Date and Nut Bites

(This recipe was first published on the Dawn website. Click here for the original article.)

I started making these date and nut bites a few months ago when I was struggling a bit health-wise and needed healthy snacks on hand to keep my energy up.

I've been feeling much better recently but these bitesize snacks have quickly become something I can't do without. I whip up another batch as soon as I run out. They only take a few minutes to make and are full of nutrient-rich ingredients.

Last week I decided to take them up a notch by coating some of them in dark chocolate and that made them infinitely better.

When you're craving something chocolaty or sweet, reach for these instead. They're the perfect guilt-free sweet treat and they're good for you too.

Date and Nut Bites

Ingredients
1 cup dates (175g)

⅓ cup unsalted almonds (50g)

⅓ cup unsalted cashews (50g)

1 tablespoon peanut butter

1 tablespoon liquid coconut oil
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

1 tablespoon cocoa powder (optional)
50g good-quality dark chocolate, melted (optional)

1. Add the almonds and cashews to your food processor and process until they are coarsely ground, about 15 to 20 seconds.
2. Remove the pits from the dates and add to food processor. Add peanut butter, coconut oil, flaxseed, and cocoa powder (if using).

3. Process for about 2 minutes, until all ingredients are well combined. (The mixture will look something like this.)

4. Take tablespoon-sized portions into the palm of your hand and press together to form a ball. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
5. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to set, then store in covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
6. If you are using the dark chocolate, dip half the bites in the melted chocolate, roll around to coat evenly. Use two forks to lift each one out and place on a plate lined with a sheet of wax paper.
8. Refrigerate the bites to allow the chocolate to harden. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Makes approx. 20

Birthday Cake

Whenever there is a birthday in the family, I try to bake the cake myself if I can.

I had mine last week and I really wanted to use the vanilla beans I brought back from a recent trip to Sri Lanka in some way.

So I decided on a classic chocolate cake and a luscious vanilla bean frosting, with a cheeky Nutella cheesecake filling to sandwich the cake layers together.

I might add that it disappeared very quickly.

Chocolate Birthday Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting

Chocolate Cake

6 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature

1¼ cups + 2 tablespoons caster sugar

3 eggs
2¼ plain flour

¾ cup cocoa powder

2½ teaspoons baking powder

a pinch of salt

¾ cup milk

1½ teaspoons instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

Vanilla Bean Frosting

4 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature

1½ cups icing sugar, sifted

1 vanilla bean

Nutella Cheesecake Filling

150g cream cheese

⅓ cup Nutella

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. Grease and line three 7-inch round baking tins, and set aside.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar and beat with an electric beater for about 3 minutes, until the mixture light and creamy.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Add a third of the flour mixture, and mix with the electric beater on low speed. Add half the milk and the coffee, and mix well. Add another third of the flour mixture, and the remaining milk, and mix well. Add the remaining flour.
7. Use a spatula to stir the batter and make sure you get right to the bottom of the bowl.
8. Divide the batter equally between the three prepared baking tins, and bake for 15 to 20 mins.
9. Remove the cakes from the tins and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
10. To make the frosting: Add the butter to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high for 1 to 2 minutes, until it is light and creamy. Add the icing sugar slowly, a tablespoon at a time, and mix with the beater on low. When all the icing sugar has been added, spilt the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the frosting mixture and beat on high for 3 to 5 minutes, until you have a light smooth frosting. (If it is too thick, add milk half a teaspoon at a time, until you have the desired consistency.)
11. To make the filling: Add the cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the Nutella and beat until well combined. Refrigerate until needed.
12. To assemble: Trim the tops of the cakes so that they are level. Place the first layer on a cake stand or serving plate and spread half the Nutella cheesecake mixture on it. Place the second layer on top of that, and spread the remaining filling mixture on it. Place the third cake layer on top, and cover the cake with the vanilla bean frosting.

Peach Lemonade

In my 3+ years of blogging, I've only posted two drink recipes.

This one is my fourth this month!

A refreshing drink is an essential part of the Iftar spread and it was fun this year to try some new drink recipes. Peaches are my favourite fruit so a peach lemonade experiment was bound to happen and I'm happy to report it was a huge success. This lemonade is packed with fresh fruity flavour and though it might a bit of extra work, it beats any packaged drink mix out there.

