“I’ve waffled before. I’ll waffle again.”
Howard Dean
Guess what? This morning I made some of the best and fastest cookies of my life. It was a chance find as I was on a food pictures website where these absolutely CUTE cookies caught my eye – Wookies by Beau Dealy @ Something Edible. I was up in a jiffy, dusting the cobwebs off my treasured Belgian waffle maker. In next to no time I had Vanilla Bean and Chocolate Chip Wookies!
SIMPLE UNIQUE DARN TASTY REALLY DARNED TASTY
These are a variation on an original recipe of Pennsylvania Dutch Cinnamon Waffle Cookies that were elevated to charmingly delicious levels by this very talented blogger. A result of his hard work and experimentation, his version offer a festive and interesting maple icing glaze. You must read his post.He describes the vital statistics behind the dough, its consistency, the timing, his experiences, along with step by step pictures; very worth the read. If I had original maple syrup in my larder I would have made his variation.I skipped the cinnamon in the dough and the glaze too, adding chocolate chips to the sticky dough instead. I was really curious to see how these would come out. My Belgian waffle maker is a few years old, one that my lil’ sis from the US gifted me. It ran on the standard American voltage of 120V until the wiring was redone by my adventurous engineer father to our local Indian voltage of 220V. Don’t ask me what he did, but it works!The recipe worked beautifully!! Just as we heaved a sigh of relief thankful for a very smooth, largely power cut free summer, we’ve been cursed with incessant power cuts this season. Come winter, foggy, bone chilling days at 6-7 degrees C, and the power is playing truant. Baking sometimes seems a pain with no uninterrupted power supply. That’s why these yummy looking two minute cookies called my name.My word, were they good?CRISP GOOD! The daughter was home early after her exam and LOVED them. The son got a couple with his mug of milk when he got in from school. “Just 2 please“, I thundered. I had a journalist and his photographer coming in later that afternoon for an interview and photoshoot for a local daily. “MUST save some for them!” They were destined to be shared and finished by afternoon. The visitors loved the wookies and also the above orange olive oil buttermilk pound cake I baked. Told me these were the best cookies and cake they had eaten. The daughter said I must open a shop for unique baked goods. I was chuffed … so much praise for speedy cookies and cake. {The wookies and cake were both made in the fast lane by tossing the ingredients into the Thermomix}.So if you have that waffle maker waiting in the wings, reach out for it, mix the dough and serve up some deliciousness in minutes. I figure you can make the cookie dough in advance and serve fresh cookies this holiday season. They are quite soft when just out {handle with care as you take them out of the waffle maker as they are tender}, but they crispen in minutes. I contemplated glazing mine with a coffee sugar glaze, but changed my mind when I tasted the first one. It seemed sweet enough sans a glaze. Next time I might decrease the sugar in the cookie dough and add a glaze. Its a wonderful versatile cookie. Now I am wondering if there might be savoury way around this. I would love a cheesy savoury wookie like this. Any thoughts anyone?
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These holiday cookies are on the way to Suma’sCakes And More Cookie Fest where she says “None of us remain immune to the spirit of baking during the Christmas season, even the hesitant baker turns on the oven for sure. So, do bake me some cookies – chewy, crispy,flaky or crunchy – anything from gooey brownies to crunchy biscotti to delicate tuiles to flaky batons – I shall gobble them all!” All yours to gobble Suma!!
It happened one November midnight, in Twitterverse, we saw this tweet from our dear Nelly @ nella22. Without missing a beat, we all knew Nelly had “said YES” to her beloved “M”,as she sweetly calls Brian Murray, her fiancé.
So here we are, Nelly dear, your friends in the food world, wishing you and Brian,all the best. And with our wishes, a simple recipe with an easy formula for a life of bliss, rich with EVERYTHING in it!
BLOGGERS RECIPE FOR NELLY ‘S WEDDED BLISS
Mix together: A lot of Love, Patience, Perseverance, Respect, Courage, Strength, Trust, Kindness, Honesty, Compromise & Great Sex.
Stir in : Equal Parts of Love, Support, Faith, Fidelity, Hope, Validation, Friendship, Forgiveness, Communication.
