Bengali Rasgulla by Garima Sarolia Narera (Guest Post)

Hello everyone, today I would take an opportunity to introduce you all with one of my close friend and food blogger Garima Sarolia Narera. I met her on CAL and really appreciate not only her cooking skills but also a wonderful writer cum poet in her. Apart from it she is a lovely women with full of enthusiasm and her bubbly nature makes her a perfect lady :)))). Recently she has started her new venture of blogging and I would like to congratulate and wish her success :)

She is also very well known as "Rasgulla queen" at CAL, so just thought and took this opportunity for a guest post of Rasgulla recipe. Rasgullas don't need any introduction but for my foreign country readers - Rasgulla is basically a Bengali dessert, its cheese based ball, soaked in sugar syrup and served chilled. So lets go for the recipe, Over to you Garima :)

I am delighted to be invited to Priyanka's wonderful blog. She is such a talented and vivacious person and I constantly enjoy trying out her recipes.
I am here with a recipe very close to my heart and one that I have perfected after several trials. It was also the first post on my blog :)

The sweet delight from the Bengal- rasgulla. A dessert which is everyone's delight and can be an occasional indulgence even for the health conscious. 

http://cafegarima.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/rasgulla/

RASGULLA 

For the Rasgullas you need
1 Litre cow milk, cream removed (I buy the milk an evening prior, boil,cool and refrigerate. Next morning, remove the cream and proceed to make chenna/paneer)
1-2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

To Make Chenna
(Here is a step wise guide to making paneer/chhena at home)
 Bring the milk to boil, add 1-2 tbsp lemon juice gradually so that the milk mass and whey separate completely.Add 10-15 ice cubes. Rest for a minute.

Strain in a colander lined with muslin/cheesecloth. Wash thoroughly with fresh water to remove the lemony sourness. Drain the water by squeezing. Knot the muslin cloth and hang it  to get rid for any excess whey/liquid.

After about 10-15 minutes, remove and rub the chenna with fingers and heels of the palm till the chenna gives out some fat/ ghee/chiknaayee. It takes me about 5 minutes to get there. By now the chenna is like a dough ball that comes together easily, neither too hard nor too soft.

Take pinches off the dough and make small balls, you should get about 15. Remember, they are going to double up on boiling so size them accordingly.

For the Sugar Syrup 

For the Light Sugar Syrup to boil the rasgullas

1 cup Sugar
5 cups Water
1/2 tsp fine cardamom (ilaichi) powder

For adding to the Light sugar syrup after boiling the rasgullas 

1/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Water
8-10 saffron strands (optional- I haven’t used here)

While you make the paneer balls, bring to boil 5 cups of water with a cup of sugar (light sugar syrup). Add half a tsp fine cardamom powder. Just as the syrup comes to a rolling boil, add in the rasgulla balls. Boil covered for 12- 15 minutes on medium flame.
I make my rasgullas in two batches so that the rasgullas get enough space in the water to expand and also keep their round shape.
You may uncover to check every 5 min minutes. Switch off the gas. Transfer gently to a big bowl full of clean drinking water. There should be enough water for the paneer balls to float freely.

Add one fourth cup sugar and half a cup of water to the same light sugar syrup in which the rasgullas were boiled  and give it a boil so that the sugar melts. Add in the saffron strands when the syrup becomes warm, do not add while it is hot.Let the sugar syrup cool to room temperature ( takes about 30 minutes)

Remove the rasgullas from the plain water, squeeze gently and drop into the sugar syrup.
Chill for three hours. You may top with some finely slivered pistachios and almonds. 

Enjoy!

Garima

http://cafegarima.wordpress.com

Spiced Carrot cake with walnuts (with eggs/eggless recipe-both)

Happiness is when your beloved Husband bakes his first cake while you're asleep and that too without any occasion. Sushant baked his first cake early morning, without any of my directions and also without any recipe. I was surprised to see the texture, it was just perfect. He woke up early morning and baked it. We didn't have any such plans but still he did it. Felt like I was on the top of the world. Though he was beaming a lot after it, but anything for this lovely cake :)
 

As it was a morning surprise hence I clicked it on the bed only. After a lot of tantrums, he wrote the recipe and sent to me, hence sharing with you all.

