Coffee and Chocolate Pudding - Sweet Punch for November 2011

Hello Friends,


Another month and another wonderful Sweet Punch Entry. This time it was mouth watering and super yummy Coffee & Chocolate Pudding. 


It was super easy to put together, about 5 minutes and then 20 min. to bake and this is a dessert that you can enjoy right out of the oven, so no need to wait for it to cool down completely :)


Enjoy !!!

  Print this recipe

Coffee and Chocolate Pudding

Recipe Source: Fair Lady
Ingredients (makes 4 servings)

All Purpose Flour - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Cocoa Powder - 2 tsp
Salt - one pinch
Brown Sugar - ½ cup
Butter - 2 tbsp, melted
Milk - ½ cup
Egg - 1, beaten
For the topping
Brown Sugar - ½ cup
Cocoa - 3 tbsp
Strong Black Coffee - 1 cup (I used Nescafe Decaf)
Preparation

• Preheat oven to 180°C. 
• Sift together dry ingredients.
• Stir through butter, milk and egg until well combined.
• Spoon batter into 4 ramekins.
• Sprinkle over brown sugar and cocoa then pour over coffee but do not stir.
• Bake for 20 minutes.
• Dust with cocoa powder or cinnamon and sugar; serve with vanilla ice cream.

Serving
I could not take pics of this, but I served it with a big dollop of Nutella at the top and warming it again to let that Nutella melt and have more gooey chocolate :)


That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Nutella Fudge Brownies from Abby Dodge

Hello Friends,


Today, I am here with the easiest brownie recipe ever. I mean just 4 ingredients, now how can you beat that, right? And, guess what it has Nutella in it. Now, I have to tell you that till about 3 years, I had no clue what Nutella as and once I got introduced, being a chocoholic that I am, it got hooked on to it right away.


This Nutella Fudge Brownie recipe is from a wonderful baker Abby Dodge. She has some amazing blog and if you have never visited her, please do so and you will be more than happy that you did. Now, as a rule of the event, I am submitted to, I am not going to re-write the recipe, so please follow her link and check out the great and mouth watering recipe. Here are some pictures to tempt you :)

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 57)event hosted by Aipi and me.



This goes to Global Food Festival hosted by Kalyani.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Ultimate Brownie for Blog Hop

Hi Friends,


Today is the 3rd week of Blog Hop Wednesdays, an effort started by Radhika. It encourages us to blog hop and try our fellow blogger's recipes. Please check out what all this is about.


This week, I am paired with Anamika who has an amazing blog with great recipes and the best of all, some mouth watering pics and presentations. I have a couple from her blog bookmarked, but this is what I started with. She has this wonderful table in this post where she compiled some mouth watering brownie recipes from different sources and how they compare with each other. She picked this recipe Dorie Greenspan. Now, being a big Brownie fan, you can bet that I am going to try all those 6 recipes one by one, but this was the first one I wanted to try.


It came out perfect, not too crumbly, not too chewy, just perfect and melt in the mouth kind. How many of you have had those Brownie Petites @ COSCO (a store here in US). If you had those, you can compare these to the texture and taste of those. It took me just 10 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of baking. It is that simple. So, what are you waiting for get started guys and make them. You will not regret. Thanks Anamika for that table and this delicious recipe.


Ultimate Brownie (Recipe of Dorie Greenspan)

Ingredients
Butter - 5 tbsp (I used salted to give that extra salty taste in my brownie, which I like, but feel free to use unsalted one to suit your taste buds)
Chocolate - 6 oz (I used semi-sweet squares of baking chocolate)
All-Purpose Flour - 1/3 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Eggs - 2 large (I used egg beaters equivalent of 2 large eggs)
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Preparation

• Prepare your favorite pan with parchment paper and then some butter on the parchment paper as well.
• Pre-heat oven to 350 degree F.
• Take a small saucepan on heat and melt butter and chocolate till smooth.
• Take it off the heat and let it come to room temp (about 4 min.or so)
• Add sugar and whisk till smooth.
• Add eggs, vainlla and salt and mix well till incorporated.
• Add whisked APF now and mix till smooth.
• Pour in the pan and bake for 25 - 30 minute or till toothpick comes out clean.
• Let it rest for at least 10 minutes before trying to eat it.
• Patience will be paid off :)
• I got 16 squares of the size you see in the picture from the ingredients mentioned above.

