Cho.Milk Cotton Cheesecake

I always admired a few blogger they could bake very nice cotton cheesecake. I really hope I could make it although I've failed before. Thanks for Happy Flour giving me some tips and technique.

Finally the cotton cheesecake turn out quite nice. I can't say it's perfect as I'm not sure isn't the right texture and the outlook is what it's should be. Overall, I'm quite satisfy with this result and will practice again.

The texture is very light and soft like cotton that I don't feel I'm adding some calorie on my diet. No wonder this cheesecake named as "cotton"! I hope to try out some others flavour. If you've any good cotton cheesecake recipe with coffee, pandan, green tea or other flavours, please share with me. I'm falling in love with this cotton cheesecake :P

I make this cheesecake for a birthday party. I'm not creative and no skills on cake decoration, so I just simply sprinkle some shredded chocolate on the top.

The outlook doesn't looks good but my friend all love the texture. I like the chocolate sponge for the base as its softness goes very well with the cotton cheesecake.

Chocolate Sponge:

3 whole eggs
90g caster sugar

75g plain flour

15g cocoa powder
30g unsalted butter (melted)

Cheese Mixture:
380g chocolate milk

250g cream cheese

50g plain flour (sift)

18g caster sugar

5 egg yolk

5egg white

75g caster sugar

\How I made it:

1. Make the chocolate sponge. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line the baking parchment at the side and bottom of a 9 inches round cake tin. Shift the plain flour with cocoa powder three times.
2. In another clean bowl, whisk the eggs and gradually add in the caster sugar. Whisk until it double the size. The texture should be fluffy and pale in color.
3. Gradually shift the shifted flour into the egg mixture and use the spatula gently fold it in.
4. Add in the melted butter and fold it in gently.
5. Pour into the baking tin and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
6. For the cheese mixture. Line the side and base of a 9" round springform baking tin with grease proof paper and place the sponge cake at the bottom. Wrap the base and surrounding of the tin with 2 layers of foil.
7. Double-boil milk, cream cheese and sugar until cream cheese has melted completely.
8. Add in flour, stir and cook until mixture has thicken.
9. Remove from stove and set aside to cool.
10. Preheat oven to 170C. (I preheated at 150C only as my oven had a weird heating system)
11. Whisk in egg yolk into the cream cheese mixture until well combined.
12. Use a cake mixer and whisk the egg whites till frothy. Gradually add in the sugar and whisk till soft peaks form. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the cream cheese mixture until combined.
13. Then fold in the rest of the meringue lightly in 3 portions until well combined. Pour batter into the prepared springform pan.
14. Steam-bake cheesecake in a preheated oven for 15mins then reduce temperature to 140C and continue to steam-bake for 1hr and 45mins.15 (I reduce the temperature to 120C as I mentioned my oven had a weird heating system.)
15. Leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven for 1hr with the door ajar. Remove cake from tin and chill in the fridge for over night. (You can also chill the whole cheesecake in the cake tin.) Cut and serve the cheesecake.

Keera (Cucumber) Halwa

I try to watch some of the cookery shows and this recipe was noted down during one of the telecasts of Mallika Badrinath. I missed the introduction part of the recipe. All I could gather was, this is a Mangalore special sweet and she in fact mentioned the traditional name of it, which sounded like a tongue twister to me. I had written in my book as Kheera sweet. I call it halwa now, because of the texture of the sweet. I am not sure if it has to be this way or not. A sweet is a sweet. I would like to know the real name of it from my readers.

On first bite, my husband said, it reminds him of Thiruvathirai kali. I too felt the same. May be its due to the common rice and jaggery mix. Anyways on to the recipe now.

You need

Medium sized cucumber- 1, peeled and grated

Powdered jaggery - 1 1/2 cup

Rice flour - 1 cup

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Ghee - 2 tblspoon

Roasted cashews for garnish

The orginal recipe says use raw rice. It has to be soaked for 2 hrs. I used rice flour instead. Grind the rice flour(or soaked rice), jaggery and coconut to a fine paste. You can sprinkle some waterwhile grinding. Stir in the grated cucumber. The batter consistency should be like that of idli batter. Adjust the consistency by adding water. Not much will be required since it will be taken care of the water in the cucumber.

