“A land of promise, a land of memory, a land of promise flowing with the milk and honey of delicious memories!”
Alfred Tennyson
Rich Spiced Hot Chocolate might well be the simplest thing to enjoy this season. It’s simple things that matter, and with recipes like these, ingredients are of prime importance. You can’t go wrong if you use good quality ingredients. This Rich Spiced Hot Chocolate is just that. Indulgent too. Made with Premium Milk from Mother Dairy, single origin couverture chocolate, dark cocoa, vanilla beans and spices from South India, it’s hard to go wrong. The milk was the biggest surprise though!It’s the best milk I’ve ever had! Words of praise from a dairy lover at home, one who lives to enjoy a chilled good glass of milk. The genes are the same. I love everything dairy too, but I am always surprised by how advanced his taste-buds are. One sip of the newly introduced Premium Full Cream milk from Mother dairy swiftly knocked his current favourite from another brand right off. It’s so good that I don’t even need flavouring mama he exclaimed!This new variant from Mother dairy which has the highest FAT content of 7% along with 9% SNF is ideal for those looking for a rich milk diet and also for folk like us who enjoy making home-made sweets, ghee and curd. It offers 15% extra malai {cream} in comparison to full cream milk. For someone like me who makes clarified butter / ghee at home every weekend, this new variant is ideal. I increasingly use clarified butter or ghee in baking now, and as my preferred medium of fat in cooking now that winter is here. The greens use mustard oil, and almost everything else goes the ghee way! Tadka is always ghee, the ‘icing on the cake’!Think little ghee cakes, think shortbread with ghee, think stuffed radish and cauliflower parathas, and think dollops of melting homemade sweet butter on hot sarson ka saag! After all in India, Ghee is equivalent to love. Finger licking good stuff this! There is just so much you can do with this indulgent product. I can only imagine setting Greek yogurt at home now. Also simmering a rice pudding into creamy goodness, maybe a tapioca pudding or a chocolate oat pudding too.
With a traditional Indian households still enjoying the top of milk cream for so many reasons, the malai that the premium milk yields is impressive. Just 2 litres boiled, cooled and chilled overnight offered almost a cup of malai. This Dark Chocolate & Walnut Wholewheat Cakeisa nostalgic favourite with ‘top of the milk cream’ or ‘malai’. It brings back memories of the quintessential ‘malai’ or ‘top of the milk cream’ cakes from yesteryear. Decades ago, every Indian household use to boil milk, collect the top of the milk cream, use some as is and make sweet butter of the rest. The more adventurous ones used to bake a delicious homey comforting cake with ‘malai’.Then the mind wanders into more delicious spaces like a lighter panna cotta, maybe a Vietnamese coffee. The possibilities are endless as I grabbed the few remaining pouches from the kid who is happy to guzzle down his new favourite. To prove my point to him that the milk makes things oodles better, I quickly stirred him a Rich Spiced Hot Chocolate. With winter around the corner, this drink is a winner, a simple winner! It’s a great hit with kids and adults alike. In summer I’d do a chilled version in bottles which is equal fun and very addictive!Then to dive into the past, how can I not make my husbands childhood favourite, a Masala Kadhai Doodh. This is where dessert meets milk, a quintessential Indian favourite, a concoction you would find across North India. It’s simple, it’s bursting with goodness and flavour AND a big hit always. It’s quite similar to a thandai, infinitely customisable.Masala Kadhai Doodh is simply simmered with a powdered nut & spice mix in a large kadhai or wok for the flavours to steep and milk to thicken. Only with this high fat content milk, the time to thicken is substantially decreased. I used a mix of almonds, melon seeds, cardamom, nutmeg, a pinch of turmeric and saffron.We are a dairy loving home, and I set yougurt at home everyday. With quite a welcome high fat content, Mother Dairy’s Premium Milk yields far tastier home made yogurt, paneer, quark etc. It is also far easier to use in puddings, traditional kheers, halwas. With winter here a gajar ka halwa is calling my name. Simmered in this beautifully thick milk, I can only imagine how good the end result will be. What would be your favorite way to use this?
Good quality ingredients and a simple simmering results in this indulgent Spiced Rich Hot Chocolate. Use a full fat milk like Mother Dairy Premium Milk for best results.
Course Breakfast, Drinks, Side Dish
Cuisine American
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 35 minutesminutes
Servings 2
Ingredients
500mlMother Dairy Premium Milk
2-3star anise
1stick cinnamon
1/2vanilla beansplit
2tspbrown sugar
75gdark couverture chocolatechop
25ggood quality cocoa powder
Instructions
Place milk, star anise, cinnamon, vanilla bean and sugar in a heavy bottom pan and simmer for 15-20 minutes for flavours to steep.
