Sugarcane and tofu pops

This is remotely like the cake pops I did last time but this was fabulous!!

This is originally a Vietnamese which uses chicken and a lot of Asian sauces but I used soy and vegetables and my own spice combination to flavor. Whats really cool about it is the use of sugarcane as sticks.. you are not supposed to eat them! it just adds flavor to the dish and also serves as a stick to hold I suppose you could call it a vegan variation of a chicken lollipop/wings/drumstick.

What you need:

¾ cup of tofu, mashed (store bought or homemade)
½ cup of mixed not too watery vegetables (peas, carrot, potato,corn etc; finely chopped)
1 onion finely chopped
1 green chili finely chopped
1 flake of garlic, chopped
1 tsp Coriander finely chopped
Salt as per taste
around 15 sticks of fresh sugarcane around 3 inches long each
2 tsp of corn flour
4 tbs of rice flour to coat
oil for deep frying

What to do:

1. Stir fry the vegetables for a minute and place in mixing bowl.
2. mash tofu and add to vegetables. Add cornflour and form into small balls.
3. Coat around each sugarcane stick dip in rice flour
4. Deep fry on medium till golden brown
5 Drain on paper towels, serve with ketchup




I know, I know.. its not the best picture.. but u get the idea.




Lets zoom in shall we?

Messing around with a chocolate cake

I got inspired by Bakerella's cake pops and tried my own variation.

Unfortunately I am not as artistic as she is and neither do I have the patience to cut shape and frost those tiny cupcakes I did something simpler.

I took some store bought chocolate cake and added the frosting to it. Mashed it about (eww, couldn't help but feel gross since there was just too much unavoidable cake touching and mashing)

I added some orange colored fondant in the center and sandwiched two equal sized cake portions and sealed the sides to form a ball.

When sliced it looked nice. But tasted kind of like a semi cooked cake even though I knew it was a cooked cake and the mushiness was on account of the frosting and mashing. Anyways I had fun.




Did not expect too much luck on Friday the 13th anyways

I love aniseed

I love aniseed.

Dry or fresh its just so wonderful. A mouth freshener, a recipe invigorating agent! and the lovely color. Green happens to be my favorite color and aniseed is without a doubt my favorite seed.

Aniseed is excellent to use in a marinate, I like using it with a little roasted cumin. You get a nice blend of a sharp mildly pungent flavor and a fresh zesty flavor.

When it comes to aniseed as a sweet, I love those little aniseed balls you get at candy stores but sugar coated aniseed happens to top my list, because unlike an aniseed ball you get to crunch and munch many aniseed not just one that is located inside the aniseed ball.



So I dedicate this blog post to the lovely green seed that brings freshness in my day and more importantly my breath. :P

Daring Bakers Challenge: Chocolate Valentino, flourless chocolate cake

This is my second challenge although it should have been my fourth :( I could not do the previous two cause I had NO time.. but i made sure I had time for this one! it was soooo simple! and really good!

I made just the cake.. it was too sweet and was perfect by itself.

The February Challenge comes from Wendy at wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef (Malaysia).


It called for just three ingredients:

-chocolate
-eggs
-butter

Surprisingly it did look like a cake..more like a really rich brownie.
I made them in muffin tins and that too didn't fill up the tin too much.




Gooey and dense just like a brownie





Yet soft and spongy like a cake!

I really enjoyed making these :D Thanks again DBers!

Chocolate pancakes with hot fig sauce

Some days just call for decadence.

I felt heady and I gave in.. somewhat.

What you need:

(for the pancakes)
¾ cup of plain/ whole flour
2 tbs coco powder
1 egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup water
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar/ substitute/ honey
a pinch of salt

(for the sauce)
6 fresh figs, finely chopped
2 tbs honey
1 tsp butter
1 stick of cinnamon
¼ cup water

(for decadence)
1 tbs nutella (optional: only for the ultimate hedonist)

What to do:

(Pancakes)
1. Mix all the ingredients to form a smooth batter. Add more milk if using whole wheat flour. Basically just make a smooth not too runny batter. Stir vigorously to prevent forming lumps.

2. Spread on a nonstick pan and cook on a low heat and cover while cooking. Cook on both sides till brown(er) and well done.

(Sauce)
3. In a saucepan, on a low heat, put all the ingredients for the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes till sauce is thick.

(Assemble)
4. You can either fill the sauce into the pancake and roll it up or sandwich the sauce between layers of pancakes, like I did. Top with nutella, if you want more.

GUEST BLOGGER

My sister is always surprising me with her wonderful desserts, actually, I get a preview when tantalizing smells emanate from the kitchen (also because of the sounds of the rebuke she gets from mommy for disrupting her kitchen!) so its not really a surprise, but I always anticipate the finished product. This little item which she conjured (and i say conjured because she made it in 20 minutes with scraps for ingredients!) was quick to make and QUICKER to finish. the biscuit base had some oats, walnut powder, butter and some other items (I only recall the crunching sounds which were made by this crisp, light (?) and taste bud pleasuring base)...oh ya! it had everything but biscuits!!
but what really got me going was the gooey from the inside and crisp from the outside filling which was made from butter, chocolate (er....this chocolate was the remnants of a big slab...it actually had some of my teeth imprints on it), coco powder to intensify the flavour (laa dee dah!), and an egg, yolk first followed by the white (i dont get why they are separated to eventually meet!) anyway, all this was put into the oven and baked for sometime (which felt like eternity people!) and, excuse the cliche, VOILA..... sintitilating chocolate tarty-thingie (hey i just do the eating!)
wanna know more about this sweet tooth's narcotic? ask the chef....I'm just a junkie.

Mulberries and smoothies

I remember that silly rhyme we would sing as kids, round and round the mulberry tree. The fruit is not silly though.

It resembles a blackberry but has these tentacle like thingies all over (forgive me for not knowing the scientific word, this is a food blog)

I bought some of these but really didn't know what to do with it. I remember Patrick Star (of Spongebob Squarepants) once say: "when in doubt, pinkie out!" (that REALLY did not help)

SO I created a new one "when in doubt, blender out!"

I made a dee-licious smoothie with the mulberries and strangely a larger quantity of other stuff.

What you need:

¼ cup mulberries
½ cup diced papaya
1 cup cold milk
honey to flavor (honey is perfect as a sweetener for this recipe)

What to do:

1.Blend all, preferably with some ice
2.Slowly sip and enjoy the flavor. And keep your pinkie out. Its Friday the 13th!




My beautiful mulberries.




My even more beautiful mulberry smoothie.