Our Sweet Connection

    Every family share a togetherness promise that is deep rooted in its every member. The love of parents, the camaraderie of siblings is one treasure to always cherish because you cannot find the same notes of understanding in another place. That’s why there is a place called home and home is where you forget all your worries, and only thing you remember is the smiles, the laughter, the happy times, the usual, the playful bickering, the trying-to-put-a-smile-thing, and the esprit de corps of doing everything together, that binds everyone even in some hard hours of life.

  
  
There is a family tradition of enjoying fruit at our place with layered leisure called fruit trifle. It belongs to my dad’s long list of favourite desserts . 

  
Everyone likes to make it, even once my bro put the finishing touches of layering cake, custard,(made by mom),and fruit and topping it with biscuit crumbs and grapes, and I remember it looked scrumptious. 

  
I began doing desserts with trifle, and each time i played among the layers to get varied results of sweet intermingled with tart every time I made it, but every time it tasted the same. I was so fed up sometimes that I started not liking it but contrary to my reasoning everyone used to say you have done something different and something distinctly delicious this time and it was a pleasant surprise.

  
Dunking into it, you have to keep guessing as you open the door and go down, every level has distinct taste story of sweetness indigenous to every fruit that you put into it. 

  
Whatever the fruit combinations and jelly flavour you use , the cake used as a base has to be a simple sponge or a Swiss roll. 

  
It’s easy to make as there are not many ingredients involved. Fresh homemade jam imparts a nice texture and flavour to this cake. 
Here Iam sharing the Swiss roll recipe quickly otherwise pending it will remove it from my random access memory and I’ll have to keep guessing.

Swiss Roll 

• 3 eggs separated
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• A pinch of salt

• 1/2 cup strawberry jam or any jam of your choice
• Caster sugar extra for rolling and dusting

Eggs should be at room temperature. Sieve dry ingredients three times.Separate whites in a bowl and beat with electric beater along with salt pinch till foamy. Add in sugar a teaspoon at a time and continue beating till it dissolves ( check the whites by rubbing between fingers, it shouldn’t be gritty). Drop in the yolks and essence one at a time and beat till combined. Now fold dry ingredients with flat spatula by soft hand. Add in 2 teaspoons of milk too while folding gently. Pour batter in Swiss roll tin or aluminium tray (14 inch by 11 inch size ) lined with paper and greased with oil and dusted with flour, distributing evenly with knife and bake at preheated 180 degree C for 12- 15 minutes till light brown and springy to touch. 

Warm the jam. Lay a damp kitchen napkin on counter , put a grease proof or simple paper over it and sprinkle generous helpings of caster sugar. Invert the hot cake sponge over it,carefully peel the paper on which it was baked. Spread with warm jam and roll it from the short side carefully avoiding the paper as you roll. Put it seam side down once rolled in its paper and napkin and let it cool. Afterwards remove it from napkin and paper and dust with icing sugar and serve as such with tea or coffee or use as base for your custard trifle.

  

Pie Pleasures of March

  In the midst of the changeover that happens always in this time of year, and later in last quarter of the year, is perfect for practicing your pie making skills. It’s neither too hot nor too cold so you can do away with it although some patience is required for someone who is doing it for first time. I usually think of trying my hand at making puff pastry at this time of year because it allows easy rolling out and handling of pastry so this post is pie plus pastry. 

  And this is the citrus season too, making the aura in a garden all so sweet scented and scenic with the beautiful blooms and juicy fruit if there happens to be a garden at your home. This orange tree belongs to my grandpa who loved to do gardening and he maintained a small green patch with so much care and that place beamed with delicious fruits like plump and juicy maroon plums, sweet honey hued apricots and tart oranges and grapefruit. There were many different variants of roses too.I still miss those plums and apricots and those memorable times. 

