Masala Chai Panna Cotta

Hello all beautiful people. Thank you for stopping by.

A friend of mine was planning for a potluck on occasion of Fathers Day and I decided to get some fusion dessert for everyone. As I am still learning and trying to cook some new delicacies I decided to log onto FB and started to search for something new and interesting which can be liked by people of all age groups. This how I stumbled upon one of friends status update who was celebrating his birthday and was enjoying masala chai panna cotta and this is how I decided on my dessert dish. I checked some videos on internet to see if anyone had uploaded this recipe. I came across two videos and then I decided to prepare this with my style and with ingredients available at home. So lets dive in this fusion world.

Ingredients - 

1. 3-4 teaspoons tea (depending on how strong flavor is desired)

2. 3/4 cup water

3. 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

4. 1/2 cup sugar (increase or decrease as per your taste)

5. 1 teaspoon agar-agar

6. 1 1/2 teaspoon chai masala 

Directions - 

1. Dissolve the agar-agar in 2 tablespoons of water or as instructed on package and set aside. 
2. In a sauce pot warm the water and add tea & masala, let it boil until the tea is strong. Add the cream and sugar and warm until the mixture just begins to boil. 
3. Take off the hear and add the softened agar-agar and mix until dissolved. 
4. Pour into any utensil of your choice, I used shot glass. 
5. Garnish with fresh fruits of your choice or honey jelly or keep it simple just like me. 

Tip: I had originally planned to top this with some honey jelly or garnish with fresh fruits however, as there was some travel time and considering summer I decided to keep it simple to avoid taking any risks so garnished it with slivered almonds. 

Look forward to hear your views and opinion. 

Happy cooking !!

P.S. Do you see how creamy it is... I was so happy to see everyone enjoy it. :D 

Avocado cup cake

Other day we went to Sam's club for shopping and bought a bag of avocados. I used half of it for gauc. I didn't wanna use remaining for gauc not that we don't enjoy it but wanted to enjoy avocado in various other ways. I started googling and guess what.. I found a nice recipe of a cup cake. Sounds so very appetizing .. so what we waiting for.. Let's make note of ingredients

Ingredients - 

Cupcake - 

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons lime zest
•  teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup mashed avocado
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil/ olive oil/ canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup non-dairy milk ( you can also use regular dairy milk if you are not vegan)
• 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.  

Frosting:

• 1/2 cup mashed avocado
• 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
• 2 cups icing sugar
• Milk if needed for thinning

Directions - 

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and line a muffin tin with 12 liners. In a large bowl combine the flour, lime zest, baking powder and soda, and salt. 
• Puree the avocado in a bowl or blender then mix in the oil. Stir into this the sugar followed by milk, lime juice and vanilla extract. 
• Stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Make sure there are no lumps. 
• Pour batter into prepared liners and bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked. Let the cupcakes cool in pan. 

Frosting Directions - 

• Mash avocado with the lime juice in a medium bowl until smooth then stir in icing sugar. Cover and refrigerate it until cupcakes cool and ready for frosting. 
• Spread about a tablespoon of frosting on each cake. 

Let me know if you like them. I enjoyed the new way of consuming avocado. To avoid calories, I skipped frosting :P

Mango cheesecake

It is a season of love, romance and to fill our lives with sweetness. To celebrate valentines day was thinking of various options to gift my S (my spouse). I wanted to gift something apart from card, chocolates, candles, accessories, clothes, etc. so thought of making an eggless no bake mango cheesecake. S loves mangoes and in USA we don't get the type of mangoes which are so very easily available in India. And I was very happy with results. It was such a delight to see him enjoy cheesecake. This is a simple recipe with few ingredients. Best part is no bake and no egg. 

Let's make note of ingredients required (for a 750 gm cake) 

250 gm Mangoes
200 gm digestive biscuits
3 tbsp melted butter (unsalted)
3/4 cup sugar or more (Depending on sourness of fruit)
1 cup hung curd (You could also use cream cheese)
1 cup cream
1 tbsp gelatin (or agar agar)
4 tbsp water
some pistachio for garnishing

Steps:

1. Grind the biscuits and mix in the melted butter with it. Line the base of the serving dish evenly and smoothly with the biscuit mixture. Put in the refrigerate to set. I used individual classes to serve this to all guests. You could use either of things as per your preference and comfort.  

2. Puree mangoes and sugar together in a mixie/ blender. Add the hung curd and cream, blend well to make a smooth mixture. Pour it into a bowl. You could also use readily available mango pulp in that scenario sugar is not required. I used pulp and skipped sugar. Add 4 Tbsp of water in the gelatin. Then pour the gelatin slowly into mixture. Keep stirring continuously. 

3. Now pour the mango mixture onto set biscuit base. Cover and refrigerate to set overnight.

4. Pour some mango pulp on the top of mixture as a final layer to dessert and refrigerate for 30 mins and serve cold. 

Garnish with sliced pistachio and serve cold, unfortunately I ran out of it so couldn't garnish :( 

Tip: Make sure to drain water from curd. The curd should be really thick. 

Note: I have never used agar agar so not very sure how to use it. Please refer some youtube videos to guide you.