Green Tea Chiffon Cake

I think I was quite brave to make this cake for my guests without any experience of this recipe and much time. Well, I really like to give it a try so I marblized some chinese red tea (红茶) with japanese green tea (抹茶) and hopefully they both could become a friend (kind of sensitive topic). Don't worry, I'm just talking about "Tea".
Somehow, the marble effect not very obvious because I've mixed too much during the marblized process. Without any chance to change the marble effect I shall continue with a simple decoration using some fresh cream and sprinkling some green tea and sugar powder mixture.
Well, by the time I cut it out, I still could see some marble effect but I believed without mixing too much it would be much prettier.
This cakes is full of tea flavour, especially the green tea. I store it in the fridge and serve it to my guests with this hot and humid weather.
Recipe for 24cm chiffon cake tin :

Egg whites 235g
Caster sugar 118g
Corn flour 13g

Egg yolks 90g
Water infused with red tea 78g
Vegetable oil 78g
Flour 118g
Caster sugar 25g
Green tea powder 7g
Water 25g

Fresh whipping cream 250g
Sugar powder 20g
Pinch of Sugar powder
Pinch Green tea powder

Method:

1. Whip the egg whites until peak form then slowly add in caster sugar continue whipping and until a shiny and smooth peak form. Add in the cornflour mix until combine.

2. Mix egg yolks, red tea, oil, flour and caster sugar until everything combine.

3. Add in 1/3 of the egg white mixture to (2) until combine. Then add half of the left over egg whites mixture. Then continue adding the remaining egg whites mixture. Slowly and gently combine everything.

4. In another clean bowl mix the green tea powder with water until it become a green tea paste.

5. Mix the green tea paste with 120g of the mixture (3).

6. Add mixture (5) to mixture (3) to make a marble effect. (not to mix too much)

7. Pour into the baking tin and bake 60minutes at 160'C.

8. Let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it.

9. Whip the fresh cream with sugar powder and decorate it with your creativity.

10. I mixed some sugar powder with green tea powder to sprinkle on top of the cake.

11. Keep the cake in the fridge it could last for 4 - 5 days. Best serve in 3 days.

Panchmel Dal and Baati

When RCI Rajasthan was announced, I had bookmarked few recipes. I found Dal Baati , part of an ordinary Rajasthan menu. Most of the Rajasthani recipes were new to me. Finally I tried Baati and Gatte ka Pulao. But since my personal life kept me busy, could not post it in time for the event. Even now, its the routine cooking going on in my kitchen. Meanwhile, the to-be-posted recipes will make it to the blog.

Baati
For baati, I followed partly sanjeev kapoor's recipe and Aathika's .

Whole wheat flour - 1 1/2 cup

besan - 1/2 cup

ghee - 3 tbspn

curd - 1/2 cup

baking powder - 1/2 tspn

ajwain (omam) - 1/2 tspn

salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients and knead into a soft dough using water.

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape into balls.

Cover and keep for one hour.

I use my MIL's old handvo cooker for baking. I baked for nearly 30 mts. By that time, I could see cracks on top of the baatis. To have a look at the handvo cooker, visit here.

Panchmel Dal

Recipe source - Sanjeev Kapoor

As the name indicates, this recipe calls for 5 different dal. Needless to mention about the protien punch hidden in this recipe.

Bengal gram (chana dal) - 1/4 cup

Whole green gram (whole moong) - 1/4 cup

Split black gram (urad dal) -1/4 cup

red lentils (masoor dal) - 1/4 cup

turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn

salt to taste

ginger - 1 inch

green chillies - 2

oil - 3 tblspn

hing - a pinch

cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn

cloves - 5

red chillies - 2 (broken into two)

cumin powder - 1 tspn

coriander powder - 1 tspn

red chilli powder -1/2 tspn

tomatoes - 2 nos

garam masala - 1/2 tspn (I used Kitchen King masala)

Wash all the dal together. Pressure cook with enough water and turmeric.

Grind ginger and green chillies to a paste

Heat oil in a pan. Add hing, cumin seeds, cloves and red chillies. When cumin seeds change color,
add ginger-chilly paste and saute for few seconds.

Stir in cumin powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder.

Add the chopped tomatoes. Cook till oil separates.

Add cooked dal and additional water if needed.

Cook for ten minutes with occasional stirring. Take care the dal doesn't stick to the pan.

Add garam masala powder and remove from heat.

Serve hot with baati.

Baatis are usually broken into pieces and dropped in a bowl of dal and eaten.

My Craving Stuffs

Those are the stuffs that always filled up in a container and stored in my kitchen cabinet for my craving teeth at anytime. There are Nutty Granola, a recipe from my idol chef Ellie Krieger, Italian Fruity Biscotti a recipe from so called “sweet baby James” James Martin from the UK, and Nutty French Balls from a Japanese recipe book translated by Taiwanese. My family like these stuffs as I do and I like to used it as a gift when I’m rushing to visit anyone else. I have introduced the Granola at my previous posting, and now I continue with the other two. First, I like to share the Nutty French Balls.

I mixed 187g of sugar powder with 85g each for chopped walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts then divided it into two bowls of 13g and 6g for chocolate powder and instant coffee powder respectively. Warm the two bowls of mixture in a preheated oven at 100°C for about 5 minutes or until the mixtures become 40°C (this step for mixing up with eggs white much easier later on).

Mix these warm mixtures with 40g and 45g egg whites for chocolate and coffee mixture respectively. The eggs white seems very little when mixing with the mixture but this measurement is just nice for the texture later on. The mixture would be too wet to roll up if the egg white is too much.

I shaped each mixture into 13 balls each for both flavors and baked in a preheat oven at 130°C for about two hours.

This Nutty French Balls are very crunchy and definitely could cure someone who is crazily craving like me and also good to serve with a cup of coffee or tea for my guests come in without prior notice (sometimes it happen).