Cook over slow simmer for the rest of your life. Dot daily with a Sense of Humor.
Leave out the nagging, sarcasm, skepticism, doubts and stubbornness.
Serving Suggestions: Best prepared daily. Serve with flourish because Married Life is a FEAST. Live it with flavor, spice it with unconditional love, enjoy its richness.
Recipe Notes: Some ingredients won’t always be fresh or available. Or the heat may flare up and the anger spills over. Simmer down and douse the flames with all the LOVE you can throw in.
Enjoy the feast of marriage, love and life!
{Written by : Elizabeth @Mango_Queen}
These Dark Chocolate & Strawberry Mini Cloud Gateaus were a big hit! Can’t go wrong with dark chocolate and strawberries, a pairing made in heaven. These were decadent and festive, almost a gateau celebration in themselves, so I am posting them for sweet Nellys Virtual Bridal Shower! I got in on the event a little late, but am thrilled to be part of the surprise bridal shower for this very sweet lady with a very sweet tooth! Thank you Sanjeeta for roping me in, me who lovesLOVES twitter to death, but have been missing from it for far too long. It’s good to be back in the midst of all the frenzied tweets, the excited timelines, the viral food talk … and the fun events and camaraderie for great tweeps like Nelly or rather Marnelly!Just back from a short, wonderful trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, a trip I could only have dreamt of, a country I never imagined I would be fortunate enough to visit, and bets placed on the fact that the dwarves would miss me and their organised lives which was about to be upside down for 4 days! To cushion the kids rough ride, I made them these Dark Chocolate & Strawberry Mini Cloud Gateaus … I hear they were divine, and so can’t resist sending them {virtually} for Nelly’s bridal shower!!
Best wishes to you sweet Nella for this most wonderful time of your life. Hope your days with M are filled with passion and love. ENJOY!!!
It’s been wonderful being part of this huge, fantastic, very excited group Nella’s virtual bridal shower brought together. We whispered loudly, we emailed ferociously, we confused each other endlessly {12am/12pm/EST???}, we giggled, we laughed like nervous brides {and grooms?} … and we supported each other! Please catch our posts us on twitter with #nellysbigday, and on the linky love below.These mini gateaus were made out of a leftover layer from a 16th birthday cake I made for my daughters dear friend. The order – “Cake to be made, CHOCOLATY CHOCOLATY CHOCLATY, oh, with strawberries too!” Pictures were taken and mailed at each stage {making me very nervous}, drafts of what was to be written on top down to the last dot and dash, NO CHANGES AT ALL, colour combinations … and the phrase ‘very chocolaty‘ being rung out repeatedly! So many instructions that I almost lost my nerve and whatever creative bend of mind I possessed.{If you wish to make the birthday cake, then you will need 2 portions of the batter for 2 cakes that will give you a 6 layer cake, enough for about 20-25 folk. The chocolate pastry creme filling is enough for a 6 egg cake, with a little extra.}
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This is my recipe/post for the virtual bridal shower for Nelly hosted by Sanjeeta kk at Lite Bite.
Special thanks to Heather for the logo, Elizabeth for the intro write up and to Junia for the spreadsheet.
Intro paragraph written by Elizabeth @Mango_Queen
Eggless, butterless yet light and scrumptious had won me over. The Pioneer Womans Cinnamon Roll Dough which I got from an adaptation from Ginny @Cooking With Chopin, Living With Elmo for The Secret Recipe Club this month seems to have been one of the best discoveries of the year. It took to theapple stuffing so well, I decided to try my luck with savoury. I sneaked in some butter this time though!I might bake and blog a load of sweet on PAB, but my heart is totally savoury. Nothings delights my palette more than savoury bakes, the success of which are always very rewarding. I enjoyed making this bread, adding some red and green chili peppers that I had preserved in vinegar a few days ago. Tangy, chili, salty … loads of flavour in them. I think preserved olives or maybe roasted bell peppers would compliment this bread too. Served my bread with some fresh homemade tomato soup, chargrilled broccoli with chili & garlic and chicken paillards in compound lime cumin butter. Wonderful! I find that working flavours into a basic dough prior to the rising makes the bread burst with flavour, and just the way the family loves it. I reached out for ingredients I found on my counter, in my pantry, in my fridge… flecks of red and green for the holiday season keeping me inspired!Into the dough went dried herbs {fresh would be wonderful too}, garlic {we are a family that loves our garlic}, finely chopped almonds {just because I think nuts add great texture and taste to savoury breads; walnuts would be great too}. As a departure from the earlier recipe, I kneaded the dough for a minute or two before the final rise as it worked some elasticity into the dough, making it more pliable. {I made the dough in my Thermomix. You could use dough hooks or your processor as the dough is quite soft/doughy/sticky}In other completely unrelated news, my Thai chili plant from Down Under is finally in bloom and I cant wait to ‘harvest’ the first crop. The chilies look purplish at the moment, though I thought they were going to be red! Hmmm…Oh and our little Coco turned all of 6 months old, naughty as can be. She got thoroughly spoilt and completely untrained in the 4 days I was away … uber naughty again but C.U.T.E.!! Sigh!
