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Orange Horns
Mix 200 gr of wheat flour with 100 gr each of cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1/2 teaspoon of grated orange rind, 1/2 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add just enough orange juice to make a soft dough, then roll it into rounds 5 mm thick. Sprinkle each round with sugar, then roll them up in the shape of "horns". Bake in moderate oven until golden, then let them cool outside the oven, and decorate. Alternatively, you can prepare a Puff pastry dough by adding 15 gr baker's yeast into the water. Then let the "horns" raise for 20 minutes before baking them.
Pear Dumplings
Prepare 200 gr of basic Pie crust dough and roll it in 4 circles, 3 mm thick. Peel and core 4 pears, roll them in flour, then put each one in the middle of a dough circle. You can fill the core of each pear with raisins and brown sugar, or Sweet Tofu cream, or Sweet Cheese cream. Pull up the edges (removing the extra dough) to cover the pear, and leave a hole at the top to allow the steam to get out. Bake in moderate oven until the crust is golden. Let cool and decorate with Frosting.
You can make the same recipe with apples.
Torcetti
Dissolve 15 gr baker's yeast in warm water. Mix 200 gr flour with a pinch of saffron, 1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind, 50 gr sugar, 100 gr raisins, 2 spoons oil and just enough water to make a stiff dough. Make the shapes and arrange on a baking sheet. Let rise before baking in moderate oven.
Otmeal Cookies
Mix 100 gr oatmeal with 200 gr whole wheat flour, 2 spoons raisins, 2 spoons chopped almonds or hazelnuts, and 1/2 spoon baking soda. Separately mix 2 spoons corn oil, 4 spoons honey, 2 spoons milk, a pinch of salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Grease a baking sheet. Stir in the liquids into the flour, quickly knead and make cookies. Bake in moderate oven.
An interesting variation is obtained by substituting the oil with 3 spoons peanut butter. For the rest, proceed as per basic recipe.
Sweet Little Hearts
Prepare a basic Puff pastry dough and roll it in a sheet 3 mm thick. Cut small heart shapes, then stack 2 or 3 together, sprinkling sugar between the layers. Bake immediately in hot oven (200 Celsius) until golden, then remove and let cool. You can cover them with Frosting, melted chocolate or thin Custard, and serve with other light sweets as a decorative dessert.
Apricot Turnovers
Cook about 300 gr chopped apricots with 50 sugar and just enough water to make them soft but dry (about 4 spoons). Let cool. Prepare a basic Tart dough and roll it to a 5 mm sheet. Cut large rounds, put some cooked apricots in the middle, then fold in two and seal the edges. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake immediately in moderate oven.
Bear Paws
Mix 100 gr of butter or vegetable margarine (at room temperature) with 60 gr icing sugar, a pinch of salt and 200 gr white flour, kneading well. Roll the dough to a sheet 5 mm thick, then cut the shapes (crescent moons). Bake in moderate oven and let cool. Melt 100 dark chocolate bar (in a small container inside a pan with 2 cm boiling water on the bottom) and dip one side of the biscuits. Arrange on a tin foil and let harden the chocolate well before serving.
Fruit Cookies
Mix 200 gr of flour with 100 gr each of cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add 100 gr of raisins and 100 gr of chopped nuts to the mix, then add just enough milk or water to make a very soft dough. Make small stacks on a baking sheet and bake immediately.
In a pan mix 100 gr chopped dates, 100 gr brown sugar, 100 gr butter and half cup of water, then cook for about 10 minutes on a slow fire, stirring. Let the mix cool then add 200 gr flour, 200 gr chopped walnuts, 3/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of orange juice, 1 teaspoon grated orange rind and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Mix well and spread in a greased baking pan. Bake for about 20 minutes at 180 C, then let cool. Spread with a Frosting and then cut in squares or bars.
Maize Muffins
Mix 100 gr of wheat flour with 100 gr each of cornmeal, cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add 100 gr of fresh berries to the mix, then add just enough milk or water to make a thick batter, then pour in the moulds and bake immediately.
Angel Stars
Prepare a Basic sponge cake mix and spread it thinly on a baking sheet. Bake immediately in moderate oven (180 Celsius) until golden brown, then let cool well before removing and cutting shapes. You can cover these little stars with different types of Fondant, Icing or Frosting or melted chocolate. They are great for decorations.
Jam Basket Cookies
Make a Basic Cookie dough and roll it to a sheet about 1.5 cm thick and cut small round shapes. Arrange them on a baking sheet. Slightly press the center down and fill the hollow with 1/2 teaspoon of jam of your choice. Bake immediately until the biscuits are golden, then remove from the oven and let cool well before transfering them to a tin box.
Melt 100 gr butter or margarine with 100 gr brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ginger powder, a pinch each of cinnamon and spice, and a smaller quantity of nutmeg and cloves. Stir well for about 3 minutes, then remove from the fire and let the mixture cool. Add 200 gr wheat flour and 1 teaspoon of baking soda, knead well and make cookies. Bake in moderate oven as usual.
