Eggless Racing Car Track Cake

Made this cake for my son's 8th birthday. Isn't this an apt cake for boy's 8th birthday??? My son asked me for a racing track cake, after a little google search for the shapes I came up with this. I could make my son and the guests happy with lovely cake.

Rice Cakes with Nutella and Banana- Kids Recipes

Nutella is becoming kid's most favourite thing these days. They are asking me to make Nutella Rice cakes, Nutella Sandwiches, Nutella bread sticks, Nutella popsicles the list is endless. They want everything with Nutella. Here is one of those easy peesy crunchy snack for the them. 

4 Layer Rainbow Cake - Eggless

Finally!!!! Finally made this rainbow cake. This cake is a great idea for birthdays or any other parties. I call this a No age restriction cake. You can make this cake for a kid's first birthdays or your birthdays , anniversaries etc. Made this cake last weekend. My guests said "Wow..Where did buy this?" "Looking and delicious too" . Such lovely comments always inspire me. 

This cake was in my to do list for very long. I kept on postponing this thinking that it will be a tedious work. But it is not difficult as I expected. It took a lot of time as I have only one round baking pan. I used Icing for the outer cover and in between the layers too but you can use whipped cream in between the layers and icing for the icing for the outer cover. Make the icing with only 1/2 of the quantity in the icing ingredients list.

Ingredients (For Each Cake Layer)

1 cup of Cake Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

1/3 cup Yogurt

1/3 cup Oil

1/2 cup Water

1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

5-6 teaspoons Food Colour

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

For Icing

2 cups Baking Margarine 

5 cups Icing Sugar

2 teaspoons Vanilla Essence

1. Mix Cake Flour, Sugar, Yogurt,oil, water and vanilla essence for each cake in a separate bowl. (Ingredients given above are for one cake). Add food colours to each bowl, mix it well.   

2. Preheat oven at 180 degrees. I only have one so I prepared the cake batter ready for all the cakes but added baking powder and baking soda before pouring the batter in the pan. 
3. I kept baking sheet in baking pan so that I use the same pan again for baking all the cakes without cleaning it. Add baking soda and baking powder in a bowl, mix it well and pour the cake batter in baking pan and keep it in the oven.

4.  Bake it for 25- 30 minutes. Do the toothpick test. If the toothpick inserted into the cake till the bottom comes out clean, the cake is ready. Let it cool on a grill. 
5. Follow steps 3 and 4 to bake the other cakes. 

6. Now make the Icing : Use baking margarine at room temperature. Cut that into small pieces, whisk it for 10 minutes till it becomes fluffy. Add icing sugar, whisk it well so that icing sugar completely blends into it( for atleast 10 minutes). Add icing sugar 1 cup at a time. When icing is fluffy and smooth, add vanilla essence and finally whisk it once.

7. The next step is layering the cake. I made a 4 layer cake so started with the blue cake. (For a 7 layer rainbow cake, you have to start with purple.) Remove the baking sheet from blue cake, place it on a serving plate, flat side up. Using a kitchen knife, spread the icing evenly on top of the cake. (Use can use whipped cream in between the layers as I already mentioned).

8. Place the other cakes in order  and spread the icing. Trim the edges of the cake. Spread icing all around the cake . Keep it aside for 10-15 minutes for the icing to set. Now using a clean knife, shape the cake to look neat.

9. Design the cake with the remaining icing and sprinkles .

10. Make any occasion special with this super tempting, super delicious cake. Don't forget this is an EGGLESS CAKE !!!!

Chocolate Spoons - Kid's Recipes

These chocolate spoons are easy to make and a perfect idea for kids parties. You can pack and gift these delicious spoons. Add sprinkles of your choice or according to the party colour and theme. Make birthday parties more interesting.  

Things you need

Spoons Plastic or Silver

Plain Chocolate bars 

Butter 

Sprinkles

1. Break chocolate bars to pieces. Place the end of spoons at an angle (I placed them on a small notebook) so that the spoon is in level. 

2. Add butter. A teaspoon of butter will be enough for each bar of chocolate. Butter gives a nice shine to chocolate. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in microwave. Stir and heat the chocolate till the chocolate is almost melt but not completely. Remove it from heat. 

