Povitica ~ A Swirly Deliciousness! ( My First Daring Bakers Challenge)

I always wanted to join Daring Bakers.... but somehow never did till finally last month I signed up. My first challenge Povitica, which I had never heard of nor eaten in my life.... Daring Bakers October 2011 challenge was hosted by Jenni, of The Gingered Whisk.

Povitica (pronounced po-va-teet-sa) is a traditional Eastern European dessert bread that is traditionally served during the holiday season. It is also known as Nutroll, Potica, Kalachi, Strudia, just to name a few. Family recipes, and the secrets on how to roll the bread so thin, were passed down through generations of families. The traditional filling for this bread is an English walnut filling, but other typical fillings also include apple/cinnamon, apricot preserves, and a sweet cheese (like cream cheese).

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Rasgulla / Roshogolla ~ Cottage Cheese Dumplings in Sugar Syrup for Diwali

Rasgulla / Roshogolla is a famous traditional Bengali sweet dish. I first tasted Rasgulla in Calcutta soon after my wedding and that time I was more fascinated with other Bengali sweets like Chum Chums, Sandesh (Shondesh) and Mishti Doi. Those days I used to buy Rasgullas only to take back home in Kerala to distribute it to relatives. I once tried to makes this and failed terribly. Recently after so many years when I craved to have some Rasgullas, I tried it out again and this time it came out really well. Kneading of paneer / cottage cheese to a smooth dough is very important. I used my food processer to knead the paneer. So here is how I made this soft and spongy delicacy.....

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Orange Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Mango Sauce

Panna Cotta, a creamy and delicious Italian dessert which can be whipped up very easily and served with fruit coulis / sauce of your choice..... A dessert you will get addicted to and with which you can wow your guests....... Recently when we had guests for dinner I made this Orange Buttermilk Panna Cotta adapted from Jungle Frog ...... original recipe was with lemon instead of orange and I just served this with some thick alphonso mango pulp...... We all loved the orange flavor......

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Oatmeal, Coconut and Almond Cookies

On a recent hunt for some healthy cookies I come across Miryam’s Oatmeal, Coconut and Almond Cookies... I loved the recipe as it has all the healthy ingredients.... oatmeal, whole wheat, almonds and no egg.... We really loved the coconut, almond and oatmeal combination and will be baking it regularly..... Do try these eggless, healthy and tasty cookies.....

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Lasagna

I had posted this Lasagna recipe during my early  blogging days. We had guests over this weekend and this was one of the dishes I made for them. While clicking pictures of other dishes, I thought of taking some pictures of Lasagna as my earlier pictures were really terrible ;)

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"100 Yummy Diwali Recipes" E-Book is available for download

IndusLadies has compiled an eBook for this Diwali consisting of "100 Yummy Sweets & Desserts recipes", contributed by various Food Bloggers! Go ahead and download it. Feel free to share it with your family & friends. You can find my Rasmalai recipe too:)

Click on the picture to download the e-bbok....

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Lemon Truffles

We are a huge fan of truffles and it’s been quite some time since I made any…. We had a guest for dinner last weekend and I made Lemon Truffles … These truffles are very easy to make and not difficult to handle or roll… I halved the recipe and got almost 30- 35 small truffles… also I used powdered sugar to roll the truffles not cocoa powder like in the original recipe….

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Chakkakuru Mezhukkupuratti / Stir- fried Jackfruit seeds

Like I mentioned in a previous post I brought a packet of chakkakuru /jackfruit seeds back from Kerala and this is another popular dish with chakkakuru/ Jackfruit seeds. It is one of my favorites and the most difficult part of making this dish is cleaning the jackfruit seeds. When I was young my grandmother used to prepare this dish for us and Amma only had to stir-fry it in coconut oil. It’s been ages I had this dish and my maid very patiently cleaned the jackfruit seeds for me with a warning not to bring it from Kerala anymore :D

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Indus Ladies recipe E-book

Indus Ladies is the largest online community for Indian Women. Indian Women from around the world visit Indusladies to ask questions, get help, read and write blogs, engage in a dialogue and along the way build authentic and enduring friendships. Now they are compiling a Diwali E-book featuring 100 lip-smacking desserts by bloggers. I have contributed my Rasmalai recipe for the E-book. If you have a great dessert recipe and would like it to be part of the E-book please send in your entry to IndusLadies asap.  

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Kuzhalappam Vilayichathu~ A traditional deep fried snack of Kerala

Kuzhalappam, another famous Kerala delicacy my aunt made for me when I was in Kerala. It is a traditional snack of Kerala which can be made in bulk and can be stored for a couple of months. Nowadays it’s common to get Kuzhalappam in bakeries and my home town Kottayam is very famous for Mammi Cheduthi’s Kuzhalappam and Churuttu (another Kerala snack). Usually the store bought ones are made of maida / all purpose flour and are whiter in colour and homemade ones are made of rice flour and are of brown in colour. The kuzhalappams can also be coated with a light sugar or jaggery syrup.

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