Tiramisu Whole Wheat Layered Cake

I got a slice of Tiramisu cake from the local French Bakery on a day out with my little girl, we shared that single slice happily one evening never realizing that we would have a whole cake all to ourselves the very next day. I couldn't resist recreating it at home. I made the 2 layers of cake with whole wheat flour, layered with one layer of lady fingers and some custard/frosting in between. It is not the traditional Tiramisu custard in the sense that I did not use Mascarpone cheese at all. Omitted that all together and instead just used home whipped cream along with the egg custard to give it some volume and lightness. But if you do have some Mascarpone cheese to spare, then by all means add that instead of the whipped cream. It would result in a richer and creamier custard.
The layers in this cake synced up harmoniously and it just complimented each other just perfectly. Just like a regular Tiramisu, it is best eaten the next day, being in the refrigerator overnight marries all the layers and flavors well.

The littlest person in the house was ready for a tasting even before I could get it all assembled. She went on "repeat" with "Can I eat it now?" for the whole time I spent making it.

And she ended loving it! Yippie!







Tiramisu Whole Wheat Layered Cake 

Ingredients:

For the custard/frosting:
Eggs - 5
Sugar - 3/4 cup (Or a 1/4 cup more if you want it sweeter)
Pure Vanilla - 1 tsp
Whipping cream - 1 cup

For the ladyfinger's layer:
Lady fingers - 10-12 (more or less depending on the size of the pan)
Instant Coffee - 2 tsp
Warm water - 1 cup

For the cake:
Whole wheat pastry flour - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 3/4 cup
Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp
Vegetable oil - 1/3 cup
Eggs - 2 large
Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup mixed + Instant coffee - 2 tbsp (mixed together)
Baking soda -  1/2 tsp
Pure vanilla - 1 tsp

Method:

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix both the flour, baking soda and cocoa powder and keep aside.
Beat the oil and the eggs till the eggs become light in color. Add the sugar and whisk well.
Add the water to the instant coffee powder till well combined. Mix into the egg mixture along with the vanilla.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and whisk just until well combined. Do not overmix.
Pour into a 8" round pan and bake at 350F for about 40 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from pan after baking and set it down on a cooking rack till the cake is completely cool. You may alternatively set it in a refrigerator after it reaches room temperature.
After chilled, removed and slice the cake into two halves. Set aside.

For the custard/frosting:

In a double boiler, in a simmer, whisk the egg yolks and sugar on the top bowl till it is pale in color. Add in vanilla essence. Cool this thoroughly.
Whip the heavy whipping cream in a large bowl separately and slowly add into the custard mixture.
Whip everything well. Set in the refrigerator to cool.

For the assembly:

Take an 8" spring form pan of your choice that will fit the cake perfectly and is about 3"-4" in height.
Lay one half of the cake on the bottom and layer on a-third of the custard/frosting evenly.
Dip the lady fingers in the coffee for the next layer and lay close to each other one by one.
Now, for another layer of frosting/custard.
Lay the other half of the cake and press down gently. Spoon in the last layer of the custard/frosting on top and make sure it is even. Tap down very gently.
Cover the pan with a plastic wrap or a plate and set it in the refrigerator overnight to chill. This is mandatory for best taste and texture.



The next day, sift on some cocoa powder evenly on the cake. Open the latch on the spring form pan. Cut out a slice and enjoy!

Avocado Bruschetta

A little different from the regular tomato bruschetta, this avocado variant is lemony, fresh and vibrant. All that we need here for the gloomy, wet weather we have been enduring for a really long time. I served it on whole wheat mutligrain bread drizzled with some EVOO and baked in the oven prior to adding the avocado. You could alternatively toast using a toaster. The stove top method did not get the bread toasty enough to hold the avocado topping.
So the next time you have some bread and avocado sitting in your counter, you know what to do!



Avocado Bruschetta

Ingredients:

Avocado - 3 medium
Vinegar - 2 tbsp
Lemon Juice - 2 tbsp
Red Chilly flakes - 1/4 tsp
Salt - To taste
Garlic - 1 small pod finely chopped
Cilantro - 2 tbsp
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp

Whole wheat bread - About 4 slices

Method:

Take out the seed in the Avocado. Score the avocado flesh into little squares and scoop out leaving the skin.
In a mixing bowl, mix the lemon juice and vinegar. Slowly stream in about 2 tbsp of Olive oil mixing vigorously. It should form a nice emulsion. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Add the dressing to the avocado and toss to coat.

