Croissant Pudding/Bread butter pudding

Croissant is made with one layer of butter sheet over a pastry sheet and then rolled to shape for baking. This is a heavy but protein rich breakfast with sufficient calories going in for a hectic day ahead. Those who are allergic to egg you get egg substitutes from grocery stores.


Ingredients(for two)


Croissant - 4 big( Or bread- 4, one bread cubed into 9 along with the brown edges since it is the healthy part to consume) 
Butter- 2 tbspn
Milk - half cup
Heavy cream - half cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Water - 1/4 cup to make caramel
Egg- 2
Vanilla-1 tspn


Directions:-

• Caramelize the sugar. For this, boil the water with  sugar untill the water evaporates and the sugar starts turning golden brown. Do not burn it too much.
• Add the whipping cream and milk.Heat till it is warm(not hot). Take the mixture off the stove (If it is a bread butter pudding, melt the butter into this mixture).
• Beat the eggs and add into the warm mixture. Add the vanilla extract.
• Pour this mixture over the broken pieces of croissant(or bread cubes)which is arranged in an oven proof tray. Let it stand for 15 min, so that bread gets fully soaked.
• Now bake it in oven for about 20-30 min  at 350 F till the pudding is well set.
• Note: Place a rack on the middle of the oven and preheat. Place the baking tray on this rack and bake.

DONE.

BON APPETITE :)

APPLE CRUMBLE

Preparation time 1hr and serves 4. You will need
·         4Apples ·         9 tbspn white sugar(can reduce) ·         18 tbspn plain white flour ·         4 1⁄3 oz butter(8 to 9 tbspn) at room temperature ·         1 clove or cinnamon stick Preparation:

1.     Dice the apples into small chunks.

2.     Cook the apples covered for half an hr with 6 spoons of sugar and the the cinnamon stick or clove. Do not burn it. Mash it after cooking without forming a puree. Let it cool in a baking tray.

 3.     Make the crumble.Mix the white flour, remaining sugar and the butter with your fingers in a bowl until it becomes like a breadcrumb consistency. The butter should be kept at room temperature before doing this so that it easily blends with the flour and wets all part.

         4.     Cover the stewed apples with the crumble topping, without pressing down.

         5.     Preheat the oven. Set the temperature of the oven to 150ºC (300ºF/ gas mark 2).

         6.     Cook the apple crumble

                  Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the crumble and is golden brown and  
       crunchy

           Serve

Spoon a helping of apple crumble into a dish and serve with cream or ice cream. 

BON APETITE:)

FRUIT CAKE

"Sweet" is a rare gift god gave us to sense and to arrest all our minds. We all love anything sweet -song, food, person, dress, house etc etc.  What sweet can we fetch out from our kitchen shelves to the food lovers?? And that too homemade?? And that too healthy?..... Here comes an easy. yummy fruit cake recipe!!

Dates are too sweet that diabetics does not make them too edible. But they are contraindicated for iron-richness  and fiber. It is always good to have a small idea or knowledge of the nutritional values of what we eat. For more click here.

Ingredients :-

1.     Maida/ all purpose flour- 2 cups

Sugar-2 cups

Baking soda- 1tspn

Nutmeg powdered- ¼ tspn
Salt-1/2 tspn

2.     Oil-1cup

Eggs-3 or 2

Vanilla essence- 1tspn

Caramel

3.     Dry fruits

Raisins half cup

Dates chopped to the size of raisins  half cup

Can add nuts or other dry fruits. Dry fruits must be soaked in brandy or wine or whisky for one hr.

Directions :-

1.Mix all the dry ingredients in 1.

2.Beat egg and add oil and vanilla (wet mixture)

3.Add the dry mixture into the wet mixture. And give a thorough swirl to form a batter.

4.Add dry fruits into the resulted batter(which is not too thick to form a dough or not too loose to form a batter).  Pour this into an oven proof cake mold. The batter should fill only half of the pan, because since the cake rises it has a chance to brim over.

