7 cups burfi: my mum's recipe | Kukskitchen

Happy festive day which ever one you are celebrating today.

Happy Makara Sankranthi to my South Indian Hindu friends.

Happy Makar Sankranti to my North Indian Hindu friends.

Happy Pongal to my tamil friends.

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My mum used to make these lovelys when we were young. She had a funny story to go with it. We would so laugh our heads off each time we hear her tell the tale. You readers would definitely love it.

Here it goes.......

My mum started her career as a teacher. One of her colleagues wanted to make an easy sweet and my mum gives her the recipe that is given below. You would know when you read it, it says stir until the mixture starts to come off the sides of the pan. Now the next day this teacher tells my mom, over lunch, how her sweet never 'came off the sides'. Each of her colleagues in the teachers room started asking about various ingredients and the few steps in the recipe to find out what went wrong. It was then that on of the more cheeky teachers asked the above said teacher whether she had the flame on, as a joke. Can you guess what she said........ 'You never said to turn the gas stove on!' ..... I know!.... Anyway,I do not remember which of her fellow teachers it was and even if I knew I would not get that dirty laundry out :).

So, where ever you are.... aunty you are incredible..... നമിച്ചു .

Gulab Jamun {recipe no 2} using khoya(mawa) | Kukskitchen

Hi folks,

Yes I have gotten over my gulab jamun tragedy and am trying a new recipe this time. This recipe uses fresh home made khoya which does make a lot of difference. I found this cheats-way of making home made khoya in Khana pakana. I have included the recipe for it below.

Cream cheese pound cake : the softest and moistest cake I have ever made | Kukskitchen

While searching for a cake base for my son's second birthday football cake, I was quick to decide a simple yet delicious cream cheese pound cake would be the winner. Also it would be lighter in texture since my other cake was a rich red velvet cake. I used cream cheese frosting with a touch of green and laid down the grass on the football ground using the grass tip. The goal post and players are plastic and shop bought.

Red velvet football cake | Kukskitchen

When I decided to do my month of cakes I knew instantly which cake would make the grand finale at the end of the month - the red velvet football cake. I made this for my dear dear son's fourth birthday when we invited his school and other friends over to a soft play centre. We had loads of fun that day. It was a football themed party - surprise! surprise!  The kids had a gala time with the care taker turned football coach 'training the young beckhams' how to score goals.

Chocolate and banana cake | Kukskitchen

Last few days pf school year is fun-packed and involves a lot of yummy food. I was very quick in offering to bake for every occasion possible in my little one's school: be it his last day party or garden picnic. I ended up making a chocolate and banana cake for one of them and used the recipe to make muffins for the garden picnic along with black forest berry and whit chocolate muffins. They went down well.

Black forest berries and white chocolate muffins | Kukskitchen

It was a friend at work's birthday and what better gift than a box of yummy muffins. She absolutely loved the soft and moist black forest berries and white chocolate muffins I made for her. And she deserved only the best.

They are more a big-girl's-muffins. If preferred, add frozen Blueberries, Blackberries or mixed berries instead of black forest berries. Buttermilk gives the muffins a lovely light texture. While making them please make sure the berries are frozen when added to the muffin mixture. so they dont go all runny.

Mini strawberry cheese cake in a shot glass | Kukskitchen

A perfect dinner party dessert. Wow ur guests with ur presentation and then win them with the amazing taste of creamy strawberry creme.

Gulab Jamun {recipe no 1} using milk powder: An indian sweet fit for the kings | Kukskitchen

SNC#2- North Team challenge- Gulab Jamun

Divya Pramil of You too can cook Indian Food is the brain behind SNC challenge - recipe exchange where two teams challenge each other with their authentic recipes. The teams get a month’s time to prepare the recipe and post on their spaces. This is the 2nd event of the series and this November months challenge was posted by Pallavi (Northern team) and Yasodha ( South team)

A bit about Gulab Jamun 

The history says that Gulab jamun originates from an Arabic dessert called Luqmat Al-Qadi and became popular during the Mughal era.

In Nepal it is widely known as Lalmohan,The Persian word Gulab (गुलाब) means rose, as rosewater syrup is often used, although saffron syrup and honey are also common.

Jamun may refer to the jambul fruit, which is usually of a similar size to pieces of the dessert. There are various claims regarding the originator of the dish, with some saying a Sikh chef named Sajjan Dhillon first prepared it as a delicacy for the king of Jalalabad. The dessert also became popular throughout the Ottoman Empire.

Mambazha pulisseri : Mango - coconut - yogurt savoury mousse | Kukskitchen

My dear friend A from med college was asking for a veg- kid friendly recipe and I instantly thought about the below recipe which was resting in kukskitchen's drafts. 

My son luvs everything sweet: spicy chicken with honey, dosa - appam etc with sugar, pancakes with golden syrup and the list goes on.

Healthy no ghee microwave kheer : Thattikkuttu payassam : featuring rice Kukskitchen

Yes another thattikkuttu recipe. :-)

My son wanted a payassam and I was too lazy to do it the hob method. Microwave was the way forward. :-) And the result is.........

Boiling milk in a microwave is always scary; one tiny minute more than needed and u end up having to clean up the whole oven. I kept on looking thru the glass window every other minute. Well, now I know the time needed for the perfect taste, still leaving my microwave clean :-)

Bread caramel pudding: Dinner party special | Kukskitchen

Puddings are a vital element to a dinner party success. Here is a quick and easy yet tasty pudding with a presentation enough to wow ur guests.

A few things before you start:

-If the caramel syrup becomes too hard, heat it with 1/4 cup of water and it will turn syrupy again.
-Take care not to add hot caramel syrup to the egg-milk mix, or else u will end up with scrambled egg.
- While the bread pieces are soaking the juices, use ur fingers to gently press them down.