Serve on a slice of toasted bread. I put my oil drizzled slices in a preheated 425F oven for about 5 min.

Tandoori Paneer Pizza

I am an avid lover of Indianised pizzas. I try mixing Indian spices into the pizza sauces, adding cilantro, topping it off with curried eggplants. Really, the list just keeps going on and on in my kitchen. My daughter loves to keep it simple... the two magic words "Cheese" and "pizza."
So, whenever I make "adult" pizza at home, I try to reserve some dough to make a small cheese pizza for her. At least, it is made with whole wheat, so I don't feel that guilty. But I wished that she would eat something as colorful as this!
And for this pizza, I added colorful bell peppers I got at my local store, mixed it up with some spring onions and finished it off with the wonderful robust flavors from the tandoori paneer. I do not own a tandoor, and I turned to my trusty oven to bake the paneer cubes.
Here goes the recipe.

Tandoori Paneer Pizza



Ingredients:

Whole wheat/Regular pizza dough (Recipe coming up)
Pizza sauce - As required
Paneer - 2 cups cubed into one inch pieces
Red bell pepper -1 small
Green bell pepper -1 small
Yellow bell pepper -1 small
Tandoori spice mix - 1 tbsp
Thick yogurt - 1/2 cup
Salt -To taste
Red chilly powder -1 tsp
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Cilantro - 2 tbsp chopped
Green onions - A bunch chopped
Part Skim mozzarella cheese - As required (I went really light, so about 1 cup for the entire large pizza)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F to bake the paneer.

In a bowl combine yogurt, spice mix, cumin, salt, red chilly powder, turmeric, cilantro. Toss in the paneer and let it marinate for about 30 min.
Bake the paneer pieces till they get firm and golden brown on the sides. About 15 min. Keep aside.

Raise the temperature to 450F to bake the pizza.

Spread the pizza dough onto a tray/stone and spread some pizza sauce on it.
Add the peppers and spring onion evenly on the dough and sprinkle some salt over it.



Finally add the paneer and the cheese.
Bake till the crust is brown and the cheese is melted.

Kurma Pasta

This recipe works for me on so many different levels... I am not too fond of a tomato-based sauce with my pasta, and this is a great way to use over my leftover kurma from the previous day.
Even though I had entertained the thought of marrying the Indian kurma/korma and the Italian pasta, my aunt's "Kurta" (Pasta+Kurma, my cousins put that term together, so smart I think!) was what inspired me to eventually try this. She had used a combination of kurma and marinara sauce for her pasta if I am right. I decided to omit the marinara, and added some ricotta cheese for a creamier texture and give it some body.
You can use the very same kurma that you make at your house, whatever different blend of spices and vegetables that you throw in normally will work. Even some leftover kurma from the dinner you had from your neighborhood Indian restaurant the previous night will be perfect. But make sure the kurma that you add is something that you will enjoy eating in the first place. There is no point in adding something that does not taste good. It might eventually spoil the entire pasta dish.

Baking and serving it in individual ramekins makes for a pretty presentation and this way everyone gets a fair share of that lovely crust we put on top.



Ingredients:

Whole wheat pasta (any shape) - 1 lb box
Leftover vegetable Kurma - 3 cups
Ricotta cheese - 1 cup
Plain bread crumbs - 1 cup
Parmesan cheese - 2 tbsp grated
Mozzarella cheese - 1 cup
Salt - To taste
Oil - 1 tbsp

Method:

Preheat oven to 425F.

Cook pasta in a quart of boiling water. Remove before it is fully cooked. It will continue to cook in the oven with the kurma, so try not to over cook them at this step.
Drain the pasta, and now add oil, ricotta cheese and mix well. Then add the kurma and salt if necessary (if you haven't already salted the pasta water)
Spoon the pasta mixture into small ramekins. Spread a little of the mozzarella cheese a little on each cup. Sprinkle the bread crumbs mixed with the Parmesan cheese on the top.
Drizzle a little olive oil at the end.
Now place the ramekins in an oven-safe tray and bake till the top is brown and bubbly.



Let it cool down a little bit and enjoy.