Serving
Serve them as it is or with ice-cream if you prefer it. I just had a warm brownie all by itself. What a divine pleasure it gives to a chocoholic like me. You have to be a chocoholic to understand that :)

Please do check what other blog hoppers are cooking.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Easy Eggless Microwave Brownie from Veggie Platter

Hello Friends,


Here I am with another decadent, ooey-gooey chocolatey recipe that I am sure my fellow chocoholic friends will love and surely give a try. 


I tried it from Suma's blog. After seeing her recipe, I had to try it out and so I did and absolutely loved it. The taste, simplicity and how quickly it comes together. It cannot get better than this when you want a quick and sinful brownie :)


Thanks Suma, it is going to be a regular thing for me now. Please follow her blog for recipe and details.


Easy Eggless Microwave Brownie

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 52) event of Aipi and Mine.

Also sending it to MEC - 4th Anniversary - Potluck Party.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake from Maria's Menu

Hello Friends,


Here is a wonderful recipe from Maria's Menu. I guess almost everyone from the blog world tried it and now it is my time to post about it. We absolutely loved it and so did my neighbors... lol


One of the best recipes and I am going to keep making it. Thanks Maria :)


So, without further ado, here is the delicious recipe.


Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake

Recipe Source: Maria's Menu
Ingredients

Milk – 1 1/2 cups
Butter – 100 gms (1/3 cup + 2 tbsp approx)
Oil – 1/4 cup (I used olive oil)
Coco Powder – 1/2 cup ( I used Hershey’s)
Self Raising Flour – 1 cup (to get 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder+ 1/4 tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (source)
Egg – 1 beaten, room temp
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
Sugar – 1 cup + 2 tbsp

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree F and grease your cupcake pan (it will make about 12 cupcakes)
2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Heat together butter, milk, oil and coco powder in a pan till butter melts and let it cool down to room temperature.
4. Beat the egg and mix it with wet ingredient and then dry ingredients till everything is well incorporated.
5. Pour it about 3/4 full in cupcake pans (feel free to bake it as a cake) and bake for about 25 min. or till a toothpick inserts comes out clean.
6. Let them cool completely before you take them out as they are very moist and may break apart (it happened with me).

Serving
Feel free to serve them topped with any frosting or ganache you like.

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 51) event of Aipi and Mine.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Best Chocolate Banana Bread Ever

Hello Friends,

It has been a few days since I posted something, just too busy with summer activities. Here is a simple yet the best Chocolate Banana bread I have had ever. This is a recipe I got from a colleague, Jerri, who is such a great baker and I love that I get to taste them very often.. lol

I am very very sure that if you try, you will thank me and her both and save this recipe forever. Technically this is a bread recipe, but as I did not have a loaf pan, I tried it as a round cake and loved it. So, you can make it into a cake with some chocolate frosting or a bread and serve it at breakfast with some butter on it. Notice those nice chocolate chips peeking from the slice? This is all I could take picture as the cake was gone within minutes and I cannot even tell you how moist it was, just amazing.

Now, without further ado, here is the recipe from Jerri to me to you.

Best Chocolate Banana Bread Ever

Ingredients

Butter - 1/2 cup, softened 
White Sugar - 1 cups
Eggs - 2
Bananas - 3 pureed
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
All Purpose Flour - 1.5 cups
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp
Sour Cream - 1/2 cup
Semisweet Chocolate Chips - 1/2 to mix in the batter and about 1/4 cup more to just fold in
Preparation

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar and eggs. 
• Stir in bananas and vanilla. 
• Sift in flour, baking soda and cocoa; mix well. 
• Blend in sour cream and chocolate chips. 
• Right before pouring in pan, fold in those extra chocolate chips (totally optional step).
• Pour batter into prepared pans. 
• Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a loaf comes out clean. 

Note: You can substitute 1/2 cup of sour cream with a combination of 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup of buttermilk an 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.  Be sure to start the buttermilk and baking soda combination a few minutes prior to mixing with the other ingredients so they react.
Serving
Serve it with your favorite ice-cream on the side or top. You can also use some frosting. In my case, I just enjoyed it as it is :)


That's all for now. Take care till the next post.

Eggless Gooey Chocolate Pudding Cake

Hello Friends,


I have been lazy last few days in doing proper cooking, too lazy after a blogging marathon... lol :)


I made this superb looking and tasting cake yesterday (Sunday) morning for a friend's house where we were invited for lunch. I absolutely loved the texture, taste and everything about it. There is this something great about gooey chocolate (I know my fellow chocoholics will agree with me). I saw this cake being prepared by Anne Thronton in a Food Network show called "Dessert First". Foe someone like me, it is the best program as I can always have dessert as the first course and of course the last course as well :)


This is a cake which will have a texture of brownie but will have some molten chocolate or the gooey part underneath and thus it is a pudding cake. Check the pictures and see the second pic and that is how the top will be like brownie and the bottom will have gooey stuff. It look me only 10 min. to prepare and about 30 min. to bake and about 15 more min. for cool-down. And, guess what, no eggs needed, isn't that wonderful and it is made from items that one usually has at home (like milk, butter, sugar and cocoa powder at home).


