If you think I had forgotten you, you think wrong. Somehow life has been real busy and my laptop and hence the blog has not been able to get the time I usually have for it. But, I could not NOT post my last post for 2012.
2012 came with many firsts. I completed my first ever triathlon. The blog got its own domain name. I went gluten free for a month, raw for a week. Tried out several new recipes. Things changed for the better for two of my best friends. Travelled to New York, Allahabad, Taj Mahal and of course Delhi. Certain things became clearer, and I hope 2013 brings clarity in the other things that yet confuse me. 2012 was a year of ups and downs, but then that’s how life is and 2013 should also have its share- but here’s hoping the ups more than make up for the downs that come.
We had a gathering yesterday at my in-laws place for lunch. I had planned to make a warm apple cake and tiramisu for dessert, but since our train got delayed by 12 hours and I had managed to catch a cold during my trip, I dropped the original plan and adapted it to make tiramisu shots instead (recipe adapted from here).
Gajar ka halwa / gajrela or Carrot halwa is an indian dessert made from cooking carrots in milk, ghee, and sugar.
Edited December 2020, to add:
Come winters and the Delhi vegetable markets are full with the red carrots that are perfect to make gajar ka halwa or gajrela. Since the first time I made this gajar ka halwa, I have made a few recipe changes. I no longer use sugar, though that is the traditional way to go. Instead I use condensed milk. By using condensed milk, cooking the bhunoed carrots in the condensed milk helps me achieve that khoya like taste in the halwa. Slow cooking is the key for gajar ka halwa, and so is cooking the halwa well. Making gajar ka halwa is time consuming but thats when you get the nice caramelization in the carrots and maximum flavor.
Original Post from November 2012:
When Christianna had taken me into the Recipe Swap group (read more about the group here), one of the things she said in our initial correspondence was that she was excited to get an Indian perspective for the swap recipes. While all my swaps have not been with an Indian twist, I thought with the Indian festival season here, I would give this time’s recipe swap an Indian twist.
When I saw the swap recipe (for a carrot pie), my initial plan was to make this carrot souffle I saw in a magazine I had just bought. But then I am not much of a fan of pureed carrots. It reminds me of baby food, and even though the recipe sounded interesting, I wasn’t sure I would truly enjoy it.
So I thought of making something Indian. Now, I am not a big fan of Indian sweets. I like them but most of them I find too sweet. If I want something sweet I generally prefer a baked good over the traditional sweets. Though I don’t mind a piece of gulab jamun, or hot atte ka halwa now and then. And sometimes gajar ka halwa too makes the privileged list.
Gajar ka halwa (or Indian carrot pudding) is a dessert of creamy, thickened milk with softened carrots contrasting with the added crunch of nuts. Milk and grated carrots are cooked until they become a dryish homogeneous mass, and then cooked with a little clarified butter (or ghee) and sugar and subtly flavored with cardamom powder and sometimes saffron strands to make absolute deliciousness.
I am a day late posting this, but the important part is I am posting it.
This month, for the Daring Bakers’, Suz of Serenely Full challenged us to make mille feuilles.
Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!
‘Mille-feuille’ is French for ‘a thousand leaves’ (or ‘layers’), which is very apt, as it contains both layers of puff pastry (usually three) and layers within each pastry sheet. It can be filled with layers of jam; mainly raspberry, whipped cream or cheese, and usually topped with powdered sugar, or fondant. It is then usually decorated or garnished with a coat of fondant, with chocolate strings made into a design. It may even contain a filling of pastry cream, as per our challenge recipe.
The challenge required us to make puffy pastry from scratch. Now, I am not a novice to puff pastry- having made it before. Check out my Puff Pastry 101 post here. But I have never tried to make or eaten mille feuilles. So it was something new.
Making puff pastry (or pâte feuilletée) basically involves a simple pastry dough, which is folded around sheet of butter (the beurrage). You then roll out your butter pastry package, fold it, roll it out, fold it, etc. – creating seams of butter that will puff up into distinct crispy layers when baked.
