Cranberry Christmas Coconut Flan … Simple, delicious and delicate, this vegan gluten-free set pudding is light and full of flavour. It’s a quick simple, stove top recipe that doesn’t take more than 15 minutes to make. Cranberries lend it a delicate pink hue, also added flavour and texture.
I love the way the flan sets, almost assuming and such a surprise to see the clean release from the mini bundt tin. Desserts that set as prettily as this always make me happy, much like this Vegan Rose Coconut Jelly Pudding…
You can obviously see that shapes in desserts fascinate me, bringing alive the child in me. This vegan Cranberry Christmas Coconut Flan was no different. I whooped with joy when I demolded it, every little detail in the pattern visible beautifully!
Do tag me on Instagram at Passionate About Baking if you make this, or any other recipe from the blog. I’d love to see it!
Simple, delicious and delicate, this vegan gluten-free set pudding is light and full of flavour. It's a quick simple, stove top recipe that doesn't take more than 15 minutes to make. Cranberries lend it a delicate pink hue and added texture.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword agar agar, christmas, coconut milk, cranberries, dessert, eggfree, fruit, gluten free, one bowl, simple, stovetop, sweet, vegan, vegetarian
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 5 minutesminutes
Setting time 6 hourshours
Total Time 6 hourshours15 minutesminutes
Servings 4
Ingredients
500gcoconut milk
60gsugar
1tspagar agarpowder
45gdried cranberrieschopped
Instructions
Whisk all the ingredients in a pan.
Simmer for 3-4 minutes until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is steaming.
Eggless Raspberry Pistachio Cake … Where favourite colours and flavours come together with chocolate to create absolute deliciousness! My love for layered desserts, natural flavours, fruit in dessert, petite cakes and chocolate all meet in this little dessert cake. Each spoon is bursting with fresh, deep flavour and you just want to keep diving in!
There’s something about natural colors of fruits that really appeals to me, so much so that I can’t get enough. It’s always about pairing and always about a freshness of flavour. Add to that the visual appeal because desserts must look good and taste as nice!
Talking about colours makes me think of berries instantly. I make eggless desserts a LOT with berries through summer as I find them fascinating … so much appeal, so much fresh flavour, also a ton of natural colour! One of my favourite berries are raspberries and I find them endlessly inspiring. This Eggless Raspberry Pistachio Cake is the result of one such inspiration!
Think berries, think colour, then think pistachios and fall in love with that quintessential pistachio green. I’m smitten by the beautiful pistachio green and how well it pairs with the vibrant red of raspberries. Tke a look at the collage below and you’ll know what I mean. It’s therapeutic working with such colours and flavours and an absolute joy to style and shoot them! Just feels so effortless!
This little eggless raspberry pistachio layer cake is yet another way to play with these flavours and colours and the outcome is soooooo delicious! Pretty too, don’t you think?
When favourite colours and flavours come together with chocolate to create absolute deliciousness! My love for layered desserts, natural flavours, petite cakes and chocolate all meet in this little dessert cake, each spoon bursting with flavour and texture!Serves 2-4
Eggless chocolate sponges (makes four 4″ cakes, recipe can be halved)
105gbuttermilk
25goil
50gcastor sugar
1/2tspbaking powder
1/4tspbaking soda
Pinchof salt
10gcocoa powder
75gall purpose flour/maida
125g fresh raspberries {for 1 cake}
Pistachio cream filling {for 1 cake}
150gcream / 25% fat
1.5tspagar agarpowder
20gsugar (to taste}
75gwhite chocolateroom temperature, chopped
150gcream cheeseroom temperature, whisked smooth
60gpistachio butter
To top
Chocolate ganache, fresh raspberries, fresh mint leaves, edible flowers
Instructions
Eggless chocolate sponge
Preheat the oven to 180C. Line the base of four 4″ pastry rings/tins with foil and the sides with parchment.
In a large bowl, add all the ingredients and give them a good whisk.
Divide the batter between the rings/tins.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the tester comes out clean. Cool completely, then trim the tops.
Pistachio cream filling for 1 serving
Whisk the cream and agar agar in a saucepan and simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes stirring often to activate the agar agar. Alternatively, this can be done in the microwave in 30 second bursts.
Pour over the white chocolate and leave to stand until the chocolate melts. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in the cream just before you need to do the filling.
To 190g of the filling, whisk in 60g pistachio butter.