This post might just be my favourite because not only was the lemonade delicious, but just look at those sunflowers!

Peach Lemonade
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

2 large peaches (approx. 450g)

4 cups water

⅓ to ½ cup lemon juice

½ to ¾ cup simple syrup

To serve:

Ice

½ peach, cut into four wedges or thinly sliced

1. Peel the peaches, remove the stones, and roughly chop them up.
2. Add the peaches to a blender with 1 cup water and blend until smooth.
3. Add the peach puree, 3 cups water, ⅓ cup lemon juice and ½ cup simple syrup to a large jug and stir.
4. Taste and add more lemon juice and/or simple syrup if you want.
5. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
6. Serve with ice and peach wedges/slices.

Watermelon Breeze

When this drink popped up on my Pinterest feed a few days ago, I wanted to make it immediately. It sounded like the quintessential summer drink and it turned out to to be the perfect way to rehydrate after a particularly trying day of fasting.

I scooped out some melon balls the night before and put them in the freezer to use along with regular ice.

Watermelon Breeze

Ingredients

3 cups chopped/cubed watermelon

1 cup coconut water

juice of 1 large lemon (2 to 3 tablespoons)
a pinch of salt

To serve:
Frozen melon balls (optional)
Ice
Mint leaves

1. Add the watermelon to a blender and blend until smooth. Strain to remove any seeds.
2. Add the watermelon juice to a jug. Add coconut water, lemon juice, and salt. Stir to mix.
3. Serve with (frozen) melon balls, ice, and mint leaves.

Serves 4 to 6.

Chamus (apricot juice)

(This recipe was first published in Dawn.com.)

I recently wrote a review for Dawn.com on a really great dhaba here in Islamabad, called Maantu Gul Kitchen. I had heard about it from a few friends and thought it might be interesting to write about. Then I actually went, and after sampling their amazing parathas, I have become a huge fan.

During the course of writing up the review I met and spoke with the owner and head chef, Aslam Pervez, multiple times. Aslam has included quite a few items from Hunza (where he is from) on the Maantu Gul Kitchen menu, and he was kind enough to share one of those recipes with me.

Chamus is a drink made with dried apricots and, although they're in season right now, this is the perfect way to enjoy apricot juice all year round!

Click here to read the full article.

Chamus (Apricot Juice)

Ingredients

500g dried apricots
1 litre boiling water

1. In a large glass or ceramic bowl, add the apricots and pour the boiling water over them. Cover the bowl and leave the apricots to soak for 1 hour.
2. After an hour has passed, squash and mash the apricots with your hands to blend them into the water. (You may use a potato masher for this step but, according to Aslam, the juice is tastier when this is done by hand.) You should end up with a thick pulpy orange-coloured mixture.
3. Strain the apricot mixture. Store the strained liquid in the refrigerator until the juice is thoroughly chilled.

The juice is quite thick, so you can thin it out a bit by adding water, if you prefer.

Mango Lemonade

When life give you mangoes...

... make mango lemonade!

When Ramzaan and mango season coincide, what better way to put those mangoes to use than by brightening up your Iftaar lemonade with a dose of fresh mango puree. This refreshing drink is bursting with flavour and is the perfect thing to rehydrate yourself with after a long day of fasting.

Mango Lemonade
Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients

For simple syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
(Makes approx. 1¼ to 1½ cups syrup. You will need  ½ to ¾ cup for this recipe.)

For mango puree:
2 large mangoes
1 cup water

½ to ¾ cup lemon juice
6 cups water
½ teaspoon salt

Ice, to serve

1. Make the simple syrup: In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for about 3 minutes, remove from heat and cool.
2. Peel and chop the mangoes. Add them to a blender with 1 cup water and puree.
3. In a large jug, add ½ cup lemon juice, 6 cups water, mango puree and about ½ cup simple syrup.
4. Taste and add more syrup if necessary. If you prefer a more tart lemonade, add more lemon juice.
5. Add ice and serve.

Pear and Chocolate Loaf

When I spotted some beautiful pears at the fruit shop a few days ago, this loaf was the first thing that popped into my head.

This is one of my favourite recipes and comes from one of my favourite blogs, Poires au Chocolat (French for 'pears and chocolate'). The blog is actually named after this recipe as it was the first one Emma (the woman behind Poires) created from scratch. Emma no longer actively blogs but the website still functions as a recipe book of sorts.

