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Pumpkin Kulfi

Madhuram — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:23:17 +0000

I got the idea for pumpkin kulfi last year itself while I hosted AFAM-Pumpkin. I did try it but with canned pumpkin puree and the taste was not good. So I just abandoned the idea. Sometime back I saw Jyoti’s Mango-Passion Fruit Kulfi and was impressed so much by the picture of the cute kulfi that it inspired me to give my pumpkin kulfi idea another shot. I’m glad I tried it once again because it was extremely good. Thanks Jyoti.

The preparation of this kulfi is very simple. Quite similar to the pumpkin kheer I have posted before. Instead of using plain milk, for the kulfis I have used evaporated milk and condensed milk to give that extra richness and creaminess.

Ingredients

Pumpkin Puree 1 and 1/2 cups

Evaporated Milk (partly skimmed) 1 tin (1 and 1/2 cups)

Sweetened Condensed Milk (low fat) 1 tin (300 ml)

MTR Badam Feast 3 tablespoons

Saffron a couple strands

Cardamom Powder 1/4 teaspoon

Slivered Almond as needed

Chopped Pistachios as needed

Salt a pinch

Yield: 12 muffin size cups

Procedure1 Peel a piece of pumpkin (like the ones you can get in Indian grocery stores) and chop it into cubes. Cook it using a pressure cooker (add water just enough to cover the pumpkin pieces and leave it for 1 whistle or in a microwave oven. Drain the water and blend the cooked pieces into a smooth puree when it is cool enough. Measure 1 and 1/2 cups of this puree. (Check My Notes for store bought pumpkin puree).

2 Empty the entire tin of evaporated milk in a medium size sauce pan. Heat it on low-medium. Once the skin starts forming in the milk; add the pumpkin puree and mix it well. Heat this mixture for another 7-8 minutes. Do not be tempted to increase the heat because chances are that the milk will get burnt and will stick to the bottom of the vessel giving an unpleasant taste later.

3 Add a tin of condensed milk and the MTR powder to the above and let this mixture remain on stove for another 5 minutes. This should also be done on low heat. Remove the pan from heat.

4 In a small cup add the saffron strands and couple drops of the hot milk; leave it for a while. After 2-3 minutes, dissolve the saffron in the milk with the tip of your fingers. Add this to the pumpkin mixture.

5 Now add the cardamom powder, salt and nuts and mix well; let it cool completely. You can drink this as kheer/payasam or you can freeze it as kulfis. If you decide to drink it, I would suggest adding some more milk because the kheer will be very sweet.

6 Once it is cold, pour the mixture in the molds and freeze it. I froze it overnight but 7-8 hours should be enough I guess.

7 To serve it you can either dip it in hot water for just a few seconds so unmolding will be easy. (I got this idea from Jyoti). If you prefer eating straight from the cup, then remove the cup from the freezer and put it in the fridge 10-12 minutes before serving and it reaches the perfect ice cream texture.

Taste The taste is unbelievably good and nobody can guess that it has generous quantity of pumpkin in it. Just make sure that you leave it at room temperature or in the fridge 10 minutes before serving so that it has the right texture; neither hard nor too soft. I think I will reduce the quantity of condensed milk the next time around. 3/4th of the tin instead of the entire tin. If you have a very sweet tooth then go ahead and use it fully.

My Notes1 I tried to make the pumpkin kheer using canned pumpkin puree, but the milk curdled once I added the puree to the hot milk. So I tried this kulfi recipe without heating the milk; but somehow it did not taste good or may be I did not like it. I feel that the store bought puree has an unpleasant odor. The pumpkin puree prepared at home does not have this smell, moreover we cook it the second time in the milk to ward off any raw smell. So try your luck with the canned pumpkin and let me know how it goes.

2 Instead of evaporated milk you can use about 3 cups of regular milk but boil it until it reduces to about 1 and 1/2 cups.

3 I used the Dole fruit cups as kulfi molds. This fits inside the muffin pan perfectly, so moving it to the freezer and handling is easier. So place one cup in each muffin tin and fill it with the kheer. Close it with another baking sheet to avoid freezer burns. If you don’t have a muffin tin, arrange the cups on a tray/baking sheet, fill it and close it with another tray.

