Happy Valentine Day!! This special valentine day dessert recipe for your love ones. The strawberry & beetroot kesari is slight variation of normal kesari. The regular kesari is made during for worships and on special occasions as Prasad. The recipe is prepared with ghee roasted rava cooked into milk, beetroot & strawberry puree and flavored with cardamon powder and kewra-rose essence. This beautiful naturally colored recipe is so delicious and mouthwatering. I am sure you would love this recipe if you Kesari bhath fan.
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Tricolor Parfait
Wishing all my Indian friends a very Happy Republic Day!!
This Tricolor Parfait recipe is inspired by the beautiful colors of the Indian Flag. This day brings a lovely childhood memory when it was celebrated in schools with flag hosting, various cultural functions and at the end of celebration sweet especially Motichoor Ladoos were distributed to every one. The recipe is prepared using mainly three ingredients using lauki (bottle gourd), sweet yogurt and sweet fine boondi. The green cardamon, rose and kewra essence gives an amazing taste to the recipe. The three layers arranged in a fancy glass container make this recipe very soothing to the eyes and appealing. Some of the process are lengthy like getting hung curd so plan ahead for those. I have separately posted the recipe for Motichoor Ladoo which is required for this recipe. However I have mentioned the ingredient for boondi here for easy reference.
Egg-less Pumpkin Cupcake
Pumpkin cupcake is all time favorite of my kids. These are perfect treat for kids. Super moist, fluffy and flavorful pumpkin cupcakes are very delicious. This recipe is egg-less variation cupcake for those people who don’t eat egg. Instead of egg I have used egg replacer which is available in grocery stores. For people who eat egg can replace it with egg. These cupcakes are decorated with tangy and sweet yogurt base frosting, you can use cream cheese instead of hung curd if you like it.
Motichoor Ladoo
Motichoor ladoo is a delicious mouthwatering sweet which is famous in Northern part of India. Ladoo is commonly offered to GOD during worship as well as served on festival or occasions. These ladoos are all time favorite of my kids favorite. The ladoos are made from batter made of besan flour and deep fried in oil/ghee, then simmered in sugar syrup to thicken for final preparation. The laddos are flavored with rose essences and cardamon powder. The most important part of the recipe is the batter consistency and temperature of oil/ghee. Batter consistency should be medium thin so that it easily pass through Jhara. The process is little complex as you need to tap Jhara over the heated oil/ghee pot at a consistent speed to get the boondi shape. To make fine boondi you need Jhara with fine holes.
Motichoor laddo and boondi ladoo are little different with each other as boondis for motichoor is much finer than boondis of boondi ladoo. Preparing these ladoos is a bit time consuming and involved process and requires little practice and patience to get it perfect. I was able to get it right in my second attempt. I prepared these for Diwali and it came out perfect.
Strawberry Chum Chum
Chum chum is delicious Bengali sweet similar to Rasogulla which is prepared using home made paneer balls soaked in to sugar syrup. Chum chum is little different as it has mawa filling and then rolled into desiccated coconut. Chum chums is generally made in oval shape. This recipe attempts to give a fruit flavored taste to Chum Chum using strawberry. If you don’t like strawberry, you can use any other fruit or skip that too. The recipe uses homemade mawa for chum chum filling. You can buy ready made mava from the store although homemade is always fresh and tastes better.
Rava Halva (Kesari)
Rava Halva (kesari) is a popular delicious Indian sweet made from semolina (rava or sooji) during the festive season or special occasions. Rava Halwa usually served as ‘prasad’ (offering to the GOD). During Navratri festival Halva along with chana fry (sundal) and poori is offered to Goddess Durga and then distributed to the kanya ( young girls). In Northern part of India, it is called as sooji ka halva and In southern India it is called as Rava Kesari. The method of cooking is same for both the recipes. This recipe uses milk however you can use water instead of milk for the halva. Rava Halva can be served as dessert and tastes awesome with mango or red chili pickle. This is super easy recipe with amazing taste.
Mango Angoori Rasmalai
Angoori Rasmalai is one of the most popular Bengali sweet dish which is very similar to Rasmalai and Rasogulla however the only difference is the size of the Rasmalai. Angoori Rasmalai is made exactly the same way as Rasogulla, rasmalai or Rajbhog. The tiny paneer ball soaked in milk syrup and flavored with cardamom powder and kewra & rose essence. This recipe is a slight twist to the original recipe as it uses mango puree to give a mango flavor to the Rasmalai. You can add your own fruit flavor to give it a different taste. When served chilled, and soaked in these flavors, it tastes heavenly! It’s very tempting due to it’s smaller size and awesome taste.
Indian Blackberry Ukadiche Modak
Ukadiche modak is a delicious traditional Maharashtrian delicacy which is made during Ganesh puja to worship Lord Ganesha. Modaks are made with steamed rice flour shells filled with filling made from freshly grated coconut, jaggery, nuts, flavored with cardamom powder and nutmeg. For this recipe adding Indian blackberry a.k.a. jamun puree to rice flour gave a beautiful color to the traditional modaks. The most important aspect of making modaks is getting the perfect shape which is done by making rice flour petals and requires some practice before you can get perfection. There are modak mould available in market and that makes it easier to get the right shape for modak. For traditional ukadiche modak recipe here.