Dairy- Free Chocolate Brownie Cookies!

On Christmas day, my friends and I were invited for a Christmas dinner and I decided to bake some of these delicious treats! This chocolaty goodness is called a Brownie Cookie. 

When I was deciding on what to make for the dinner party, I couldn't make up my mind between baking a cake or these brownie cookies. The reason I resolved on baking these is because of the fact that they are easy to eat while compared to a cake. These are perfect for something like a dinner party or a kids birthday party. During the party, the guests can even enjoy it with a glass of Prosecco or Champagne.

Just as a warning, the recipe below makes about 50- 60 of these cookies. I took almost the whole lot to the party and came back with an empty tray. They were quite a hit so the quantity wasn't an issue at all.

Prep: 20-25 mins

Cook: 8-10 mins

What you will need for the brownie cookies:

85g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

110ml vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

60g icing sugar

 1. Combine the cocoa powder, caster sugar and vegetable oil together in a medium sized bowl.

2. Beat in the eggs one by one and mix in the vanilla essence.

3. Combine together the flour, baking powder and table salt. Mix it in with the cocoa mixture. Cover the dough and chill for about 4 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4. Line the baking trays with grease-proof paper. In a separate small plate, pour some icing sugar. Spoon out some of the dough and roll it into approx 2.5 cm balls. Then roll it into the icing sugar and place on the prepared baking tray. 

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 mins. Once they are taken out of the oven, let them rest in the baking tray for a minute before taking them out and placing them on wire racks to cool.

Hope you enjoy these delicious chocolaty treats! If you try them out, let me know how it goes :)

A Very Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to check in to wish you all a Merry Christmas! Have a great time with family and friends :) I know I haven't blogged much during this year, but I have challenged myself to make a change and to do better in the new year.

I will have a recipe going up for BROOKIES (brownies + cookies) in the next couple of days. This is a very good recipe for a snack/ treat for a New Year's party or get together!

Once again, Merry Christmas to all!

Waldorf Salad, Thai Chicken and Clafoutis

Recently I have been taking kitchen classes at university as a part of the course I am doing. Towards the end of the semester I had to give an exam for the same.

As you might know, I love cooking and baking. Being able to actually study about the same was one of the things that made me the happiest this semester. Cooking in a professional kitchen is quite different from cooking at home! Over a period of 4 months, we were taught a number of different recipes. 

I thought I would share with you pictures of what I cooked for the final exam. For the exam we had to make three dishes, namely Waldorf Salad, Thai Chicken with chili and basil and for dessert, Clafoutis.

One of the main things that I learnt was to KEEP TASTING while cooking. Tasting while cooking is a key factor to cooking a good dish.

WALDORF SALAD

THAI CHICKEN WITH CHILI AND BASIL WITH RICE PILAF

CLAFOUTIS

Delicious Hummus!

Hummus is a Middle Eastern dish that is basically made of chickpeas and tahini. This dish can be eaten with pita bread, cooked quinoa, with salads and also as a dip for vegetable sticks. 

Hummus is one of the easiest and quickest dishes to whip up at home. All you have to do is you have to put a couple of ingredients into a blender and blend together until a smooth paste is formed!

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas (250 gm)

5 tbsp of tahini

1 clove of garlic

80 ml of extra virgin olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Start off by adding the canned chickpeas to the blender. Continue by adding the rest of the ingredients to the blender. Blend everything together until the hummus acquired the required consistency. Once it looks like everything is mixed well, taste is bit. If required, add more salt, pepper or olive oil until you get the  required taste!

Quick to make Spaghetti

I recently learnt this really easy way to make spaghetti and thought of sharing it with you. This recipe takes about 30-40 mins in total, including preparation time and cooking time!

Ingredients-

-Spaghetti
-Coriander
-A couple of cloves of garlic
-Onion
-Soy sauce
-Salt
-Pepper

Procedure-

• To start off, boil the spaghetti and set aside to cool the usual way. 
• Chop the garlic and onion and simultaneously, heat oil in  pan. Saute the chopped garlic and onions.
• Once the onions become soft, add a hint of soy sauce for the onions to get its taste and colour. Then add the spaghetti to the pan and mix together gently. Add little more soy sauce until the colour gets a little darker. 
• Chop the coriander and mix in 3/4th quantity into the spaghetti. Use the rest of the coriander for garnish while plating
• Leave the pan on the stove for a minute or two and then take it off.
• To finish off, plate according to your wish and garnish with the remaining coriander.  

Bread and Butter Chocolate pudding

This is a recipe for an easy-to-make dessert and is not very time consuming as well. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients required:

• White bread or milk bread (preferably not wholemeal or brown bread)
• Butter
• Chocolate

For the custard:

• 500 ml milk
• 4 eggs
• Sugar
• Raisins

Procedure:

Start off by cutting the bread into small pieces and simultaneously place the pieces in a baking tray. Cut small pieces of butter and place them over the arranged pieces of bread. As can be seen in the picture below, I did not add much butter as I was not exactly sure how much I was supposed to add. But this wasn't enough. I had to add more later to make the bread softer and as everyone knows... more the butter, better it tastes :p 

Put this tray in the microwave for approximately a minute or until the butter melts. Simultaneously in a double boiler, melt chocolate. I used Galaxy chocolate bars because I did not find baking chocolate in time. I used a mix of both milk and dark chocolate bars. 

Once the chocolate is melted, pour it over the bread and butter in the tray. Leave this to set aside for a while until the custard is ready.

I made enough for 2 trays, so the picture above is of the 2nd tray. Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a separate bowl start making the custard. Use 500ml of milk and 4 eggs. Therefore, 1L milk would be 8 eggs. Mix the eggs and the milk and add sugar according to sweetness required. 

Mix thoroughly and add it to the tray with the bread and chocolate. To finish off, sprinkle a few raisins on the top. Put the baking tray in the oven at 180C for about 35- 40 minutes. Keep a regular check after approximately 30 minutes.  

The finished product would look something like this: