Storm In My Kitchen

Kaju badam sevai kheer In a pan add two tablespoons of ghee. Add half cup fine brown sevaiyya and roast until the sevaiyya starts becoming crisp to this add a quarter cup each of ground almonds and cashews. Then add two cups of milk and four heaped tablespoons of grated jaggery. Once the jaggery melts add quarter tsp of cardamom powder and a few strands of saffron. Serve warm

Besan Badam Ladoos  (You have to continuously keep stirring everything in the pan at all times..so keep all your ingredients ready. Keep stirring so that the ingredients don't get burnt) Grind a cup of almonds with a cup of sugar. Sieve and dry roast a cup besan on a low flame till you get a strong aroma of the besan and the raw smell has gone. Don't let the besan change colour too much. Add in the sugar and almond powder. Once the sugar starts melting, the mixture will start getting caught at the bottom of the pan, at this time add the cardamom powder and start adding spoonfuls of ghee. I added about 4 tablespoons and stopped. Let the mixture cool a bit. When warm start forming the ladoos. If it doesn't hold, add a bit more melted ghee.

Lemon Marmalade From three lemons scrape off all the pith and finely slice the lemon peel and keep aside. Pith, peels and seeds of about 8 lemons Half cup lemon juice 1.5 litres water Soak the above ingredients for 2 hours. Then bring to a boil and simmer for an hour. Cool for a bit then strain the liquid thru a muslin cloth. Discard the pith and peel. Now measure the liquid and for every cup of liquid add a cup of sugar. Bring to a boil. Add the finely sliced lemon peels and let it simmer on low flame until the mixture becomes thick. To check if the marmalade has reached the right consistency pour a few drops on a chilled plate. If the marmalade sets like a jelly, it's ready. Take off the heat and let it cool for about 15 minutes. Then bottle in sterilized jars

Shortbread Cookies 3/4 cup sugar 225 gms or 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1 egg 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon salt In a bowl cream the sugar and butter. When soft and fluffy add the essence and egg and beat. Next sift the salt and flour. Then slowly and the flour into the butter mixture and combie to get a dough. Preheat the oven to 355 F or 180 C Next I divided the dough into two portions. In one portion, I added the finely minced pomello peel. Then I made a log of the dough, wrapped it in cling wrap and refrigerated it. In the second portion of the dough I added a lot of chocolate chips. Made small balls and put them on a baking sheet. The cookies do not spread much. Bake for 20 -25 minutes until the cookies start turning brown at the edges. Once the chocolate chip cookies are done, slice the other log of dough and bake for approximately the same amount of time. You can have various combinations with the dough.

Chocolate Cake Recipe courtesy Food Lovers Cupcakes and Bakes Modified.... with a few changes.  110 gm butter 110 gm sugar 110 gm whole wheat flour 20 gms cocoa powder 2 eggs 1 tsp baking powder  ¼ tsp baking soda 1 tsp vanilla essence Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Put into a buttered and floured pan and bake until done.

Vanilla Ca ke with Buttercream Icing For the cake. 160 gms butter (room temperature) 1 cup fine sugar ½ cup milk 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla essence 210 gms flour 1½ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp baking soda Preheat your over at 180degrees. Butter and flour a baking tin. Whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla essence until frothy Sieve the baking powder, baking soda and flour together Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and smooth. Add in the milk-egg mixture. Then the flour and combine till smooth. Put into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Check with a toothpick or skewer. And when it comes out clean demould and cool the cake. Cut into layers. For the frosting, I whisked about one and half cup icing sugar. Added one tablespoon of room temperature butter at a time until I got a really thick buttercream. Add a tsp of vanilla essence and a tablespoon of milk. Whip it nicely until smooth and creamy. I had just enough icing for a crumb coat. Decorated with a