Halloween Cupcakes

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I decided to make cupcakes for Halloween this year and found this really cool cake recipe from a fellow blogger’s site. I have a made a few substitutions and changes from the original recipe but the cupcakes still tasted yummy! Now I am just hoping that kids will come by in the evening for Trick or Treating, else my husband and I will have to finish all the cupcakes…not that it will be a difficult task especially since these mini cupcakes are perfectly bite sized.

Please excuse the very amateur designs on the cupcakes :-)

Ingredients (32 mini cupcakes)

Cupcake

Atta (whole wheat flour) – 1 ½ cups

Thick curd – 1 cup

Sugar – ¾-1 cup

Baking powder – 1 ¾ tsp

Oil – ½ cup

Vanilla essence – 1 ½ tsp

Tutti-frutty – ¼ cup

Simple White Icing

Powdered sugar – 1 ½ cups (more if you want it sweeter)

Butter (room temperature) – 1 4oz stick (approx 114 gms)

Vanilla essence – 1-2 tsps

Method

Sieve the flour and keep aside. In a bowl, mix the curd and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the baking powder and mix well and keep aside for 5 minutes. The curd will become frothy, with small bubbles on the surface. Now add the vanilla essence and oil and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Add the flour to the curd mixture, little by little, and incorporate well. Add the tutti-frutty and mix well. Line the cupcake tin with paper cups and place the batter into each, making the cups 3/4^th full. For the mini cups that I used, I filled each with 1 tbsp of batter and the size came out perfect.

Bake at 400F for 17-20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Simple White Icing

Beat all ingredients in a bowl until it forms a spreadable texture. Slather on the cupcakes and enjoy!

The black and orange icing are ready made ones from Cake Mate brand.

BOO!!!

Link to original recipe - http://sobha-goodfood.blogspot.com/2011/10/eggless-sponge-cake.html

How to Carve a Pumpkin

Diwali might be over but Halloween is just around the corner. In previous years, we have bought candy and waited for kids to come and say Trick or Treat, but no one came! We later realized that our house should also have shown signs of Halloween ... only then would the kids know where to go for candy!

The community we live in now has lots of kids so we decided to take our Halloween to the next level – and hence the carved pumpkin.

We learned the basics from various videos but at one point we were confused and stuck, not knowing what to do next. I even told my husband that I would put the pumpkin on his head and make him sit outside. He could then make scary noises and send out puffs of smoke for an extra effect :-)  

 

Scoop out all the seeds and thread like mess.

Stick the template with tape.

  

Poke holes on the outline of the design

 And the results...

Diwali Delight

Diwali means lights, crackers and loads of munchies. Here in the US, we do without the boom and the bang of the crackers, but lights and munchies are in abundance here too!

This year, at home, we decided to make a traditional spread and we made two sweets – Mysore Pak and wheat halwa. I have seen my mother make these at home as a kid, but have never made it myself until this time. My mother-in-law taught me both the recipes and I was amazed at how simple and easy both these recipes were.

Try these at your home too and enjoy the Diwali with your family and friends. Have a safe Diwali!

Mysore Pak

Ingredients

Besan or chickpea flour – 1 cup

Sugar – 3 cups

Ghee – 3 cups (melted)

Water – 1 cup

Method

Sift chickpea flour for any lumps or impurities. In a pan, dry roast the flour. Remove from stove as soon as you smell a nice aroma. Grease a plate or pan with ghee and set aside.

Heat 1 cup of water in a pan, add sugar and dissolve. Keep stirring until the sugar syrup forms a one-string consistency. Slowly add the roasted flour and keep stirring continuously. Add ghee little by little to avoid sticking. Keep stirring until you see frothy texture on top of the mix.

Pour the mix into the greased plate and allow it to cool. When the Mysore Pak is slightly warm, cut it into small pieces with a buttered knife. After it has cooled down, topple the plate onto another plate to separate the pieces.

Enjoy these sweet porous cakes with your family this Diwali.

Wheat Halwa

Ingredients

Wheat grain – 1 cup

Sugar – 3 cups

Ghee – 3 cups (melted)

Food colour of your choice – a pinch (optional)

Cashews – 3 tbsp

Method

Soak wheat grain overnight. In a mixer, grind the soaked grain and squeeze out the milk. This is the 1st wheat milk. Keep this milk separately. Repeat this process two more times. You will see that the thickness of the squeezed milk reduces each time.

In a pan, add a tsp of ghee and roast the cashews. Grease a plate or pan with ghee and sprinkle the cashews on it. Keep the plate aside.

