Tag: no bake

No Bake | Date & Prune Chocolate Truffles … truffles on a diet don’t get better than this #festivefood

“Life is like a box of chocolates … You never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump

Date, Prune & Walnut Chocolate TrufflesDate, Prune & Walnut Chocolate Truffles are something I never thought I’d make. Yet a chance FB update sighting a while ago set me on the track. And my, what a great idea. Healthy, delicious, a power house of energy and guilt free indulgence, truffles on a diet don’t get better than this!These were fun to make, and so fast track! No bake, no cook, practically no work … almost like instant gratification! I got to step one in a matter of minutes but one bite into it was like, “Ummm nice, but something was missing, not indulgent enough“. Into the fridge they went!They sat there bugging me the next morning. Thought of adding some dark chocolate to the truffles and running them in the processor again but the task of remaking the little balls bothered me! Seemed daunting for a fast track dessert.Next idea, and it turned out to be a good one. The dark couverture I had ordered reached that same morning. Melted some in the microwave and had such a great time dunking each little ball into luscious, thick, satiny melted dark chocolate.Melted ooeey gooey dark chocolate is strangely therapeutic.  Is it just me? Whatever, but I really enjoyed this part and was rewarded in a while.These were GOOD! The teen loved them till the junior told her they had dates. “I don’t like them“, she declared, but soon was back digging into the bowl. ‘These are really good,” she declared. “Butter?” … the diet goes on, very conditional though!!  {Note: Thank you Sangeeta for the wooden board above. I ♥ it!}These make for good gifts in the festive season. They were a great addition to the Porcelain Buono Decoration Plate Silver from Urban Dazzle. It’s quite reasonably priced too. This was one of the many products I received for review which I shared when I made one bowl cocoa wholewheat almond brownies .About the truffles. They have a wonderful texture. You can play around with the combinations since both prunes and dates afford a good sticky base. Don’t like walnuts, use almonds. Don’t like nuts or are allergic to them, use dark chocolate, crystallised ginger, candied peel. Roll them in sprinkles after the dark chocolate has almost set; jazz them up if you like! Also, thank you Urban Dazzle for giving me a chance to review your Diwali range. I really love the variety and the quality of stoneware, ceramic, porcelain, drinkware and bakeware. You can see some of the range in my picture up there. I did wholewheat gingerbread men the other day and they looked so HAPPY on the platters, ornamental & ceramic.I also did a vanilla panna cotta in three flavours paired with three dessert sauces – coffee with a dark chocolate sauce, raspberry with a raspberry lime sauce, and saffron with  salted caramel saffron sauce! Then did mini panna cotta in these tiny little white ceramic bowls, three on a plate {The honeycomb plate is from a set my sis sent me from the US. White love!}The bowls are really versatile. Dipping sauces look great served with them. Else a good extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and queen olives with a sour dough bread served on a matching Mediterranean inspired ceramic platter! So much inspiration …

[print_this]Recipe: Date & Prune Chocolate Truffles

Summary: Healthy, delicious, a power house of energy and guilt free indulgence, truffles on a diet can’t get better than this!

Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients:

  • Truffles
  • 100g dates {seedless}
  • 100g sundried prunes
  • 100g walnuts
  • 20g cocoa powder {3 tbsp}
  • 15g extra virgin olive oil {1tbsp}
  • Chocolate coating
  • 100g good quality dark chocolate melted {I used a 53%}

Method:

  1. Truffles
  2. Place dates, prunes and walnuts in bowl of processor and process for a minute or so until everything gets chopped fine. Taste and adjust sweetness if required adding more dates or prunes. {Thermomix: Speed 8, 30 seconds, repeat if necessary}
  3. Add the cocoa powder and olive oil and process briefly to mix. {Thermomix: Speed 8, 20 seconds}
  4. Roll into bite sized balls packing firmly.
  5. Dip into the melted chocolate and leave to set on a parchment lined tray in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

[/print_this]

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{No Bake/Frozen} PEACH-GINGER & PLUM-VANILLA GRANITA … bidding adieu to stone fruit

