How to make Salted Caramel sauce, from scratch

How I love the caramel sauce topping on Vanilla Ice cream!    Caramel sauce is done by mixing caramelized sugar with cream.  They are used on toppings of many desserts like creme caramel, flan, pudding, frosted cupcakes etc.  Making them, at home requires careful attention.

Safety precautions, like maintaining a considerable distance from stove-top or wearing gloves is advisable since there are chances of coming in contact with very hot sugar.  But, with little caution and attention - you can make these beauties in less than 30 minutes!

I have written this post with pics, if you have any queries- please feel free to post in the comment section.  If you are a beginner, do read our tips at the end to achieve this godly sauce.  <3

Ingredients required

• 100 grams of caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 45 grams of unsalted butter (If you are using salted butter, you can skip adding salt)
• 1/4 cup of Dairy cream (I used Saudia brand)

Method

Please keep all the ingredients handy.  In a deep and dry saucepan, add the sugar in a simmer flame.  Let the sugar melt on its own.

Please don't wander off, keep a close watch.  Don't stir.   You can tilt the pan, though if you find the sugar to be melting unevenly.  

As we find the sugar melts and slowly is turning into golden amber color.  

Sugar is completely melted and caramelized into a lovely golden brown color. Now add in salt.  

Add in butter cubes as well, and stir them up with a wooden spoon.  

After stirring, add in the cream.  As you add in cream, it may steam up or bubble up, so be careful.  Also, the cream should be in warm condition when you add.  One suggestion is that you may heat them up alternatively when you get all the sugar melted so that by the time you add the cream, it is warm.  

See how it splutters or bubbles.  If you find clumps of caramel, undissolved in cream, don't worry keep on stirring you will get a clear sauce.  

See, how I got a clear sauce.  Switch off the gas.  

I placed them in an air-tight container and refrigerated them.  There are times when you find your sauce to be too runny or too hard.  If you find them runny, you can reduce them in a saucepan.  If found too hard, you can heat them up with a tsp of cream to get the correct consistency. 

Happy cooking :D  :D  

Shepherd's pie

   Shepherd's pie has a meat filling and is  lined with the crust made of mashed potatoes.  This savoury pie was traditionally devoured whenever there was  left-over of grilled meat.  I can also say that it's a comfort food.   With so much humidity around, all you need is a piping hot shepherd's pie and a good book to mark a great day.

I got this recipe from my mom's Morphy Richards oven guidebook.  They have beautifully twisted it according to our Indian palette.  This dish is a layered dish.  The layers start with  thinly sliced potatoes, followed by vegetable mince, lamb mince and topped with mashed potatoes.  This, in turn, is brushed with melted butter and some crumbled cheese.  When these layers are baked, all you get is aromatic and a crispy potato crust top, followed by soft layers of vegetables and meat mince and ends with potato slices. I flavoured meat mince with dill and totally  this pie had such complementing flavours that I ended up devouring them as such.  Alternatively,  you can dig them with roti as well.  

  The round  casserole, I used here is 15 cm in diameter and 5 cm depth.  The filling measurements are made accordingly.  You may have to twist the measurements according to your casserole's size. 

So, let's get started. 

Choco cashew cookies

Hi friends, this is yet another cookie, found in any corner shop Bakery.  I instantly liked the combo of flavour this cookie had to offer. The bitter taste of Cocoa powder combines well with  the sweet crunch of cashews.  We had a big pack of cashews lying on the refrigerator from our Goa visit.  So, fully recharged I tried this yummy cookie, they came out perfectly well.

Yet another special feature is that these cookies are made from whole wheat flour. I have used Aashirvaad aata.  So, this can be guilt-free cookies for both kids and adults.  Do try and let us know.

Triple Chocolate Cookies

 These Triple Chocolate cookies are an awesome treat to kids and adults.  Make them for a special occasion and be sure to earn yourself praiseworthy remarks.  They are not made with creaming method, though, whole eggs are blended with sugar till they turn pale and fluffy.  To this, our melted chocolate is folded with goodness of chopped milk chocolate and dark compound chips.