Add the chocolate and cocoa powder, stir often to mix, and simmer gently until the chocolate melts.
Sieve and serve immediately, else steep for an hour, then reheat and sieve before serving.
Notes
Note: You can add a shot of Baileys irish Cream for an adult version. You can also add or remove spices as required. This also makes a nice chilled spiced chocolate milk. Stir well or sieve before serving.
“The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…”
Dione Lucas
Terra Chips might well have been the answer to my savoury cravings. Might also be the answer to fun and exciting snacking options especially for kids! As the weather cools down, as I travel a bit, there is always need to leave something nice, fun, different for the kids at home. They constantly feel peckish and there is only so much I can bake / cook! Last week I was in Bangalore for a shoot. Was quite happy to leave these beauties from Terra Chips as a treat for the hungry monsters that live at home!
Yes I’ve bought a microwave gadget that allows me to make dehydrated chips at home from scratch. Yes I can and have made beet, sweet potato, apple chips at home. That was when I was a supermom and could do everything and more. Sadly, time flies and and energy doesn’t last forever. For times like these how wonderful to have on hand chips made from real whole vegetables! That’s Terra Chips for you, made up of all the fun and most colourful root vegetables you can think of. Each chip quite literally handcrafted with a unique character of it’s own.Think the humble beet, exotic purple potato, much loved sweet potato, batata, bright carrot, earthy parsnip, kabucha, coconut, plantain and then think of all the great crisp taste you get in every bite. Our absolute favourites were the blue potato and sweet potato chips. I paired these colourful, almost fascinating beauties with a tomato & black truffle salt dip, and a garlicky quark & green onion dip. The quark dip is simple. Smooth whisked quark, extra virgin olive oil, minced garlic and salt. The other recipe is below. So much yumminess and such a great hit.When you have vegetables this crisp, rustic and earthy with flavours that explode in your mouth, you know they’ve got it right. The kids had a brilliant time crunching through each, guessing which veggie it might have originated from, figuring out the spice mix. We had sea salt & Mediterranean in our lot, both equally good.The colours have me fascinated, the camera working overtime, It’s hard to put either the camera or the bowl of chips down. I’ve always enjoyed dehydrated fruits and vegetables. These made with exciting roots that go beyond the humble potato have me smitten! Try these with either of these two dip, else with another favourite, the Persian Roasted Eggplant Walnut Dip on the blog.
Tell me what your favourite dip to pair with these #TERRAadventures might be!
Tangy and deeply flavourful, this dip keeps for long and goes well with chips. Use as a sandwich spread or pizza sauce too.
Course Snack
Cuisine American
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 10 minutesminutes
Total Time 15 minutesminutes
Servings 2people
Ingredients
3-4tomatoeschopped fine
1/2stalk celerychopped fine
1green onionchopped fine
2clovesgarlicchopped fine
2tbspextra virgin olive oil
1/2tspBlack truffle sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Fresh herbs finely chopped
Instructions
Heat oil in pan. Add green onion, celery and garlic. Saute until soft.
Add the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until tomatoes are soft, pushing gently with back of spoon. Taste and adjust seasoning if required. an add a small dash of lime juice if desired.
‘Hard & dry, a chickpea is inedible. Hard & dry, a heart is unlovable. Presoak it in dance, music & art.’
Khang Kijarro Nguyen
CholeMasala / Curried Spicy Chickpeas the way my Mum makes them. Try as I might, my cholemasalaflavours are always different, the taste not quite not same. Must be a thing of the hand, the way she cooks them, but it’s a simple dish which makes me hungry for more. So now I let her make them for me which she gladly does. Chole Masala / Curried Spicy Chickpeas is a quintessential recipe from the Indian sub continent, one of the most popular perhaps. Every house has it’s own recipe, and you can keep them as spicy or light as you like. The Chole Masala / Curried Spicy Chickpeas are a meal in themselves, a treat for someone like me who would rather just enjoy them like a one bowl meal. Sliced onions to top them, finely sliced green chilies, a squeeze of lime juice, sometimes some crispies sneaked in! You get the drift!!
My mother often calls me in a hurry to pick them up as she makes them, wanting us to enjoy them warm. Often as things go, I am out or in the middle of something. The good thing about her cholas are that she makes them in large quantities, and they taste even better after an overnight rest. All you need to do is reheat them and dig in! That’s just where this the latest addition to my kitchen is quite handy.The Milton MicroWoW Casserole is microwaveable {dishwasher proof too} with stainless steel inside which makes it absolutely unique. It allows you to microwave your food and also retain heat of the food in the same casserole for 4 hours. Such an innovative concept; one we loved the minute we heard of it.
