Saba’s Almond and Pineapple cheesecake

This cheesecake is one of my treasured recipes. I have been making this much before I learned my basic cooking or much before anything that is posted on this blog. This recipe was given to me by my sweet sweet friend saba, and so the whole credit goes to her. This recipe falls into my favourite dessert list and it does the same for whoever tasted it. Now, if you ask me who Saba is, she is one of the best friends I met in the university - a lovely lady with an attractive character and is a great cook too. We cracked jokes, laughed so much and our no-boundary midnight talks over phone were all memorable. I just had a course with her during my university days and that was one of my most enjoyed courses. Even though we just had a single course together, we became so close to each other in no time. She is a gem of a person and is now a mother of a little princess. Saba started cooking much before I did and her foods are finger licking good. Her recipes are too good and the results are guaranteed to be perfect. This is one of the oldest in my recipe collection and one of the best recipes that I return to over and over again. Thank you sabah for sharing this wonderful recipe.

Saba’s Almond and Pineapple cheesecake

For the base:

20 digestive biscuits

3 large tbs butter

Filling:

450g canned Pineapple (Use 1 cup of the syrup from the can and ¾ cup of pineapple; not all of it.)

200 mls whip cream (double cream)

3/4 cup whole almonds

12-14 heaped tablespoons caster sugar depending on taste.

400g cream cheese.

3 teaspoon unflavoured gelatine

For the glace:

1 cup shop bought pineapple juice

1 ½ Tbsp cornflour

2 Tbsp sugar (optional)

Few drops of yellow food colouring

For caramelized almonds (appx. measurements):

Heat 4-5 Tbsp of sugar to a saucepan and heat until it stsrats turning deep golden colour.

15-20 whole amonds

Method:

1. Break the biscuits roughly and tip it in the food processor. Process until you get coarse crumbs or fine crumbs, just the way you like it. (It will be around 3 1/4 cups of crumbs). Melt the butter in a saucepan and add it to the crumbs in the processor. Pulse until well incorporated.

2. Line the base and sides of a loose bottom cake tin or spring-form cake tin with baking paper. You may use a clear pyrex dish as well. Tip in the biscuit crumb mixture and press with the back of the spoon firmly to make an even base. Refrigerate until you prepare the filling.

2. Mix gelatine in 1 cup of pineapple juice and heat on low heat until all the gelatine crystals are dissolved. Set aside until cool, but NOT set.

3. Grind sugar until. Grind almonds by adding few tablespoon of powdered sugar. (Don’t grind almonds without sugar; the oil from the almonds will make the mixture sticky and it won’t grind well).

4. In a blender, add cream cheese, double cream, cooled gelatine and pineapple juice, 3/4 cup chopped pineapples, sugar and almonds to a blender and blend until smooth. Spread this mixture slowly on top of the cooled biscuit base. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hrs or preferably overnight.

5. For making the glace, Add pineapple juice, food colouring, corn flour and sugar into a saucepan. Heat the mixture until thick. Let it cool slightly. Pour the glace over the cold cheesecake and spread with the back of the spoon.

6. Garnish with caramelized almonds and serve cold. For making caramelized almonds, Heat 4-5 Tbsp of sugar in a saucepan and heat until it starts turning deep golden colour. Don’t stir with spoon. When it reaches this colour, add almonds and stir well. Pour the almonds to a greased aluminium foil, separate the nuts using a spoon and set aside until cooled. Separate it and arrange on the glace.

Notes and tips:

1.Make sure you use the unflavoured gelatine for the recipe and NOT the pineapple flavoured gelatine or any other flavours. These are jelly pudding and it doesn’t work for this recipe.

2. Sabah has suggested to use Philadelphia cream cheese and Ell- n-vire (not sure of the spelling). You may use other brands of cheese and cream as well.

3. Add more or less sugar depending on the sourness of the pineapple. Normally 12 tablespoon is ideal. But if the fruit is sour, add 14 tablespoon or even 16.

4. Glace and nuts for garnishing is purely optional. I just made them to look appealing.

5. Arrange the caramelized nuts on top just before serving since caramel tends to dissolve as it comes in contact with the glace.

