The Crème Caramel miracle!

Forget love..I'd rather fall in Crème Caramel!! (The eggless Gelatin free version ofcourse) 😊

Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. 

And so...on a dine out evening with family when we finally ordered dessert, little sister ploughed through the menu..ordered a Crème Caramel custard and declared that "Such a beautiful dessert is impossible to make at home".

"Challenge accepted" I promptly replied with an evil smile! And thus began the search for a perfect recipe BUT with a bit of a stumbling block. Now, being vegetarian (Not a franchise of Being human), means getting a complicated dessert right, MINUS the eggs..and preferably 'veg gelatin' too. 

Another big hiccup was the absence of an oven! Though I do have a microwave in place and often bake my cakes, cookies, breads and other goodies in it, I personally feel oven bakes get a better outcome. 

Nonetheless, I foraged the internet for options that allowed my lazy self to bake an experimental Crème Caramel custard, but with the least complex ingredients and a non-cumbersome preparation. 

The good thing about some baking recipes is that they involve less science than what's normally needed, and this was one such recipe I found. I added a bit of my own variation with my baking experience and voila! THIS is what came out!

Eggless Crème Caramel custard

Now the recipe. For the Caramel Syrup i took:

Sugar- 1/4th Cup

Water- 2 Tsp

Take sugar in a pan and add water and stir slowly on low flame till it turns brown. Immediately transfer the syrup to a baking tin or ramekins that you are baking in. 

Making the Custard will require:

Yogurt- 1/2 Cup

Powdered Sugar- 2 Tsp

Condensed Milk- 1/2 Cup

Custard Powder- 2 Tsp

Milk- 1/2 Cup

Vanilla Extract- 1Tsp

Corn Flour- 1 Pinch (Can be avoided too)

Whisk all these ingredients together lightly, to get rid of any lumps. Pour this mixture over the caramel syrup in the baking tin/ramekins.

Now the tricky part of steam baking, but worry not..if I can anyone can..really!

Heat some water in a deep pan. Place a stand or ring and place the custard tin on it. Cover it with a lid and let it steam bake on medium flame for 30-40 mins.

Check the doneness with a toothpick. Insert a toothpick in the middle of the pudding and if it comes out clean its done!

For those who want to bake it in the oven- Pour water in the baking tray, place ramekins or mould on the tray, cover it with a foil and bake it for about 40-45mins on 180°C.

Tip- Don't be tempted to over bake as it may take away the wobbly jelly like texture on cooling and chilling.

Let the custard rest and cool a bit after which put a plate or a flat tray over the tin and turn it upside down to demould carefully. Soon after the hot steam is settled keep it in the fridge to chill for a little while.

Here you go! Your wonky little sweet mess is ready to melt in the mouth!

Enjoy! And drop in the reviews too!!

Homebaked Family night Pizza!

I'm a Pizzaterian..you know..when you only eat Pizza! I bet there's no better feeling in the world than a warm slice on your plate and so I take the occasional risk of downing pizza despite the 'good diet' concerns.

Now..since eating out happens often in my case, those 'to-die-for' pizza's often turn deadly for the weight conscious foodie me! SO, as an amateur experimental baker, I decided to give my cravings a healthier chance and I attempted baking a pizza at home! From the scratch! AND by golly it was good! (Or so said the gobblers).

Pizza is a lot easier to make from scratch than you might think. So for an easy cheezy Pizza I started by preparing a dough by mixing together:

1 and 1/2 cups All purpose flour/Maida
1 tsp instant yeast (or) 1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup oil
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

Recipe credits: www.sharmispassions.com 

Combining it all together with a cup of warm water. I set aside this dough to rise for about an hour at room temperature. This was yet another experiment where I did not separately proof the yeast in water before adding it to the flour and rather threw everything in together at once..worked well for me (Make sure you use fresh yeast ONLY for these experiments).

Flour, oil. yeast, sugar, salt 

The risen dough after an hour

A little tip here:
If you don't want to bake an instant pizza like me, the pizza dough can be wrapped in cling film and frozen till whenever you want to bake next. Just remember to take the dough out of the freezer and bring it to room temperature first. Cold dough is never a good idea.

My next step was sneaking out some of mom made thick tomato puree (made out of crushed fresh tomatoes and frozen). I punched and flattened the risen dough and then rolled it out in a nice big round with thick edges. Next I placed the rolled dough on a well greased microwave baking plate. Generously spread out the tomato paste on the rolled dough, added Salt, Oregano, Italian seasoning, Chilly flakes and pepper on it and topped it with cheese (I prefer mozzarella).

Ready to go into the Microwave!

Since this was going to be a first time experiment, I stuck to keeping it to a simple (less) cheese pizza (minus veggies). It can be quite strenuous to be a foodie AND lazy at that..and so if I can bake it..anybody can!!

Next comes the baking part. Bake it on 180°c for about 10 mins first and then move to high i.e 210°c for another 10 mins (that's what they do in restaurants).

Freshly baked

Bake, and voila! With all the endless topping combinations available, you can get rid of those carry out menus!!

Slice n Gobble!

Nothing like a freshly baked homemade pizza

This homemade pizza is fabulous! It has the perfect thickness, softness and yumminess! Don't let the long intenet recipes scare you..'cause once a homemade Pizza maker..always one!

Happy Baking!