Like me, if you set curd/yogurt at home everyday, this casserole doubles up as a curd maker. With winter around the corner, when I am constantly looking for warm spots for the curd to set, I think my search ends here! Until then, this is a great way to store ice cream for a short while. Seems to pack quite a punch, quite like the Chole Masala / Curried Spicy Chickpeas !My mum’s recipe is simple, and a little different from how I cook them. Most of her recipes, like this one, are based on andaaz, or eyeballing of ingredients. A little of this, a pinch of that, toss something in. Oh did I forget that? Never mind, maybe next time. I’m sure it’ll taste fine, a little different perhaps. As all mothers cook, recipes are generally ‘taste as you go‘, and that’s the best way to cook really!
Chole Masala / Curried Spicy Chickpeas is a quintessential recipe from the Indian sub continent, one of the most popular perhaps. Every house has it's own recipe, and you can keep them as spicy or light as you like. This is my mums. Most of her recipes, like this one, are based on andaaz, or eyeballing of ingredients. A little of this, a pinch of that, toss something in.
Drain the overnight soaked chickpeas, wash well, and place in pressure cooker with enough water to cover them, about an inch over.
Cook under pressure on simmer for a 45 minutes to an hour until soft and almost double in size.
Meanwhile, add 1 tbsp mustard oil to a heavy bottom wok/kadhai.
Add the sliced onions and fry until golden brown. Make sure they don't get dark brown or the flavour gets bitter.
Add the ginger, green chilies or red chili powder if using, or both, chana masala and tomatoes.
Saute over low heat until the tomatoes are mushy soft and leave oil.
Add the cooked soft chickpeas and toss well to mix in masala, reserving the liquid for later. Add as much of the liquid as you like, stir well, adjust seasoning, turn the whole prep back into the cooker and give the chickpeas one more pressure. This will allow the spices/masalas to be absorbed by the chickpeas.
Serve with naaan or rice. Or like me, serve in a bowl with a squeeze of lime juice, sliced onions, ginger, fresh coriander and some sneaked in crispies!
“While there is tea, there is hope.”
Arthur Wing Pinero
Tea Rose Chocolate Truffles, simple chocolate goodness with a few of my favourite things. Chocolate, single cream and Mountain Rose Tea from Teabox. The tea is a fragrant blend of jasmine-infused winter flush black tea with rose and cardamom, and you can well imagine the lilting flavours it added to the truffles. Just right for the festive season. It’s also an extremely pretty tea. Take a look!Teabox is a brand I greatly admire, a brand I have been associated it since it was rebranded by Pentagram in 2015. Teabox, Kaushal Dugar’s brainchild for online tea retailing, aims to revolutionise the tea industry by selling products directly, days after it has been picked. It’s a model that works and works well, growing from strength to strength!Teabox is an experience, a tea experience which is crisp, simple, neat, offers great quality and above all, warmth. I’ve been styling the tea shoots for Teabox the past few years, and loved the very first lot I styled. In particular this banner below shot by the very talented photographer Mallikarjun Katakolin Bangalore is one of my favourites, a reflection of all things I love. The last lot I styled was for the Diwali shoot, and those are now up on Teabox. Here’s a few of those…With so much tea styling of late, it was but natural I develop an affinity to these leaves the world loves so much, even though I’m a ‘coffee person‘. I might not sip a cup of hot tea everyday, yet I’m happy to dive into iced tea, and of course play with the leaves!!Also happy to do recipes using tea leaves/blends which is something I increasingly enjoy. You might remember a batch of Mountain Rose Tea Cookies {below} that I baked a short while ago. I had such fun doing these cookies and shooting the images, the latter which is now quite addictive, that there’s been no looking back. From tea leaves are boring, to tea leaves are so happening, my world has come a long way. Teabox is leading in many ways, the latest it’s innovative concept called Teapac.TeaPacs are the first individually packaged tea bags sealed at the source using a natural Nitrogen flush that keeps the tea as fresh as the day it was picked. With them doing all the hard work, it leaves me a lot of time to get creative.Making chocolate truffles is probably the easiest thing ever. No rocket science here. Needless to say, make sure you use the best quality ingredients. The flavours really shine through, teasing the palette gently, making these the most delectable little bites ever. It’s great to involve kids in making these. Then sit back and see them disappear!Just right for the festive season, Tea Rose Chocolate Truffles are as simple as can be. They are also one of the best and most loved gifts ever. Vegetarian, eggless, gluten free, healthy, make ahead too, and indulgent in a guilt free way, can things get better? You could make these vegan using almond milk or coconut cream/milk. Feel free to experiment.As usual, I had a great time styling and shooting these. Served two ways, with a cup of brewed hot tea after dinner, or chilled Mountain Rose Iced Tea, my way, these make for great eye candy. They’ll be a great addition to your festive platter.Else make a batch, buy some tea and gift them to make someone happy something to remember! My next batch of truffles is going to be using the Kashmiri Kahwa Chaifrom Teabox. A blend of smoked green tea, spices and saffron from the valley, that tea has me smitten! Tempted to join in?
