Deepawali Sweets - Rawa (Semolina) Halwa

Deepawali Sweets - Rawa (Semolina) Halwa

We may buy or prepare multitudes of sweets for the Deepavali festival. But the festivity is incomplete without a halwa. There are various basic ingredients used in the preparation of halwa, and this time I have used Rawa (semolina) for the same.

INGREDIENTS:
Fine Rawa (Semolina) – 1 cup
Sugar – 2 cups
Ghee – ¼ cup
Edible Saffron colour – ¼ tsp
Cardamom – 2 OR Any essence of your choice – 3 drops
Cashew nuts & Raisins – a few

METHOD:
1. Soak rawa in 1 ½ cups of water for at least 15 minutes.

2. Now knead the with your hand or beat with a whisk till it becomes milky.
2. Boil the sugar with 2 cups of water till it reaches one thread consistency (also called soft ball stage) .
3. Mix in the food colour and blend well.
4. Add the milky rawa and keep stirring.
5. When holes start appearing on the surface and the halwa starts leaving the sides of the pan, blend in the ghee.
6. Mix in the cardamom powder or essence and pour it on a greased tray.
7. Garnish with roasted cashew nuts and raisins.

Scoop out the halwa in cups and relish while warm. Or store the plate in the refrigerator and cut the halwa into pieces when required.

Dome Cake

Do you have any leftover sponge cake? Or, unsuccessful baked sponge cake? Give it a twist to a little treat for your guests. I don't have any leftover sponge cake so I purposely bake a plain and chocolate sponge cake to experiment the recipe. I didn't follow exactly from the recipe book but using my little baking knowledge to complete this dessert.

The texture turn out quite nice with the combination of sponge cake, custard, toasted almond, chopped dark chocolate and covered with melted chocolate for the coating. Then, let it stand nicely on top of a piece of cinnamon cookies. I didn't manage to make it as pretty as the picture from the book. I think I need more practice and patient for coating the cakes. Anyway, this is something special and definitely will make it for a party.
Recipe makes 10 pieces:

180g plain sponge cake
180g chocolate sponge cake
115g homemade custard
115g chopped dark chocolate
40g toasted almond nibbed
50g raisin soaked with brandy or rum
150g melted dark chocolate for coating

For the cinnamon cookies:
40g butter
36g caster sugar
12g eggs
76g plain flour
4g cinnamon powder

Methods:

1. For the cinnamon cookies, beat the caster sugar with butter then add in eggs. Fold in flour and cinnamon powder until a soft dough. Cling wrap the dough and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Roll out the dough about 5mm and use a 6cm round cutter to cut out 10 pieces.
3. Place on a baking tray with baking paper attached and bake in the 180C preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
4. Let is sit on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool down.
5. For the cake dome, use hand to break the sponge till a bread crumbs consistency.
6. Combine the custard, chopped chocolate, almond nibbed and raisin with the remaining brandy or rum.
7. Lightly press the mixture together to make the shape. Pour some melted dark chocolate to coat the cake.
8. Place it on a piece of cinnamon cookie and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

No bake chocolate pinwheel

Everyone must be busy planning for the festival weekend. And most of you must have already started with the preparations of sweets and savories. Here is a quick, no cook, recipe to delight your kids. I made this when my niece was here for her summer holidays. As always, I clicked few pictures and forgot about it. When Srivalli announced the Kid's Delight event, I wanted to send this. I got the recipe from a TV show, where in they were showing some quick recipes which can be made by kids themselves.

You need

Marie biscuit - 1 pkt

Cocoa Powder - 2tblspn

Powdered sugar - 5 tblspn

Butter - 2 tblspn

Milk - 4 tblspn


Method

Powder the marie biscuits in the mixer grinder. Seive it to get fine powder. Else it will make rolling the dough difficult.  Mix in cocoa powder and 2 tblspn of sugar. Prepare a tight dough using milk. 

You can mix some coffe powder in the milk if you love the flavor of coffee in your cookies. Coffee and chocolate complement each other well.

For the filling

Beat butter and sugar until creamy. You can optinaly add some dessicated coconut or coarsely chopped nuts also.

Roll dough into a thick chappathi. Spread the filling evenly. Leave some space at the edges. Then roll from the longer end to form a log shape. Roll it tightly and seal the crack if any, as you roll. Cover the log in a butter paper or aluminium foil and refrigerate for 2 hours. Cut along the width to get beautiful pinwheel cookies.

It will be a great hit among the kid's if it is part of the birthday parties.