3. Pour melted chocolate into spoons and quickly add sprinkles to each spoon before the chocolate hardens.
   
   
4. Allow it to set for about 15 - 20 minutes.

Semiya Kesari / Vermicelli Kesari

Vermicelli Kesari / Semiya Kesari is a yummy dessert recipe. This is a quick and easy to make. I always make Vermicelli payasam but wanted to make a vermicelli dessert without milk and here is what I made. 

It takes about 15 minutes to make this and tastes excellent. Because it is easy to make you can make it for your unexpected guests too. They will be surprised with this. 

I used the normal vermicelli but the fine vermicelli gives best results and takes less water and time to cook. You can add yellow or orange food colour to it.

Ingredients

1 cup Vermicelli

1 1/2 - 2 cups Water

1/2 cup Sugar

2 drops of Food Colour

few Strands of Saffron

3 teaspon Ghee

pinch of Cardamom Powder

10 Cashew nuts

5 Kismis

1. Break vermicelli to small pieces. Roast vermicelli in a teaspoon of ghee till it turns to light brown. Then boil this in water till it becomes soft. Make sure the vermicelli cooks very well and becomes really soft. Add more water if necessary.

2. Now reduce the flame to medium. Add sugar and let it dissolve completely. Add food colour and saffron.

3. Mix it well and keep it aside. In another pan, melt ghee, add cashew nuts, fry them till light brown and then fry kismis. Kismis will take few seconds to fry. Mix cashew nuts and kismis to vermicelli.

4. Enjoy this yummy dessert.

Broken Wheat Halwa / Annavaram Prasadam

Annavaram is very popular for the famous temple of Lord Satyanarayana Swami and Annavaram Prasadam. The aroma, colour and the taste of this prasadam is unique. I never thought I can make this at home. The recipe which I made will not be exactly like uncomparable prasadam that we get in the temple, but I tried my best. 

This is first time I made this recipe. The taste was excellent but for the perfect colour you need to 

dry roast broken wheat and make the prasadam with just dark brown jaggery. 

Annavaram brings back very fond memories of my childhood. My parents always used to take us on pilgrimage summer vacation tours. Use to go there almost during all summer holidays and spend lot of time on hill, near the temple and the river. We specially used to love the ride on Jutka from the railways station to the temple. Used to bring lots and lots of prasadam packets back home for our friends and family. Annavaram prasadam tastes so yummy and is mouthwatering.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Broken Wheat

2 cups Water 

1/2 cup Jaggery

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

2 tablespoon of Ghee

15 Cashews

pinch of Cardamom Powder / Elaichi 

1. Dry roast broken wheat until it turns to dark brown on a low flame. (I didn't !!). Then boil it in water till it becomes very soft. Add more water if necessary. You can also pressure cook it with 2 cups of water for 3 whistles. When all the water evaporates and broken wheat becomes soft, add jaggery (+ brown sugar) . You can replace brown sugar with jaggery. Let it boil for 10 minutes and keep it aside.

2. Now in a small pan, fry cashews in ghee with a pinch of cardamom powder till golden brown and then add that to halwa.

3. Mix it well and offer to god or just have it as a dessert.

Corn Flour Halwa / Karachi Halwa (Microwave) - Diwali Sweets

Corn Flour Halwa or Karachi Halwa or Bombay Halwa is an easy to make halwa. This is a perfect sweet for Diwali. It looks like a jelly and tastes yummy.

I had guests last weekend for dinner . I made everything but forgot to make dessert. Then I didn't want to make anything time taking. Then this came to my mind. Just mixed the ingredients, kept it in microwave for 6 minutes, took it out the dessert was ready even before my guests arrived. My guests liked this soft, tasty halwa. Kids just loved it and their moms asked me the recipe  !!!!

I added yellow colour you can add orange or green colour too...This halwa gets spoiled after 2-3 days. So make less and finish it.

Ingredients

1 cup Corn Flour

2 1/2 cup Sugar

4 cups Water

4 tablespoon Ghee

1/2 cup Broken Cashew Nuts / Almonds

2-3 drops Food Colour

1. In a microwave safe bowl mix Corn flour, sugar, ghee and food colour. Add Water and mix it without any lumps. Keep this bowl in microwave for 4 minutes. Meanwhile grease two plates( with a little depth) with ghee.