Tea Rose Chocolate Truffles, simple chocolate goodness with a few of my favourite things. Chocolate, single cream and Mountain Rose Tea from Teabox, so you can well imagine the lilting flavours it added to the truffles. Just right for the festive season and the recipe as simple as can be. Vegetarian, eggless, glutenfree, healthy, make ahead too, get indulgent in a guilt free way! You can make these vegan using almond milk or coconut cream/milk. Feel free to experiment.
Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 10 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours15 minutesminutes
Servings 16truffles
Ingredients
Truffles
250g52% dark couverture chocolateroom temperature
100gsingle/low fat creamroom temperature
2tbspor 2 teabags Teabox Mountain Rose Tea
Topping
20ggood quality cocoa powder to toss the truffles in
Instructions
Place the cream and tea leaves or teabags in a heavy bottom saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes.
In the meantime, finely chop the chocolate, or run it in the processor until almost ground. {I ran it in the Thermomix for 20 seconds, Speed 10}
Place in a large bowl.
If using tea leaves, strain the simmering cream over the ground chocolate. If using teabags, gently squeeze the teabags, and dispose, then pour the hot cream over the chocolate.
Whisk with a spatula or balloon whisk continuously until the chocolate melts and is smooth.
Cover the bowl with cling-wrap, and chill for 2-3 hours or until firm to touch.
Using a cookie scoop or round measuring spoon, portion out approx 16 bits. With very clean hands, roll into balls, then toss in the cocoa powder. You could toss a few in tea leaves as well, pressing gently to fix for a je ne sais quoi feel!
“Food is something that manages to find a way in to approximately 12 out of every 10 conversations we have at Chumbak.”
Chumbak
Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sables – dark chocolate, a mix of wholegrain flours, a little all purpose too, brown sugar, sea salt, of course butter. All these come together to make an eggless cookie, the indulgent sable, a shortbread cookie is a French round shortbread cookie. Another eggless cookie, this time loaded with chocolate, and almost wholegrain, with the goodness of buckwheat {kuttu ka aata} makes for a great gift!
It’s a good time too, at Diwali, when it’s fun to bake and gift good things. With mithai or sweetmeats dwindling in popularity, chocolate always ensures happy gifting. I like to either gift handmade truffles, nut clusters, or then cookies paired with either a lamp, a birdcage, platters, jars etc. The new Gold Collection from Chumbak, with the already beautiful existing range, makes for beautiful gifts with my cookies. Gifts I would love to receive too. Take a look!
With wholewheat and buckwheat in this buttery chocolaty shortbread, I didn’t expect things to go so well. That they did, was amazing. I can safely say these are my best chocolate shortbread cookies to date, best eggless cookies too! They’re inspired and adapted from Chocolate Sables @ The Boy Who Bakes, and HE is so good in everything he bakes! I found them on Instagram and decided to bake a wholegrain version. I figured the food loving folk at Chumbak would love them too!
The dazzling beautiful range of lifestyle products from Chumbak, the quintessential owl included, has me smitten as you can probably see. Hoot Hoot!! I’ve been in love with their quirky designing, innovative products, Indian humour and what not! From a souvenier store for India and Indians in 2010, they’ve grown phenomenally over the past few years. Today, Chumbak is a design led lifestyle brand for products across apparel, home and accessories driven by the best philosophy ever – Make Happy!
This Diwali sees Chumbak creating absolute magic. Take a look at some of their range. I love the fact that I can mix and match infinitely, that I can do daytime setups with flowers, do a drop-dead gorgeous one for the night, build a terrarium within like Madhuli just suggested. There is so much goodness for gifting. Wrap some baked goodies or chocolate truffles {recipe coming soon}, with them to make that perfect gift.
Chumbak retails over 75 categories across 30 plus stores pan India across formats. To buy any of these looks, a a whole lot more, do stop by here.
“This is what we live for, this is our philosophy and those big words that are synonymous with it. This is #makehappy!”