Worldly things were of little meaning. She lived for hamburgers, ice cream, pencil and paper. 
Carol Adams
I’m really really gutted and you might wonder why. I feel as if I lost the first prize and walked away with the consolation prize. At the heart of my misery is my rather late discovery of the granita. Have actually contemplated making it quite often, but never with such a sense of urgency until I saw this post on House of Annie. I was generally googling for something fun and refreshing to do with the last plums and peaches of the season, and this particular post had me gaping! Annie had made peach and plum granita and I just knew what my next sweet stone thing was going to be!
Annie made both granitas but her recommendation on the peach flavours were far more exciting – Peach & Ginger? Yes please! I had the sugar syrup and ginger simmering in no time. Her feedback on the plum granita wasn’t too good, and sent me looking for another. I settled for a Bon Apetit recipe I found on Epicurious. The vanilla bean had my attention, and I am really glad I tried this one.
Both the flavours turned out over the top fantastic which is why I was so cheesed off. Oh to have discovered something so good at the very end of the season! I know how my next stone season  looks  …  a fridge full of granitas for sure! And before I forget, I read somewhere that you scrape the granita with the fork every 30 minutes to keep the ice crystals small! They taste so good once they reach freezing point, that it’s difficult to keep away from stealing a bite. The son ran out of ‘scraping with the fork’ patience, “It’s OK Mama, we can eat it like this!”, while Mr PAB grabbed the fork and said “WTH is this? It’s fab“!

For me, the hard work was the pushing the pulp through the sieve. It took forever, or like forever. Also, my granitas took a whole day before reaching freezing point. Maybe I need a new fridge, maybe… I adjusted the sugar in the plum granita because the plums were quite sour. I also added 2 drops of red food colour as the plums weren’t the dark red ones. You can skip that, but I let them be to give me colour contrast with the peach. Oh yes, one more thing … once out of the freezer, granita melts really fast!

I’ve learnt since that running the plums through a blender is MUCH better than using a processor. Managed to achieve the other thing I had bookmarked and that was this delicious to the last drop plum lemonade, posted here. My last lot of plums were squishily sitting in the fridge till day before, and  now I have them blended. One more thing  on my list to do using plums before we are done with the season, a plum fro yo. Mmmm …

Plum Vanilla Granita

Adapted minimally from Epicurious {Bon Appétit}
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 1/2 pounds plums, pitted, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
Method:
Combine water, sugar and cinnamon in heavy small saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is reduced to 3/4 cup, about 2 minutes. Cool syrup completely.
Puree the plums in processor. Press enough puree through sieve to measure 1 1/2 cups. Strain syrup into puree and blend well. Transfer mixture to a shallow 9 X 5 loaf tin. Freeze plum mixture until flaky crystals form, stirring every 30 minutes, about 4 hours. After it hardens, use a fork to scrape it up into coarse granules. {Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover; keep frozen}

Peach Granita

From the House of Annie
1″ piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
7-8 large peaches, stoned
Method:
Slice the ginger into slivers and boil them along with the cup of sugar and cup of water
Cut up the peaches and blend along with the slivers of ginger from the syrup. Then strain the puree through a sieve. To the puree add the juice of one lime, and then the ginger sugar syrup. Pour into a shallow dish and place in freezer. After it hardens, use a fork to scrape it up into coarse granules.
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
Posted by Deeba @ PAB

Nobake Strawberry Quark Cheesecake

“Gourmandise is an impassioned, rational and habitual preference for all objects that flatter the sense of taste.”