A full of flavour, light savoury pull apart bread. Olive oil, red & green preserved chili peppers, garlic and sharp cheddar make this a wonderful light choice for the festive season. {Eggless/vegetarian}
Course Appetiser, Side Dish
Cuisine American, Italian
Keyword baking, bread, vegetarian, yeast
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 45 minutesminutes
Dough resting time 2 hourshours
Total Time 3 hourshours15 minutesminutes
Servings 2loaves
Ingredients
1 portion dough {recipe follows}
200gm sharp cheddar {or mozzarella}
Preserved chili peppers {or olivesroasted bell peppers etc}
50-75gm unsalted buttermelted, cooled
Dough {from The Pioneer Womans cinnamon rolls; can be made a day ahead}
2cupswhole milkwarm
1/2cuplight olive oil
1tspsugar
1heaping spoon salt
4-5clovesgarlicminced
2-3tbspdried Italian herbs {or fresh}
1tspred chili flakes
1package active dry yeast
4cups{plus 1/2 cup extraseparated} all-purpose flour
1/2teaspoon{heaping} baking powder
1/2teaspoon{scant} baking soda
1/2 to 3/4cuproasted almondschopped fine
Instructions
Dough
Mix the milk, olive/vegetable oil and sugar in a pan (LARGE POT).
Sprinkle in the Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute {5-10 minutes}.
Then add 4 cups of all-purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.
After rising for at least an hour, add 1/2 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Knead the dough for a minute or two before the final rise as it seems to work some elasticity into the dough, making it more pliable. {I made the dough in my Thermomix. You could use dough hooks or your processor as the dough is quite soft/doughy/sticky}
{At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it – overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down}
Savoury Chili Cheese & Garlic Pull-Apart Bread
Grease the sides of an 8″ Victoria sandwich tin, and line the base.
Roll the dough out into a large rectangle, about 1/4″ thick, and pour over half the melted butter, spreading evenly with an offset spatula.
Grate cheddar all over, and sprinkle over with chopped pickled chili peppers.
Roll the larger end like a swiss roll. With a sharp knife {or floss} cut into12 portions, and place cut side up in the prepared tin all around the edges. There will be gaps in the dough, don’t worry. All the gaps get filled in as the bread rises before and during baking. {You could also use a muffin tray. I lined the bottoms with circles of parchment and greased the sides.}
Place a dessert ring/mold in the centre so that the dough doesn’t spread inward. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about an hour.
Bake at 180°C for 40-45 minutes. Cover with foil for the last 10 minutes of baking to prevent over browning. Brush with the remaining melted butter as soon as it comes out.
Leave in the pan for 15-20 minutes, then loosen the sides with a butter knife and turn out.
Serve warm or at room temperature. {The bread tastes good the next day too, sliced and reheated on a non stick pan with a few drops of EVOO}
“Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.”