Thenga Varutharacha Kozhi Curry (Chicken in Sautéed Coconut Gravy)

This particular chicken curry is one common curry that is prepared in almost every home in Kannur but with slight variations in the amount of spices involved. This curry is normally prepared to go with Ari pathal or popularly known as pathiri which are thin rice pan cakes or rice rotis, neypathal, Steamed rice cake or our humble ‘Puttu’, plain boiled rice etc. It has quite lot of gravy so it's a perfect curry for gravy lovers. I din’t give accurate measures here so that you can play around with the ingredients to suit to your own taste. You can add them or reduce them to your liking. I sometimes add less chilli powder, sometimes add more and so is the coconut and other spices including fennel seeds. I love the smell of fennel seeds and the special aroma that it imparts on the dish, so I tend to add more of it usually. One thing I would like to mention is that since I have used fresh spices rather than ground ones, the flavour will be really strong. So add them carefully so that you don’t end up over-powering the curry with the spices.


Thenga Varutharacha Kozhi Curry (Chicken in Sautéed Coconut Gravy)

Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
1200 g Chicken, cut into medium size pieces
4 med-large onions chopped (4 cups, 500g)
9 large cloves of garlic minced (2 Tbsp)
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 ½Tbsp - 2½ Tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 ½ Tbsp Coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
4 small tomatoes chopped (1 ½ cups, appx. 250g)
1 ¼ cup – 1 ½ cups freshly grated coconut
3-5 cardamoms
4-6 cloves
3-4 small pieces cinnamon sticks (1 cm each)
½ tsp- 1 tsp Fennel seeds (Perumjeerakam)
1½ - 2 cups water
3 twigs curry leaves (Around 40 leaves)
2 chopped green chillies
2-4 Tbsp coconut Oil (Vegetable oil can also be used)

Preparation:
1.In a Large non-stick saucepan, heat oil. Add the chopped onions and salt and sauté until it starts turning golden. Add ginger and garlic and sauté for couple of minutes until raw smell goes off.

2. Add chilli powder, coriander powder and turmeric powder and sauté for few seconds until the raw smell goes off. If the mixture is too dry, sprinkle little water so that you don’t burn the spices.

3. Add in the chopped tomatoes, stir well, cover and cook on medium flame until the tomatoes are well cooked and are mushy.

4. Add chicken pieces and ½ cup – 1 cup water. Stir well. Cover and cook till chicken is almost cooked.

5. While the chicken is cooking, heat another frying pan. Add grated coconut, and all the spices (cloves, cardamom, fennel seeds and cinnamon). Dry roast it on low- medium heat until the coconut takes a golden colour. Grind these roasted coconut and spices using 1 ½ - 2 cups water to a smooth paste.

6. Add this to the curry along with curry leaves and the green chillies and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and cook for further 5 minutes until all the flavours are well blended.

Semiya Payasam (Vermicelli Kheer)

Semiya payasam or Vermicelli Kheer is one of the most easiest and commonly made Payasam aka Puddings in Kerala. These are simple to make and tastes delicious and is sure to please anyone who has sweet tooth. Whenever a celebration hits at home, then it would be a payasam day as well; any kind of payasam depending what people like. Ours used to be a large family and all have different tastes and liking. Some of us including myself likes ‘ Cherupayar payasam or Moong dal payasam’ and some likes this Semiya payasam. So my mom has to make both (not the same day though) to do some justice and stop the nagging of the kids. I have cooked this several times and never had a recipe of mine as such, just eyeball the measurements and add things as it goes. Sometimes ad condensed milk if I have it else add just sugar. Here is a recipe that I got from the Packet of the vermicelli and prepared it as such, apart from adding cumin and dry ginger powder. I saw it in another book and added a bit of it and I loved the flavour.



Semiya payasam (Vermicelli Kheer)
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
½ cup cup vermicelli broken into 2 cm strips
¼ - ½ cup sugar (Start adding ¼ cup first and adjust according to your taste. I added ½ cup, i.e 8Tbsp)
3 – 3 ½ cups whole milk (I used semi-skimmed milk)
5 cardamom pods
¼ tsp dry ginger powder
¼ tsp cumin powder
2-3 Tbsp ghee/clarified butter
¼ tsp salt

Preparation:
1. Roast vermicelli in 1-2 tbsp ghee until light golden in colour; set aside.

2. Bring milk to boil in a sauce pan and add the fried vermicelli. Bring to slow boil, reduce the heat and cook it UNCOVERED for 10-15 minutes by stirring occasionally, until vermicelli is cooked.

3. Add sugar and salt and cook for further few minutes until all sugar is dissolved and the payasam has reached your required consistency.

4. Add crushed cardamom, cumin powder and dry ginger powder, stir well and bring to boil. Dotn boil for too long, just few seconds would be fine. Turn the heat off.