5.Bake at 400 degree F  for  40 min or more until cooked. Insert a knife into the center most part of the cake and take it out. If it comes out clean, the cake is well cooked.

DONE


BON APPETITE:)

Chocolate mousse a simple recipe

Ingredients:-


Eggs - 3 white and yolk separated. (USE MARSHMALLOWS INSTEAD. A SHORTCUT INGREDIENT TO REDUCE THE STEP OF BEATING THE EGG.)
Butter - 2 tbspn or 50 gm
Dark chocolate chips- 250 mg
Whipping cream-250 ml
Vanila-1 tspn

Direction:-

• Beat  the egg white thoroughly with an electric mixer or a wire mesh until frothy and thick.
• Melt the dark chocolate chips with the butter in a double boiler. A double boiler is like heating some water in a vessel over the stove top and placing another vessel on top of it so that the steam from the former hit the bottom of the later  to melt the ingredients in it.                                                              (Short cut method: U CAN EVEN MICROWAVE THE CHIPS & BUTTER and ADD THE MARSHMALLOWS along with it. Marshmallows substitute the beaten eggs.)
• Add the beaten egg into the melted mixture.
• Now whip the cream and vanilla to form stiff peaks and fold it slowly with the former mixture using a spatula so that the air does not escape and it remains frothy and SOOTHING:) 
• Refrigerate it. DONE.

BON APETITE :)

Julia child Chocolate mousse

Julia Child's Perfect Chocolate Mousse Recipe

My search for the perfect, most luscious and chocolaty mousse au chocolatbrought me right back home to America, to Julia Child's recipe. Although I have a few other versions in my repertoire, her recipe is a classic and has that perfect slightly-gummy texture, backed up by a wallop of pure dark chocolate flavor.

This recipe requires a vigorous bit of whipping. So if you've ever wanted to really know why French women don't get fat even though they eat all those luscious desserts, well...once you make this mousse, you'll soon learn the answer.

And because the recipe is classic French, it uses raw eggs. Since some folks are concerned about raw eggs, if you're one of them, use pasteurized egg whites, which you should verify are suitable for whipping. Some won't whip, which I learned the hard way a few years back. When I make anything that uses uncooked eggs, I use the freshest eggs I can get my hands on.

Speaking of top-quality, since the flavor of the mousse depends on good chocolate, feel free to splurge on a good brand; you won't regret it. For this batch, I broke up a tablet of Green and Black's organic 72% chocolate and melted it with Meyer's dark rum along with good, strong coffee.

Bon Appétit!...as Julia would say.

Chocolate Mousse
Six to eight servings

Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Knopf) by Julia Child.

I tried to reduce the amount of butter in the recipe and found it wasn't nearly as good. Since I'm not one to argue with Julia, I stuck close to the recipe tweaking it just slightly.

6 ounces (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
6 ounces (170g) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup (60ml) dark-brewed coffee
4 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup (170g), plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons (30ml) dark rum
1 tablespoon (15ml) water
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Heat a saucepan one-third full with hot water, and in a bowl set on top, melt together the chocolate, butter and coffee, stirring over the barely simmering water, until smooth. Remove from heat.

2. Fill a large bowl with ice water and set aside.

3. In a bowl large enough to nest securely on the saucepan of simmering water, whisk the yolks of the eggs with the 2/3 cup of sugar, rum, and water for about 3 minutes until the mixture is thick, like runny mayonnaise. (You can also use a handheld electric mixer.)

3. Remove from heat and place the bowl of whipped egg yolks within the bowl of ice water and beat until cool and thick, as shown in the photo above. Then fold the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks.

4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until frothy. Continue to beat until they start to hold their shape. Whip in the tablespoon of sugar and continue to beat until thick and shiny, but not completely stiff, then the vanilla.

5. Fold one-third of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remainder of the whites just until incorporated, but don't overdo it or the mousse will lose volume.

6. Transfer the mousse to a serving bowl or divide into serving dishes, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, until firm.

Serving: I like to serve the chocolate mousse as it is, maybe with just a small dollop of whipped cream; it neither needs, nor wants, much adornment.