In a little water dissolve the sugar and boil the syrup until it forms a one-string consistency. Now add the 1st milk and keep stirring continuously. Once it becomes thick, add the second milk. In the third milk add the food colour and mix well. Once the boiling mixture becomes thick, add the third milk and keep stirring continuously.

Add ghee when the mixture gets thicker. Continue stirring and adding ghee until the ghee starts to ooze out of the halwa. Once the ghee starts to separate out, remove from stove, pour it into the greased pan, and allow it to cool.

Cut the halwa into smaller pieces when it is slightly warm.

Have a Wonderful Diwali!

Diwali Special – Butter Mix and Rava Laddu

My Murukku maker

Diwali is here and if some of you have still not made any special snacks, here are two simple recipes that you can make in the last minute. Both recipes can be made quickly and do not require much prep work. You must be wondering what this Butter Mix is, well I had no idea too until my mother-in- law mentioned it yesterday evening. My husband also chipped in saying that this was a common snack in Chennai. I wonder how I had not heard about it till now!

Ingredients

Butter Mix

Rice flour – 1 cup

Pottu Kadala (split chick peas) powder – ½ cup

Salt to taste

Ghee – 2-3 tsps

Water

Method

Mix rice flour, split chickpeas powder, salt, and ghee. Pour in the water, little by little, to make soft dough. Using the single holed plate in your murukku maker, squeeze out the dough into hot oil. Butter mix does not turn brown like the regular murukku, so keep an eye on it.

Remove onto a paper towel, cool and store in an air tight container.

Rava Laddu

Ingredients

Rava (semolina) – 1 cup

Powdered sugar – ¾ cup (original recipe says 1 cup, you can try it either way)

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Cashews and Raisins – 3 tbsps

Ghee as needed

Method

Take ½ tsp ghee in a pan and roast the rava till the raw smell goes, about 6-8 minutes. Place on low heat, else it will burn. Powder the rava and keep aside. In the same pan, add 1 tsp ghee and roast the cashews and raisins and add to the powdered rava. Powder the sugar and add to the rava. Add the cardamom powder and mix all the ingredients well. Heat ghee and start adding little by little, and keep mixing it well. Try rolling into a ball and if it holds its shape, you are ready to start making laddus.

Keep the warm ghee at hand, as the mixture can dry out in the middle of the process. Roll out into small balls and voila, your Diwali sweet is ready!

Bon Appétit and Happy Diwali from the Square Meals kitchens!

Banana Custard Pie

I had four over-ripe bananas sitting on my table and I didn’t know what to do. I was bored of muffins and breads and wanted to try something new. That’s when I thought of a banana cream pie. But when I looked up some recipes, they all had lots of sugar, heavy cream, a buttery pie crust and the likes. I kept digging and found a healthier pie crust recipe and finally came up with this idea.

Ingredients

For pie crust

Quick cooking oats - ¾ cup

Whole wheat flour - ¾ cup (original recipe called for all purpose flour)

Shredded coconut - ¼ cup

Vegetable oil - ¼ cup

Sugar – 1 ½ - 2 tbsps (optional)

Cold water - 2 tbsps

For filling

Mashed bananas – 1 cup

Milk – 1 ½ cups

Custard powder – 3 tbsps

Sugar to taste (I used 2 tbsps of light brown sugar. Use more if you want it sweeter.)

For Topping

Blueberries – ½ cup (I used frozen)

Water – 2 tbsps

Sugar – 1 tbsp (optional) 

Method

I did not have a pie tin so I decided to make individual servings in my muffin tray. The original recipe mentioned that this amount would make one 9 inch pie crust.

Pie Crust

Pre heat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a bowl mix oats, flour and coconut. Stir in oil, water and sugar and blend to make sticky, crumbly dough. Press the dough into a muffin tray or a pie tin and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Let it cool before attempting to remove the individual pie cups form the tray. If making a big pie crust, then leave as is.

Custard Filling

Heat the milk in a heavy bottomed vessel, else the milk with stick to the bottom and burn. Add the custard powder and stir well, making sure there are no lumps. Add the sugar and keep stirring. As the custard cooks, the mixture will start thickening. So, make sure you continue to stir. Once the mixture thickens a bit (10-12 minutes), remove from the stove and keep aside. I case you see lumps in the mixture, run it through a sieve to ensure that the custard is smooth.

Once it has cooled, you can mix in the bananas if you want to. I did not. Take the pie cups or the pie crust and fill in a layer of the bananas, then top with a layer of custard and refrigerate.

Topping

In a small pan, heat the blueberries with water and sugar. Mash the berries and let them cook for about 10 minutes. Use this blueberry sauce/syrup to top the pie and enjoy. Bon Appétit.  

  Note – This is a versatile pie crust and can be used for any other pie too. 

Recipe Sent to