Why not leave a comment? Quick, head on over to MariasMenu.com for more tasty, delicious and simple recipes! Remember to check out the Recipe Index to find some easy-to-cook dishes. Don’t forget to tell your friends and family about MariasMenu!

Why not leave a comment? Quick, head on over to MariasMenu.com for more tasty, delicious and simple recipes! Remember to check out the Recipe Index to find some easy-to-cook dishes. Don’t forget to tell your friends and family about MariasMenu!

I was just waiting for this day. Yep, its Sweet Punch time again and this month I got to select the recipe. Now you know why I was waiting ;). As per the list made by the Sweet Punch team, it was either roulade or swiss roll. If you are wondering what’s the difference between the two, check out this. Roulades can be sweet as well as savoury. I decided to go for the sweet version, after all we are baking for “sweet punch” right ;)? You can read more about roulade here.

I selected roulade because it sounded fancy and also I remembered bookmarking a chocolate roulade recipe in my Martha Stewart baking book. But after going through the recipe I was a bit disappointed because it used raw eggs for the filling. Now I dont fancy any kind of raw egg in my food and decided to find out another recipe. I started going through all my baking books and finally saw this recipe in one of my fav books, Australian Women’s Weekly.

I wanted to make sure that the recipe works well, so I tried it before sending it to the baking group. I also got feedback from my friends about the same and I made some changes in the recipe based on their feedback.

Now about the recipe, it can be considered as a rich dessert, the base is made with chocolate & eggs without any flour and its filled with whipping cream & cherries. It’s very moist and its texture is kind of gooey. If you like chocolate flavor, I’m sure you will enjoy this. I was very much tensed about the rolling part, because it tends to break. Luckily it came out well, though there were some minor cracks.

I enjoyed baking and eating it too. Hope you will also enjoy it :) Dont forget to check out the roulade round up on Sweet Punch Website.

For the base:

1. Dark chocolate – 200gm, chopped coarsely
   Hot water – 1/4 cup (60 ml)
   Instant coffee powder – 1 tsp
2. Eggs – 4, separated (room temp)
   Caster sugar – 1/2 cup (110 gms)
3. Caster sugar – 1 tbsp, extra
4. Thickened cream – 3/4 – 1 cup ( I used whipping cream)
5. Kirsch – 1 tbsp

Cherry filling

1. Seedless black cherries – 425gm can
2. Cornflour – 3 tsp
3. Kirsch – 1 tbsp (refer notes)

Position oven shelves; preheat oven to 180 C. Grease 25 cm/30 cm swiss roll pan; line base with baking paper. Combine chocolate, water and coffee in large heat proof bowl; sit bowl over saucepan of simmering water. Using wooden spoon, stir until chocolate melts then immediately remove bowl from fire.
Beat egg yolks & sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until thick & creamy; this will take about 5 minutes. Using large metal spoon, fold egg mixture into warm chocolate mixture. Beat egg whites in small bowl  with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Using metal spoon, gently fold egg whites into chocolate mixture, in two batches. Spread mixture into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven about 10 mins.

Meanwhile, place a large sheet of baking paper on board; sprinkle with extra sugar. Turn cake onto sugared baking paper; carefully remove lining paper, cover cake loosely with a tea towel. Cool cake to room temp.

Beat cream & kirsch in small bowl with electric mixer until firm peaks form. Spread cake evenly with cooled cherry filling then spread Kirsch cream over cherry mixture. Roll cake from a long side, using paper to lift and guide the roll; place on serving plate. Dust with cocoa powder. Cover roll; refrigerate 30 minutes before serving. You can also dress up the roulade  with cherries or by piping some cream on top.

Cherry filling

Drain cherries, reserving 1/4 cup (60ml) of syrup. Using knife, chop cherries coarsely. Using wooden spoon blend cornflour and reserved syrup in a saucepan. Add cherries; stir over heat until mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat, cool to room temp.

My Notes:

• If you dont have a swiss roll tin, use a rectangular baking tin.
• I used canned red cherries instead of black cherries and cherry brandy instead of kirsch. If you cant find kirsch or cherry brand use the syrup from the canned cherries. I used chocolate with 50 % cocoa for the base.
• I find the taste of cherry brandy a bit dominating, adjust the qty of kirsch/brandy to suit your taste.
• The roulade is a bit delicate and tends to stick on to the baking paper, be careful while removing the paper and also while rolling.
• It’s a very moist roulade, its very soft even if you serve it straight out of the fridge.

Notes & Tips from the Women’s Weekly Magazine:

• This cake is a cross between a mousse and a fallen souffle. It’s ideal to make it on the day of serving.
• To successfully make this cake, it is vital that the egg yolk/sugar mixture is beaten until thick and that the egg whites are beaten only until soft peaks form. Overbeating will dry out the egg whites and make it difficult to fold them into the chocolate mixture.
• To test if the cake is cooked, touch it with your fingertips: it should feel slightly firm and springy.