4 MTR Badam Feast is available in Indian grocery stores. It’s nothing but a mix of powdered almonds, sugar, cardamom, saffron and milk solids. It’s added with warm/cold milk to make almond drink. This mix is available in other brands too. If you don’t get it, that’s okay. Simply add some more saffron and cardamom powder.

No Bake Almond Butter and Oats Cookies

Madhuram — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:28:52 +0000

Thanks a lot everybody for the anniversary wishes. We went to a temple in the evening, had dinner in a very famous South Indian vegetarian restaurant. The food was okay and I was definitely missing the restaurant we used to go regularly in US. I miss a couple of other things too here. Phone companies here don’t have the free calls to US plan (we had free calls to Canada back in US). The other day I wanted chocolate flavored graham crackers to bake something and couldn’t find it in 4 stores. Really! Finding graham crackers should not be this difficult! They had the honey flavored ones. And what’s with the mosquitoes? But I have to agree that we have access to other cool things/facilities which was not available in US. For example, doctor visits and couple other medical expenses are covered by the government itself. So no co-pay each time you visit a doctor. (But the income tax rate is very high, especially if you are single. Once you are married and have dependents the rate goes down.) Very good public transit system. People here feel that it’s not good enough but for me it’s excellent because we didn’t have that facility back in US. The most important thing I feel that people here are very warm and friendly. So I guess we can’t have it all!

I’m still not in the mood to bake/blog but my DH is constantly nagging me to start blogging regularly. So I once again went back to the Eagle brand book for a simple “no-bake” recipe. Found a recipe for peanut butter drops made with peanut butter, chopped peanuts, condensed milk and quick cooking oats. I made something similar a year back and remembered that my son did not like it. So I substituted peanuts with almonds and peanut butter and almond butter. And guess what? my son can’t stop eating them. It takes only 10-15 minutes to prepare this but it is unbelievably delicious.

Ingredients

Butter or Margarine 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Unsweetened Cocoa 1/3 cup

Quick Cooking Oats 2 and 1/2 cups

Sweetened Condensed Milk 1 can (14 oz/300 ml)

Chopped Almonds 1 cup

Almond Butter 1/2 cup

Yield: Approximately 5 dozen

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. From left: Almonds, oats, condensed milk, almond butter, cocoa and butter

2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.

3. Stir in cocoa powder to the melted butter.

4. Mix both cocoa powder and butter using a whisk. Bring mixture to a boil.

5. Remove from heat. Add oats.

6. Add the can of condensed milk.

7. Add the chopped almonds.

8. Add the almond butter.

9. Line 2 baking sheets with a wax paper. I sprayed a half tablespoon with non stick cooking spray, scooped out the mixture and dropped onto the baking sheets. Chill 2 hours or until set. Store loosely covered in refrigerator.

10. You can either leave it as it is or shape them into balls. After about 30 minutes in the fridge, the mixture will be in the right texture to shape it. Put it back in the refrigerator for another 2 hours or until it firms up.

My Notes Add your choice of nut butter and chopped nuts. You can also go for fat free condensed milk.

No Bake Fudgy Brownies

Madhuram — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:38:07 +0000

Hi everybody! Thank you very much for all your good wishes and blessings, our move has been smooth but for a couple of minor set-backs, which is definitely expected in any relocation be it local or international. We have not yet settled completely (a lot of boxes are still lying around untouched!)

Tomorrow being our wedding anniversary, I wanted to make something new but also simple. Found a recipe for “no-bake” brownies in a Eagle Brand (Condensed Milk) book. It took only 15 minutes to put together this awesome brownie. I didn’t want to wait another 15-20 days to share this fantastic recipe with all of you. So here it is! These no bake brownies are very fudgy and taste exactly like the regular version, but I have to agree that it was a bit messy cutting them into squares. More details in the My Notes section.

Ingredients

Sweetened Condensed Milk 1 (14oz/300ml) can

Unsweetened Chocolate, chopped 2 squares (1 oz each)

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Chocolate Cookie Crumbs (I used the Oreo baking crumbs) 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons

Mini M&M’s/Color sprinkles/Nuts 1/4 cup

Yield: 16 brownies

Procedure1 Grease 8-inch square baking pan or line with foil.