I had to make it after watching that episode and it won't be inappropriate to say that I was dying to try it out :) 


So, without further ado, here is the recipe (it is the same as hers, but felt like re-writing it in my blog).


Eggless Gooey Chocolate Pudding Cake

Recipe Source
Ingredients

Pudding Cake
All-purpose Flour - 3 cups
Granulated Sugar - 1.5 cups
Cocoa Powder - 1/2 cup
Baking Powder - 4 tsps
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Milk - 1 cup (I used whole, but feel free to use any)
Butter - 2/3 cup, melted
Vanilla Extract - 3 tsps
Topping
Granulated Sugar - 1 cup
Brown Sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa Powder - 1/2 cup
Hot Water - 2.5 cups

Preparation

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degree C.
• Mix all dry ingredients for pudding cake in a bowl well. 
• Add all wet ingredients in the dry ingredients and whisk well till all is incorporated. It will be thicker than usual cake batter.
• Spread the cake dough/batter in an un-greased pan (9 inch or bigger).
• Now, whisk all dry ingredients of topping in a separate bowl and add hot water to it and mix it well, till no lumps.
• Pour this liquid on the cake batter (in the pan) and please do not mix it, just let the topping stand there.
• Bake the cake for 45 minutes. You will see the top set and see a brownie like crust.
• Take it out of the oven and do not touch for another 15 minutes, let it cool down.
• This is a pudding cake and not a cake to cut into slices. The top of the cake will be like brownie and the bottom will have pudding consistency (check the pics).

Serving
Scoop out the cake into serving bowls and scoop the bottom liquid as well for that gooey texture. Serve it with your favorite ice-cream, if you like that combo. But, I like my warm gooey cakes without mixing with cold stuff, so I just enjoyed it as it is. Whatever you do, please do serve it warm !!!


Hope you will make and enjoy it. I can personally vouch on the recipe and the results !!!


That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Eggless Microwave Chocolate Cake

Hello Friends,

Another bookmarked recipe which I tried on our Saturday potluck and we couldn't get enough of it. I took Eggless Microwave Chocolate Cake recipe from Aparna and I have to say I was amazed at the results. I did not expect this wonder to come from microwave. I event made the glaze in microwave and made extra of it and enjoyed it till the end. We literally fought for the slices and we had to tell kids to wait (after they had their first round) till all adults have eaten to be able to get more of it, lol. That's how good this was. It was softy, moist. Do try and I can guarantee you will love it :)

I am sending this to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 41) event hosted by Aipi and me.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Eggless Chocolate and Bread Pudding from CL

Hello Friends,


I have been meaning to make this like forever, I mean since CL posted it. I am sure whoever saw this, was drooling like I did. I am chocoholic and recently I started making a lot of bread puddings and adding chocolate to this is like a dream come true for a chocoholic like me.


I am just going to list the ingredients here as I changed them slightly from CL (to suit my needs), but go check her blog for the process.


Eggless Chocolate and Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Bread - 5 slices (CL used sweet bread, I used regular whole wheat, so increased sugar quantity, if you are using sweet bread like hers, use the same quantity of sugar that she did)

Milk - 2 cups

Banana - 1/2, pureed

Chocolate - 3 ounces

Butter - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Preparation

• Follow CL's Recipe

Serving

Do I need to even say this to you. Just dig in and enjoy it while it is still warm :)

I am sending this to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday event of Aipi and Mine. Also, sending this to my own event Celebrate Sweets - Warm Desserts started by Nivedita.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Magic Butter Scotch and Chocolate Barks

Hello Friends,


My dear blogger friend Anu, introduced me to this. She brought us this when we met 2 weeks ago. They are addictive, if you keep eating them. I am not a very big fan of mint, so I substituted mint with Butter Scotch Morsels.


Please run over heels to her blog to get the wonderful magic recipe (It is magic as it only takes about 5 min. for the whole thing to come up and about a couple of hours of chilling) of Butter Scotch and Chocolate Barks.

