1 Unit Egg White You can use 1 Tbsp Milk instead
  • 3/4 Tsp Orange Blossom water ( you can use Rose water as well)

Instructions

Cookies

  1. In a food processor pulse the pistachios, cardamom and flour till the nuts are a little chopped

  2. Add powdered sugar and pulse more

  3. Add the butter and pulse till you get breadcrumb texture

  4. Add the egg yolk/cold milk. Keep pulsing till the dough comes together

  5. Take the dough and roll it into a log. 

    Keep the log in the fridge for a couple of hours for the dough to harden

Baking

  1. Pre heat the oven to 325 F

  2. Slice the log into about 1/4 inch thick pieces and bake for 15-17 mins.

    Let it cool completely.

Glaze

  1. Mix all the ingredients to make the glaze.

Decorate

  1. Take the cooled cookies, top with a small amount of glaze, decorate cookies with sliced pistachios, dried rose petals, saffron strands.

en_USEnglish
en_USEnglish