Heat a kadai with a tablespoon of ghee. Pour the batter. Keep stirring and add ghee at intervals to prevent sticking. This should take around 10 minutes. When it comes together, pour onto a greased plate and press it down evenly. When warm, mark into squares and decorate with roasted cashews.

After tasting the sweet, I felt the batter will make good pancakes/ vella dosai.

This is my contribution to Sia's RCI-Udupi & Mangalore, an event started by Lakshmi

Khaman Dhokla for Indian Cooking Challenge

Its dhokla time today. Khaman dhokla is the recipe selected for the first challenge. Srivalli gave the detailed recipe from a Gujarathi friend of hers, which is indeed a fool-proof recipe. I have made instant versions of dhokla both in my MW and stove top. But it was no way near the perfect, soft,spongy, moist dhoklas I had eaten before. My husband occassionaly used to buy dhoklas from a Gujarathi sweet shop near his office. When Valli mentioned that its a traditional recipe, I was happy to try it out to get the perfect dhoklas. I prepared it carefully following the instructions given in the recipe. When I served them with the mint chutney, my husband said gave a thumps up, which doesn't come, that easily.

I used buttermilk instead of curd and water. Also had to add 2 more tablespoons of the batter to get the right consistency. Rest everything I followed the same.

Recipe makes 20 medium sized pieces

For Batter:
Bengal Gram flour / Besan - 1 & 1/2 cup

Curd - 1/2 cup (not very sour)

Water - 1/2 cup

(I used 1 cup of buttermilk + 2 tblspns of water)
Cooking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste

For seasoning to be mixed to the batter (to be added just before cooking)

Oil - 1 tbsp

Turmeric a pinch

G. Chili paste - 3 nos

Sugar - 1 tsp

Citric acid - quarter tsp ( A big pinch)
Eno - 1 packet (green colour fruit lime) + sprinkle or dust few bits on the plate

For tempering
Sesame seeds , Mustard Seeds,Curry leaves,Grated coconut,Coriander leaves

Little water ( 2 tblspn) + Oil to be topped on dhoklas

Method to prepare:
Mix first 1/2 cup curds with 1/2 water. To this add the besan and mix well to get a lump less batter, the consistency should be of idli batter, more of dropping not pouring consistency. Slowly add more water if needed else, add the soda. Keep it aside to rise for 1 hour.

If you are using a pressure cooker, fill the pan with water, place a plate over which you will have use a plate for steaming the dhoklas. Thali plate can be used for steaming.

To the batter mix in the citric acid, oil, salt, sugar, green chili paste and turmeric powder. Mix well. This has to be done just before pouring to the plate.

Meanwhile have the pan on stove, and let the water start boiling. When the water reaches the rolling stage, you can mix the eno to the batter (Save little of eno for dusting on the plate), mix gently, you will see bubbles coming out.

Dust or sprinkle the plate with eno. Then immediately pour the batter to the plate. Place the plate carefully inside the pressure pan and cover with lid. You need not use the whistle. After covering you will find steam coming out of the outlet, simmer and don't disturb for almost 5 -7 minutes.

After 5 -7 minutes, remove the lid and proof it using toothpick or knife. If the knife comes out clean and does not have any batter sticking, then its done. Cover back and let it remain on flame for 1 min and switch off the gas and allow it for 5 minutes.

In a bowl, mix 2 tblspn of water along with a tsp of oilRemove the plate from the pan, pour the water and oil mix over the top.

For seasoning, heat a pan with oil, add curry leaves, sesame seeds, mustard seeds and finely chopped green chilies. When mustard starts popping, remove and pour over the dhokla.

Points to note
The batter should be filled to only 1/2 as it will rise up. After adding eno the batter should not rest.

Amount of sugar can be increased on preference.
If you want perfect shaped ones and not the crumbling, cut and handle gently
Dhokla can also be steamed in kadai filled with water and a plated titled over it.

Green chutney
G. chili - 4 nos

Grateed coconut - 1/4 cup

Coriander - bunch

Few mint leaves

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Lime -1 big

Salt to taste

Take all the ingredients except coriander in a food processor. Grind to a smooth paste.
Then add the coriander and again grind. Remove to a bowl, add the remaining lime and serve with Dhoklas.