What I love about Emma's recipes is that it is evident in every step of baking (and eating) that she put in time, effort, and care into making sure the recipe is just right. Pears and chocolate are a classic made-for-each-other combination and they come together perfectly here.

I baked this loaf twice within the past five days and both cakes are finished, so that should tell you something about how good it is.

Click here for the recipe.

Note: The only thing I did differently was to bake the loaf at 350⁰F (180⁰C) for 45 to 50 minutes.

No-bake Cheesecake

I recently started writing for Dawn.com and, while it has been a lot of extra work, I'm enjoying the process. 

I don't keep a regular schedule for this blog. I've tried to in the past but struggled to keep up with it. So I like that this project has forced me to make time to cook and bake, and to write on a regular basis.

This is the very first piece I wrote and was published a couple of weeks ago. I am posting the recipe here but to view the original article in full, click here.

The recipe was born from a desire to create a simple dessert recipe that didn't require the use of an oven. It's a basic cheesecake but requires only four ingredients. I topped mine with lemon curd but you could use whatever topping you like.

No-bake Cheesecake.

Ingredients

150g Digestive biscuits (about 10 biscuits)

75 g butter, softened or melted

400g cream cheese (see note below)

½ cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

1. Prepare the cake tin (or Pyrex/ceramic serving dish) by greasing it with butter or oil.
2. Add the biscuits to a food processor and process until you have fine crumbs.
3. Add the butter and process again until the butter is evenly mixed into the biscuit crumbs and the mixture begins to clump. (You can do this without a food processor as well; add the biscuits to a plastic/Ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin, then mix in the butter with a spoon.)
4. Tip the biscuit mixture into your prepared tin/dish and press evenly into the base, using your fingertips or the back of a spoon.
5. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese and icing sugar. Beat with an electric mixer, or by hand, just until the mixture is smooth and no lumps remain. This should only take about a minute with an electric mixer; don’t overbeat.
6. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the biscuit base.
7. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator to chill overnight, or at least 4 hours.
8. If you have made the cheesecake in a cake tin, then remove it from the tin, add whatever topping(s) you’d like and return to the refrigerator until it is time to serve.
9. Twenty to 30 minutes before serving, place the cheesecake in the freezer to firm up. This will make slicing it easier.

Note: I use cream cheese spread for most recipes calling for cream cheese, because the box packages are mostly impossible to get hold of in Pakistan. I use either Philadelphia 200g tubs or Happy Cow 150g tubs

A Few Of My Favourite Things

I haven't posted a new recipe here in a while. A few other projects are keeping me busy, but I intend to post some new recipes very soon. In the meantime, I'm trying something new. I thought I'd share a few of my favourite things and purchases from last month:

Left: This Fuji Green Tea shower gel from The Body Shop has a fresh and clean scent. It's almost unisex, a decidedly unfeminine scent in a very good way.

Centre (top): Watermelon juice and Essie Mint Candy Apple nail polish.

Centre (bottom): I have a weakness for prints with birds on them so I had to have this cushion when I spotted it in Khaadi. 

Right: I fell in love with this kurta from Khaadi as soon as I saw it and I want to wear it ALL the time.

Updates

(Left: Snickerdoodles, Top-right: Victoria Sponge, Bottom-right: Chocolate walnut biscotti)

Recently I've been working on giving some of my favourite recipe posts a bit of a facelift.

Now I haven't done this for all of my old recipes, because that would take forever! But these three are some my favourite recipes and I've never been quite satisfied with the pictures that went with them.

Back when I started blogging, I used to take photos with my Nokia cell phone (I've since moved up to a DSLR camera). I think I uploaded them as they were because I used to be so excited to upload the recipe as soon as possible, and having the perfect photograph didn't matter as much, primarily because there was only so much I could do with my cell phone camera given my photography skills at the time.

I still get excited about new posts and enjoy blogging just as much, but now I'm a bit more mindful of the fact that my blog should 'look' good too. I still try not to let my perfectionism get in the way of uploading a recipe though.

There's a lot of room for improvement where my photography is concerned, but I'd hate to think somebody was deterred by the not-so-stunning photos that previously accompanied these posts, because these recipes are really quite good (if I do say so myself).

