The Flavour of Indian Summers

From 

Come Summer, and all I can think of is sweet, sweet, juicy mangoes. I love mangoes of all shapes and sizes. And every summer is spent making the sweet chunda (sweet raw mango pickle) or the tangy kairi achaar (the tangy raw mango pickle), the thick and lovely aamras from the alphonsos and kesars, the sweet, sour and minty aam panha and in devouring those fresh fruits themselves. Every single year, this is the only thing that makes Indian summers bearable. :P

I know that summer is long gone and the monsoons have captured us now. But, it isn't yet too late for one amazing mango dish that you can create with the last of the mangoes still available in the markets. THE Mango Cheesecake!

I baked this very basic baked, eggless and gelatin-less cheesecake with mango and it turned out to be the best mango dish I've ever made! :D



Preparation time: 15-20 mins
Baking time: 30-35 mins
Serves: 1 (If you're like me) and 6, if you are normal people.

Ingredients:

1 packet Digestive buiscuits (Hobnobs are my favourites)
1/3 cup melted butter
2 tbsp powdered sugar
------------
1 large, ripe mango - cut in medium sized pieces
350 gms cream cheese (at room temperature)
2 tsp corn starch
1/2-3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp cardamom powder (optional)
Mint leaves and mango slices for garnishing

Method:

• Preheat the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes.



Press down the crushed biscuits firmly and pack them tightly like this.

• Crush enough digestive biscuits, butter and 2 tbsp sugar in a blender to fill 1 loosely packed cup. This forms the base of the cake.

• Spread the crushed biscuits in the cake tin and press it down firmly. Bake this for about 5-7 mins at 200 degrees Celsius so that it becomes a crisp, blended crust for the base.
• Now, blend together the cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, mango pieces and cardamom powder to form a thick, creamy mixture.

• Spread this over the crust and put it in the oven for 30-35 minutes. 

• Check once after 25 minutes to see if the cake has started browning at the edges. If it has, it is done. If not, let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. If you have a glass mould, you'll see how the cake develops a lovely darker colour on the top and remains light yellow in the middle.

My cake got a teeny tiny over-baked at certain areas because of the over temperatures being higher in certain areas in the oven. So this is NOT how it is supposed to look like. But, if this colour starts forming at the edges of your cake and your cake starts leaving the tin, that'd mean it is done. Plus, what is garnishing meant for if not to cover up for you? ;)

• Pop the cake in the fridge to set for at least 3-5 hours.
• After pulling it out of the fridge, garnish with mint leaves and mango slices. I went a bit further to use a technique I learnt from Junior Masterchef and garnished my cake with flowers. :P However, these were used purely for colour and are not edible.

And, it's ready to be eaten! Every bite of it tastes like a little piece of heaven, even if I do say so myself. ;)

Vegan Chocolate and Hazelnut Brownies

Ingredients:

5 tbsp margarine
1 cup cocoa powder (or dark chocolate bits)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup hazelnuts
1/2 chocolate chips
2 tbsp baking powder
1 cup water

Method:

• Melt the margarine and cocoa powder/ dark chocolate bits together on very low flame. (It's better if you don't heat it directly and instead, melt them through steam boiling. Basically, in a pan, heat some water and over the boiling water, put another pan, in which you melt the margarine and cocoa powder/ dark chocolate bits.)
• Once they have melted and mixed well, add brown sugar and mix well.
• Take the pan off the heat and add all the other ingredients. Mix well until it forms a batter like cake batter, falling in folds.
• Line a rectangle shallow cake tin with baking paper and pour the batter in it. Make sure that it is not concentrated only in certain places. If needed, level it out with a spoon.
• Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 40-50 minutes.
• As soon as it is done and you get it out of the oven, cut in square pieces. 
• You may serve it just like that or with ice-cream and chocolate sauce.

Vegan Apple and Pecan Spice Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
3 medium-sized apples, peeled and diced
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp baking powder
1-2 cups water
1/2 cup pecans

For Icing:

2 tbsp margarine
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fine icing sugar/ castor sugar


Method:

• Pre-heat the oven at 150 degrees Celcius for about 30 minutes.
• In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, vanilla essence, nutmeg and cinnamon powders and pecans. Mix thoroughly.
• Add baking powder and pour 2 tbsp water on the baking powder. Mix with the other dry ingredients.
• Add the diced apples.
• Pour the water slowly and keep mixing the batter. Pour enough water to make the cake batter fall in folds.
• Grease and flour an 8 or a 9 inch cake tin. Pour the batter in the cake tin and bake for about 50 minutes. After 40 minutes, check with a fork or a skewer if the cake is done. 
• Once it is done, let it cool for about 30 minutes and then, put it out on a plate.

For Icing:

• In a bowl, melt the 2 tbsp on margarine.
• Add the cinnamon and sugar. Mix well.
• Using a pastry brush, glaze the cake with this mixture. 
• Once it has cooled down, sprinkle some icing sugar/ castor sugar on the cake.