Assemble
Secure an acetate sheet snugly around a 4″ eggless chocolate sponge.
Pipe or spoon over the pistachio filling up to just below the halfway mark. Place it in the freezer for about 30 minutes until firm.
Scatter over a layer of fresh raspberries, about 15-16 per cake.
Top the berries with the remaining white cream filling gently. Make sure the filling isn’t too loose/flowy or it will cover the raspberries completely. You need a thickish, batter like flowing consistency.
Place the cake in the freezer for 4-5 hours until frozen, peel off the acetate sheet and leave to set in the fridge overnight.
Top with a spoon of melted chocolate ganache if desired. Garnish with fresh berries.
This Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta recipe post is somewhat special for me and I’ll just tell you why! Other than the dessert being drop dead delicious of course, the recipe share on my blog comes along as I struggle to feed my hungry blog. I’ve been traveling a bit of late, and sometimes things get too hectic. In the midst of all that the poor blog suffers.There was a time where if we had broadband network issues, I’d throw a royal fit, mope for hours and nothing at all would get done. I wouldn’t even feel like shooting the dessert I created because what was the point anyway thoughts ran through my head. All that’s now history and it’s thankfully been that way for a while. Honestly, once you get used to a good or rather a great network, life seems SO EASY! Of course it’s not a great idea to get addicted to the net, but if your work revolves around it, you need certain comfort levels that are assured, and my Airtel 4G network does more than that!Hmmm where do I begin? It’s to strange that when you begin thinking about how basics we take for granted make life so much better, it surprises you and how! Makes you think too! For something as simple as this blogpost, I wrote it up while sitting at the airport in Hyderabad a couple of nights ago. Just what I love about a dependable network. Transferred the images from my cell phone in seconds, and these are heavy files mind you. It was as easy as quick basic editing online, uploaded to the blog in seconds and I was good to go.The speed is great. I’ve used this network forever, and it just seems to get better and better. There’s no way I am changing it. In Hyderabad, I enjoyed snappy Airtel 4G speed, uploading stories non stop to my Instagram handle.And just a few days before Hyderabad, we visited Tanhau, a boutique resort in Ghweri, Uttarakhand. It was SO REMOTE that cell networks barely worked, yet even there I managed to download high res files from my wireless SD card to my cell, then shared them over wifi to stories on Instagram. A nice set of Tanhau Tales actually if you’d like to stop by and see the highlights on my Instagram handle!Being connected all the time has made my life simple and my work stress-free, leaving me so much time where it matters. Anyone who depends on connectivity and networks will know what I mean.I’ve made this recipe a couple of times already. It’s that good! Try it and tell me if you love it as much as I do! Why experiment when others have?
Food for thought? Choose your recipes wisely. And your mobile network too!
Delicious, divine, sinful and silky, if you love a good panna cotta and chocolate is your flavour, then dive right in! This might just be the dessert you are looking for!
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 4 hourshours20 minutesminutes
Servings 6people
Ingredients
500gsingle cream
2 1/2tspgelatin
125mlwhole milk
120gbrown sugar
150gdark couverture chocolate52%
Instructions
Sprinkle the gelatin over the warm milk and leave to soften.
Meanwhile, put the chocolate, cream and brown sugar into a heavy bottom pan, and simmer over gentle heat.
Stir the cream mixture and take off heat when small bubbles begin to appear around the edges at the bottom. Stir in the gelatin mix. Taste and adjust sugar if desired.
Allow to cool until lukewarm, then pass through sieve and pour into serving glasses/bowls.
Chill for at last 6-8 hours, better overnight.
You could pour unsweetened single cream on top for a colour variation, and berries if you like. Finish with a dusting of chocolate shavings. That's optional
Proust had his madeleines, I am devastated by the smell of onions frying in butter!
Chicken Korma … simple, flavourful and just the kind of thing I’ve missed sharing here for a bit. It’s been some time since I blogged a curry on PAB. Feels like a wonderful new beginning. My sis in Houston shared the recipe with me a few years ago. It comes from an old family friend’s repertoire. Everyone who digs into it requests her for the recipe, as my sis did too. We’ve shared it, swapped it, minimally adapted it to suit our palette.
Like all cooking, use this as a springboard. Make it just as is and enjoy it. Then play around and customise it if you like. Kormas are gently spiced and slightly rich. With roots in the Mughlai cuisine, this meat based curry dish often has yogurt, maybe a seed and nut paste, and a few gentle spices. Oh yes some red chili too.
