Chocolate Chip Flapjacks

That's yet another addition to my ever-growing book collection. Earned points from my account and got a gift voucher from Crossword. That ended up in me buying another cookbook and this time it was exclusively Chocolate. I purchased this book named Chocolate: The Food and the Music, with recipes using chocolate as base ingredient. The hardbound book comes with CD which carries a collection of sweet melodies along with 100 odd tempting chocolate recipes. I guess it's probably aimed at making a romantic evening dessert for two. :)

I have been scanning through recipes from the book for long now and decided finally I should put it to use. DH got a new pack of oats and it's been lying to be used for our breakfast. He loves it, especially when he's had heavy dinner the previous night. I fuss over it. Agreed it's good to keep your tummy light, but I think it's a little too light, sort of like a patient's food :( I eat it, but by no means reserve any liking for it. May be I should put it this way... I don't like them in form of porridge, probably? What I do instead is to disguise it in food in form of oat flour. I pound some regular oats to fine powder and make instant oat dosa. They are good for disguise and one can't say oats have gone into it. I recently experimented with some oat flour muffins and they were yum!

A flapjack is a sweet tray-baked oat bar made from rolled oats, butter, brown sugar and golden syrup. This dish is found in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and is also found in Australasia, but known as a 'muesli bar'. In other countries including Canada, the United States, and South Africa, flapjack refers to a form of pancake, although flapjacks do exist as 'Hudson Bay Bars'. Source: Wikipedia Now call it Flapjacks, Granola Bars, Muesli Bars or Hudson Bay Bars, I love them all!

I am gripped by books that have catchy photographs, it's an eye-candy. This is one such book which has an amazing collection of tempting chocolate recipes which I would love to re-create. Chocolate Chip Flapjacks were made inspired from this book. I tweaked the recipe a little by reducing the amount of butter to 100gm and sugar to 30gm and increased honey by 3 tablespoons. Also threw in a good amount of dates which is sweet by nature too. Again, as I insist always, test-taste your food for sweetness before you push them into oven for baking. However, the recipe I've put down here is right from the book with no changes.

Chocolate Chip Flapjacks

Adapted from the book Chocolate: The Food and the Music

INGREDIENTS:

115gm butter
60gm caster sugar
1 tbsp honey or golden syrup
350gm rolled oats
85gm dark/plain chocolate chips
85gm sultanas
50gm pitted and chopped dates

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Lightly grease a 8" cake tin.

Place the butter, caster sugar and honey in a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring often, till the sugar has melted and mixture has combined well. Remove the saucepan from heat and stir in the oats and mix in till they are well combined. Add the chocolate chips, the dates and sultanas and combine well. Turn into the prepared tin and press down well. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 mins. Cool slightly and mark squares on it. When almost cold, cut into squares and transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Flapjacks are extremely easy to make. I suggest instead of the stove-top method, you can even microwave the said ingredients, mixing them at regular intervals, till the sugar has melted. Just toss in rest of the ingredients and bake them. I assume this would be simpler and may be I should give it a try next time. You can add dry fruits, nuts as per your tastes. These are great as snack bars for kids or tea time treats. Also good for travels and as picnic accompaniments.

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Chocolate Biscuit Pudding

My countdown begins as I have just about a week to go. My heart is aching as my maternity leave comes to a fag end and I shall soon resume work full time. Time has flown so quickly and my tiny tot is in her fourth month. Joining back office won't be any easy as I leave my little one behind and shall be away for 10 odd hours. My heart wrenches and eyes wet even as I think of being without her. I have been her throughout the night and day all these months, almost every minute. Staying away from her with be a challenging task for sure.

We have named her Ridhi and we love her name. It's unique and means wealth/ prosperity/ success/ good fortune in Sanskrit. Hunting a name for her was an ardent task in itself. Hundred odd names were looked up, many suggested by our near and dear ones, mostly to be rejected. Blame me? I am choosy. My better half was not any better. I had many clauses, so did he :) Name should be unique, be meaningful and hopefully should be associated with any God or Goddess... etc, etc, etc...

I remember as kids we had couple of common names in our class that would lead to an awful confusion while names were called out. Fortunately enough I did not face such incidents in my high school or pre-college, but, I have been through it while in my graduation where I shared my name with another girl for four years. I am hopeful she won't have any hassles of facing half a dozen similar names in her class :D I would often blame my parents as I never liked my name till Ms. Sherawat made my name popular! I know it's thinking a little too ahead, but least, as she grows old she would not blame us as I did!

As my countdown to join work begins, I am going into a panic mode. The passionate cook in me hasn't been able to cook or bake much and with me resuming office soon, I fear if I will be able pursue my passions. I am hoping I should, for the love of cooking and blogging. For moment I'm feeling positive.

What I have for you today is this Chocolate Biscuit Pudding made using microwave method instead of the traditional stove-top one. I've made this sort of a pudding cake earlier in vanilla flavor and have received several positive reviews by my readers on it. In fact, it's one of the most popular posts on my blog and I am glad it's received well since it's been a never fail recipe for me personally.

I have been using microwave quite a lot off late as it simplifies my work a tad bit. I am loving to make eggless custards in microwave as there is no hassle of custard settling at the bottom. Just mix in everything and microwave for a few minutes, stirring them in intervals. I bet you will love this method too.