Variation: You may use any other nuts, like almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macademias, hazel nuts etc instead of pecans. You may also use butter instead of margarine if you are not a vegan and it'll make the crust richer.

Sheera/ Sooji Halwa/ Semolina Halwa

Ingredients:

2 cups fine semolina (sooji/ rawa)
1 tbsp ghee
1.5-2 cups sugar
1.5 cups milk
1 tsp cardamom powder
7-8 almonds
7-8 cashews and raisins (optional)

Method:

• Soak the almonds for an hour. Peel and slice them.
• Heat the ghee in a pan. Roast the semolina in the ghee for 5-7 minutes until it becomes more ivory in colour rather than the white.
• Pour the milk in the roasted semolina and stir well.
• Let it cook for 3-4 minutes until it starts becoming sticky.
• Add the sugar and stir well.
• Add the cardamom powder, the sliced almonds and garnish with cashews and raisins, if wanted.
• Serve hot.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

3 cups plain flour (Maida)
2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
a pinch salt
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 - 2 cups water

For Icing:
200 ml fresh cream
Raspberry Jam (optional)
3 tbsp cocoa powder (sweetened or unsweetened. If it is unsweetened, add a tbsp of sugar to it)
1/4 cup water
handful strawberries (or any other fruit that you like - berries and kiwis go the best with chocolate cakes)

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
• Add vanilla essence and oil. Mix well.
• Slowly add the water and keep mixing thoroughly. Stop adding water once the cake batter starts falling in folds. It is just the right consistency.
• Line 2 nine inch moulds with oil and cocoa powder (you can use flour but it leaves white border on a chocolate cake whereas, with cocoa powder, that problem doesn't arise.)
• Pour the batter in the moulds and bake for about 25 minutes. Check after 20 minutes whether the cake is done. If you stick a fork or a knife in the centre of the cake and it comes out clean, then it's done.
• Let it cool before taking it out on a plate.

For Icing:

• Spread some raspberry jam on the first cake and place the second cake on it. (You can even use whipped cream here instead of raspberry jam if you prefer.)
• Make some chocolate sauce by boiling together cocoa powder and water. Pour this sauce on the cake and refrigerate for an hour
• Meanwhile, whip the cream until it has thickened enough that it stays up. Make sure you don't over-whip and make butter. Refrigerate it.
• After an hour, pull out both cake and cream and decorate as you like it. In the cake above, I have used  14 number star nozzle to make a circle in the centre and placed a strawberry and slices of kiwi on it. Finally, using a shell nozzle, I created a ring outline to the cake.

• For this cake, I spread the whipped cream all over the cake evenly, especially the sides. And then, decorated with fruit as wanted.

Vegan Icing:

• Pour chocolate sauce all over the cake. Let it cool in a refrigerator. 
• Melt some white chocolate. Dip a fork in the melted chocolate and randomly spread ribbons on the cake.

Malai Kulfi

Ingredients:

2 litres full fat milk (or 1 litre of evaporated milk)
500 ml full fat cream
2 cups sugar
1 tsp powdered cardamom
handful of pistachios (optional - for garnishing)
8-10 plastic cones/ glasses (to be used as moulds for freezing the kulfi)

Method:

• Boil the milk till it reduces to half its quantity. Keep scraping the sides and the bottom of the pan and stirring the milk constantly while boiling.
• Refrigerate the milk for 3-5 hours.
• Beat the chilled milk with a hand-mixer for a couple of minutes and keep aside.
• In a separate bowl, mix the cream and the sugar and whip it for 2-3 minutes - until it gets a flowing consistency. Make sure you don't over-whip.
• Pour the whipped milk with the cream and sugar mixture and mix evenly. use the hand-mixer for a minute after mixing well to make the mixture even more even.
• Add the cardamom powder for the flavour and mix well again.
• Using a spoon, fill the cones or the glasses with the mixture. Seal the cones completely so that there is no space left between the mixture and the seal.
• Keep in the freezer over-night and let it freeze completely.
• Serve directly from the freezer, garnished with sliced pistachios.
• A Variation would be kesar-pista malai kulfi: Mix 6-8 strands of saffron with the milk while boiling it and add sliced pistachios instead of the cardamom powder. This gives a crunchier texture to the kulfi as opposed to the creamier texture of the Malai kulfi.

Gajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

Ingredients:

1 cup carrots
Full fat milk (enough to cover the carrots)
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cardamom powder
A handful almonds

Method:

• Soak almonds in water for about an hour. Peel and slice them. 
• Peel and grate the carrots. 
• Cook grated carrot with milk on a medium flame till all the water content evaporates away. Constantly keep stirring while the carrot is getting cooked. (For a richer product, you can also use Condensed Milk along with milk. In that case, reduce the quantity of milk as needed.) 
• Once the halwa is almost dry and sticky, add sugar and cook for some more time. Keep stirring.
• Again, as soon as the halwa starts becoming sticky, add cardamom powder, mix well and take off the flame. 
• Garnish with the sliced almonds and serve hot. 
• Also goes extremely well with vanilla ice-cream.