Clafoutis

This is a french custard pie, generally made with Cherries. I have adapted the original recipe to use a punnet of Blueberries I had in the fridge. I also substituted cream with whole milk, so I suppose that makes this dishy dessert a little less sinful!

Ingredients:

Blueberries - 1 punnet or 300 gms
Eggs - 3
Whole Milk - 1 cup
Self raising flour - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Butter - 1 tsp
Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method:

Heat oven to 180 degrees C.

In a mixer, add all ingredients except blueberries and the icing sugar and 1 tbsp sugar. Blitz well to form a smooth batter.

Butter a oven proof 9 inch pie dish, add half the blueberries and sprinkle 1 tbsp of sugar over the berries. Pour half the batter over the berries and bake for 10 minutes.

After ten minutes, sprinkle the other half of the berries and pour the leftover batter.

Bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the Clafoutis is puffed up and a little brown on the surface.

You can serve this warm on its own or with icing sugar dusted when cooled. This sits well for a day in fridge and tastes great cold as a thick set custard slice jammed with fruit.

Sheer Khurma (Vermicelli Pudding)

This one is a traditional dessert made on Eid and the recipe was handed to me by my good friend Naush during my last visit to Perth. I tried this recently and was quite pleased with the result. This dessert is super easy to make and went down a treat with the family. I used full fat milk which gives it a wholesome creamy texture but you can use skimmed milk if you prefer.

Ingredients:
Vermicelli    - 50 gms
Milk full fat  - 1 Litre
Sugar          - 4 tbsp
almond slivers - 1tbsp (optional)
Cardamom     -  1 pod (optional)
Oil/Butter       - 1tbsp

Method:
Heat oil/butter in the pan and add the almond slivers and the vermicelli. Fry until the vermicelli is light brown on a medium flame. Keep this aside.
Add  crushed cardamom pod with seeds to the milk and bring the milk to a boil in a deep pan. Reduce the milk to half its original quantity, stirring continuously. Add sugar, fried vermicelli and the almond slivers to the milk. Cook on a low flame for another ten minutes stirring the vermicelli in the milk.

Serve warm or cold.

New York baked Cheesecake

I have tried and tested many recipes for baked cheesecake and this is one of the best so far. This is a recipe from the BBC website and the result was an awesomely delicious baked cheesecake! I tweaked it a bit and here's my take on the recipe. The original recipe required 3 packs of cream cheese to fill a 25 cm cake tin. I used 1 packet of cream cheese to fill an 8 inch springform cake tin. Also I reduced the amount of eggs and sugar.

Here's how I made it:

Biscuit base:

15 digestive biscuits
3 tablespoons melted butter

I blitzed the digestive biscuits and the melted butter in a food processor until the mixture resembled sand. Then I pressed this biscuit mix evenly onto an 8 inch spring
form cake tin, taking the mixture to coat the edges of the pan as well.

I baked the base at 180 degrees Celsius for ten minutes in a pre-heated oven.

The filling:

1 pack Philadelphia cream cheese (250 gms)
1 cup Sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon juice

I blitzed all the above ingredients for the filling together in a food processor until smooth, taking care not to over blitz the mix. I poured the mix onto the biscuit base and baked this in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes until the sides were cooked and the cake wobbled a bit in the middle upon shaking the tin.

Topping:

1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the sour cream, sugar and vanilla extract well and pour over the baked cake. I chilled the cake overnight to allow the cheesecake to set well and the ingredients and flavors to meld together. I was not disappointed at all with the end result. As far as I'm concerned, this recipe is a keeper :)

Chocolate Bombs

This was a joint venture with my eight year old daughter. There were two caramel cupcakes, some crushed biscuits which no one wanted to reach out for. Following the adage "waste not, want not" I crushed the cupcakes and the biscuits in a food processor with 2 tablespoons of cream and 2 tablespoons cocoa powder.  rolled with dessicated coconut and viola! a yummy dessert was ready in a jiffy.

Before:

During: This is what the biscuits and cupcakes looked like after a blitz in the food processor, with cream and cocoa powder.

My little daughter helped me roll the chocolate bombs, made my day when she said "mum, I enjoy cooking with you" :-))

Perfect little Choc Bombs........

Fruits of labor..............

We discovered that the chocolate bombs tasted better after keeping them in the fridge for a couple of hours.

These were simply divine, shared some with a friend, devoured a few after dinner and saved two for my little helper's lunch box to take to school tomorrow :-))