5. In a small pan, add the rest of ghee and roast cashew till golden. Fry the raisins in the same manner until it has puffed up. Add these fried cashews and raisins along with the ghee to the hot payasam. Garnish with some of the fried nuts and fruit or pistachios. Serve it warm or chilled.



Notes and variations:
1.The kheer normally tends to get thick as it cools down in room temperature or when chilled in the fridge. If it happens, just put the payasam back to heat. When hot, add little milk to the consistency you want, stir well and bring to boil again and adjust the sweetness if required. Alternately you can pour some milk and microwave it.

2. You might get roasted semolina from the Asian stores. If using roasted semolina, you may use that directly into the kheer without roasting.

3. You may add ½ can of condensed milk in step 3 and adjust the sweetness by adding more sugar.

4. You can also make saffron flavoured kheer By dissolving few strands of saffron in hot milk and add it to the kheer in step 4 instead of cardamom, dry ginger and cumin, but you may have to boil for couple of minutes to infuse the flavour.

5. You may omit dry ginger and cumin powder and add just the cardamoms.

Delicious Brownies for 2nd Blog Anniversary!

This month is full of celebrations at home. My hubby’s B’day, my son’s B’day and what else? My Blog’s second Anniversary! My blog turned two on 11th March, just a day after my hubby’s B’day. I wanted to make this a special post on 11th itself but I was all busy during these days, preparing something for my hubby’s B’day and had to go out of town to do some shopping as well. Since the major shopping malls are not near our apartment, myself and my son took a bus to the main town centre. It was his first bus ride and he thoroughly enjoyed it, me too.

I can’t just believe that I have been scribbling in here for 2 years!!I don’t know if blog was the reason, but my cooking has gone much beyond than what I thought I would be able to do. Lots and lots of experiments, trying out new ingredients that comes in everyday cooking, discovering new taste, learning new cuisine and trying to perfect each and every dish has all become part of a blogging routine. I thoroughly enjoy cooking and trying out new dishes every time. There has been many success and quite a few failures (one happened even today.) during experiments which has to be eaten (Not the failed outcome) by my poor hubby and son and sometimes friends who come over. Bless them all. Blogging can also be stressful at times, for no reason, as if we are preparing for an exam or so. Lot to think about; which recipe to blog next, what to type, how to write, how the pictures should be, it’s background and so and so, yeah, sounds like and international matter, right? I am definite that every blogger will be going through the same phase, thinking about blog matters every time apart from sleeping.



Apart from all that, blogging has gifted me a bunch of beautiful friends who has become so close to me over time. There is also a beautiful network of virtual friends who I am regular in contact with through comment section and sometimes orkut. I would like to thank each and every one including my readers for their encouragement and their appreciation through out and accepting me in the blogger’s world.

Now coming to the recipe, I have posted another recipe of brownies long back when then I promised to post brownies which uses cocoa powder. One of my readers ‘Faina’ had asked me for an easy dessert recipe and this one is for her. I found this recipe so easy to prepare; hardly took me any time. When I go for any recipes, I am always on the lookout for one that uses minimum amount of butter. I wanted to make a small batch of brownies, just to satisfy my chocolate craving. I followed a recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mmm-Mmm-Better-Brownies/Detail.aspx. This was one with loads of great reviews from people. So, I made it over the weekend and took half of it to our friends place. They loved it so much that the whole stuff got over the same night. If i had kept it at home myself and my son would have finished the whole stuff by myself. We just could take our hands off the pan. I kept on pinching small bits from the corner of the brownie little by little just to realise that a huge portion has already been eaten! This time I dint add any nuts to the brownie because my son hates nuts in his cakes. You may add them if you wish. I wanted to add a bit of coffee granules in the recipe as well but remembered them only when I popped the pan into the oven!

Now,to check the doneness of the brownie, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and you should be able to see little moist and sticky crumbs at the tip of the skewer. That is if you like your brownie to be fudgy and slightly chewy. I guess I like mine really underdone, so I might reduce the cooking time even further. The batter itself was so delicious:).



Ingredients:
½ cup plain flour
1/3 cup (5 Tbsp) Cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs (if small, use 3)
1/3 cup (50g)white chocolate, cut into chunks (optional)
1/3 cup (50g) dark chocolate, cut into chunks (optional)
½ cup (113g) butter melted
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
½ Tbsp vanilla extract

Preparation:
1. Preheat an oven to 175 degrees Celsius and line a 8 inch cake tin with baking paper. Melt butter in a sauce pan, on low heat. Once completely melted, add sugar and mix well. Let it cool completely.

