Berries Cream Puffs

A sweet lady bought me super sweet and giant size of strawberries last week. Normally I find big size of strawberries would not be so sweet however these package of strawberries really super sweet. I need four big bites to finished a strawberry and imagine how big it is and I love strawberries crazily.

To appreciate her lovely thought, I quickly tuck into my kitchen to make some cream puffs to sandwich the strawberries and some leftover blueberries for her. The berries cream puffs was very refreshing in this hot and humid weather.

Recipe for 20 puffs:

For the Puff: 70g plain flour/3 beaten eggs/100g water/60g unsalted butter/Pinch of sugar and salt

For the custard: 3 egg yolks/200ml milk/60g sugar/20g plain flour/10g unsalted butter/1 tsp vanilla extract

How I made it:

1. For the puff, boil the water, butter and pinch of sugar and salt in a cooking pan until its bubbling. Off the heat, add in all the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become a smooth dough.


2. Add half of the beaten eggs and mix (this stage is a bit hard work but please patient and keep stirring until the egg mix into the dough.) Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix. Add the beaten eggs little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs. You will need to have a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. The mixture should not too dry or too wet.


3. Once you get the right consistency of mixture, transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray with baking paper.


4. Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)


5. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.


6. For the custard, boil the milk with sugar until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour a thick paste but no lumps. Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.


7. Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk into the egg yolks mixture, pour little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything combine. Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.


8. Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine.


9. Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.


10. To assemble the berries cream puffs, squeeze in some custard then sandwich some strawberries and blueberries. Chill in the fridge before serve.

Pineapple Kesari

Picture clicked by my hubby :)

Kesari comes out perfect every time I follow my mom's recipe. The ratio of rava to water should be right to get the right consistency. I usually don't compromise on ghee because it is the only ingredient which makes this dish tasty.

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:
Sooji/Rava/Semolina-1/2 cup
Sugar-1/2 cup
Water-1 cup
Ghee(clarified butter)-2 tbsp
Cardamom-1/4 tsp
Saffron-a few strands
Pineapple pieces chopped finely-1/4 cup
Milk-2 tbsp
Chopped nuts(almonds, cashews)-1 tbsp
Raisins-2 tsp
Food color(any color)-a pinch(I used pink)

Method:
Soak saffron in warm milk.
In a vessel, bring water and pineapple pieces to a boil.
In a pan, melt butter and make ghee. Roast nuts and raisins in ghee and transfer the mixture to a bowl. Return the pan to stove. Roast rava on low flame for 5-6 minutes. Add cardamom, saffron-milk, boiling water(with pineapple pieces) and food color. Keep stirring while pouring hot water to avoid lumps. Cook for a minute. Add sugar. Stir well and cook for 2 minutes. Add half of the ghee+nuts mixture and mix well.

Before serving kesari, top it off with remaining ghee and nuts.

Note: You may also add a few drops of pineapple essence to make it even tastier.
Instead of adding pineapple, you can make plain kesari and add a few drops of almond essence.



I am sending this to FIC: Pink/Rose - March 31st event started by Sunshinemom and hosted by priya.

BTW today is my parents' anniversary :) Last year they were here in the US with us and we went to Flower fields(in San Diego). The flowers are spread across 50 acres of land! It is a breathtaking view. They are open from March through May every year.

Banana dates muffin

I have baked banana bread twice with two different recipes. I did like them but never wanted to make them again. When I had some bananas, which either had to be used up or will find their way to bin stage, idea of bread did not seem to be interesting. So I decided to look for muffin recipe and finally found banana crumb recipe at Allrecipes. I tweaked it and I was amazed with the results. We both loved the muffins very much. And had some guests the next day I baked. They gave a big thumbs up tasting my muffins. Definitely I will be making this again. I forgot to add the crumb toppings. Seeing the reviews at Allrecipes, decided to add them during the last five minutes of baking. But with a phone call, half the way through the baking, I completely forgot about the topping. I am sure that will make it more delicious. That's reserved for the next bake.

Now to my version of the recipe

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tspn baking soda

1 tspn baking powder

1/2 tspn salt

1 cup mashed banana

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped dates

Method

Sift the two flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Whisk together sugar, oil, mashed banana and milk.Fold in the banana mix into the dry ingredients and mix just enough to moist. Stir in the chopped dates. Scoop the batter into the greased muffin pan
Bake in a preheated oven at 200 C for 25 minutes or till top is browned. Adjust the timing according to your oven.
Muffin was very soft and moist. It goes very well for breakfast with a glass of milk. It keeps well for for 3 days with out refrigeration. I got 9 medium sized one and 5 mini muffins.

I am sending these breakfast muffins to Lakshmi's SWC-Meals on Wheels

and to Recipes for rest of us:Picnic Eats hosted by Trupti, an event started by Ramki.