Vegan chocolate cupcake

These cupcakes are the best way to satisy those cravings for something chocolaty. They are very easy to make, no fancy ingredients and the end result is just super chocolaty and tasty. Top the cupcakes with chocolate sauce, and it qualifies for an indulgent dessert. The recipe is from Chef in you, though I substituted all purpose flour, with wheat flour, but there was no difference in the taste.

Recipe Source: Chef in you
Ingredients to make around 15 cupcakes

Ingredients	Quantity	Notes/Comments
Wheat Flour	1 1/2 cups	I used aashirvaad atta
Granulated Sugar	1 cup	I measured the sugar and powdered it
Cocoa powder	3 table spoon	-
Baking Soda	1 tea spoon	-
Oil	1/3 cup	I used sunflower refined oil
Salt	1/2 tea spoon	-
Cold Water	1 cup	-
Vinegar	1 table spoon	I used distilled white vinegar
Vanilla Essence	1 tea spoon	-

Procedure
1. Prepare the baking tray by placing the paper liners.
2. In a bowl, mix well the dry ingredients.
3. In another wide bowl, mix well the wet ingredients.
4. Add dry mixture to the wet one, 5 tbsps at a time and mix well so that there are no lumps.
5. Pre heat the oven to 160 degree C.
5. Put 1 1/2 tbsp of cake batter into each liner and bake for 22 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow the cupcakes to cool.
7. Have them as it is or with chocolate sauce topping.

Still not clear???? Scroll down for step wise pictures...

Event Participation: Bake Fest, started by Vardhini of Cooks Joy and hosted by Amrita.

Dates and dry fruits laddoo(no bake/no cook)

These laddoos are a nice way to add dates into kids diet. They would sure love the crunchiness from the nuts. These laddoos are very easy to make and does not involve any cooking or baking. Just pulse the deseeded dates and nuts along with a tablespoon of date syrup to get a coarse mixture and make them into small laddoos. Its as simple as that.

I generally add almonds, cashew and dried grapes to the dates, but any other dried fruit can be added. Even orange rind can be added for that extra flavor. For 500 gms of dates, 1 1/2 cups of dry fruits is sufficient. Just stick to this ratio even if adding more varities of dry fruit.

I have made these laddoos only with the blade attachment of the food processor. I am not sure if the dates and nuts would be ground uniformly if using the regular mixer jar.

Here is the recipe to make around 25 laddoos.

Recipe Source: Various blogs

Ingredients	Quantity	Notes/Comments
Dates	500 gms	Make sure that its deseeded, otherwise it might spoil the food processor blade
Almond	1/2 cup	-
Cashew	1/2 cup	-
Dried grapes	1/2 cup	Black variety can be used too.
Date syrup	1 tbsp	I used lion dates syrup. This is just to bring the mixture together so that it can be made into laddoos

Procedure
1. Add all the ingredients to the food processor with blade attachment.
2. Grind to a coarse mixture.
3. Take a small portion of the mixture and press with the fingers to shape into a laddoo. Repeat the same for the rest of the mixture
4. Store in an air tight container.

Still not clear???? Scroll down for step wise pictures...

Dairy free Coconut-Cashew Burfi

Coconut burfi or thengai burbi or simply burbi is a famous South Indian sweet made with coconut and sugar. The one which I made is a sweet variation from the usual one with generous amount of cashew powder thrown in to the sugar syrup along with coconut. Cashew makes the burfis soft to bite and adds extra flavour to it.

I was very aprehensive about making the burfis as dealing with sugar syrup makes me jittery. I can never get the consistency correct. But with burfi, there is no consistency check for sugar syrup. Just need to remember 2 things.

1. Add coconut-cashew mixture after 5 minutes of sugar getting dissolved completely
2. Remove the mixture from heat as soon as it starts bubbling and starts leaving from sides and immediately transfer to a plate.

With these valuable inputs from my mother, I proceeded to make the burfis anyway. As you can see from the pictures it was a total success. :-)

Recipe Source: My mother

Coconut-cashew burfi recipe to make 25 pieces

Ingredients	Quantity	Notes/Comments
Grated Coconut	1 cup	-
Sugar	1 3/4 cups	I added 2 cups and it was too sweet even for a sweet toothed person like me.
Cashew Nut	1/2 cup
Cardamom/Elaichi	8 pods	-
Water	1/2 cup	I initially added 1/4 cup, but sugar started crystalizing. Then added another 1/4th cup.
Olive Oil	1 tbsp	Tradionally ghee is used.
Almond/Badam	1/4 cup	Optional, for garnish
Color powder	A pinch	Optional

Procedure
1. Coarsely powder cashew nuts and keep aside.
2. Dry roast almonds in a kadai/pan and pulse in a mixer for 2 seconds to get small broken pieces.
3. Powder cardamom seeds. As cardamom seeds are a bit moist, roasting the seeds and powdering is easier. To do this, remove seeds from pod, dry roast in a pan and tranfer to a mortar and powder with a pestle. Or after roasting, grind the seeds in a mixer.
4. Prepare a medium sized plate by applying a tsp of olive oil all over the plate.
5. In a kadai/pan, add sugar and water. Keep in low to medium flame until sugar is dissolved completely in water. Can stir occasionaly. This takes around 10 minutes.
6. After the sugar is dissolved, heat the sugar syrup in medium to high flame for 5 minutes.
7. Add a pinch of color powder(optional) to the syrup and mix well.
8. Add grated coconut, cashew powder and cardamom powder to sugar syrup and mix well.
9. Add a tbsp of oilive oil and keep stirring lighlty scrapping from the sides.
10. After 5 to 10 minutes, the mixture will start coming out from the sides and it starts bubbling at the bottom.
11. Immediately tranfer to the prepared plate. Mixture will spread by itself if the consistency is correct. If it does not spread, spread with a flat ladle with oil applied to the ladle.
12. Spread broken almonds all over the mixture and press lightly with fingers.
13. After 10 minutes, cut into pieces. Allow to cool and store in a container. It will keep good atleast for a week.

Still not clear???? Scroll down for step wise pictures...

Happy Ganesh Chathurti to all. :-)

Events Participation

1. Show me your Dessert at Indian Vegetarian Recipes

2. Taste of the Tropics-Coconut at Nivedhanam, originally started by Chef Mireille