2. Add vanilla extract and eggs and mix thoroughly using a wire whisk, just to breakup eggs and get a homogenous mixture.

3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Make sure there are no lumps.

4. Add this sifted flour mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. Mix well using a spoon.

5. Add the chocolate chunks and mix well.

6. Pour this batter onto the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.

Notes:
1. Make sure you don’t add eggs to hot butter and sugar mixture; else you will end up having scrambled eggs!

2. You don’t have to use an electric blender to whisk and don’t over beat after the addition of eggs.

3. While melting butter, make sure you melt at low heat. High heat can burn butter.

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

Cannellonis were something that I had been looking forward to prepare and taste! And finally I did it. I don’t exactly remember how I came across this pasta, probably from food network channel or any TV shows or an internet recipe. Even though the recipe list may scare you, I bet these are not at all difficult to prepare. It is simple and the taste is guaranteed. Preparation takes a bit of time though but not so much as you really would think it would because everything gets cooked so fast apart from the baking time and there is minimal chopping up. Actually I prepared this probably an year ago and prepared again last week, was simply craving for some.

Cannellonis are tube shaped pasta shelled which are filled with any filling of your choice, may it be vegetarian or a pure meataholics delight of saucy minced meat. Here I chose a ricotta and spinach filling which is quite a common combination to go for the filling. I also used a low fat ricotta since I was using quite a lot of it. You can reduce the amount as much as you just wish to have. I just made it twice until now. The first time I made it I made it with mush lesser amount of spinach and ricotta. But the filling was quite less and we got more of lasagne sheets than the filling, but the taste was real good. So the second time I made it, I just increased the amount of cheese and spinach. You may reduce both if you don’t have enough of it or if you wish to have less amount of filling, like to have less spinach or want to use less ricotta, it wont alter the taste much.

Here I have used the lasagne pasta sheets instead of the cannelloni pasta. They are more economical and something that I always used. Unlike other pasta, these pasta comes in layers. The bottom layer consists of the filled shells, followed by tomato sauce on top and white sauce to go over that. I sprinkled with some cheese for that strong flavour. For preparation, I placed the filling on one end of the cooked pasta and rolled it into tube shape by keeping the filling in. I then arranged the rolled pasta into a large baking dish. If your pasta dish doesn’t accommodate in one dish, you can split them into 2 dishes. I then poured the tomato sauce and then poured the white sauce over. Sprinkled with cheese and viola! It’s ready to go.

I m not quite sure how it works with the tube shaped cannelloni though. I don’t know if it has to be pre-cooked before filling. But I have seen uncooked cannelloni sheets being filled with the stuffing and then cooked by pouring the sauce over. The tubes get soft and cooked with the juices from the sauces. Here as you see I have rolled the pasta to form a cannelloni. Instead of that you can make a spinach and ricotta lasagne just by layering the pasta, filling and sauces one after the other. It’s much easier and takes even lesser time. You can check out my lasagne recipe for reference.


Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni
Serves 4 Adults
Preparation time: 40-50 minutes
Cooking time: 45– 50 minutes
Ingredients:
For the Filling:

Appx. 500g Chopped Spinach (I used the frozen chopped spinach.)
2 ½ cups ricotta (650g) (You may reduce the amount anywhere from 300g-600g)
150g sliced closed cup mushrooms (2 cups)
1 medium size onion sliced (100g,3/4 cup)
2-3 large flake of garlic,sliced
½ tsp dried basil
¼ of a nutmeg grated
½ tsp dried oregano
Salt – to taste
Crushed Black pepper – to taste
1-2 Tbsp Olive oil

Napolitana Sauce (Tomato sauce):
5 large tomatoes, chopped (500g)
2 large flakes of garlic sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium size onion, chopped (100g, ¾ cup)
½ tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sugar
¾ -1 cup water (Enough to make a thick sauce.)
1 tsp paprika/Kashmiri Chilli powder (Optional - Add only if you want it slightly hot.)
Salt – as required

Bechamel sauce (White sauce):
2 ½ cups- 3 cups (625mls-750mls)- semi skimmed milk or whole milk
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp Olive oil/vegetable oil
2 tbsp plain flour
1 maggi vegetable/chicken bouillon cube (Stock cube)
1 tsp English mustard paste
Salt – as required
1/8 th of a nutmeg grated
Crushed white/black pepper (Optional).

