Tiramisu

This has been an all time favorite Italian dessert of mine & can't count how many times I would have wanted to find out the "perfectly easy" way to make a Tiramisu. Then my good friend Kiran mentioned about her good friend J who makes the best Tiramisu ever. The mission was set, I asked Kiran to learn it & then I rehearsed it with her in towe. So the credit to this blog goes to J & Kiran, not me! I love to stick to Starbucks espresso shots because I firmly believe no other espresso tastes as good as Starbucks'. Although I will say brand is purely optional.

So here goes the recipe;
Ingredients: 2 packets of Lady fingers, 2 small boxes of Mascarpone cheese, 3 eggs, Cocoa powder, 3/4 cup sugar, 6-7 shots of Starbucks espresso coffee, Optional:Kahlua
Preparation
1. Whisk the sugar & egg white together with electric blender. Whisk the cheese & yellow egg portion together. Then mix all of it together. Cheese & egg mix is ready. Pour the espresso shots in a shallow container so that lady fingers can be easily soaked. If you plan to use Kahlua, mix some (1/4 cup) Kahlua with coffee shots.
2. Soak the lady fingers in coffee quickly (or else they may soak too much coffee resulting into way too soggy biscottis) & arrange as a first layer depending upon the shape of the container preffered. Usually I prefer a medium deep glass container. Pour the cheese as the second layer on the lady fingers. Spread out the cheese evenly on the lady fingers. Sprinkle some cocoa powder on top of this cheese. Now there are can be N number of ways sprinkling this cocoa powder generously on top of the cheese, but one easy trick Kiran taught me was to take the cocoa powder in a strainer & shake it on top of the cheese with the help of a spoon.
3. Repeat all the steps in #1 again so that you have two layers of lady fingers/cheese/cocoa powder. Freeze the dessert for 3-4 hours before serving.
4. Tada, it is that easy!

C for chikoo ice cream

Well summer is here & so is our craving for all kinds of ice creams. I have to have an ice cream every day, well that's just my fun summer ritual. Whenever I am in Mumbai, I make sure I have a couple of flavors of Naturals ice cream, & chikoo ice cream has been an absolute delight. I tried making my own version of chikoo ice cream following the basic concept that an ice cream contains the flavor you select, sugar & cream. So I chose, frozen chikoos (2 bags), 1 small can of condensed milk & 12 oz of whip cream. Thaw the chikoos naturally & puree them into pulp in a mixer adding very little milk. Mix the chikoo pulp, condensed milk, & cool whip together using a whisk. I also added some honey (2 tbps), & some raisins to this. Although I would say honey & raisins are purely optional. I love honey, hence the indulge! Freeze this mix & keep mixing it with a whisk every 2-3 hours. Repeat this atleast thrice. This helps make the ice cream soft since whisking breaks the ice crystals! This has turned out to be one of the best chikoo ice creams i have ever had. If you think I am being boastful, try this recipe for yourself!

G for Gulab Jamun

This has been one of my favorite desserts as a kid. My mom & grandma made like the best gulab jams in town & I would gulp several ones of them skipping lunches & dinners. Ever since I came to US I gave up eating them since I never really liked the milk powder version of gulab jamuns made in the indian restaurants. A discussion with a friend some days ago led to a revelation for me that frozen "khava/mawa" is available in the indian grocery stores. Well, just the next day I got a bag full of it & gorged on one of my all time favorites! Interestingly they are very easy to make, the recipe follows.

Ingredients: 1 bag of frozen khava (~2 cups), 1/2 maida, pinch of soda, 1 tbsp cardamom powder, 6 cups of water, 2.5 cups of sugar, 1 tbsp of rose water (optional)

1. Heat the frozen khava (called khoya or mawa in hindi) in the microwave for 1.5 mins so that it is mildly roasted. One bag of khava is about 2 cups of khava. Mix khava, maida, soda & cardamom powder & knead to make a loose dough. Make small size balls such that they should not have a crack on the surface. If there are any cracks, the balls may break while frying.

2. Fry these balls in oil until they are brownish in color.

3. Heat water in a container & add sugar to it. Heat it for like 10 mins or so. Prepare the sugar syrup & make sure it doesn't get too thick. Sugar syrup for gulab jamuns is usually thin so that it penetrates the jamuns easily. Add rose water to this syrup. Turn the heat off. Add the fried jamuns to this syrup when the syrup is hot. Serve hot or cold as per your preference. This makes around 24 jamuns.

Mini Cheesecakes by VCD

Ingredients

Vanilla Wafer Cookies
1- 8oz. package of cream cheese
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp. lemon juice
¼ tsp vanilla
1 egg

-Use muffin pan. Place cupcake paper liners in muffin pan. Place a vanilla wafer in the bottom
of liner.

-Place cream cheese in mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, and
egg. Mix until well blended. Fill paper muffin cups approximately ¾ full.

-Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool before removing from pan. Keep chilled.

You may top them with fruit pie topping (Strawberry is used in the picture, rasberry or blueberry should turn out equally delicious.)

Makes 6