Jean Antheleme Brillat-Savarin
Happy MAY! Anyone know what happened to March and April? Time is flying, and how. In the blink of an eye, the first quarter of 2010 whizzed by, and strangely enough, we’re already into May. Summer is here in the Northern Hemisphere, much awaited after a cold dark winter, yet a little too hot for us. We are truly looking the hot Indian summer in the face with the mercury consistently hitting 40-43C, much the ‘fry the egg on the sidewalk’ situation. Our days are ruled by heavy dust laden winds that swoop in from the deserts of Rajasthan as the plains of North India bake in the sweltering heat. The upside? Summer fruit, and light refreshing desserts.
Here’s one I made with my last batch of strawberries; a no bake refrigerator cheesecake. The pie filling uses a mix of low fat cream and a curd cheese known as quark. An ingredient I discovered through food blogging, quark is a soft curd cheese that is used extensively in Germany. It’s an easy  cheese to make, a recipe that I learnt from Arwen’s blog @ HogletK, and one that I can now shut my eyes and make. It’s basically like setting yogurt at home, but the culture here is buttermilk. The curd is set for 24 hours in a warm, draft free place, then drained for a further 24 hours. In the end you get this delightful creamy curd cheese, which adds luxury to a light summer dessert sans the calories.
 It was as simple as simple could be, and one that is a firm favourite with me. I use it often as a partial cream substitute and often , as a cake filler, and find it compliments fruit desserts beautifully. I even made some for the Dresden Stollen I did over Christmas, and it was the best think that happened to us at that time. You can find the quark recipe here in my ‘Cheese Post‘, amidst many other soft cheeses like mascarpone, ricotta and cottage cheese.
With summer here, I make quark very often, and it pairs beautifully with fruit based desserts, or just served with fruit. I’ve used strawberries here, but I think you can pretty much use any summer berries or fruit. I’ve used quark in a Strawberry Cake with Quark & Mascarpone, as also in this Orange Tian a short while ago. Another huge hit at home was the Almond Nut Torte with Quark, Peaches & Plums. As you can see, soft cheese making is a passion with me, and the possibilities are endless. Alice Medrich has a Quark Souffle recipe that I’d love to try one day, in cooler weather.
I’ve got a fun give away for readers from the US sponsored by Uprinting, where one reader can win 250 hangtags! I love finishing off a gift with a hang tag; if it’s customised, even better. They look pretty on a bottle of  preserves, a jar of cookies etc.  Hangtags  are also a great way to promote to your business in a charming little way. What would you do with them? Love to hear your ideas?  
 

Dimension: 2×3.5
Paper: 14pt cardstock gloss
Finishing: 3/16 hole drilling, (hole location: top-center; top-left; top-right)
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.

 Do leave a comment on this post before the 8th of May. I will draw a winner thereafter.

NO BAKE STRAWBERRY & QUARK CHEESECAKE
Biscuit base
150gms digestive cookies, crushed with rolling pin
50gms butter (1/4 cup), melted
Pie filling
350gms quark
200ml low fat cream (25%)
1/2 cup powdered vanilla sugar (or Castor sugar)
1 1/2 tsp gelatin (can decrease if the weather is not too hot)
250-300gms strawberries, cape gooseberries (other seasonal berries/fruit too)
Method:
Crush the biscuits in a ziploc, mix with melted butter in a bowl and turn into the base of an 8″ dessert ring placed on the serving platter.
Press gently to create uniform base. the bottom of a flat glass works well here. Chill in freezer for 10 minutes, while you prepare the filling.
Filling:
Sprinkle the gelatin over 2 tbsp of water to soften. Place the bowl in a slightly bigger bowl of warm water, and leave for a short while till it becomes translucent.
Beat the cream till it thickens and holds soft peaks. In another bowl. beat the quark with the powdered sugar, with the same beaters, until smooth. Then beat in the gelatin quickly and thoroughly. Fold in the whipped cream. Taste for sweetness, and adjust if required.
Turn this over the biscuit case, and place in the freezer for 20-30 minutes.
Bring down into the fridge, and leave to set for 6-8 hours, or overnight. Top with strawberry coulis and fresh fruit and serve.

Alternative fruit suggestions…

Halve some cape gooseberries, place on top of the chilled pie, brush over with cooled melted preserves, and cover and chill in the fridge for 4-6 hours, or better overnight.
I love the Cape Gooseberry, or Physallis as it’s called. It is also referred to as Ground Cherries in the US, and hides under a papery thin shell. The berry is beautiful when cross sectioned, and the taste ranges from slightly tart to sweet.
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Posted by Deeba @ PAB

Caramel Cream Refrigerator Cakes with Roasted Strawberries … tiny delights!