  
Coming back to the story of pastry and pie , the recipe of which Iam sharing is rough puff pastry, because of some rolling out method (French method of double fold which I shall explain some other time) and quantity of fat slightly more than half of quantity of flour( e.g if you are making pastry with 200g of flour then you will be using 150g of fat content for puff pastry , and for simple shortcrust pastry 100g of fat is enough for 200g of flour). I don’t have food processor so I made it by hand rubbing in method but you can use that for your convenience. This recipe makes enough pastry you can use it two times depending upon the size of your tart tins. I used this recipe to bake mini strawberry tartlets here and another fruit tart that will have to wait for another blog post. So the recipe goes like this: 

Rough Puff Pastry 

1. 325g all purpose flour
2. 150g unsalted or slightly salted butter
3. 35g or 2 1/2 tablespoons margarine 
4. A teaspoon of vanilla essence
5. Finely crushed orange rind of 1 orange
6. A teaspoon of lemon juice 
7. 2 tablespoons castor sugar
8. Pinch of salt
9. 3 to 4 tablespoons cold water 

Sieve the flour in a bowl. Stir in salt and sugar. Cut butter in small cubes and toss it in flour with margarine. Using knife in one hand and fork in other rub butter in flour till it resembles breadcrumbs. Add in essence, lemon juice and orange rind and stir to mix. Use water a tablespoon at a time to bring the dough together with hand. When using hand to mix dough, work quickly otherwise the heat of your hand will melt butter and that will result in pastry shrinking during baking ( which often happens with me). When a dough is formed wrap it in cling wrap and allow to rest in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Afterwards roll it out on a well floured counter top in a large rectangle . Now imagine a midline in centre of dough. Fold upper half towards that imaginary midline, then lower half towards that line, and fold on that midline. Wrap and chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Then put dough in front of you as a book having its spine on your right or give the dough quarter turn clockwise. Roll out again like previously. Rest . Remove dough from fridge and use. I cut half disc of dough at that time and rolled it out for tartlets.

   
 
Strawberry filling for Mini Tarts 

• 300g strawberries diced in small cubes
• 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 orange
• A tablespoon and a half of cornflour 

Put first four ingredients in a saucepan and leave for an hour till the fruit release its flavour. Add in cornflour and stir. Cook on low heat till thickened up till one boil only. Cool. 

  

Pour a teaspoon of filling in each tart case lined with dough , brush edges with egg wash ,cover with another piece of dough , press gently and prick the top with fork or cut into it decoratively, brush with egg wash. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for half an hour plus minus 10 minutes till top is golden brown.

   
 
I couldn’t resist for sake of good photo so I had it freshly baked out with tea. Simple pleasures.

   
   

Spring is for Strawberries

 Strictly speaking whenever I think of spring season, one thing that comes to my mind is ruby red strawberries. Like a change of weather which often sways between cold towards hot, bringing sparkling sunshine with random bouts of cool winds and unexpected showers and rain, this fruit with its bright hue and tangy flavour interspersed with sweet notes, brings a load of new ideas and inspiration to enjoy it fully. So I started with a simple fruit yogurt to a refreshing and revitalising smoothie and ended up making quick and healthy strawberry yogurt icecream. This recipe is for those days when I don’t want to spend more time in kitchen to enjoy a treat rather want to have it in a blink of an eye. Here is the recipe for you to enjoy while the fruit is in season.
 And the possibilities are endless of having it with fresh fruit as such, some white or dark chocolate chips or topping it of with caramel crunch or strawberry coulis or any syrup of your choice. You can omit the yogurt if you don’t like replacing it with more cream or half milk half cream but that version will be creamier. I like the hints of sourness that yogurt brings to this recipe.

 Strawberry Yogurt Icecream 

• 200ml cream
• 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup fresh yogurt 
• 20 to 25 big strawberries 
• 15 strawberries extra diced 
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar 

Put first four ingredients in blender and blend for two to three minutes till all is uniformly combined. Pour in plastic container, cover with lid and freeze for 4 hours or till half set. Break it apart by using electric beater or simply using fork and again freeze till half set. Meanwhile put the extra strawberries and sugar in a bowl for half an hour till they release their juices. Add these to the icecream that is half set. Give a gentle stir to mix and freeze completely for 6 hours or overnight. Take the icecream half an hour before serving to form good looking scoops ( I didn’t manage to form them 😉 but still it tasted delicious). Enjoy the easy dessert at home just the way you like it.