Ingredients :

• All-purpose flour/ Maida – 1 and 1/2 cups
• Baking powder – 1 and 1/4 tsps
• Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon powder – 1 tsp
• Nutmeg powder – ½ tsp
• Brown Sugar – ½ cup firmly packed
• Granulated white Sugar – ¼ cup
• Grated carrots – 1 and ½ cups
• Walnuts – 1/2 cup chopped
• Vegetable Oil – 1/2 cup
• Large Eggs – 2
• Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

Method :

• Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and dust a 6” diameter round pan.
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon and keep aside.
• Coat the chopped walnuts with a tbsp of flour mixture and keep aside.
• In a bowl mix the brown sugar and the grated carrots and keep aside for 8 to 10 minutes.
• In a large bowl whisk eggs, sugar and oil together. Now add the vanilla essence and whisk.
• Now add the grated carrot+sugar mixture and mix well. Add the flour mixture in small portions and gently fold in. Also add the walnuts and fold in.
• Transfer the mixture to greased pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into center comes out clean (cover loosely with foil if over-browning). Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy warm with any ice cream or with coffee or tea. 

Notes :

• If you don't have brown sugar simply replace it with white one. 
• For the eggless recipe, simply replace 2 eggs with 1/2 cup of thick yogurt/curd and follow rest of the same recipe. 

Please do share your experiences and feedback with me in the below section of comments or on my Facebook page. I too have a You Tube channel please do visit for all the video recipes. All the links mentioned below :) 

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/cookwithpriyanka 

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/cookwithpriyanka 

Thanks & Happy Baking
Priyanka and Sushant

 

Orange Cake (Eggless) without condensed milk

So their is another addition to my cakes & bakes section. I love baking with fresh fruits, like their fresh flavours. Already posted few cakes & muffins with fruits and this is with oranges. I have prepared this last weekend as few guests were arriving us and they specially demanded to have some cakes in dessert :). So I picked up my all the baking gadgets and baked a very simple yet flavourful orange cake. 

Its an eggless version, as I have already mentioned several times that I try to prepare eggless stuff more so that it can be followed by everyone :). I substituted eggs with yogurt and also substituted butter with oil. During my last post of Banana and walnut cake, someone asked me that why I use oil rather than butter, though butter taste nice? Hence would like to share with all of you that yes butter taste nice, but at the same time oil is no less, rather it makes the cake moist. Sometimes using butter in recipes, makes the cake a bit dry. But I am not very stringent with using oil, if the recipe demands for butter I use butter even and use other ingredients to make cake moist like sour cream, buttermilk. I saw many recipes which used condensed milk, making it more easier I tried it without on and results were too good, as u can see in the above pic. So lets move towards the recipe following the method 

Link for the video - 

Ingredients :

I have divided the ingredients list in two parts- the dry & wet ingredients. This way it will be easy for you to follow.

Dry ingredients: 

• All Purpose flour/Maida/Plain flour - 1+1/2 cups
• Baking Powder - 1+1/2 tsps
• Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp

Wet ingredients :

• White granulated sugar - 3/4cup
• Thick Yogurt - 3/4 cup (at room temperature)
• Vegetable Oil - 1/2 cup 
• Orange juice - 1/2 cup (Freshly squeezed)
• Orange Zest - 1 tsp 

 For Sugar glaze :

• Icing sugar/Ground sugar - 3-4 tbsps
• Orange juice - 2tbsps

Method :

• First preheat the oven at 180°C. Grease & flour the baking tin of 7" diameter, if you want, line with parchment paper/Butter paper. I took a loaf tin.
• Sieve the dry ingredients together atleast 3 times and keep aside, this give more aeration in the flour and helps in making the cake light.
• In other bowl mix sugar + yogurt and whisk nicely, you will get a very nice texture. To this add orange juice, oil and orange zest and mix. After they are well combined add the dry ingredients and fold in gently.
• Pour the batter in tin.
• Bake it on the middle rack for 35-40 mins or unless a tooth pick inserted in the cake comes out clean. Mine took exactly 40 minutes. But keep checking after 35 minutes as every oven vary as per the power :)
• When done, take it out and give a rest of 2 minutes in the tin, then demold and cool on a cooling rack.
• Prepare the sugar glaze - In a bowl take sugar and mix in orange juice little by little. Don't pour entire juice in one go. Mix well and you will get pouring consistency glaze. For details watch the video attached.
• Once the cake is completely cooled, pour the glaze and let it set for 5-10 minutes. Slice it and serve.

Note :

For orange zest - Take an orange wash it thoroughly, grate the outer skin but make sure to grate only the orange part and not white (otherwise it will be bitter). This is your fresh orange zest

Enjoy cake with Tea/coffee or with icecream or just like this only.

Please do share your experiences and feedback with me in the below section of comments or on my Facebook page. I too have a You Tube channel please do visit for all the video recipes. All the links mentioned below :) 

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/cookwithpriyanka

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/cookwithpriyanka

Thanks & Happy Baking

Priyanka :)))