Others:
14 – 16 Lasagne sheets
1/3 – ½ cup grated cheddar (optional)
2-4 Tbsp grated Parmesan

Preparation:


Tomato sauce:
Tomato sauce actually needs slow cooking, so the filling can be made while the sauce is cooking. For the sauce,

1.Heat oil in a saucepan and add chopped onion and garlic. Sauté till onion is really soft and translucent.

2. Add in the chopped tomatoes. Cover and cook on medium heat until the tomato has gone all soft and mushy.

3. Add in the herbs and paprika if using it. Add the required amount of water and cook on low for about 25-30 minutes.

4. Add the sugar and adjust salt.

5. Once the sauce is completely cooled, pour it in a food processor and whizz for few seconds until you get a chunky puree. You may do it in you blender as well; but make sure the sauce has cooled enough before you puree it. While the sauce is cooking, prepare the spinach and ricotta filling.

For the filling:
1. In a large frying pan, heat olive oil. Add in the sliced onions and sauté until soft. Add in the sliced garlic and sauté till soft.

2. Add in the sliced mushrooms and cook for about 4 minutes. Add in the chopped spinach, oregano, basil and crushed pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes until the spinach is all well cooked.

3. Grate in the nutmeg and stir well.

4. Turn the heat off and add the ricotta and stir well. Adjust the seasoning and add salt as necessary. Keep the filling aside.

After the filing and the sauce is ready, prepare the béchamel sauce:

1.Heat another saucepan on medium and add oil + butter.

2. Reduce the heat to low, add in flour. Stir continuously for a minute.

3. Take the pan off the heat and milk. Stir continuously using a wire whisk to break up any lumps.

4. Keep the pan back on heat, add the mustard paste and crumbled chicken stock cube. Keep stirring on low-medium heat until the mixture turns thick.

5. Grate in nutmeg and add crushed pepper if using. Stir well.

While the béchamel is cooking you can prepare the pasta.

Cook the lasagne sheets according to the packet instructions and drain the pasta on a clean kitchen towel.

To cook pasta, in a very large saucepan of boiling salted water, add a tablespoon of oil. Add 4-6 sheets of lasagne sheets and stir carefully and continuously, but not vigorously. This will prevent the sheets from sticking to each other. If you find it difficult to handle, you may add 2 sheets at a time and cook. Pick each sheet from the water using tongs and leave to drain on a kitchen towel.

Assembling:




1.Place a cooked lasagne sheet on a clean plate and add 2 heaped tablespoons of filling at the end of shorter side. Roll the pasta carefully keeping the filling in.

2. Place the rolled pasta on an oiled baking dish or a clear pyrex dish or gratin dish.

3. Roll all the pasta in the same manner until all the filling is used up.

4. Keep it in a single layer.

5. Pour the tomato sauce over and spread using a spatula.

6. Pour the white sauce over and lightly spread using spoon. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake @ 180 degrees Celsius for about 45 – 50 minutes or you see golden brown patches all around.

Notes:
1. The pasta can be prepared 24 hours ahead, covered with cling film and refrigerated before baking. Then bake directly from the fridge until you see golden patches all around.

2. For the ease of preparation you may try shop bought nepolitana sauce and white sauce. I have never tried both anyways, since I find it easy to prepare the home made ones.

This is my entry for 'Healing foods-Spinach' hosted by divya of Dilse which was started by Siri of siri-corner.

Pistachio and Raisin Biscotti

Hi,
Hope you all are doing well there. This time I am posting something quite different from my usual posts for you. It’s Biscotti. I have made two kinds; quite similar ones which you will find at the end of this post. I made these delicious fingers couple of weeks back when I was obsessed about baking and just wanted to bake something that was free of fat! When I googled, not many options were there that uses less or no fat and only Biscotti was something that pleased me. Biscottis are just the perfect stuff to dunk in tea, coffee or even milk and are so filling. Unlike cookies, the texture of these finger beauties can be compared to that of rusks; crispy and crunchy and dry. I would say these are the royal cousins of rusks packed with nuts and dried fruits and tastes so yummy. Since it contains no added butter or fat, it is quite low in fat as well; a totally guilt free snack. I already made it twice in few days time. My husband and my little one just loved it. They are not much of cookie fans, but they liked these alot. They always had it with their milk and tea on evenings and I had to push myself to make it again after few days!. The second time I made it, I ran out of pistachio, so substituted them with almonds and added a bit of lemon rind for a change of flavour. We loved the pistachio one much more, and the green specks made them looks so good as well. Biscotti would last much more than you could imagine. You can wrap these up in a clear bag, tie it up with a lovely ribbon and that would make a lovely present for anyone. And my kitchen counter looks so good with biscotti filled jars!Lol..Take a look at the recipe:

Pistachio and Raisin Biscotti
Makes about 20-24 Biscotti.
Recipe Courtesty:www.joyofbaking.com


Ingredients:
½ cup shelled unsalted pistachios
½ cup raisins/dried cranberries/Cherries
2/3 cup fine granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

Preparation:

1.In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and eggs at high speed using an electric hand beater for about 5 minutes until you get a thick and pale yellow mousse like mixture. At this point, you should be able to draw a figure “8” using the balloon whisk. Add in vanilla essence and beat until combined.

