Mini Orange Cupcakes with chocolate chips

9/07/2016 Nimi 0 Comments


Orange Cupcakes turned out well and I used some chocolate chips top it off with the rest of my batter. You can access the Orange cupcake recipe from this link. These cupcakes are delicious and you would love it.

You could bake in the muffin tins with small moulds or regular or silicon liners.




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Orange Cupcakes

9/04/2016 Nimi 0 Comments


Earlier I tried lemon cupcakes and they were delicious. You can find the recipe on my old blog. Click here to access it. I replicated that recipe with teeny change, I replaced lemon zest with Orange zest and Lemon juice with Orange Juice. I also used orange essence you could very well ignore it.
This recipe makes 12 delicious cupcakes, you could reduce or increase as you need. You may also top it off some pretty frosting to complete the look, I am yet to practice the icing techniques, my first experience wasn't great. But I am definitely going to try again when I get some quality time.
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1 t.spn
Baking Soda - 1 t.spn
Salt - 1/4 tspn
Softened Butter - 1/3 cup (75 gm)
Regular Sugar - 3/4 cup. If you prefer medium sweetness use 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2
Orange Extract - 1 t.spn
Vanilla Extract - 1 t.spn
Orange Zest - 1 tbl spn
Milk - 1/2 cup
Orange Juice - 2 t.spn

 Preparation:
Sift all dry ingredients beginning from Flour to salt and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl add butter and sugar. Mix well until it becomes light and fluffy. I used a hand mixer.

Add the eggs one by one while mixing. once it's incorporated well with mixture add Orange zest, vanilla extract and orange extract mix well.

Then add the dry ingredients in 3 parts and mix well. First add 1/3 of flour mixture and blend well, pour in 1/3 of milk & blend followed by 1 t.spn orange juice. Repeat the same procedure for rest of the flour.

Transfer to muffin tins with or without liners and bake for 15 - 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 180°C. The timing vary based on the type of oven and the quantity. I got mine baked in 17 minutes in convection (6 muffin tray). You could also bake in silicon liners.

Note:

- ensure all ingredients are at room temperate especially butter, egg and milk.
- Do not melt butter to liquid, simply microwave it for about 10 sec or place on a warm lid. 

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Chinese Greenbeans Stir fry with chicken

9/03/2016 Nimi 0 Comments



Chinese food has always been one of my favorite and there are several easy dishes which I tried and never tried chicken with green beans. I experimented this dish with several Chinese Sauces. You could leave out certain sauces if you do not have or do not like them. Most Chinese recipes would call for minced Garlic like Italian food. 

I used one chicken breast which would be more than sufficient for 2 servings. Cut through the breast so that you have two evenly cut breast we want the chicken pieces to be thin and slender. Refer to this page for assistance with cutting the breast. After that cut them length wise into small pieces. Click here for some ideas. Sorry I didn't take pictures of ingredients this time. 

Marinate chicken with some salt, lemon juice, soy sauce, pepper powder let it sit for 30 minutes. This dish is prepared in three easy steps. 

Step 1 : Cooking green beans. You could either use whole beans but I like to cut them into halves. Bring a pot of water to boil with little salt and oil . Remember this would be really boiling with bubbles. We need to cook beans in this water for couple of minutes, not longer. The beans would be crunchy to bite but not raw. Strain and run cold water over it. This will stop the cooking process. Set this aside.

Step 2: Stir fry chicken with Garlic. We would need few medium sized garlic pods about 8 - 10. Mince garlic (chop finely) and sprinkle corn starch over the chicken marinade and coat them well. 
Heat a large fry pan with 1 to 2 tb.sp oil (Oil of your choice) and stir fry the garlic for few seconds. Add chicken to it and fry them on both sides so that they are cooked. Do this in high heat chicken would change color and would brown slightly. You can sprinkle very little water only if required to prevent smoke.

Step 3: Preparing the sauce and putting everything together. I have used the following sauce.
- Soy Sauce - 2 tb.spn - I used light.
- Oyster Sauce - 1 tb.spn
- Chili Oil - 2 tb.spn
- Sweet chili sauce - 1 tb.spn
- Sesame oil - 1 t.spn
- Hoisin Sauce - 1 t.spn
- Sugar and Salt as needed.
- Some water

To prepare the sauce first heat regular cooking oil (about 1 tb.spn) with chili oil in a large pan or wok. Saute few minced garlic,Ginger julienne whole red chili. Ensure the chili is slit so the flavor gets incorporated with the dish. Do not brown them. 

Add all the sauces mix well. Add 1 tb.sugar and water as per gravy. Taste the seasoning , now you may add salt and more sugar if needed to balance the taste. Add chicken and beans, cover and simmer the heat, let them cook in this sauce for couple of minutes. You may add little water if needed.