Please check her recipes and step by step pics, after you have checked mine.... lol


See, as promised, another attempt at baking, not much baking here, but still, I had to switch on the oven, so, I guess, it counts, right? At least, I can pretend, I baked... oh my, oh my, I am in dream world, 2 bakings in one week, amazing Priya :)

Also, sending this to Choco-Delite's Event.

OK, let me stop my banter. That's all for now and take care till next post.

Dark Chocolate Brownie

Hello Friends,


I am sure you all know by now that I am a baking learner or may be even at a lower level, if there is one... lol


Anyways, this Holiday season, I planned to bake some things, at least try to bake. So, here is the first one in the series.

This recipe of Dark Chocolate Brownie caught my eye. It was just amazing. I had to try it out. I am not even going to try to re-write the recipe here. I used it word by word and it is worth 
visiting and checking their pic as well.


I am sending this to Champa's Friday Bake-off event. Also, sending this to Choco-Delite's Event.

So, welcoming holidays with these warm brownies with such a wonderful crush. Enjoy !!!


Take care till next post.

Pear and Chocolate Crumble - Sweet Punch for December

Hello Friends,


It is that time of the month again, don't go on tangents, I mean Sweet Punch. This month Divya picked a delicious wintery - warm dessert for baking. It was warm and it was chocolate, so I can say very much like my kind. 


Guys, so quickly qhip it up. It only takes about 10-15 min. of prep and then waiting for 30-40 min. So, sit back, relax and enjoy it on a cold day or night. You won't regret as I don't. 


Pear, Chocolate and Almond Crumble
Recipe Source - http://www.lochfyne.com/Recipes/Desserts/Pear-Crumble-with-Chocolate-Chunks-and-Hazelnuts

Ingredients

• 1kg (4-5) ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped into 1cm pieces
• 50g light brown soft sugar [ Can substitute with regular sugar]
• Grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
• 100g Swiss milk chocolate, roughly chopped

For the crumble:

• 100g plain flour [ You could substitute this with Whole wheat flour too]
• 50g butter, chilled and diced
• 50g light brown soft sugar
• 50g blanched almonds, lightly toasted in a dry pan and roughly chopped

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. Grease 6 ovenproof teacups or ramekins or a pie-dish.
• In a medium bowl, mix together the pears, brown sugar, lemon zest and juice, and half the chocolate. Divide the mixture between the teacups or ramekins, spooning over any juice. 
• To make the crumble, place the flour and butter in a medium bowl and, with your fingertips, rub together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, almonds and remaining chocolate. 
• Spoon the crumble over the pears and press down lightly. Place the crumbles on a baking tray and bake for 30-40 minutes until golden and bubbling. Serve with a scoop of good vanilla ice-cream.

Now, all I am waiting is to cook another batch and try some variations. I will be posting about them pretty soon :)

Take care and have fun till next post.

Molten Lava Cake - Sweet Punch for October !!!

Hello friends,

Molten Lava Cakes, ok, I have to admit that I cannot stop eating this one. I baked it last night and wanted to eat all just by myself. For a chocoholic like me, it was a challenge to save it for others too... lol 

If you have never had it, then you are surely missing on something and you have to try it out and if you have had it ever, then you know what I am talking about. 

I cannot thank Divya enough on choosing this sinful and mouth watering and lip smacking (I am running out of adjectives to describe it) recipe. Thanks Sweetheart !!!

Now, without further delay, here is the recipe.

Molten Lava Cake
Recipe source - showmethecurry.com

Ingredients

Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate – 4 oz (113g)
Butter – 4 oz (113g)
Eggs – 2
Sugar – 1/3 cup (75 g)
All-purpose Flour – 1/4 cup (40g)
Butter – for greasing ramekins

Preparation

1. In a double boiler, melt chocolate.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, beat Eggs and Sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Once chocolate is melted, remove pan from heat and add in butter. Mix until the butter melts fully.
4. Add chocolate/butter mixture into the eggs, add all-purpose flour and mix until well incorporated.
5. Butter bottom and sides of ramekins (small glass/porcelain bowls) and pour in mixture about 3/4 way full.
6. Place ramekins on a baking tray and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 C) for 10 – 15 minutes. Shorter for gooey (molten) inside, longer for stiff inside.
7. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

P.S - Some people find it gross to have cakes with uncooked centers[not me!!] and feel the lava is nothing but uncooked batter.I have a solution for that too--if you feel so too,just place a chocolate chunk in between--pour half the batter into the ramekin and place a chocolate chunk,and pour the remaining batter and cook for a longer time than mentioned.You could also place cold ganache in between,choices are numerous!!

That's all for now. Take care till next post.