Michael Levine
Sublime, sweet, seductive … words that can win over the most of us. Bittersweet chocolate paired with sweet scents of orange zest, topped with strawberries in a Digestive biscuit crust – eggless too. I think this might well be a dessert than can please one and all, chocolate lovers that is and tempt the non-lovers too! A Rich Bittersweet Chocolate Orange Strawberry Tart – festive and indulgent for the holiday season!! I made this special tart for Macy’s mBlog Recipe Showcase for which I was invited to share a favourite holiday recipe, with a story alongside. I have an old ‘Digestive biscuit connect’ which I shall share in a bit, though too late for the showcase. Life got the better of me, it’s been busier than usual, and I missed the deadline. Just back from a short ‘happy’ vacation to Tokyo, courtesy Mr PAB who was going there on work and gladly took me along! ’twas like a dream … a bit of which I shall attempt to share soon. In the meantime, this tart is served up here for you dear readers!! It was DELICIOUS and indulgent good! Digestive biscuis have been on my list of favourite biscuits forever, and my first choice always for biscuit bases for tarts and cheesecakes.There was a time, many moons ago, when working with an airline meant regular trips to London. That in turn meant bags full of delicious goodies including Digestives and Chocolate Digestives. The regular ones were my Mums favourite, though at the time I was quite partial to Walkers Shortbread too. Flight crew who flew overhead New Delhi from London to HKG would often radio in to chat while we manned station ops in the wee hours of the night, and would ask for ‘biscuit wishlists’ as they would stopover in Delhi on the way back. One particular flight crew, who I nicknamed Capt HobNob, made sure he always left a big parcel of HobNobs for me! Those were delicious days, post BOAC ones!!A few years later, shortbread ‘butter alarms‘, carbon footprints and locavore choices came along; an inherent consciousness crept in! Age does that to you I guess! I got ‘food educated‘ and sadly learnt that shortbread was delicious but oh-so-butter laden. My first choice then on were digestive biscuit. IMHO, they make me the perfect pie/tart crust as I don’t have the time to make graham crackers from scratch! I have used Digestives in Chocolate Quark Mousse Tartlets, Strawberry Chocolate Yogurt Mousse, No Bake Strawberry Quark Cheesecake, Apple Brown Sugar Meringue Pies, No Bake Upside Down Mango Quark Cheese PieWhat can I say about this beautiful tart … it was just too good to be true {if I may say so myself}. I have kept it eggless as a lot of local readers, being vegetarian, ask me for eggless desserts and bakes. Keeping them in mind, with the holiday season here, time for entertaining, guests, food & fun, I put this tart together. I also kept in mind easily available and mostly ‘there in the pantry‘ ingredients!I love the pairing of chocolate, orange and strawberry. Use a deep, rich, good quality chocolate here. Of course I was rather unsure when I cut it as I didn’t know if it would set well. Luckily for me, the proportions were good and the balance of the filling and tart shell just right. The taste?Délicieux!!
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This recipe is on its way to IndiBloggers food contest …
As I go I wanted to share a little something; two places where PAB has recently been featured. One was in the November issue of Harper’s BazaarIndia {was thrilled to see lovely Meeta, Pamela and Mallika there too}, the article on food bloggers called “The Web Culinaries“,and the other a press feature at Lx World, ‘Cakes to Bake‘.
Don’t miss a post Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
Jim Davis
India is pretty much pumpkin country, the yellow and rather mellow squash that you will find around every nook and corner all year through, a vegetable I looked at rather disdainfully until I made my first Praline Pumpkin Pie 2 years ago. The lad nudges me this time every year to remind me he l♥ves it! This one is for him – a Perfect Pumpkin Pie.Mentally conditioned by food blogs, lovely pumpkin posts painting the net in a orange hue, I eagerly await fall. It makes me look at the pumpkin in wonder, a rather underestimated veggie, yet one that holds a lot of promise. The beautiful flavour of the pumpkin soup I shared with Jamie in London holds a special connect. It was the company, the atmosphere, the euphoria of that first time we all met. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the humble pumpkin got an even more elevated status in my life!I made soup last year, and for some silly reason it never got blogged. This pumpkin pie is the result of inspiration out of the blue. I saw a mail in my inbox saying ‘If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?‘ … and I thought, hmmm, I wonder!An extra 2 hours for the obsessed baker in me is like an impossible dream. My life seems to run choc-a-bloc morning to night, balancing the fine act of racing through laundry, trying to feed a blog, a brood, a pooch, snatching a few harassed moments to take photographs while the dog is now tall enough to get to table tops {… CUTE as a button too}, grocery {sigh}…and then emails of course!That thought stayed in my mind while I ran the laundry that morning, and teased me while I went to the vegetable vendor, our fabulous sabziwala. Someone was buying pumpkin and the fellow cut a nice bright one for her. That was my cue!Give me 2 extra hours and watch me bake with joy, bake something to fill home with autumnal aromas, pumpkin gently roasting {of course you can buy it canned as well in the rest of the world, but we know no luxuriesof the sort in India!}. Much from scratch with this too, I have never had tomatoes or pumpkin out of a can here. I have read though that fresh roasted pumpkin beats the canned one hands down. Got an extra hour?Roast some!
