Diwali Treat: Whole Wheat Halwa

Diwali is the festival of lights marked by dazzling displays of fireworks, abundant sweets and savories, all complemented by an overall feeling of joy. This year's sweet recipe came tried and tested from my MIL and sister-in-law. Seeing how simple it was, I decided to make it too.

Ingredients

Wheat four (Aatta) – 1 cup

Milk – 250 ml

Sugar – ¾ -1 cup

Ghee (clarified butter) – 3-4 tbsps

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Nuts and raisins for garnish

Method

Place the milk on low heat and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed vessel placed on medium heat, melt the ghee. Once the ghee has melted, add the flour and keep stirring until it turns a shade darker. I had kept mine on low heat, so this took almost 15 minutes. If you keep it on higher heat, you will need to keep stirring the flour to avoid burning.

Add the cardamom powder. Now slowly pour in the milk, little by little, while stirring continuously. Don't worry if the whole things turns into a big brown lump, mine did too.

Once the flour and milk are combined, add the sugar and keep stirring. The addition of the sugar will soften the lump and it will slowly start becoming smooth. Once all the sugar has been absorbed and there are no more lumps, remove from the heat.

 

 How to Serve the Halwa?

• Remove onto a greased plate, garnish with nuts and raisins, cut into desired shape and serve).
• Remove into a bowl, garnish with nuts and raisins and serve.
• Roll into small balls, garnish with nuts and serve.

Be safe and enjoy a Happy Diwali!!! Bon Appétit. 

Note: You can alternately add the nuts and raisins to the halwa just before adding the sugar, that way they will get incorporated into the halwa.

Upside Down Apple Cake

Have you ever done any fruit picking? My husband and I went apple and pear picking to a place called Julian in Southern California. While researching about the place, I read numerous comments about how people had loved the place and the experience and went back every year. The fruit picking part was definitely fun, since this was our first time…but I doubt if we would go back every year!

The town of Julian itself is this quaint little place, with just one main road where life happens. Every other place is filled with orchards and homes. This road is flanked by cozy restaurants and cafes, each serving their version of apple pie. I was, however, adamant that I would rather pick the fruit and make my own pie (I haven't gotten around to that…let's see.) Maybe I missed out on some awesome pie!!!

Well, anyway, we picked four varieties of pears and two varieties of apples (some others didn't taste that great) and had a total of 4.5 kgs of fruit by the end of an hour and a half stroll. What I liked most about the picking was that we were allowed to taste the fruit before deciding whether to pick more or not.

Our recommendation would be to go there at least once…just for the experience of picking your own fruit. It does have its own charm compared to buying fruits from neatly packed displays in the store.

Coming to today's recipe, it is an upside down apple cake that I made for some friends whom we met for dinner a few weeks ago. I made a small version to see how it would turn out, and when that tasted great, I confidently baked a bigger one.  So here's to making new friends and cherishing old ones.

Ingredients

Cake Batter

Wheat flour - 1 cup

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Honey – ¼ cup

Milk – ¾ cup

Oil - 3 tbsps (I used olive oil)

Nutmeg – a pinch

Cinnamon – ½ tsp

For Upside Down Apples

Sliced apples – depending on the size and shape of the baking dish

Light/dark brown sugar – ½- ¾ cup

Butter – 2-3 tbsps

Cinnamon – a pinch (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.

Upside Down Apples

Heat together the butter and sugar, one low heat. Once the sugar and butter have melted completely, allow the mixture to simmer for about 3-4 minutes, while stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile grease your baking dish and keep ready.

Slice the apples into rings/semi circles and place at the bottom of your greased baking dish. Make sure you cover the entire bottom and if you like even the sides. Take the butter-sugar mixture and pour over the apples, to cover completely.

Cake Batter

In a bowl, mix all the wet ingredients. In a different bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Pour onto the prepared apples and make sure the batter covers the apple slices well. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. I would recommend checking after about 20 minutes. If a toothpick or knife comes out clean, then your cake is done. 

The Sample Version

Carefully remove the baking dish from the oven and allow it to cool for 15 minutes. The cake should slide out easily, because the dish has been greased but you can run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake. Take the platter onto which you wish to remove the cake, place it on the baking dish and carefully turn it around.. Bon Appétit.

Note: The only upside down cake I was familiar with was a pineapple cake, but after coming to this country, I realized that upside down cakes could be made with practically any fruit, plums, pears, bananas, cherries…the list goes on.

 

Podi Dosa

This is one of those quick go-to recipes that you can make, anytime, as long as you have dosa batter on hand. It was one of those nights when I just couldn’t think of what to make for dinner when I decided to make podi dosas. All you have to do is make some crispy dosas, slather them with some spicy idly podi and gobble!

Ingredients

Dosa batter (as required)

Idly podi (homemade or store bought) – Approximately 1 tbsp per dosa

Urad dal – ½ cup
Channa dal – ½ cup
Red chillies – 7-8 (according to taste)
Tamarind – small gooseberry sized ball (optional)
White sesame seeds – ½ cup
Asafoetida – 1 pinch
Salt to taste
Gingelly oil for mixing podi
Roast the sesame seeds in a heavy bottomed pan and keep aside. Roast the chilies for about five minutes and keep aside. Roast the remaining ingredients until the dals turn slightly darker. Keep aside to cool. Put all the ingredients together in a high speed blender and powder. You can either make it smooth or leave it coarse. For the podi dosa though, I recommend fine powder.

Method

Mix the podi and gingelly oil to make a spreadable mixture. Make the dosa as thin as possible and as it cooks, spread the podi evenly. Once the dosa is nice and crispy, fold and remove onto a plate. Continue until you have enough dosas.

 I recommend eating the dosas as soon as they come off the griddle. These are tasty on their own but can be served with chutney and sambar. Bon Appétit.