Heavenly sweet coconut balls | Kukskitchen

Sweets!! my favourite food, to make or to eat. They r so quick to prepare, well most of them, and sooooo yummylicious  too. With Diwali around the corner, kukskitchen tried a few of them too. There is an interesting story to share about one of them, let me leave that till I post its recipe ;-) It was sooo embarassing!

Anyways, anything to do with coconut and I get excited, yes me the Keralan wakes up again. One night I had the erge to eat some thing sweet and, as it always happens on such occasions, there was nothing sweet in the house, well, except for sugar and honey. I was so desperate for a sweet and it was past 10 at night already, and we were watching X-factor. My mind got to work, something very quick to make, with the ingredients I already have stock in house. Something that I can prepare during the ad break!

Carrot halwa | Gajar-ka-halwa : using pressure cooker, hob or microwave oven | Kukskitchen

'Maa ke haath ka bana Gajar ka halwa'  features a lot in hindi movies of yester-years. As a child I always drooled on hearing this dialogue. It was only when I grew up that I started making carrot halwa and after marriage, esp after moving to UK, because of the ease of getting ingredients for this sweet in this 'foreign' land :-), carrot halwa featured a lot in my kitchen.

The pictures were taken a while ago, before I started blogging. Apologies for the solo picture.  

I post this recipe here today on request by my friend C. Here's to u C and my dear dear friend N who also shares my passion to food and cooking. Cheers!

American pancakes - featuring banana & honey | Kukskitchen

A quick-fix yet yummy breakfast? Here is an answer- banana pancakes. Your kids would luv it and it is for grown-ups too.

Pineapple sago payassam /sabudana | Kukskitchen

Pineapple sago payasam by aunty L and chocolate brownies by aunty P were the star attractions of 'mathrujyothis' sunday sale in Nirmala Bhavan church on of the yester years, this was before my med school days. If you are wondering what is mathrujyothis, I will tell u. It is a church and diocese linked organisation by the mums in church through which the church did many charitable works. The sunday sale was a yearly event when each mum would make something, food or otherwise, and sell it, with the profit to go to the above said charitable activities.

Recently I started craving for the 'famous' pineapple sago payasam. I did whip up mango-sago pudding with mango pulp a while ago but it was no where near the payasam I had in mind. I will post the recipe another day.

Presented here is my version of pineapple-sago payasam.  It tasted yummm.

Ultimate chocolate cream cheese cookies | Kukskitchen

This is my first month and first entry on the Baking Partners challenge. Baking partners is a group created and run by Swathi of Zest south indian kitchen. There were three recipes for cookies and I chose ultimate chocolate cream cheese cookies.

Recipe by Tina of pinay cooking corner

Ultimate Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups (255g) all purpose flour

¼ cup (32g) unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. (8g) baking soda
½ tsp. (3g) salt
2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, softened slightly
4 oz (113g) Cream Cheese at room temperature
1 cup (201g) granulated sugar
½ cup (110g) dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp. (30ml) heavy cream
1 tsp. (5ml) pure vanilla extract
3 oz. (85g) bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
8 oz. (225g) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pulisseri without coconut - featuring marrow - Ammachi's pulissery

"Oru nalla pulisseri undengil pinne kari onnum venda". I have heard  ammachi say that a million times. Her speciality was kaya (plaintain) pulisseri though. I didnt get the raw plantain, instead I thought of making use of an English vegetable - Marrow. I tastes superb and eating it u feel like marrow should have been a keralan vegetable.

There are many varieties of pulisseri each with its own recipe. Presented is the easiest and quickest of them all. 

Utthappam - featuring semolina, plain flour & yogurt

If you are looking for a quick breakfast recipe, here is one of the quickest of them all.

I saw this recipe in Food Mazaa hosted by Shobha. I made no major changes to it.

Ingredients:

1 - Semolina - 1/2 cup
     Plain flour - 1/2 cup
     Yogurt - 1/2 cup
     Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup finely chopped
     Salt to taste

2 - Onion - 1 finely chopped

3 - Mustard seeds - 1 tsp.
     Dry red chillies - 2
    Asafoetida - a pinch
    Curry leaves - 5-6
    Turmeric - a pinch

Method:

- Mix (1) adding a little water to make a thick batter. Add salt and coriander leaves.

- Heat oil in a pan, fry (3) and add the chopped onion.Stir fry for a minute.- Add a pinch of turmeric powder in the end and mix this into the batter.
- Spread a ladle of mixture on the griddle, cover with a lid. After 1-2 minutes turn it over and cook for another 1-2 minutes.
- Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Black forest cake | Keralan cake | Kukskitchen

A piece of the soft black forest cake is one that no one can resist. In the city where I was born and brought up in, there was a bakery/ bakers called M. They made the softest black forest cakes ever and their cake for christmas or birthday was such a pleasure to have, one had to pre-order as such was it's popularity. Not sure if the bakers still exist or if they make their world-famous-in-the capital city-cakes any more.


Presented is my take on the classic which gives best results each time.


The base for my black forest cake is 'devil's food cake'. Now, where I got this recipe! Got it from a book I borrowed from my first supervising consultant Dr JF at my first job. It was a small cooking booklet of 'Vanitha', a fortnightly malayalam magazine in India. :) It tasted like the black forest cake I tasted from M. Made a few changes and added a frosting and here is the result.

Chocolate pudding featuring condensed milk and cream | Kukskitchen

Who doesn't know 'Magic oven' and its pretty and confident host Lekshmi Nair. I am a huge fan. Haven't managed to acquire her cookbooks yet, but managed to photocopy one from one of my friends who owned it. This recipe was telecasted in her tv show and my lovely sis-in-law R got the recipe for me.