Cakes..bakes and the story of heartbreaking colors!

Color Chagrin !

The efforts put into baking that perfect, fluffy, yummy sponge of a cake deserves nothing short of a slow clap standing ovation...or so I feel every time that heavenly smelling, 'sweet achievement' pops out of my microwave. Once you master the basic sponge, the world is your oyster. You're all set to play! Play with frostings, icing, decorations, fondants (that come much later), AND COLOR!

SO it was the cousin's birthday and with the exhilaration of having yet another chance to bake I thought of making a colorful cake. The only problem was- colors! Having baked colorful cakes earlier, I had disappointing experiences of dull and absolutely changed (browned) colors post the cake being baked.

Much internet research..googling every possible reason..reading all important bloggers and you tube videos could not find me an answer. Finally, expert advice from baker friends suggested the use of high quality gel based food colors. So lo and behold..some very expensive branded and high end gel colors were ordered. uncontainable excitement got me to immediately get on with baking.

'Good quality' Gel colors

So i made this 'full spectrum' cake, praying with every breath for it to come out spectacularly bright. BUT ALAS! Disappointment set in yet again. The brightness of the 'branded' colors stayed only till the batter.

Dull colors on cake

Home made tempered chocolate designs come to the rescue

Now Multi-colored cakes can be a lot of fun, but ensuring the cake comes out the way it was envisioned is pretty challenging, and I'm yet to figure out the way to successfully overcome it. While baking is a science and measurements are a must, there are no rules that can be followed to get everything perfect at once.


Like they say Things are not always what they seem..the first appearance deceives many and that's exactly what happened with my batter and the final cake! check out the pictures below..

Bright yet deceiving batter colors!

The disappointing final product

Baking is a like a love affair.. a tumultuous one...and just like that Cakes have a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good. So till the time I figure out how to get my dream relationship with an edible rainbow..ill keep the experimental baking on nonetheless 😉 

Hoping to share the solutions soon! Till then Happy Baking!

Baking beginners...fret you not!

NO FRET!!

Every baker must begin somewhere..but alas! the science of baking interferes every single time. If you're an enthu, impatient baker like me you'll know exactly what I'm saying! 

Hi! I'm Palak..an avid baker who happens to turn the kitchen into a lab every time I bake. Thanks to family and friends who've played guinea pig for every experiment, my years of baking has given way to some worthwhile bakes.

While baking truly is science clubbed with art and creativity, most of us as beginners focus on the latter two in order to whip up a beauty, or lets say I made that mistake more often than not as a beginner. With the internet as my guide and guru, especially since I'am an eggless baker self learning had its share of burnt cakes (even insects wouldn't eat..pests I tell you!), broken bowls, microwave in flames (not kidding) and needless to say lots of wasted ingredients. Of course looking back it was all worth it!

So, while I'll try and avoid sounding like a genius who knows it all (after all one can learn forever and still not be perfect), I would in fact try and make baking look less petrifying to those of you who have had failures and shrieking house mates run after them just like me!!

As clichéd as it may sound, and trust me I learnt it the hard way- one must stick to the recipe. As a beginner its important to get the basics right, (coz well..no cake no art!). So when all the 'How to bake a simple cake' recipe sites and blogs tell you to stick to the recipe...trust them..they mean it. Once I mastered the baking of a basic sponge cake life became so much easier.

That brings me to just HOW important those unassuming measuring cups and spoons are. Never thought those little rascals could be so revengeful! After all I never measured my chai patti (tea leaves) and sugar before brewing my tea! But then we are talking science here and exact measurements are more essential than the whole process of baking combined. Appreciate the grand importance of measurements and do not take it for granted..its the best boon ever.

Another hard lesson I learnt over several baking experiments was the significance of fresh ingredients. As a proud Indian one tends to use ingredients adorning our shelves and fridges for months, at least for our first time experiments, as we're pretty sure of going wrong and want to avoid wastage. Very faithful right? Nope! Brace yourself for this one- More often than not your bakes fail perhaps because of the use of old baking sodas/ baking powders, flour that is not so fresh, vanilla that has lost its flavor and vinegar that just wouldn't be itself when needed. Try and ensure all your ingredients are fresh when you bake...and VOILA! you'd have eliminated 60% chances of a failed bake!

Coming to the point where I was the proud recipient of the- 'Crockery breaker of the year' award. You may want to thank me for this tip later- Do not use 'microwave friendly' glass cookware for your baking. Unless you want glass chips instead of chocolate chips in your cake spare the à la mode crockery. Also as safe as you may want to play, avoid using silicone bakeware as a beginner, as it tends to mess up with the temperatures mentioned in the recipe since they heat faster. Using metal is always a good idea.

My final and most important tip for now, to all you bakers here is- Do not fear baking. No matter how many cakes you burn, how many muffins stay under baked and gooey, number of bowls that melt or break, ingredients that go right in the bin and disappointment strikes again and again..its all worth it in the end! This one is straight out of experience ;) Don't be afraid to take whisks! Oops risks. After all..super powers take time to develop!

I'll be happy to share some of my other tips, tricks, experiments and eggless baking recipes I follow. Till then..HAPPY BAKING!  

P.S- Some of the recipe blogs I follow for some superb eggless baking:

www.spiceupthecurry.com

www.vegrecipesofindia.com

www.sharmispassions.com 

www.cookingshooking.com