Farfalle pasta in a Saffron infused creamy pizza sauce

Can you imagine losing all your data from blogger? For food bloggers, the loss of content "I feel" means a lot of re-work. Cooking, presenting well, taking pics, writing down the recipe, posting the pics and recipe online....
That is heck of a lot of work to repeat, what would happen if you lost all of it? Hard to imagine right?

I was reading through a small article by Vanessa and I thought it was important to share the information.
If you already know it, or have implemented it, good for you! smart you!, please share such information that you already know of, so that people like me (who wouldn't have even given it a thought) can be aware of.

So, the issue here is "we don't back up" the content we so painstakingly write in our blogs. Well, at least I don't!
And if something were to happen to blogger (I am only talking about "blogspot" here) as Vanessa points out is inevitable some day. Issues like getting locked out or being banned from your own account are horrible things to hear, but what happens to all your blog posts? We normally don't subscribe to our own posts, so where is the backup?
What she suggests in her article is "create an email ID and send your posts to it" as you publish.
For this: Goto Dashboard --> Settings --> Email --> "BlogSend Address"
Enter your "non-google" email ID and have your posts sent to it.
I would in addition suggest, have a copy of pictures in your local hard drive.
Please back up data! And share information. Good luck.


Useful updates from Readers:
I am leaving them here, since not everyone feels the need to comment, and might end up missing out on all this wonderful knowledge.

Nick: "I actually upload my photos to photobucket.com and link to them from there as well as store all of them on my computer. The other thing you should do (if you made any changes) is to copy the HTML Layout code into Wordpad (or TextEdit for Mac's) and save it to your computer as well."

Ivy - "About blogger, there is an easy way to backup your blog. http://www.codeplex.com/bloggerbackup
However, I have moved to wordpress and have not yet found out how I backup my wordpress posts. If someone knows I would appreciate the help."

Mike of Mike's Table - "As for the backups, definitely a not glamorous thing but everyone absolutely should do it. I almost lost it all once but lucked out. I use Wordpress and there are a handful of plugins out there which do backups of everything (database + your photos) automatically and can even be scheduled to email the backups to you periodically. I believe there are also some which integrate with Amazon's storage service (S3), but that isn't free (although it sure is cheap)."


Now, let us back up some pasta in our tummy, shall we?
I am no Giada of pastas but I do cook decent tasting pasta meals :)
So, here are some things that might help while cooking pasta:
Good quality sauce makes the world of difference.
Do not keep stirring the pasta while it is boiling in the water, a couple of times would suffice.
Salt the water well before cooking the pasta in the pot.
Add oil (and salt) after draining the water to prevent the pasta from sticking to each other.
Cook pasta to al-dente (fancy word for not fully cooked/firm, should still have a bite to it like Giada says), or it tends to turn sticky/mushy (especially the whole-wheat ones.)

I bought Durum wheat pasta, I had it delivered (so I did not buy it after seeing it) and was under the impression it was whole-wheat, as that is what it said in the package, but apparently semolina is refined flour, so there is a unexpected indulgence. Healthier option would be whole-wheat farfalle undoubtedly.
Did you know Farfalle is derived from the Italian word "farfalla" which means butterfly. That explains the shape, doesn't it?

As for the sauce, I have used a jar of pizza sauce that I had at hand. If you choose to go my way, please use a good quality one, that is key.
Saffron gives the sauce such a rich flavor and aroma, you have to taste it to believe it. I was pretty happy with the outcome. If I have interested you enough, read on for the recipe.

Farfalle pasta in a Saffron infused creamy pizza sauce

Ingredients:

Organic Durum wheat pasta - 1 box
Pizza Sauce - 1 bottle
Heavy cream - 1/4 cup
Saffron - 1/4 tsp
Green onions - 1/4 cup chopped
Mixed vegetables of your choice - A few cups, cut in the same size
Olive oil - 3 tbsp
Black pepper - 2 tsp
Salt - To taste

Method:

Cook the pasta according to package instructions, add a wee bit of salt and olive oil after draining the water and set aside.

Cook vegetables of your choice in a little olive oil, add salt, pepper and set aside.

For the sauce, bring the pizza sauce to a medium heat, add more pepper if needed.
Crush the saffron between your hands and mix it to the heavy cream.
Add the heavy cream to the hot pizza sauce and stir for a minute. Turn off heat. You may add herbs if you want, but I wanted to keep the saffron flavor prominent, hence I did not.