The yogurt is traditionally slow cooked so that it doesn’t curdle. It acts as a tenderiser as well as contributing to a nice thick slightly piquant gravy. The colour of the curry comes from the fried red onions … the star of the show IMHO. They lift this korma to new delicious levels, giving it a rich colour and moorish flavour.
Another tip that the aunt uses is to sift the coriander powder instead of just throwing it in. Maybe it lightens the powder for better distribution or something. I also like that the recipe uses staple pantry ingredients. Try this very simple traditional Chicken Korma, mopping it up with some yeasted whole wheat rotis/flatbread or over basmati rice. If parathas are your calling, go right ahead!
You could also try a similar korma with lamb. The cooking time will wary of course but the basic recipe will be quite the same. For lamb, you could consider marinating the mutton in yogurt paste for a few hours, then cooking on dum/simmer until done. Kormas like these are integral parts on Lucknowi cuisine, the city of my mothers birth. Kebabs, curries, kormas, biryanis all form part of their rich Awadhi cuisine.
This particular one is as simple as it gets. It’s one I make often. Today I made a Chicken Ishtoo, Al-Jawahar style {an eatery in Old Delhi} from a recipe on Sangeeta’s blog. That turned out finger licking good too. So many curries, so little time, but will share that one day soon!
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Recipe: Ishrat Aunties Chicken Korma
Summary: Almost every Indian household has there own recipe, and this chicken korma / curry recipe comes from my mother’s childhood friend from Meerut. It’s simple, uses staple pantry ingredients…and leaves you wanting for more!
Prep Time: 10 minutes Total Time: 1 hour Ingredients:
800gm chicken on the bone, cut into pieces
1/3 cup ghee {or oil}
3 onions, finely sliced {about 200gms}
5-6 choti elaichi / green cardamom {slightly crushed}
5-6 long / whole cloves
1 1/2 tbsp ginger paste
1 1/2 tbsp garlic paste
200g yogurt, whipped
4 tsp coriander powder, sifted
1 1/2 tsp red chili powder
Salt to taste
Method:
Heat ghee / oil in a wok and fry the onions in it till golden brown. {Take care not to let the onions turn too dark, else the korma will be slightly bitter}. Drain the onions from the oil and cool. Then grind to a paste using 1-2 tbsp of the yogurt. Whisk the paste into the yogurt. Reserve.
In the same wok with the remaining oil, add the choti elaichi / green cardamoms and long / cloves and saute till they smell fragrant, 1-2 minutes. {Add a little more oil if required}
Now add the chicken pieces and roast on high heat till nicely seared and golden. Remove from oil and reserve in bowl.
To the hot oil add the sifted coriander powder, the red chili powder, the ginger and garlic paste and mix well so that it all comes together, 1-2 minutes. Now add the chicken back to the wok and give it a good stir for 2-3 minutes.
Now add the fried onion-yogurt mixture, stir well, season with salt, and cook covered on simmer for about 20 minutes. Now the gravy should be fragrant and beautifully coloured. Add a little water if you need to increase the gravy, taste and adjust salt if required. Allow to sit for 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavours to mature. Sprinkle a little garam masala if you like and serve with whole wheat rotis, parathas or basmati rice.
A short while ago I revisited one of my all time favourite cake, the Lime Buttermilk Pound Cake and blogged about it. Was thrilled that everyone liked it as much as I did, and received many suggestions for an orange variation on it. I thought that was a great idea, and those comments set me thinking, especially this one from an anonymous reader “Hey Deeba…made the cake 4 times over this weekend…we just couldn’t get enough of it…thanks for such a marvelous recipe…when lemons were over i used orange juice for the glaze……” If the buttermilk lime cake was so good and light on the crumb, then surely chocolate would be as good too, if not better! If you would rather have chocolate instead of citrus, now with the weather getting cooler, this seems a good idea. Just perfect comfort food with that cup of tea or coffee, with milk for the kids, and great for a picnic too! It bakes well and keeps well too. What I have begun to do is to make a 2 egg cake every few days, play around with ingredients here and there to see how much it affects the texture.I have to say that this is a pretty accommodative recipe and responds well to change! I often recall a few words that Sir Colin Marshall said at British Airways where I worked many many moons ago … “Change is the only constant…“. Upon his arrival in 1983, Colin Marshall, the new CEO, wasted no time in commanding dramatic change. His first two years were characterized by ambitious and rapid change. {MIT mentions this in an interesting read on business and change here}. I joined the company 5 years later; the dramatic changes were still underway. The memories have always remained as large as life, the words even more. They’ve been my guiding force for years, and continue to be significant even for something as small as everyday baking too. I counsel myself with these lines; the words often give me hope for tomorrow on a bad day when things aren’t looking all hunky dory. In my kitchen adventures, they egg me on, motivating me to follow my heart. Change? Big change for me at PAB. Reminds me of Peter Parker in Spiderman: ‘Change? Yep. BIG change’. Of late, life has been a little topsy turvy and full of change. Began with a blog redesign by a very talented lady Lauren @ Designer Blogs sometime in June ’10. She taught me to be patient, ever so patient, and to deliver my best, no matter what. She never said no to anything, and assured me a million times that she would load the new look only when I was a 100% happy. If you are looking for a blogger blog redesign do get in touch with her here. I loved what she did for me.
