If you love eating, you can surely be a good cook, but to be an excellent one, you should have good critics at home. For that I owe to my husband and my children.

I dedicate this blog to the young ladies - "the starters".

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Marble Cake





Ingredients

Plain Flour (maida)  -  3 ½ cup
Baking powder  - 3 tsp
Butter  -  1 cup
Powdered sugar – 2 ½ cups
Eggs   -  4 cups
Buttermilk   - 1 cup
Vanilla essence  -2 ½  tsp
Salt
Caramelised sugar  - ½ cup
Cocoa powder  - 2 tbsp
To  caramelise sugar
Take two sauce pan. In one,  pour half cup of
water and keep on slow fire.  Simultaneously in
in another sauce pan, spoon in a teaspoon of
butter and half a cup of sugar and keep on
low flame and let it caramelise. As the the
sugar caramelise, and gets dark colour, pour in
carefully - boiling water from other sauce pan.
Turn off the flame and let  it cool.

Preparation

Sieve,   flour  and  baking powder twice and keep aside.
Beat powdered sugar and butter to get a smooth
texture.  Add eggs one by one and mix well.
Now  add  vanilla essence, salt  and pour in ¾  of the
 buttermilk and reserve quarter  of the
butter milk to use later.
Now spoon by spoon fold in seived flour.
Pour half of the batter in another
mixing bowl to make a chocolate batter.
Pour in caramelised sugar and cocoa powder
and mix well.
Both vanilla and chocolate batter should have
same consistency. If needed add the reserved
buttermilk to the thicker batter.
In the baking tray in the centre pour a tablespoon
Of chocolate batter , and on top of it pour a tablespoon of
Vanilla batter. It will spread naturally as you pour on top.
Repeat the same process till both the batter is over.
Tap slowly the baking tray on the table to release
any air trapped in the batter.
Bake it in a pre- heated oven 180c for 40 to 45 minutes.
Insert a skewer in the centre of the cake and check
if the skewer has come out clean or bake till the skewer
comes  out clean.

A beautiful cake with its layers!!!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Chakka Kumbil Appam (jackfruit Appam)




Ingredients

Sweet   jack fruit   - 2 cups
Rice  flour   - 1  cup
Semolina      - 1/2 cup
Sugar            - 3 tbsp
salt
Bay leaves (vazhana ela)
Toothpick

Preparation

Make a  cone (kumbil) shape  with each  green bay leaf and tooth pick  and keep aside.
Remove the seeds from the jack fruit.
In a mixer bowl,  make a smooth paste of the sweet yellow jack fruit.
In a bowl, put rice flour, semolina, sugar, salt and jack fruit paste and stir.
If needed One or two table spoons of milk can be added. 
It depends how much the Jack fruit is ripe.
With a spoon pour the mixture into each bay leaf cone and 
keep in a steamer for 20 minutes.
Serve as it cools.

As the Appams have the natural  flavour of jack fruit and bay leaves, no other flavours are required.

There are two types of jack fruit - Varikka and Kuuzha.
Varikka – has a thick texture.
Kuuzha – has a thread like texture as it ripens.
To make Appam  from Kuuzha - jack fruit, sieve the jack fruit and ensure that there is no thread.