Chocolate Dosa

So far, I have visited the little India section of the big cities viz. Devon St - Chicago, Jackson Heights-NY, Oak Tree Rd -NJ, and very recently - Gerrard St - Toronto. After sightseeing some wonderful landmarks of the lovely city of Toronto, we decided to go to the  "Udupi Palace" at Gerard Street. My "tween" daughter rebelled - "I am not in the mood for Indian food, you know! I don't think I will like anything there. Are you sure that I will get anything that I might even enjoy! It's so not fair! Seriously, you guys....". Sometimes, it's just best to ignore.

As we were glancing through the menu cards, we heard a joyous squeal totally unexpectedly. "OMG! Look Mom, chocolate dosa! It's so cool! I love this place already." Yes, she says squeals "OMG" in that abbreviated form every now and then these days!  Thank heavens or Udupi Palace for this wonderful creation because we could peacefully tuck in our share of Udupi delicacies with equally wonderful tea.

Personally speaking, I would never care for chocolate and dosa combo. That's a great blasphemy in my dictionary! But since it worked for Gudiya, I decided to make my own version after returning home.

Chocolate Dosa
Ingrdients
1 recipe dosa batter
A spoonful of Nutella spread

Oil as needed to roast

Method
1. Prepare dosa batter as mentioned here.
2. Heat a flat tawa/pan.
3. Spread dosa batter thinly in a circular manner.
4. Drizzle oil.
5. Cover and let it cook on medium flame.
6.  When the dosa appears to be cooked from the top and you no longer see any raw batter, spread nutella all over.
7. Making sure that the dosa is crispy at the bottom, lift it, fold it and serve it to your happy camper!;-)

Note-
1. Use Nutella as needed. I use it very sparingly - after all it has sugar.

Credits
Udupi Palace, Toronto

Gerrard Street - Toronto's own little India

Print Page

American Indian Jonnycakes or Johnycakes

These days, Gudiya has been reading "The little house on the prairie" by Laura Ingall Wilder. To keep up with the pioneer spirit that's been going on in our home, I decided to make some Johnycakes (or Jonnycakes) for breakfast. Now, why the prefix "American Indian", you may ask? Well, just because an Indian American version is coming up next!;-)

American Indian Jonnycakes
Ingredients
1 cup Masa Harina
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup hot water
1/2 - 3/4 cup cold water.

Oil for frying Jonnycakes

Method
1. Mix Masa Harina, sugar and salt.
2. Add boiling hot water. Stir well.
3. Now add cold water so there are no lumps. Adjust water according to the consistency of the batter. The batter should have thick pancake batter consistency.
4. Heat griddle or tawa.
5. Add a dollop of batter. Drizzle some oil for cooking. Cover and let it cook.

6. Flip to cook on the other side.
7. Serve hot johnycakes along with maple syrup, honey or agave nectar.

Note -
1. The batter should have thick pancake batter consistency.

Print Page

Lemon Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcakes are getting ready.

In the month of May, we celebrate "Teachers Appreciation Week" at Gudiya's school. Every day - during that week - our kiddos do something special for their beloved teachers. I was one of the volunteers for making desserts. We made lemon cupcakes following a super easy, semi-homemade recipe. This recipe called for a lemony-lime soda, which reminded me of a recipe my aunt used to follow to make eggless versions of the cake. My aunt used Thums Up for making Eggless Chocolate Cake, Goldspot for making Orange Cake and Limca for making a lemon cake!:-D

Our Lemon cupcake recipe, by no means, was eggless but the addition of lime soda (Think 7-up/Sprite and such!) made the cupcakes very light. This recipe gave us 24 cupcakes and 12 mini/tiny cupcakes.


Lemon Cupcakes
Ingredients
1 pack Lemon Cake Mix
1 pack (3.4 oz) Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix

3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
1 cup Lime-Lemony Carbonated drink such as 7-up/Sprite/Limca etc.

Frosting
Lemon Frosting of your choice.

Garnish
1 tbsp lemon zest

Method
1. Preheat oven 325 F. Line up cupcake liners along the cupcake tray.
2. Mix cake mix and pudding mix.
3. Add vegetable oil, eggs - one at a time, lime-lemon soda. Using electric mixer, beat it till the batter is ready.
4. Pour the batter in the cupcake liners.
5. Bake for about 18 - 20 minutes. Make sure that they are baked well by inserting a toothpick in the middle of a cupcake. It should come out clean.
6. Let the cupcakes cool down completely. Bake the next batch.
7. When all the cupcakes are ready and have completely cooled down, frost them using your favorite frosting. We used Duncan Heines Lemon Frosting.
8. Garnish with some grated lemon zest on top.

Note -
1. We used Duncan Heins brand for this recipe.

Credits
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-bundt-cake/



Print Page