2. Take the bowl out of microwave, mix the corn flour mixture thoroughly and keep it back in microwave for 4 more minutes. Mix it after every 2 minutes.  Take it out, add broken cashew nuts  and mix it again.  You can roast cashew nuts in ghee and then add.

3. Pour the mixture on plates and spread it evenly. Leave it to set for 1/2 an hour. Then cut the halwa into pieces.

4. I could make around 50 inch size pieces with the quantities mentioned above. You can half the quantities. Finish these in 2-3 days.

Baklava

Baklava is a rich middle east sweet dessert layered with Phyllo sheets and filled mixed nuts and honey.

I bought and tasted Baklava for the first time in Dubai airport. We got addicted to these. My husband who is a frequent traveler to Dubai always brings these for us .

I have been thinking of trying this at home since so many months and finally I did. You can make the filling with nuts like Walnuts, Pistachios, Cashews, Almonds etc. I just added cashews and almonds one cup each. It tasted so good. You can add 2 cups of mixed nuts.

Try it. You will love it .

Ingredients

1 cup Almonds

1 cup Cashew nuts

1 teaspoon Cinnamon Powder / 1 small Cinnamon Stick

1/2 teaspoon ground Cloves / 2 Cloves

1/2 cup melted Butter

1/4 cup Honey

1/4 cup Sugar

Directions

1. Take Phyllo sheets out from freezer, leave them at room temperature for 25 -30 minutes. Cut 10 pyhllo sheets to 30 cm X 15 cm rectangle. Filling which I made is just enough for this size sheets. Make coarse powder of Cashews and Almonds, Cinnamon stick and cloves. If you have cinnamon and clove powders at home , directly add these to the cashew and almond powder instead of adding stick and cloves. 

2. Take the powder into a bowl, add sugar, honey and butter. Mix all these well. This is your filling. Pre- heat the oven at 180 degrees. Brush the baking sheet with butter and place 5 sheets of phyllo sheets on top of each other. Spread the filling all over the sheets evenly. Now place 2 sheets, brush it with butter all over, and place 2 more sheets, brush these with butter again. Finally place the last sheet, pour 2 teaspoons of honey on it and spread it evenly.

3. Now cut the sheets into squares or diamonds with a sharp knife till the bottom of baklava (I forgot to do this so I did this after baking). Bake them for 30 - 35 minutes or until golden and crisp at the top. 

4. Heavenly, Yummy dessert for you.

Sooji Appam / Ravva Appam

 

Appam stuffed with Sooji Halwa. I have posted Sooji Halwa already. I made that with lot of ghee which I felt is not a good idea to use as stuffing, so I made another sooji halwa version here for the stuffing. 

Sooji Appam is crispy on the outside and chewy inside. Everyone including kids will love it.

 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1 cup Sooji / Ravva

3 1/2 cups Water

2 cups Jaggery

6 Cardamoms

Oil for deep frying

Directions

1. Dry roast sooji till  light golden brown. Transfer that into another bowl and keep it aside. Chop Jaggery to small pieces.Keep it aside.

2. Boil 3 cups of Water. Then add Sooji. Keep stirring it continuously so that no lumps are formed and cook it till till it is almost done.

3. Then add jaggery. Cook it till Jaggery melts and sooji becomes non sticky and starts leaving wall of the pan. Keep stirring till then. Let it cool completely.

4. Meanwhile, make the outer layer. Add 2 teaspoons of Oil to all purpose flour. Rub it into flour. Add 1/2 cup of water to flour (1/4 cup of water at a time) and knead it well for 5 mins. Keep it covered for 45 minutes. Then divide the dough into 8 parts and make balls with it. Make 8 lemon sized balls of Sooji halwa. (I have almost 1/3 of sooji halwa left. You can reduce the quantities if you want).

5. Now grease a plastic sheet with little oil. Take a maida ball flatten it by hand on the sheet like a circle keep sooji halwa ball on it. Cover it with outer layer from all the sides make a ball again and flatten it. 

6. Keep oil for deep frying. Now take the appam onto your hand and gently drop it hot oil. Deep fry it till both sides turn golden brown.

7. Tasty and yummy festive food.