These cookies are thin crispy delight and melts away easily with an bitter after taste of Dark chocolate.  And yes since these have dark chocolate, make sure to keep an eye on them during baking, because they get burnt very easily.  My entire batch got muched away within days ;)  Serve these with an cup of milk and they are great to go.   Do try and let us know.  

Pistachio Butter Cookies

Hi, we are back with yummy tea-time Butter cookies.  I made an batch of these during vacation for my folks at Chennai.  They loved the cookies, especially the strong butter aroma it had.

These cookies are very soft and they melt easily with every bite.  So, these can be suggested to elders as well.  With the basic recipe of the cookies given below, you can play around with your own flavours like cinnamon, lemon etc, if you want to omit pistachios.  The following batch yielded about 45 cookies, do try and let us know.  

Ingredients required

• 100 grams unsalted butter
• 62 grams castor sugar
• 1 tbspn vanilla extract
• 125 grams All purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sliced salted pistachios, that are double-roasted
• Green gel colour

Method

In an bowl, add butter, sugar and extract and whisk well.  Add in gel colour and whisk again.  

Finally fold in flour and pistachios and keep folding till an soft dough is formed.  

Cover this soft dough in an cling wrap and roll them into log, I made mine an rectangular rod and refrigerated for an minimum of two hours.  

Pre-heat the oven to 165 degree celsius.  Take out your log and slice them.  Place them in parchment paper lined baking tray.  Refrigerate this set-up for few minutes.  

Bake these for about 10 to 15 minutes, till the edges brown.  Time depends on the thickness of each slice, I recommend to uniformly slice the log, per batch,  otherwise the cookies might get overbaked.  Cool them completely over wire rack.  Store in air-tight container.  

Enjoy these with your tea-time.  Happy Baking :)  

Orange flavoured Brioche

   Brioche is an enriched bread with high amount of butter and eggs.  This pastry, of French origin, is served for Breakfast.  The butter and egg content, imparts them very tender and crumbly texture and they  can be served with jam, chocolate spread as well.

These Brioche were, as promised very tender and softer than commercial bread, we had them with chocolate ganache and an few sugar stars on top.  They were amazing and had an strong orange flavour.  I would like to make them again and again :)

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This orange flavoured Brioche was suggested by Swathi Iyer from the pastry chef Dominique Ansel.  All thanks to them for such an rich, unique Brioche

Jam thumbprint cookies

    Cookies are quite an demand at home.  Though they serve mainly with evening tea or milk, they are also helpful when it comes to noon-time sweet carvings.  This jam cookies is one such type, be it with milk, or an small serving of dessert, it never fails to make an refreshing impact. This recipe is adapted from book, ' The Big Book of Treats' by Pooja Dhingra.

Tastewise, they were similar to butter cookies.  We feasted on them :)  You can also freeze the dough and make them whenever needed.  

Butter biscuit

      My routine life, with incoming guests had cornered my blogging to an standstill factor.  But, now, am slowly picking up my pace :)   Yes,  so, for an refreshing start, let me introduce you this butter biscuit.  :)  With an incoming monsoon, we all are forced for an lot of  masala chai accompaniments, aren't we?  And this treat, which is also my childhood- driven inspiration, impressed all.

Special mention goes to the nutty texture, yes, I had sprinkled some coarsely chopped nuts along with cardamon powder.  Tricky part lies in baking them, this biscuit barely needed ten minutes and were super-crispy when cooled to room temperature.  

So, guys, do try them and let me know....

Bhaja Moong dal - Potluck party, cyber style December 28th 2013

   For this month of potluck party, I was paired with Sutapa.  I was too happy because I am an dal or gravy-aholic lady.  In this blogging world, we can see many bakes, many goodies  or many virtual treats, but when it comes to your home-cooking, making gravies or dal for dinner becomes an wondering part of life because breakfast and lunch preparation gets over my morning itself.  And for me, I simply quiz what to cook up, with my refrigerator and provisions shelf wide open  :D  :D   This potluck party, very clearly compensated my thought :P  

Bhaja moong dal, an bengali dal is an rich and exotic dal.  'Bhaja' means 'fry' and so moong dal was fried with ghee before pressure cooking and tempered with spices and coconut.  When I prepared, I can notice a pleasent aroma and taste, unlike other dal preparations.  So, thanks to Sutapa for introducing such an nice dal to us, I enjoyed them thoroughly with roti. 