2 In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the sweetened milk and chocolate; cook and stir just until boiling. Reduce heat; cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until mixture thickens.

3 Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

4 Stir in 2 cups of cookie crumbs. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs and sprinkles or nuts; press down gently with a spatula.

5 Cover and chill 4 hours or until firm. Cut into squares. Store covered in refrigerator.

My Notes1 The original recipe mentioned either greasing the pan or lining it with aluminum foil, so I went with the latter thinking it would make it easy to handle. I guess I should have even greased the foil lightly to lift the squares easily because the brownies were sticking to the foil and it was difficult (but manageable) to take it out. I think using wax paper instead of aluminum foil would have been a better option.

Also using color sprinkles was a very bad idea because everything was falling down. Either I did not press it down properly before putting it in the fridge or I should have used mini M&M’s (my kitchen would have been less messy) as given in the recipe or should have used the sprinkles after cutting the brownies into squares.

2 If you are not able to find ready to use cookie crumbs, I think using powdered graham crackers (chocolate flavor) will also be good.

3 I prepared it in the night before going to bed and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

Updates: The brownies tend to stick to the surface, so even while storing them in the fridge keep it on a wax paper. When eaten straight from the fridge the brownies tend to be hard so take the brownies out of the fridge about 5-10 minutes before serving and it has the exact texture of baked brownies.

Eggless Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies using Condensed Milk

Madhuram — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:12:01 +0000

Early yesterday morning I started my baking expedition. First I started with the Eggless Coconut Macaroon recipe. One of my friends wanted a substitute for coconuts. I thought that carrots might work out and tried the exact same recipe with grated carrots instead. What was I thinking? Not all light bulb flashes are as good as this one or this one. Fortunately I test baked only 4 or 5. The carrots were not cooked and had a raw smell and I did not have the patience to bake it further. So I abandoned it halfway. Now what to do with the rest of the batter? Recently in a magazine I came across a recipe for Carrot Appams (deep fried dumplings). Already this batter had all purpose flour, carrots and condensed milk, so I asked my mother to tweak it a little and prepare appams, which by the way tasted so much better than my carrot macaroons.

With a beautiful climate and abundant sunshine, I did not want to waste the day, when my husband and myself always complaint that we don’t have enough sunlight to take good pictures. So I decided to try another recipe inspite of the “not-so-good-result” in the morning. This time I did not want to experiment anything on my own, so went with a recipe from the book “Cookies” by Pippa Cuthbert and Lindsay Cameron Wilson.

The condensed milk chocolate chip cookies is the first recipe in the book and is also egg less, so I did’nt have to modify anything at all. Good for me! As always I test baked 3 cookies first and was waiting eagerly to see how it turns out. As I have not used all purpose flour alone as mentioned in the recipe, I was not able to check for the golden brown color, to take it out from the oven. I checked the cookies after 17 minutes and it felt right. When I touched it in the middle, it did look like it was not baked, but once I left it in the baking sheet itself for 5 minutes, it became hard. It had the proper shape, thickness and looked like store bought cookies. It tasted amazingly delicious. Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, but little sweet for our taste. I think the sweetness was because of the white chocolate chips I used. I can’t wait to try the original recipe (with all purpose flour and semi sweet chocolate chips) to taste the traditional chocolate chip cookies, but egg less.

Ingredients

Butter, softened – 2 sticks (I used Smart Balance 50/50 Blend)

Granulated Sugar – 1/2 cup

Sweetened Condensed Milk – 1/2 cup (I used Eagle Brand Fat Free Milk)

Vanilla Extract – 1/2 teaspoon (Not mentioned in the original recipe, but I included it)

All Purpose Flour – 2.25 cup (See My Notes)

Baking Powder – 1 teaspoon

Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips/chunks – 1.75 cups

Nuts – Optional (I used chopped walnuts for 1 batch)