Storage:

• As per the AWW notes, the filled roulade will keep for up to 8 hours in an airtight container in the refrigerator. However I stored it for 2 days in the fridge and didnt notice any change in the taste or texture.
• As per the AWW notes, unrolled and unfilled roulade can be stored, covered with a piece of baking paper then a damp tea-towel, overnight in the refrigerator.

Why not leave a comment? Quick, head on over to MariasMenu.com for more tasty, delicious and simple recipes! Remember to check out the Recipe Index to find some easy-to-cook dishes. Don’t forget to tell your friends and family about MariasMenu!

Whenever I meet a new person, after the initial chit chat, I’m faced with these questions:

First, “what do you do… where do you work”? Nope, I don’t work…

And here comes the second question” You have kids… you’re busy with baby?” Nope again…

Here comes the million $ question “so what exactly you do sitting at home, how do you spend your time”?

I used to say reading,browsing blah blah…but these days I say that I’ve a blog. I do this for two reasons: either they don’t have a clue about it and stop bothering me…or they want to know what it is, how it is etc and thereby stop asking all personal stuff :)

The only common question that comes from the above two category is “so do you make any money from this?” hhmmm nope again (here I would like to clarify something, ours is a paid site and that cost is covered with the advertisements) but then I don’t make a living out of this. Then some people do ask me  why am I doing this, if I don’t earn anything… if there is no benefit? I usually reply with a smile. But then, there are somethings which give you more happiness than money, right ? :)

If you ask any food blogger, whether they have gained anything from their blog, apart from the money (if they earn any), I’m sure they will all come up with a long list :). That might include… new friends, immense satisfaction from their readers comments, thrill when they see their stats going up ;) and most importantly  having tried many new recipes which they wouldn’t have tried otherwise.

This is one such recipe. I wouldn’t have ever made this wine, if I wasn’t a food blogger, that’s for sure. During Xmas time, I receive mails asking for a wine recipe. So last Xmas I thought I will give it a try and got the recipe from the expert. Yep, my mother in law is an expert in wine making. She has been making it for such a long time and it’s really awesome. So I got the recipe from her and during the last Xmas we made our first batch of home made wine :) I was very much excited about the whole thing and couldn’t wait to taste it. That’s the one thing I dont like much about it…you have to wait at least  a month to taste the end result. Otherwise its really super easy to make wine, after all to quote one  of my cousins “well… if Maria can make wine, anybody can make it” ;)

Here is the recipe:

1. Black grapes – 1 kg
2. Sugar – 650 – 800 gm (refer notes)
   Yeast – 1 teaspoon
   Water (boiled and cooled completely) – 1.5 litres
   Wheat kernels (gothambu mani) – 1 tablespoon

Wash the grapes well. Take clean big glass or porcelain jar of 3 litre size. Put the grapes into the jar and crush it well, using your hands. Add all the other ingredients to the crushed grapes. Cover the jar tightly with the lid. Store it, in a dark place . Keep it like that for 1 week. After one week, start stirring it with wooden spoon (Not metal) everyday until 21 days. (Try to do it at same time everyday. Dont stir for the next 2 days). On 24th  day, drain the clear wine and leave behind the sediment in the bottom. Bottle it in colored glass bottles, this will help to retain the color of the wine. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

Update on 22/04/2010: I’ve been getting mails/comments asking about wheat kernels (gothambu mani). Hence I thought I will put a picture here, so you will get an idea. Hope this helps. Please see the picture below.

Notes: The color of the wine very much depends on the type of grapes. We used Australian Black seedless grapes. Also, the quantity of sugar should be adjusted as per the sweetness of the grapes used. Do a taste test of the grapes first, and then add sugar accordingly. Please note that the water to be used in this recipe should be boiled and cooled well. If you miss to stir the wine everyday, dont worry about it. I’ve missed it a few days and still it turned out well. However, please try to stir it daily.

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I liked one of my snaps taken recently. I thought it was one of my best ever snaps. I felt happy every time I saw the picture and was pretty impressed with myself ;). I was waiting eagerly to show that snap to my amma. I usually send her the snaps when she is online and we see it together. That way I dont miss her instant reactions after seeing the snap. Other day she came online and I showed her the snaps. I was expecting a plethora of adjectives like “lovely, pretty, beautiful” etc; hhmm I’m just exaggerating, I only expected words like nice, good :). But her response was different…its like “ohh ee photo atra sheriyayilla” (this snap hasn’t come out well or something to that effect). Though I wasn’t ready to accept it, I made peace with it later on. I realised that she didn’t like my new hair cut and hence the photo too.