“So many ideas, so much I want to do, so little time…
But I love the feeling of being inspired…”
Canelle Vanille on Twitter
I love the lines above. Saw them on twitter a few days ago, and they stayed in my mind. I went back to look for them today as a quote that is truly reflective of my feelings too!! Aran expressed it beautifully!
It’s now the end of the strawberry season here and I giggled with glee looking at my stash of strawberries I had lugged from my recent vacation. Sadly now with the mercury rising, they threaten to spoil very soon. If earlier I could safely keep them fresh in the fridge for 4-5 days, now even 2-3 days is cutting it fine. I had to look for ways to use them, preserve them!
I recalled having read about roasted strawberries somewhere, maybe at Canelle et Vanille, but could find only roasted rhubarb. It was back to old friend Mr Google, and I was happy to find a couple of link. Headed straight for Zoes beautiful blog Zoe Bakes (also the celebrated co-author of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a day), a place I knew I’d find something special!
I wasn’t disappointed! I found the most delectable recipe for roasted strawberries in balsamic vinegar, a promise to preserve this passionate berry for treats when the sun beats down madly. In her post (in the comments), Zoe suggests that these can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days, else frozen for longer, and they still retain their shape and taste. Couldn’t get better than this …

By the time I entered the kitchen I had forgotten the measures of ingredients but had the basic idea in mind. Instead of using a lined cookie sheet, I roasted in an oven proof CorningWare dish, which ensured that all the precious juices were saved. The sugar had to be the ever charming vanilla sugar, and the aged balsamic from a precious jar that Asha from Fork Spoon Knife parcelled to me as part of a gift from NYC! (In there also was some delicious coffee which I used in Espresso Double Chocolate Biscotti)  I loved it, the bottle, the packaging, the very idea! I’ve saved it long for something special, and this was IT! Thank you Asha…
To celebrate the gorgeous flavours that literally sang out of the bowl of the roasted strawberries, I just had to make some dessert petit fours! Made these little no bake cheesecakes as an experiment while the strawberries were chilling. They’re a sort of panna cotta but the cream is not cooked. I whipped up the cream with caramel syrup, and then added gelatin to stabilise it and help it set. Worked out fine as the dessert held it’s ground, and was very simple to demold too. Normally, my panna cotta is hardly ever as obliging to leave a mold cleanly, so I was delighted! The caramel added a special deep sweetness. NICE!!

Eggless Caramel Cream Refrigerator Cakes (No Bake)
Serves 4
70gms Homemade Graham Crackers or Digestive Biscuits, crushed
30gms melted unsalted butter
200ml low fat cream, chilled
2tbsps caramel syrup
1/2 tsp gelatin
1/2 quantity Roasted Balsamic Strawberries (recipe follows)
Method:
Mix the crushed biscuit crumbs with melted butter, divide equally between 4 X 3″ dessert rings. Press down firmly to make a base. Chill in freezer for 10 minutes.
Soften gelatin over 1 tbsp of cold water in a small bowl, and place this bowl in a bigger bowl of luke warm water till the gelatin is clear. (If the weather is very warm, you might need to increase the gelatin by a 1/8 tsp)
Beat the cream and caramel to soft-medium peaks. Taste and increase the caramel if you like. I like to keep it mildly sweet.
Next pour in the clear gelatin beating constantly.
Divide the whipped cream mix between the 4 dessert rings, level with an offset spatula, or tap gently to level, and place in freezer, covered, to set for 30-45 minutes.
Now you can bring it back into the fridge and chill until ready to serve.
Demold gently, garnish with some grated chocolate. Top with 2 tbsps of chilled roasted balsamic strawberries, and some strawberry-balsamic reduction. ENJOY!!


Roasted Strawberries in Balsamic Vinegar
Adapted from Zoe Bakes
450-500gms strawberries, quartered
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1/8 cup aged balsamic vinegar
Method:
Preheat oven to 180C.
Place the strawberries in a glass baking dish.
Sprinkle over the vanilla sugar, followed by the aged balsamic vinegar. Mix gently.
Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes. Allow to cool.
Drain strawberries.Put the liquid into a sauce pan, and reduce to a thick concentrate. It will thicken a bit as it cools. Chill before use.
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Posted by Deeba @ PAB
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