2. In another bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well using a wire whisk or sieve 2-3 times if there are lumps.

3. Add flour to the early beaten egg and sugar mixture and mix using a large spoon. Add the chopped nuts and raisins and just mix with the spoon.

4. Pre-heat the oven to 175 Degree Celcius.

5. Oil a baking paper and place it on a baking sheet. Place dough in the centre of the baking sheet and roll using the baking paper to form a log of 30 cm length and 9 cm wide. The dough at this stage will be really sticky. So rolling into a log with hands will be a bit messy. Oil the hands if you are handling the dough with hands. (First time I made log by rolling it using hand which was messy. But the second time, I placed the dough in the center of the baking paper, covered the dough with baking paper from one end and rolled slowly to form a log.)

6. Place it in the centre rack of the oven and bake it for 25 minutes or until just firm and slightly golden in colour. Don’t make it really golden; it will be difficult to slice. Remove from the oven and let to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

7. Reduce the oven temperature to 165 Degrees.

8. Transfer the log on to a chopping board and cut into 2 cm slices, on the diagonal (Cut slices in a slanting position). Cut the slices in a sawing motion moving the knife forward and backward for getting a neat slice, rather than crumbled biscotti. Use a serrated knife for the ease of cutting.

9. Place the cut biscottis on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake for another 10 minutes or slightly golden. Let them cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Lemon Scented Almond and Raisin Biscotti
Makes about 20-24 Biscotti.

Similar to those Pistachio Raisin Biscotti are these Lemon Scented Almond and Raisin Biscotti. As I mentioned, the former ones were so very much in demand, So I had to push myself to bake them again. Actually I was overjoyed for getting a chance to bake again and something that everyone would really eat. I have used almonds instead of Pistachios and added a lemon’s rind to the dough. The citrusy smell in the Biscotti was so refreshing. The whole flat had a citrusy aroma when the biscottis were baking in the oven. I would have preferred to add chocolate chunks to the dough rather than raisins, but was sure that my hubby wouldn’t like them when they contain chocolates. Sigh! So I was forced to finish up with raisins. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
½ cup Almonds, chopped
1 large lemon’s rind,grated
½ cup raisins/dried cranberries/Cherries
2/3 cup fine granulated sugar
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

Preparation:
1.In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and eggs at high speed using an electric hand beater for about 5 minutes until you get a thick and pale yellow mousse like mixture. At this point, you should be able to draw a figure “8” using whisk. Add in vanilla essence and lemon rind and beat until combined.

2. In another bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well using a wire whisk or sieve 2-3 times if there are lumps.

3. Add flour to the early beaten egg and sugar mixture and mix slowly using a large spoon. Add the chopped nuts and raisins and just mix with the spoon.

4. Pre-heat the oven to 175 Degree Celcius.

5. Oil a baking paper and place it on a baking sheet. Place this dough in the centre of the baking paper and roll using the baking sheet to form a log of 30 cm length and 9 cm wide. The dough at this stage will be really sticky. So rolling into a log with hands will be a bit messy. Oil the hands if you are handling the dough with hands. (First time I made log by rolling it using hand which was messy. But the second time, I placed the dough in the center of the baking paper, covered the dough with baking paper from one end and rolled slowly to form a log.)

6. Place it in the centre rack of the oven and bake it for 25 minutes or until just firm and slightly golden in colour. Don’t make it really golden; it will be difficult to slice. Remove from the oven and let to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

7. Reduce the oven temperature to 165 Degrees.

8. Transfer the log on to a chopping board and cut into 2 cm slices, on the diagonal (Cut slices in a slanting position). Cut the slices in a sawing motion moving the knife forward and backward for getting a neat slice, rather than crumbled biscotti. Use a serrated knife for the ease of cutting.

9. Place the cut biscottis on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake for another 10 minutes or slightly golden. Let them cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.