I always have tins of condensed milk on hand after having indulged in this absolutely addictive Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop. You need less than an hour to make it, need resolve to keep away from the freezer, and finally 10 minutes to polish it off. But if you can grab those two extra hours, then I recommend you head for pie! The verdict was delicious! The terrible teen screwed up her nose and said “Ewwwwwww …. pumpkin!!,” and then predictably went on to ravenously demolish the slice, and ask for another. There was something about it!! The boy lapped it up … it was his on request after all!!This is a pie right for fall. The filling … silky, smooth and spicy! The crust just right, not too crisp, yet offers a handsome bite, gently teasing the palette with beautiful pistachio flavours and a pleasing texture. I wish I could offer you a slice…it was that good, and it went FAST!
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And since I had so much extra time, I shot some pictures of out CUTE Coco … she was ‘all eyes’!! Oh to have those extra two hours more often!
Don’t miss a post
Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
“Without garlic I simply would not care to live.”
Louis Diat
It continues to be a busy month, where blogging seems to get to the back burner even though it rules my mind 24 X 7. In the midst of this, it’s time for the SRC, an event that I am committed to; a deadline that cannot be missed! So here on fast track is a beautiful and delicious Creamy Roasted Red Bell Pepper Dip from my assigned secret blog – Sweet Beginnings… a blog about sweet, sugary treats, and home cooked meals.
The Secret Recipe Club, the brainchild of Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’. The idea behind the club – Each month you are “assigned” a participating food blogger to make a recipe from. It’s a secret, so don’t tell them you are making something from their blog! Click on the link if you want to join the fun!!
Of late, the festival season has piled loads of sweet stuff upon our delighted palettes. So I explored Jaidas blog for savoury stuff, and happily, I found plenty! Loads of wonderful seafood, fish, chicken; posts tagged with inspiration of all sorts – Asian, vegetarian, What’s Baking, appetizers and then this wonderful creamy bell pepper dip which she served with a grilled chicken ‘sammich’.The grilled chicken sammich sounded just wonderful and I think what made it really stand out was this creamy red pepper sauce the talented girl created for a recipe swap. Of the sauce she says, ” The sauce is super-delish and also goes great with burgers…you should try it ASAP!” I did and it was yum!Festival season, school holiday on every other day for one reason or another, a wedding in the family, the hub BUSY at work … and me dog tired like never before. Yet I snatched a moment yesterday to make crackers as the kids were feeling deprived that their Mama doesn’t seem to bake that much any more.These are crisp easy breezy crackers from a Mark Bittman recipe that I adapted to include some whole wheat flour. It’s a wonderful basic recipe that is takes well to any flavour you might like. I used garlic and dried herbs, and next time might do sesame, or sea salt with black pepper, poppy seeds … or maybe the bagel spice I used on these Same Day New York Bagels. The creamy roasted red bell pepper dip {sauce} is just what I wanted as a pairing for these crackers. Vibrant and delicious, I loved the way Jaida added cream cheese to it! I used a local substitute {cheese spread} and skipped the mayo as the dieting diva was dancing on my head!It still was every bit delicious as it looks. Simple and addictive, its a great sauce/dip for burgers, sandwiches, crackers, fresh veggies, crudites and possibly even wraps! I adapted the recipe a bit, and I’m glad I got inspired to follow Jaida’s basic creation.Add some balsamic or go with the mayonnaise, and do make sure you add the cream cheese … then sit back and enjoy! My kids loved these to bits. Crisp whole wheat crackers and finger licking good creamy roasted red bell pepper dip … healthy and addictive!
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