Finally the sauce need to be thickened. Mix one t.spn corn starch with little water and add into the sauce little by little until the sauce reaches desired thickness. 

Garnish with roasted white sesame seeds. Serve hot with steamed rice. If you cook this as a dry dish this could be served as an appetizer as well.

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Banana Chocolate Cupcakes

9/03/2016 Nimi 0 Comments


Banana is a fruit filled with plenty of nutrients. Combining this with chocolate would only enhances the flavor and make these cupcakes delicious. I am not a chocolate lover hence reduced the sugar.

This recipe makes 12 muffins of normal size. I used the regular ripe green bananas available in India. These aren't large in size you could



Dry Ingredients:

Plain Flour - 1 cup
Regular Sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa Powder  - 3/4 cup
Baking Soda - 3/4 t.spn
Baking Powder - 3/4 t.spn
Salt - 1/4 t.spn


Wet Ingredients:

Ripe Banana - 2 - Mash well using a fork.
Oil - 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Milk - 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Water - 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Egg - 1
Vanilla Extract - 1 t.spn

Preparation:

Sift all dry ingredients, mix and set aside.
In a separate bowl beat egg and add other wet ingredients and whisk well.
Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients bowl and fold in gently. The batter would be of liquid consistency.
Pour into muffin tin or liners and bake for approx. 17 to 20 minutes. Oven should be preheated to 180 °C.

I got my muffins done at 18 minutes in convection. I baked in a muffin tray with 6 moulds. The baking time might vary slightly based on the type of oven.

This cupcake remains spongy even when refrigerated. 

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Orange Dates Muffins with yogurt

9/03/2016 Nimi 0 Comments


Recently I made lemon cupcakes and then tried orange ones, now with little alteration to the main ingredient yogurt instead of milk. You could also try making this with buttermilk instead of yogurt. Below ingredients make 12 large muffins. This is filled with nutrients as it contains wheat flour and dates.


Plain flour - 1 cup
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Firmly packed light brown sugar - 2/3 cup (140 gm)
Baking Soda - 1/2 t.spn
Baking Powder - 2 t.spn
Salt - 1/2 t.spn
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 t.spn
Dates chopped - 1/2 cup

Melted butter - 1/4 cup
Yogurt 1 cup
Egg - 1

Orange Zest - 1 tb.spn
Orange Extract - 1.tsp
Vanilla Extract - 1.tsp
Orange Juice - 1/3 cup (80 ml)

Preparation:

Mix all dry ingredients from first section and orange zest with hand and keep aside.
In another bowl beat egg, yogurt, butter and mix using a wire whisk or spatula. To this mixture add orange juice, and flavoring extracts.
Pour the wet ingredients to dry and fold everything together well gently.
Transfer to the muffin moulds or liners and bake at a preheated oven (180°C) for 16 to 20 minutes.

I got mine baked at 17 minutes in convection. Set the time to 17 minutes, check and increase the timing as per the results.

You may add any topping of your choice. I have used some chopped cashews.

While using yogurt ensure you use set thick curd and not the thin packet curd. Whisk the set curd with a whisk or in a blender so that the yogurt would be free of lumps, and it would be smooth.


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Fiery Baked Chicken with Indian Spices & Herb

9/02/2016 Nimi 0 Comments


Ever since I tried baking chicken with different combination of spices, I wanted to try and replicate KFC's fiery grilled chicken. I attempted to do it and the result was remarkable. Like the name say Fiery it's hot. You could alter the ingredients to your choice.



Step 1: Slit and Poke the chicken drumstick with a fort so it absorbs the flavors from the seasoning. Rub some salt, lemon juice all over and let this sit for atleast 15 minutes.

Step 2 : Preparing the seasoning for the drumsticks. I dry roasted some Indian spices and blended it with herbs. I used dried red chilies, Coriander seeds, Cumin seeds, Pepper corns. Blend this to a coarse powder.

Herbs - I used the combination of both fresh and dry herbs. For example 1/4 t.spn dried Rosemary and and about 1/2 t.spn finally chopped fresh rosemary. It's totally upto you. Ensure you don't over power it. You could use one herb or a mix of few. I used Rosemary, couple of basil and parsley.

Step 3: In a bowl mix the powdered spices, herbs, garlic powder ( 1 tspn), granulated chicken bouillon (1/2 tspn), onion powder 1/2 tspn (optional) and some olive or vegetable oil. Mix everything well.
Step 4: Marinate the chicken with the above mix using hand. Cover the container with cling film wrap or with lid and refrigerate for an hour or 2. You could also let it sit overnight.

Step 5: Baking time :)  bake on a preheated oven of 190°C for 40 to 50 minutes. You might want to turn the chicken after 30 minutes. I baked mine on a convection oven.

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