Storage: The mousse au chocolat can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Strawberry/ Raspberry Bavarian Cream.

Bon appetite! Eat something wonderful!

Here is recipe for a classic French dessert, guaranteed to be something wonderful!

Raspberry (or Strawberry) Bavarian Cream

(Bavarois aux Fruits)

For 8 to 10 people

Bavarian cream is a mold of crème anglaise (custard sauce) with gelatin, beaten egg whites, lightly beaten cream, and a flavoring. It is unmolded after it has been chilled, and makes a dessert as beautiful to see as it is to eat. When properly made, it has a most lovely, light, creamy, velvety quality and ranks as one of the best of the molded desserts.

We were curious to try out some of the recipes for Bavarian cream which claimed to produce masterpieces in seconds, so we experimented with the electric blender, raw egg yolks, cracked ice, and so forth. We also ran various changes of our own, such as substituting frozen fruits or ice cream for cracked ice. Though the molded results looked handsome, their flavor and consistency were disappointing. We have concluded that this particular masterpiece cannot be achieved in seconds; a cooked custard, well-dissolved gelatin, stiffly beaten egg whites, properly whipped cream, perfect flavoring, and then the right blending of one element into another at the right time seem to be the requisites for a true Bavarian cream. The classical method below is certainly far from difficult, and the whole dessert may be prepared the day, or even two days, before serving.

The raspberry flavoring:

½ cup raspberry (or strawberry) juice or orange juice

1 pint fresh raspberries or strawberries or 1 lb. frozen berries, thawed and well drained

1 ½ Tbs (1 ½ packages) gelatin

If you are using frozen berries, dissolve the gelatin in ½ cup of the juice. Otherwise use orange juice. Force the fruit through a sieve and measure out ¾ to 1 cup of purée. (Any leftover purée may go into your sauce.) Fold measured purée into custard along with the whipped cream.

The custard sauce:

5 egg yolks

A wire whip or electric beater

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

1 ½ cups boiling milk

A 2-quart enameled saucepan

A wooden spoon

Optional: a candy thermometer

Gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks and continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture is pale yellow and forms the ribbon.

Beat in the cornstarch.

Beat the milk in a thin stream of droplets into the egg yolk mixture. Pour into saucepan and set over moderate heat. Stir with wooden spoon until mixture thickens enough to coat the spoon lightly (170 degrees). Do not overheat or egg yolks will scramble.

Remove from heat and immediately add the berry juice and gelatin mixture, beating for a moment or two until gelatin has dissolved completely. Pour in the custard.

The egg whites:

5 egg whites

Pinch of salt

1 Tb granulated sugar

A rubber spatula

Beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks are formed; sprinkle on the sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Using the rubber spatula, fold the egg whites into the hot custard. Set in refrigerator. Fold delicately with spatula several times while mixture is cooling, to keep it from separating. When cold and almost but not quite set, proceed with recipe.

The whipped cream and final flavoring:

½ cup chilled whipping cream

A chilled mixing bowl

A chilled beater

2 Tb raspberry liqueur

An 8-cup cylindrical mold or ring mold, preferably of metal as unmolding is easier

Lightly oiled waxed paper

Beat the cream lightly, until doubled in volume and beater leaves faint traces on the surface. Fold the whipped cream, raspberry liqueur and berry purée into the custard.

Rinse mold in cold water and shake out excess. Turn the Bavarian cream into the mold. Cover with waxed paper. Chill for 3 to 4 hours or overnight.

Unmolding and serving:

2 to 3 cups strawberry or raspberry sauce

or 1 pint fresh strawberries or raspberries, hulled and sprinkled with sugar

Remove waxed paper. Dip mold in very hot water for 1 second (a second or two longer for a porcelain mold) run knife around the edge of the cream, and reserve on a chilled serving platter. (May be unmolded and refrigerated several hours before serving.)

Serve this Bavarian cream with strawberry or raspberry sauce, or surround the dessert with fresh berries.

From Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck, 1961