Next we had the kitchen remodeled and it took all of 2 months and a bit, with a lot of heartache thrown in, but in the end it is everything I ever wanted, maybe more. I love it – warm, open, minimalistic with clean lines. Soon enough, another bug bit me … a transfer to WP. I’ve wanted to do that for ages, but didn’t know where to begin from. I got help from many sources {thank you Mayank}, and then it was finally Sarah @ Maison Cupcake who gave me the final push in the right direction, sharing all her knowledge like an open book! I thought I’d try migrating on my own, but time, lack of knowledge and googling led me to Katie @ Lemon Cherry Blogs. She was my knight in shining armour and is working to transfer PAB and tweak the design as I type this post. WP is VERY new for me, and looks like a steep learning curve, but I’ll get there one day. Until I iron out the creases, please bear with me. Thank you Katie, you are the best!
So all that said, here’s my take on the Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake, a cake I’ve made three times over the last 10 days with great results. The first time with the recipe as below, the second time with 75gms butter and 25gms olive oil, with ¼ cup whole wheat flour in place of all purpose, and no ganache to cut down the calories. I was just curious to see how it would taste.Needless to say, it was moist and delicious! I did a third attempt with pistachios and that was wonderful too.
Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa powder {I heaped it}
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature{or 70gms butter & 30gms olive oil}
1 cup vanilla or plain sugar
2 eggs
100ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
To make buttermilk substitute at home:
Take 100ml milk at room temp; add 1 tsp white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready.
Method:
Grease and flour the sides of a 8″ ring tin, or a 6″ round tin. Line the bottom. {I play safe line the sides too}.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Sift the flour with the cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots. {Stir in chopped nuts at this point if you like. Walnuts, almonds and pistachios go well with chocolate. Hazelnuts too.}
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean.
Meanwhile, make the glaze…
Ganache
100gms dark chocolate
3 tbsps low fat cream {might need a little more}
Method:
Gently simmer the two over low heat, stirring constantly until the chocolate melts. Take off heat and stir briskly till nice and shiny. The glaze should be nice and thick, yet of flowing consistency. Add a little cream if the glaze is too thick, or a little chocolate if it is too thin. It will continue to thicken as it cools down.
Finishing off…
Overturn the cake out gently on rack, and remove the lining. Turn it back on another rack. Let it cool for about 15-20 minutes. Pour the glaze evenly over the hot cake, coaxing it all around, letting some drip over the sides. Dust the edges with chocolate shavings if you like.
“‘If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, wouldn’t it be a Merry Christmas? “
Don Meredith
VANILLA CUPCAKES FOR CHISTMAS
OK…am back again. Yesterday & today were busier than I imagined they would be. I got literally talked into volunteering to make , hold your breadth, 80 cupcakes for a Christmas party for a little play school nearby! They were in a bit of a soup, & I eventually volunteered to bake. The only memory of yesterday morning is of the muffin trays going into the oven & out!! There were cupcakes as far as the eye could see. And then the usual rush…off to school to pick the kids after guitar etc. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…this morning went in meeting with teachers before school broke-up for the holidays, and icing stars onto the cupcakes. They’ve been boxed and delivered!! Always enjoyable after the job has been done!
Ingredients:
Flour – 2cups
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Butter – 1/2 cup
Sugar – 1 1/4 cup
Milk – 1 cup
Vanilla Essence / extract – 1 tsp
Eggs – 2
Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius. Line or grease the muffin pans.