To serve, spoon the sauce at the bottom of the plate, layer with cooked pasta, then the vegetables. Add chopped green onions.
Sprinkle a little crushed dry saffron on top.
The heat from the sauce and pasta elevates the aroma of saffron. Heaven!

The bread served along with this pasta is Roasted Garlic Challah Bread



This is off to Aartee's Sapadu Ready event

Egg Pasta Frittata

I am sending this recipe to the WBB-Combi Breakfasts event by Latha of Masala Magic
I am very new to contributing to any event on a food blog and I am clueless!
Anyway, I assume this is how it works, I submit a recipe to the event, post a recipe and link back to the event. How hard can that be? See, I am getting better already!
And I call this combination breakfast because I have incorporated all the ingredients into the dish instead of dishing out separately.

Here we go...
I have made this dish... I cannot remember how many times now!. I am an avid fan of the Food Network, and pretty much like most of their shows. And most of their Italian shows come up with something with cheese and baked. So I took the idea and put together a breakfast one day with leftover whole-wheat pasta and vegetables.
This way you dont have to be slogging in the kitchen whipping up breakfast from scratch. Just throw in what you have, and voila!
It is quick to make (excluding the baking time) and very easy as well. How can one ever go wrong with cheese and pasta?!
You could add Parmesan cheese if you like it... I dont, so I chose skim-milk mozzarella for the entire dish.

Egg Pasta Frittata

Ingredients:

Leftover pasta (I used Rigatoni, whole-wheat) - 3 cups
Part-skim Mozzarella cheese - 1 cup shredded
Fat-free/Low-fat Ricotta cheese - 1 cup
Eggs - 2 whole eggs and 1 white only
Mushrooms - 1 cup (sliced & sauteed), or any left-over roasted veggies will do
Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp
Melted butter - 1 tbsp
Milk - Only a splash to loosen up if mixture is too thick
Chopped parsley - 1/4 cup
Ground black pepper - 1/2 tsp
Shredded Mozarella - a handful for the top crust
Salt - To taste

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 425F.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs well, and add the butter, ricotta and mozzarella cheese. Beat the mixture with a fork till fluffy.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Transfer into a greased 8" baking pan. Sprinkle the shredded mozarella on top and bake for about 30-35 min or till top is golden and bubbly and a toothpick/knife comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
Let rest for about 30 min (However tempting it may be, this step is very important, or you will end up with a ooey-gooey frittata.)
Slice into wedges and serve.

Polenta with oven-roasted vegetables

Polenta is made from boiled cornmeal, and is a staple food of Northern Italy.
I was a little apprehensive about making my own polenta and did'nt like the gooey texture that it takes on. You could either buy the polenta from the store and cook it, or buy the already cooked polenta like I did(I personally like the firmness of it.)
Trader Joe's has some good organic polenta which comes in a cylindrically shaped tube. Just cut them into one inch discs and you could either roast them on a pan with some oil, grill them, or oven-roast on a greased sheet.

Polenta with oven-roasted vegetables

Ingredients:

Cooked polenta - 1 log
Parsley - to sprinkle
Red onions - 1 large sliced
Baby corn - 1 cup
Edamame - 1 cup shelled
Snap peas - 1 cup
Carrots - 1 cup cut into long strips
Broccoli - 2 cups
Mushrooms - 2 cups
Ginger - 2 tbsp thinly sliced
Garlic - 2 cloved thinly sliced
Olive oil - 3 tbsp
Salt - To taste
Freshly ground black pepper - 1/2 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tsp

Method:

Slice cooked polenta into one-inch discs, brush with olive oil on both sides and bake them in a pre-heated oven at 400F for about 20-30 min. Or just follow package instructions if that is simple.
Take it out and sprinkle salt, and dried parsley(Fresh herbs work better)

Mix olive oil, ginger and garlic along with salt, pepper and chilly powder and set aside.
Mix all the vegetables in a mixing bowl and toss in the seasoning mixture and mix well.
Spread onto a baking sheet in one layer and bake for about 20-30 min at 400F or till completely roasted. You may toss the veggies midway during roasting to allow even cooking.

Arrange the polenta& veggies in a plate; which I have served with store-bought falafel, as seen in picture. Serve hot.