The updated recipes include:

Snickerdoodles
Chococlate Walnut Biscotti
Victoria Sponge Cake

Lemon Curd

Once you've mastered lemon curd (which is not hard to do at all), there are so many things you can do with it. Use it as a filling for cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and trifles; as a topping for cheesecake or ice cream; to spread on pancakes, crepes, scones, or just plain toast

The first time I made lemon curd, I used this recipe from Joy of Baking and I haven't had reason to look for another.

I will say though that it requires patience because the curd is cooked gently and slowly. It takes at least 10 to 12 minutes before the curd starts to thicken, so don't panic if, five minutes in, your curd hasn't changed in consistency. Don't leave it alone either; you need to constantly whisk it so that no lumps form.

Having said that, the time put in is absolutely worth it when you have a jar of sunshine-yellow silky smooth lemon curd at the end of it.


Note:
Lemon curd keeps well for about one week stored in a clean airtight jar in the refrigerator.

You can also freeze it. I spoon the lemon curd into a Ziploc bag, squeeze the excess air out, and label it with the date it was made. I haven't kept mine frozen for more than two months, but various sources on the Internet tell me it will keep well in the freezer for up to a year.

Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle

I was losing daylight as I started to photograph these trifles and I didn't get a lot of pictures, let alone any good ones.

But that wasn't going to keep me from posting this recipe, because it is REALLY good.

Now it's not the best thing for you health-wise, but what good dessert ever is?

Also, it is stupidly simple to make. You could substitute whatever fruit you like and/or swap the Digestive biscuits for something else, if you prefer.

I cant wait to try this with peaches!

Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle

Ingredients

2 cups crushed Digestive biscuits (about 14 biscuits)

⅓ cup melted butter

4 cups sliced strawberries

¼ water

¼ cup caster sugar

200–250g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)

1 cup (250 ml) whipping cream

½ cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk

1. Mix together the crushed Digestive biscuits and melted butter. Spread the biscuit mixture evenly in a serving dish (it is best to use a glass bowl/dish so you can see all the layers, but anything will do).
2. In a small saucepan, add water and caster sugar and cook on low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and then turn off the heat. Add the sliced strawberries and mix well.
3. Spoon the strawberries evenly over the biscuit layer.
4. In a mixing bowl, add the whipped cream and beat with an electric mixer until it doubles in volume and soft peaks form.
5. In another mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the icing sugar and milk and beat again to mix.
6. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.
7. Spread the cream cheese and whipped cream mixture over the strawberries.
8. Decorate with crushed Digestive biscuits.
9. This trifle is best eaten chilled, so refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.

Carrot Cake

I almost let winter pass by without baking a carrot cake!

Not that making carrot cake in summer is forbidden.

It's just that carrots are at their best in winter and, in my book, a thick slice of carrot cake, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, is the perfect accompaniment to your tea or coffee on a cold rainy day.

This recipe is based on one from Paula Deen and requires minimal effort (after you've peeled and grated your carrots, that is). You can bake it in whatever shape you like, but you'll have to adjust the baking time depending on what cake tin you use. This recipe works great for muffins and cupcakes too.

Carrot Cake
adapted from Paula Deen

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup caster sugar

½ soft brown sugar 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg 

a pinch of salt

2 eggs

¾ cup vegetable (or canola) oil

1½ cups grated carrots

½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350⁰F (180⁰C).
2. Grease an 8-inch round cake tin and line the base with parchment paper.
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift in flour and baking soda. Add sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, and stir to combine.
4. Add the eggs and oil and mix well. You can do this by hand or using an electric hand beater.
5. Add the carrots and nuts and stir until combined.
6. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and place in the preheated oven.
7. Bake for about 1 hour (60 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.
9. Remove the cake from the cake tin and turn out into a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Once cooled, frost the cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below), if desired.

Cream Cheese Frosting 
adapted from Baking Bites

2 oz (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese*, softened (I used Philadelphia)
2½ cups icing sugar, sifted
2 to 4 teaspoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla

1. Add the butter and cream cheese to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes.
2. Add the icing sugar, half a cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Add 2 teaspoons of milk halfway through adding the icing sugar.
4. Continue to beat the frosting until it is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. It should be of a spreadable consistency. If it is too stiff, add more milk, half a teaspoon at a time, until you get the consistency you want.