The reason I said that here is because I loved this dates cake. I think this is one of the best cake that I’ve ever baked/eaten. Now, if you like dates, I surely want you to try this. And I will be sad if I hear that you dont like it, but it’s ok. I will try to make peace with that too :) After all each person’s taste is different right? But, please give it a try, I’m sure you will like it too. If you like it, please don’t forget to send me a mail “full of adjectives” ;).

Here is the recipe:

1. Butter – 185 gm, chopped
   Milk – 1 cup (250 ml)
   Brown sugar – 3/4 cup (150gm), firmly packed
   Deseeded dried dates – 1 cup (145 gm), coarsely chopped
2. Bicarbonate of soda – 1/2 tsp
3. Self-raising flour – 1 1/2 cups (225 gm), refer notes for substitution
4. Plain flour (maida) – 1/2 cup (75 gm)
5. Eggs – 2, beaten lightly

Preheat oven to 180 C, 10 mins before baking.Prepare a deep 20 cm (8 inch) round cake tin.

Combine number 1 ingredients in large saucepan. using wooden spoon, stir over heat until butter melts. Bring to a boil; remove from heat, stir in soda bicarbonate. Cool for 10 minutes. Quickly stir in flours & eggs. Spoon mixture into prepared pan.

Bake cake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes. Turn cake onto wire rack to cool.

Serves 12-14

Notes: I used eggs at room temperature. I used soft light brown sugar. I made only half the quantity mentioned above. My cake was ready in about 25-30 minutes. Please adjust the baking time according to your oven. Seeded prunes can be substituted for dates. It’s important to grease the baking pan well; sugary mixtures such as this tend to stick to the pan. I baked the cake in a 6 inch bundt pan. You can serve this cake with cream, custard or even ice cream.

Storage: Cake will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days at room temperature or up to 1 week in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If you are living in a highly humid place, refrigeration is recommended.

Substitution for self raising flour – to get 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder+ 1/4 tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (source: http://www.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html)

Butter conversion: Check out here for butter conversion.

Recipe source: The Australian Women’s Weekly, Cooking Class Cakes.

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The very mention of the word “uppumaanga” makes me nostalgic and my mouth water. Am sure that’s the case with you too. “Uppumaanga” is a malayalam word for raw mangoes preserved in brine (salted water). As they are preserved in brine, they last for a very long time. I guess the most common recipe with uppumaanga is uppumaanga chammanthy (a sort of pickle/chutney). However at home we used to have this uppumaanga chaaru (gravy) for lunch.

A little background info about these mangoes…this time when we came back from India we had some weight issues (for the luggage & for us as well ;) ). We did all sorts of packing/unpacking to meet the weight requirements of the airline. After numerous efforts my father in law suggested that we should keep aside the uppumaanga. That time my mother in law said we should take it even if  we dont take anything else. She had her reasons…. these mangoes came from a particular maavu (mango tree), which was planted by Jose’s grandfather. He passed away quite a while ago, so I haven’t had the opportunity of meeting him. That moment seeing mummy’s attachment towards those mangoes, I decided to bring them.

Many a times it is said that the fruits of your labor may not be enjoyed by you but by the generations to come, how true! Though I wasn’t fortunate to meet Jose’s grandfather, I was lucky to enjoy the fruits of his labor. May be this can be an inspiration for all of us.

Now coming to the recipe, this is a typical Kerala dish, with coconut based gravy and its a great side dish for rice. We always need a “chaaru” (gravy) for rice and kachimoru is the standard one. For a change, you can try this and trust me its really hard to resist anything with uppumaanga. You need to have it at least once to know what I am saying :)

Here is the recipe:

1. Uppumanga (salted mango) – 2 medium size
2. Green chilly – 3-4
3. Grated coconut – 3/4 – 1 cup
   Small onion – 1
   Garlic – 1 small piece
   Jeera – a pinch
   Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
4. Water – 2 – 2.5 cups
5. Small onion -3
   Red chilly – 2
   Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
   Curry leaves
6. Salt
   Coconut oil

Cut the mangoes into bite size pieces. Cook the mango & green chilly in 2- 2.5 cups water.  Grind together number 3 ingredients with enough water into a smooth paste. When the mangoes become soft, add the ground paste & salt. Mix well. Bring it to a boil & remove from fire.

Heat oil in a pan & splutter mustard seeds. Add thinly sliced small onion, red chilly & curry leaves. Fry it till the onion becomes golden brown. Pour it over the curry. Serve with rice.

Notes: Since the mangoes are preserved in salted water, you have to be careful when adding salt to the curry. It will take a few hours for the flavor to set in, so plan your cooking accordingly.