Yield: 43 cookies

Step-By-Step Procedure
(Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
2. Grease baking sheets or line it with parchment paper.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and creamy (for 5 minutes).
4. Pour in the condensed milk, vanilla extract and beat to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder and combine well.
6. Stir into the butter mixture, then add the chocolate chips, nuts (if using).
7. Combine it well using a spatula. Don’t beat it.
8. Take a tablespoonful of dough, roll it and flatten it using your fingers. Grease the tablespoon, so that the dough will fall off easily.
9. Bake it for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. (The color check can be done if using all purpose flour only. Mine were done at 17 minutes).
10. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes in the baking sheet itself. Don’t try to remove it. It may look unbaked but it will become hard on the baking sheet itself.
11. After 5-10 minutes, using a spatula transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

My Notes 1. I had only white chocolate chips in my pantry. White chocolate chips with all purpose flour, will have a pale look, so to give a contrast in color, I mixed 1/4 cup of baking cocoa (Dorste) to 2 cups of all purpose flour, not changing the 2.25 cups of flour mentioned in the original recipe. So if you have semi-sweet chocolate chips, you can just use all purpose flour alone to bake the usual chocolate chip cookies.

2. The cookies were very sweet. I would suggest reducing the chocolate chips to 1.25 cups and add some chopped nuts or quick cooking oats instead.

3. If you are using a dark (black) color non stick baking sheet, reduce the baking time by 1 or 2 minutes, so that the bottom does not get burnt.

4. The cookies were crispy, not chewy. So if you want a chewy chocolate chip cookie, I think decreasing the quantity of butter or increasing the all purpose flour would be helpful.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Easy Basundi or Paneer Payasam

Madhuram — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:14:08 +0000

I came across the recipe for Paneer Kheer/Paneer Payasam in a Tamil Magazine. The original recipe required for pressure cooking paneer, so I modified it. It was a hit with my husband the first time itself, in spite of the fact that he is not a big fan of paneer. The kheer tasted like Basundhi, because of the the grated paneer. So I modified my recipe again, by increasing the quantity of paneer so that it would have the exact texture of Basundi. This is my mother-in-law’s favorite too, so she asked me to make this for Ugadi. This time I made another modification, I used Evaporated Milk instead of regular milk. Wow! It was the best ever.

Ingredients:
1. Evaporated Milk – 2 cans (I used 1 can of whole milk and another can of 2% milk. You can use regular milk also, around 5 cups, whole milk preferably)
2. Paneer – I used 3/4th of a 400 gm pack. (If you want basundhi like texture you need 3/4ths or else change it according to your taste)
3. Sweetened Milk – 1/2 can (or as per your taste)
4. Sugar – couple teaspoons to mix it with the grated paneer.
5. MTR Badam (Almond) Mix – This is optional. (updated: a couple of teaspoons is enough) The original recipe only called for sugar to be mixed with the paneer, I thought mixing the badam mix would give a rich flavor. If you don’t have that in hand you can always use saffron strands and the other regular garnishing and flavoring like cardamom powder, pistachios etc.

Procedure:
1. Grate 200 gm of paneer (half of the pack), add sugar and the Badam powder and mix everything thoroughly.
2. In a heavy bottomed vessel (this one is very important) add both the cans of milk and let it boil. The color of evaporated milk was so good, I strongly feel that Pal (Milk) Payasam would taste excellent if made with evaporated milk instead of regular milk.
3. Once it starts boiling add half the can of sweetened condensed milk and let it boil.
4. After a couple of minutes add the grated paneer and let it cook together with the milk. After sometime the paneer would have dissolved, not entirely though. You can either stop at this stage for paneer kheer or continue to take it to the next level.
5. If you decide to go with basundhi, grate the remaining paneer (depending upon how much you want or the texture you want. I used another 1/4th) directly into the vessel and let it simmer for just 3-5 minutes. Switch off the heat and it will thicken by itself and it will have the exact texture of basundhi and will taste exactly like basundhi. I had the pistachios and almond mixture I prepared for baklava, so I mixed that one too. Needless to say it was very very very delicious!

Update:
If you decide to make basundi, you can add 3/4ths of the paneer straight away while the condensed milk mixture is boiling. I asked my friend to try this method and she told me that it came out very well. Keep it on the stove for another 3-5 minutes and turn it off. The kheer will start to thicken and you will get the basundi texture.