Chocolate Biscuit Pudding

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lt full fat milk (approx 2 1/2 cups)
2 tbsp cornstarch
200 gm sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder (+ more if you prefer darker)
100 gm Marie biscuits
A few tbsp of warm milk
Chocolate vermicelli to decorate

DIRECTIONS

Microwave method: Dissolve all the ingredients in a microwave safe pot and microwave on high for about 8-10 minutes or till thick. Stir the mixture in regular intervals of 2 minutes. Check the consistency and microwave further if it's not thick enough. Ensure it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove and allow it come to room temperature.

Stove-top Method: Dissolve the cornflour into 1/4 part of milk and set aside. Bring rest of the milk to a boil. Pour in the cornflour milk mixture in a gentle stream, stirring the milk continuously. It's best to do this in a non-stick pan.

Dip each biscuit in warm milk and lay them side by side on a pudding plate. Spread the prepared pudding onto the biscuit layer. If you want to make a cake, follow up with another layer of biscuits and pudding. Fill the pudding into piping bag with star nozzle. Sprinkle biscuit crumbles on the pudding layer and pipe decorations on the prepared cake. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Decorate with chocolate vermicelli on top before serving.

I made this pudding as a weekend activity while my hubby was baby sitting our daughter. It's super quick and easy using microwave method. The pudding sets well in the refrigerator and tastes great cold, so I suggest you do that. I admire art in any form. The creative side of me has hardly been able to explore much of cake decorations, except for the Black Forest Cake I made for dad last year. I'm inspired by blogs who can pool in so much time and patience to blossom their creativity in practice. I'm sold instantly. This pudding is a testimony to satisfy that urge in me to decorate cakes. It's magical.

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Mango Ice cream

Mango season is almost seeing it's end and I realize I do not have a single post on mangoes for this season. We have been enjoying mangoes thoroughly almost every single day. Neelam variety of mangoes have hit the stands already and soon the last batch of mangoes for this season will dissapear without any being used in desserts, soley to please my blog first and our taste buds next :)

I love mangoes in their true form, especially if they are naturally sweet. To me they can compete with any dessert. These days our meals complete with mangoes, thus leaving no room for any other dessert. I initially thought of using them in a baked version of my beloved mango cheesecake which I made sometime back. But soon the thoughts on baking took a backseat as time is not at my luxury these days. I think of baking and my baby calls out for me with her cries even before I can pre-heat my oven or get my pans out. Thoughts disappear. The pans are back in their shelves. I need to attend her. I sit down to write a line or two for my blog and again she calls out for me. I need to attend. Period! Finally I get a chance today... to jot down beyond just a sentence or two. Phew!

Year's ago when we were kids, Nestle's condensed milk, Milkmaid often came with a complimentary recipe booklet which had a collection of some excellent recipes made using condensed milk. My mom would collect these recipe books, file them and often make sweet treats for us. I was inspired by a recipe for an eggless mango ice-cream from an old recipe booklet that I had borrowed from my mom's collection. I modified it to make the ice-cream more creamier and rich.

Do you by any chance know how I chop my mangoes? It's been a trade secret for long. Sssshhh ;) That's reveled now :D. I use a peeler to peel off the skin from the fruit. Then chop them to long wedges or squares as desired. I find this process easier and mess-free for the clumsy me. And that old steel peeler cum grater has been an obedient friend of mine serving it's purpose on a daily basis as needed. I can't survive without it.

Mango Ice-cream

Inspired by Milkmaid's recipe booklet

INGREDIENTS

2 ripe mangoes weighing almost 750 gms
400 ml sweetened condensed milk
200 ml low fat milk cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
100 ml prepared thick custard

DIRECTIONS

Prepare a thick custard by heating a mixture of 100 ml milk and 10 gm cornflour. Heat it till the mix thickens and coats well on the back of a spoon. Refrigerate till needed. Alternatively, you may use a store bought vanilla/mango flavored custard powder and prepare the same using instructions on the pack. I used a store bought vanilla custard powder for this recipe.

Wash the mangoes, skin them and chop the fruit roughly. In a mixie or using a blender puree the mangoes along with cold sweetened condensed milk, ice cold low fat milk cream (I used 25% Amul cream), prepared custard and the vanilla extract. Blend them well till they are homogeneous. A touch of vanilla enhances the flavor of mangoes. Transfer the ice-cream to a freezer proof, air-tight container and freeze them for an hour or two. Remove when you see the sides of ice cream setting. Run the ice cream in a mixie or a blender and return it to the freezer. Repeat the process a couple of times for creamier ice cream. Return to freezer and freeze for a couple of hours till set. Remove the ice cream and leave on the counter for 5-10 mins before serving. This will soften the ice cream a little and help in scooping it out with ease. Alternatively, you may dip the scooper in hot water first and then scoop out the ice cream to serve.

The original recipe suggested the use of gelatin which will help in reducing crystallization of the ice cream during the freezing process. Gelatin wasn't the best option for me, so I skipped it and had no problems with that. This is by far the creamiest ice cream I have made. I left the ice cream sit in freezer over night and I had no trouble with ice crystals forming on the ice cream.

Making ice cream at home needs some amount of patience especially if you do not have an ice cream maker. The daunting job of freezing, churning and re-freezing would be saved to a greater extent. I am envious of the one's who own it. But then making this way has it's own charm. My family enjoyed every scoop thoroughly, sought out for more helpings. Served with freshly chopped mangoes, we could taste the freshest, ripe fruit that went into it with every bite. This is my best way to bid adieu to the summers.

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