These few products are just the tip of the iceberg. They have something for every budget, something for everyone. I picked a gold and teal line, a touch of yellow, owls galore. Oh and this wooden cake platter above. Precious like the rest of the wood accents line. Now for the recipe of these cookies!
Crisp, deeply chocolate, buttery, wholegrain, eggless, Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés are the yummiest cookies ever! Adapted from The Boy Who Bakes.
Course Snack
Cuisine French
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours25 minutesminutes
Servings 2dozen
Ingredients
Dry mix
50gwholewheat {aata}
50gbuckwheat
50gplain flour
1/2tspbaking soda
1/4black truffle sea salt {or sea salt}
Wet mix
115gunsalted butterroom temp
1tspvanilla extract
100gbrown sugar
125g52% dark chocolate, ground {or finely chopped}
Instructions
Dry Mix
Stir dry ingredients in a bowl to mix. Reserve.
Wet Mix
Place butter, brown sugar and vanilla in bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment. Whisk on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until smooth.
Add the dry mix and ground chocolate, and mix on the lowest speed just enough for the dough to come together.{You can do this by hand to play safe}. Don't over-mix else the cookies will become hard.
Bring the dough together, either make a cylinder like roll, cling-wrap and chill for a couple of hours.
Alternatively, you could always use the dough for cut out cookies.
“Remember, there are cookies waiting here for you.” Dean Koontz
Eggless Wholegrain Almond Jaggery Oat Cookies had us quite happy. These are cookies that comfort, hit the right spot, keeps you happy and are stuffed to the gills with good stuff. It’s actually a very simple cookie recipe, a twist on the fabulous Anzac, an eggless cookie I make often. A cookie I have recreated in different avatars often too.
The concept is simple, and they are eggless cookies that keep for long and travel well. The same goes for the tart base that I make ever so often inspired by this eggless dough idea. Here’s one…These Eggless Mini Almond Oat Pies with Rabri Saffron Cream, a recipe for Diwali I did for KitchenAid, scream for attention.That they are eggless meets a growing local demand during the festive season around Diwali. Like Anzacs, these were delicious.
“AnAnzac biscuit is a sweet, hard tack biscuit, popular in Australia and New Zealand, made using rolled oats, flour, sugar, butter, golden syrup, baking soda, boiling water, and desiccated coconut. Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) established in World War I. It has been claimed the biscuits were sent by wives to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation. “TheEggless Mini Almond Oat Pies were part wholegrain, yet with the goodness of oats and almond meal. These Eggless Wholegrain Almond Jaggery Oat Cookies bettered those! These are 100% wholegrain and the sugar has been replaced by jaggery. As you can see, I keep experimenting with this and that. Some work, some don’t, but it keeps me busy doing what I love best, baking!
With cookies as ridiculously simple as these, I found loads of time playing around styling and shooting them. Credit of course to the beautiful pottery I had on hand. The colours just resonated with my frame of mind, and that day all I did was have endless fun! Some days are so therapeutic; it was one of those!
The beautiful ceramic ware is from a local ceramic artist, Anumita Jain, from Delhi. You can find her at A Clay Story. I think you’ll see a lot more of her art in my frames in future as I mentioned in this Olive Oil Walnut Garlic Rosemary Foccacia post.
Food props give me unbelievable happiness, the ‘earthy’, rustic and hand made ones making my heart sing with joy! Did I tell you I was back in Old Delhi yesterday? Yes, plan made suddenly and off the better half & me went. We wandered around, ate some, shopped some. More about that later. For now, here’s the simple Eggless Wholegrain Almond Jaggery Oat Cookies recipe!
Eggless Wholegrain Almond Jaggery Oat Cookies, 100% wholegrain, the sugar replaced by jaggery & honey, these are yet another delicious twist on the Anzac cookie.
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 20 minutesminutes
Total Time 25 minutesminutes
Servings 3dozen
Ingredients
Dry mix
100gwhole wheat flour
100goats
100galmond meal
pinchsalt
Wet Mix
100gbutterroom temperature
100ghoney
50gjaggery
1/2tspbaking soda
Instructions
Preheat oven to 140C
Place dry ingredients in bowl of Kitchen Aid with paddle attachment.
Place butter, honey and jaggery in heatproof measuring cup and heat 1 min in microwave.
Stir soda into butter mix.
With paddle attachment, gently pour wet mix over dry mix at low speed until dough comes together.
Make 1 tsp size dough balls, and flatten gently, topping with almond flakes if desired, gently pressing into place.
Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and firm to touch. The cookies are slightly soft. Bake a further 5-7 minutes if you want a firmer cookie.
Cool completely on cookie rack.
If they do soften after a day or so, microwave them in a single layer for 30 seconds on high power.