Spaghetti with meat sauce

  Spaghetti is thin, long pasta from Italy.  Here, I used dried form of spaghetti packet, made of wheat durum semolina.  Spaghetti is topped usually with tomato sauce, with herbs like basil and oregano.  Here, I used meat sauce and the result was awesome.  The basic sauce, I used was Maggi's instant pasta sauce.  If you want an home-made one, click here

 

Since, this was my first Italian association, I followed each steps carefully.  These spaghetti were a bit denser than our instant noodles.  I cooked them till they were completely done and it went good with sauce.  They were heavy on stomach. One bite topped with sauce was completely heavenly.  I added both meat and vegetables here, vegetarians can replace the same amount of meat with additional mushrooms.

 

Restaurent styled Murgh makhani

Murgh makhani or Chicken butter masala originating from Punjab, is an tempting, rich and mild chicken gravy.  Loaded with khoya, cream and cashew paste,  these are heavy to stomach and delight the mind instantly. The dried kasoori methi leaves are also added along with cream/milk to top-up the flavor.  If you have any guests turning in or if it is one of your special occasions, this dish is an must-try. 

 

They look lovely,isn't it?? Got the red colour from degi mirch masala.   Chicken, marinated in curd and other spices is pan-friend, cooked on kadaai with onion, garam masala, khoya, cream and cashews.   But don't hesitate to make them  due to richness and high priced ingredients.  Check out my home-made khoya recipe here  Interestingly, here I used an quick version of khoya.  In an vessel with 1/4 cup of milk powder, I stirred in 11/2 tsp of hot water and  got an instant-form of doughy khoya, roughly around 1 tbspn.  I used them in this preparation. 

 

 And replacing cream, I used full fat milk.  (using low fat milk also is not an problem)  Also, lastly added green chillies for an spicy murgh makhani (which traditionally remains mild).  You can avoid them if you want creamy, non-spicy type.

 

You can check other murgh recipes like Karahi chicken, Murgh pasanda, Kolhapuri taambda rassa, Nattukodi pulusu, Chettinadu chicken gravy, Piri piri chicken, Chicken vindaloo, Kozhi kolambu etc   

Nutty drizzles

    Not long before, I just had an quick time-passing walk inside an supermarket.  This book  ' 100 best delecious chocolate' really got my attention.  When I went through it, it had an awesome collections of desserts, cookies, milk-shakes, cake, pie, fudge, cupcakes  all with chocolates as its main ingredients.  One instant I felt that this entire book was designed FOR ME :) :) With stunning photographies and unique recipes, I had an firm grip on this book and purchased it too!!  (though it was tottally out of my budget!)

After I read the content of the book, my heart wished to try all 100's. Everything was lukng soo great and to add woos, i have been becoming bake-aholic these days!!  Thanks for Baking parnters community to help me develop these skills and special mention to hubby who eats whatver end product just meant to be :) :) But still I went with cookies option because they are the  most safest terms  in baking.  Just knead them as ur usual roti dough with an buttery touch and bake them.... ta da..... no egg separation !!  no whisking of egg whites!! and other complex forms.  But this nutty drizzle was soo unique that it needed lots of other nuts, wheatbran, sultanas, plain chocolates etc.  So, with a little twist to the ingredients mentioned I carried on with the preparation.

Tutti- fruitti cookies

      I am so delighted to find Savaadhjevana FB page hitting more than hundred likes.  To dedicate this success, I made tutti-fruitti cookies.

  Initially I wanted to make them with wheat flour, but realized that these tutti-fruiti would be better with a white background than with a brown one.  That is with wheat flour, they can be hardly seen giving an less appetising look.  So,  I opted for tutti-fruiti with white or much lighter background.  As soon as I decided on white, the first three things that crossed my mind was Regular flour (of course, maida!), Cornflour and Rawa or semolina.  Hence with a mixture of abovesaid, I continued with addition of butter,  sugar and finally blended with delecious, colourful tutti-fruitti cookies.  After baking them, they were so crisp, light-coloured (though I browned a few  in my first batch!) and fell very less on stomach too!!