Bournvita Cake

My cousin D is a very good cook. I was so impressed with how she manages to cook for her daughter. Everything she cooks for kids definitely looks interesting. From Alphabits laddoos to butterfly shaped dosas to Indian flag colored idlis....innovative and interesting. She made Bournvita cake for us. Bournvita is a malt based drink and needs no introduction to those born and brought up in India. You can find it in any local Indian grocery store or buy it from Amazon. The cake tasted so good and naturally, I asked her for the recipe. I got a great idea to thank all my friends who helped us when I had surgery last month. They were kind enough to take care of the kids and cook some meals for us while I was recovering. And hence this is one small token of appreciation from us.

I have these cute little EZ lock, Simple & Easy containers from Lock N Lock.  I decided to cut the cake into small pieces, and put them in these containers, tie a bow with a THANK YOU tag. This would definitely make them happy as they fell in love with these containers when I got'em through LNL supporters program. These containers are Polypropelene (Recycle No. 5) and are BPA free. Even though they don't have those famous four side locking system as the other LNL containers, they are definitely air tight because of the way they are designed. The lid opens easily and has a floral pattern on it. And these containers stack well too. If you like these containers, now is the best time to buy them at LNL's dollar store here.

Here is the recipe in case if you want to try:

Note: For these measurements, I used the cup that comes with an electric rice cooker.

Ingredients:

Butter - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1 Cup

All Purpose flour - 1 Cup

Eggs - 3

Bournvita mix - 1/2 Cup

Shredded coconut - 1/2 Cup

Method:

1. Take the flour, sugar, bournvita into a bowl. Beat them on medium speed and slowly add butter, eggs. Mix them well and add the shredded coconut.

2. Grease the baking dish and pour the cake batter.

3. Bake this in a pre heated oven at 350 degrees and make sure it passes the tooth pick test.

Yummy bournvita cake is ready!

Junnu

Junnu is an Indian (espcially made in southern part of India) sweet made from cow's lactating milk or junnu paalu. This milk is thick, yellowish and smells for the first few days. Back home, we collect this milk after a Cow gives birth to a calf and add regular milk to prepare this dessert.

The first person that comes to my mind when I think of "Junnu" is my brother. My mom's cousin has a dairy farm and she used to bring a lot of junnu paalu (cow's lactating milk) almost once in every month. My mom used to freeze this milk and made junnu when my brother came from boarding school. I used to hate this sweet when I was in India, as it made its presence 365 days in our home. But, when i got married and came to US, i really missed it. Not any more as I got this recipe from my friend. It will definitely satisfy all those Junnu lovers without the actual cow's lactating milk.

Ingredients:

Evaporated milk - 1 cup
Whole milk - 2 cups
Eggs - 2
Jaggery - 1 to 1 1/2 cup (according to your taste)
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Black Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp

Note:  You can also use 2% milk instead of whole milk. If you want a little bit harder junnu, make it 3 eggs for each cup evaporated milk. Instead of using eggs, you can add 2 cups of yogurt for 1 cup evaporated milk. Also, if you want to serve this in individual cups, you can pour the mixture into individual cups and bake it in the oven instead of pressure cooking it. For this, pour enough water in a large oven safe tray and put the individual cups in that tray and bake it.

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients except cardamom and black pepper powder (make sure the eggs are beaten well before they are mixed with milk). Sieving this liquid mixture through any cloth would separate any impurities in jaggery.

2. Transfer this mixture into a stainless steel bowl which will fit in your pressure cooker. Sprinkle the cardamom and black pepper powder on the top of this mixture.
3. Pressure cook until you get 8 whistles. Now turn down the heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes (If you like the junnu to be hard, cook until you get 15 whitles and cook for 20 minutes on low heat).
4. Wait until all the pressure is gone. Open the pressure cooker. Pull out the bowl and put it in a place where you will not disturb it. Wait for atleast 10 hours and then put it in the refrigerator. Thats it, this recipe is pretty straight forward and delicious. I hope you all will enjoy as our family does.

Peach Cobbler

Last week, we went to the farm and got some peaches. When it comes to peaches, I can't think of anything else except "Peach Cobbler". And I always admired Paula Dean's "Peach Cobbler" recipe. You can get the recipe here. I recalculated all the ingredients as I wanted to make just 4 to 5 servings. I was really satisfied with the end product and my DH loved it. It was not too sweet, but i guess we can use little bit less butter than what the original recipe asks for. Here is a picture of what it looked like.