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I’ve achieved a milestone in cooking by making this dish. It doesn’t have anything to do with my blogging. I think I’ve already mentioned here itself ‘n’ number of times about my “fruity affair”. Ok, I will make it clear, I don’t eat most of the fruits. There is no particular reason for not having it, but I don’t eat them. After marriage because of compulsion from “certain somebody” I’ve started trying it and you can see the result here.

When I say I don’t like fruits, I not only dislike eating them but also dislike touching them. Ya, its like asking a hardcore vegetarian person to touch some meat and fish. So now I will go to the story and explain how this recipe becomes a part of my milestone achievement. Again I’ve improved a bit after my wedding. Didn’t somebody tell you that marriage is a turning point??

Ok, so during my college days, I was a hardcore non fruitarian (dont know any other word). I never used to eat, touch or even sit near somebody who is having fruits!! After my graduation days, I went to Banglore for my PG and was staying in a hostel there. It was the first time I was staying away from home and I was miserably home sick. We had a small room in which 4 of us were staying and we had bunk beds in that. So this incident happened in the first week of my hostel days. One evening we (my friends n myself) were sitting in the room and having the usual chit chats. Two of my friends, Divya & Vidhya were sitting on the top bunk bed and me & Sharon (another friend of mine) was sitting in the GF bunk bed. Divs & Vidhya were having grapes while chatting and after sometime it got over. since I was sitting closer to the dining room, where rest of the grapes were kept, they asked me to get another set of grapes for them. tada….I could hear my heart beating faster. Here comes the dreadful moment for me. Usually whenever I tell somebody that I dont eat fruits, they look at me like a weirdo and some people even go to the extent of saying “what a waste of life”!!

I was confused what to do. Touching grapes was unthinkable at that point of time and I didnt want to appear as a weirdo especially during the initial days. I had to make a decision fast, they were waiting for me….I did it finally!! No, I didnt get the grapes, I told them that I dont touch fruits or something to that effect! Even today after 6,7 years I clearly remember the expression on their faces!! I think its self explanatory and I don’t have to elaborate on it ;)

Ok, now after all that drama, am cooking with fruits, touching it and peeling it, all by myself!! For me its a great achievement and indeed a milestone. These days whenever I handle fruits I always remember my friends and their shocked faces :)

I should say I was all excited to make this dish, because its the first time am peeling a fruit and cooking it n all. Though am embarrassed to say this, I was contemplating whether I should use gloves to peel the skin (heights of fussiness) and finally I decided to go bare handed and did it!!

I know this is a very long post, but one last thing before you head to the recipe. Dear Shab’s of Shab’s Cuisine tagged me and passed  some awards. Thanks a ton dear :) Am very excited about it :). Since I’ve already done an elaborate tag here, I dont want to bore you guys anymore.

These are the lovely awards:

The Kreativ Blogger award comes with some rules:-
1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated

I would like to pass it on to the following bloggers:

Ammu

Happy Cook

Rachel

Divz

Rashmi

Pria

Mini

Finally the recipe. I called home and got the recipe from Sarasa chechy and it so happened that when I was checking some recipes in a book called Kerala Syrian Christian Favourites, I happened to see the recipe there also. When I compared Sarasa chechy’s recipe with the one in the book, it was almost the same except for a few changes. So the recipe you see here is a mix of both.

1. Ripe Mangoes – 5-6 of small size
   Salt
2. Grated coconut – 1 cup
   Jeera -  a pinch
   Garlic – 1 piece
   Small onion – 2-4
   Green chilly – 3-4
   Turmeric powder – 1/4-1/2 tsp
3. Small onion – 4
   Red chilly – 2
   Mustard – 1/2 tsp
   Curry leaves
4. Salt
   Oil

Peel the mangoes and cook the peeled mangoes with salt and 1 -1 1/2 cups of water for 10 minutes. Grind together the number 2 ingredients with 1/2 cup of water to a fine paste. Add this and 1/2- 1 cup of water to the mangoes. Check salt and add more if required. Cook for 5-7 mins on low flame. Make sure that it doesnt boil. Remove from fire.

Heat oil in a pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add sliced small onions, red chilly & curry leaves. Fry it till the onion becomes golden brown. Pour this over the curry. Let it rest for a while for the flavors to settle in. Serve with rice.

Notes: I used coconut oil. The gravy of this curry has a medium thick consistency, so adjust the amount of water accordingly. I think back home this is made with a type of Mango called “chandrakaran”, am not sure about it though. Usually its made with mangoes which are smaller in size (at least I think so ;) ). My amma was saying sometimes a little jaggery is added towards the end of cooking to give it more sweetness. I haven’t tried it that way. Please give it a try, if you like that flavor.

Why not leave a comment? Quick, head on over to MariasMenu.com for more tasty, delicious and simple recipes! Remember to check out the Recipe Index to find some easy-to-cook dishes. Don’t forget to tell your friends and family about MariasMenu!