Walnut Marzipan Cookies
Make a Basic Cookie dough, adding 50 gr of ground walnuts.Roll the dough sheet thin (0.5 cm) and cut into round cookies, arrange in a baking sheet and bake until slightly golden. Prepare 200 gr Marzipan, then add a few drops of water to make the paste softer. When the cookies have cooled, spread the Marzipan paste on the bottom and couple with another cookie to make "sandwiches". Spread a thin layer of Orange Juice Icing and let it dry before stacking the cookies in a tin box.
Doughnuts
Dissolve 15 gr baker's yeast in 1 cup of milk, add 50 gr sugar and a flavoring of your choice (cinnamon, grated lemon rind etc). Mix in 200 gr flour to make a very soft dough. Cut the shapes and let your doughnuts puff for 15 minutes before deep frying them in oil. Drain them when they are golden brown let cool and decorate with icing sugar or Frosting.
Custard Puffs
Make 300 gr Puff pastry dough, roll in 3 mm thick sheet and cut the shapes. From 2/3 of the rounds cut a round hole (you can use the cuttings for another recipe), then arrange each Puff putting 2 "rings" over 1 full round (making "cups"). Fill the hollow with a little Custard cream and bake immediately in hot oven (200 Celsius). When the Puffs are golden brown remove them from the oven, let them cool and decorate with icing sugar.
Fruit Bombs
Soak and cook 100 gr pitted prunes with a little lemon or orange juice until soft. Chop 100 gr walnuts and mix them in. Prepare a thick batter mixing 100 gr flour with 1 spoon each of icing sugar and chickpea flour. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and a little water, mix well. Dip the fruit balls into the batter and immediately deep fry them in hot oil until golden brown. Drain and let cool before sprinkling with icing sugar.
Croccante
Melt 200 gr sugar and 25 gr butter (or margarine) in a saucepan over a slow flame, and when it becomes golden brown remove from the fire and mix in 300 gr blanched almonds. Pour the mix on a greased marble surface (or steel tray) and let cool before cutting.
Orange Cream Rings
Mix 200 gr of wheat flour with 100 gr each of cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1 teaspoon of grated orange rind, a pinch of saffron powder, 1/2 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 50 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add just enough milk cream to make a soft dough. Shape small rings and arrange on a greased baking sheet, then sprinkle with sugar. Bake immediately in moderate oven.
Strawberry Cupcakes
Mix 200 gr of flour with 100 gr each of cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add 100 gr of fresh strawberries to the mix, then add just enough milk or water to make a thick batter, then pour in the moulds and bake immediately.
Easter Shells
The egg is a powerful symbol of Earth's life and fertility celebrated at the beginning of Spring, long before Christianity, just like the feast we know as Christmas was already celebrated as the "birthday of the Sun" by pre-Christian religions dating back thousands of years. However, we can celebrate the symbol without killing the life it represents if we use vegetarian ingredients in the shape of eggs: the most popular is chocolate. All over the world, chocolate eggs are a great favorite for the Spring celebrations called Easter. A very simple recipe calls for filling the half chocolate "shells" with a little Custard cream, Whipped cream, or Sweet Tofu cream, and decorating with fresh fruits.
Sugar Butterflies
Chop and slightly roast 100 gr blanched almonds or hazelnuts. Heat 100 gr sugar with 1 spoon lemon juice and 1 spoon water, until it starts to caramelize. Add the nuts, stir, and pour in round spots on a greased marble surface (or a greased steel tray), spreading with a wet blunt knife to 2 or 3 mm thickness. Let cool a few seconds, then use the knife to gently fold half of the circles so that they resemble butterflies. Let them cool completely. Prepare a Butter frosting or a Sweet Tofu cream and use it to fix the "butterflies" to the flat circles. Decorate with Candied Orange Peels.
Blueberry Tartlets
Make a Pie crust dough or a Tart crust dough, roll it to 5 mm thickness and line the tartlet moulds. Prickle with a fork and bake in moderate oven until golden brown. Remove from the moulds and let them cool. Prepare a Custard cream and spread a thin layer on the bottom of the tartlets, then fill with fresh blueberries. You can accompany these tartlets with Whipped cream.
Apple Stacks
Peel, core and dice 3 apples, then cook them with 100 gr sugar in a covered pot, on a slow flame. After 10 minutes they should be translucent: remove from the fire and let cool. Mix 300 gr of wheat flour with 1 spoon of baking soda, 2 spoons of oil, 2 spoons of water, to make a stiff dough. Roll the dough to a sheet 5 mm thick, then cut the rounds. Arrange the rounds on a baking sheet in layers: a dough disk on the bottom, a teaspoon of cooked apples, and another dough disk. Sprinkle with sugar and bake them.
Fruit Cupcakes
Mix 200 gr of flour with 100 gr cornstarch and 30 gr icing sugar. Add 1 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add 100 gr of candied fruits to the mix, then add just enough milk or water to make a thick batter, then pour in the moulds and bake immediately.
Mix 200 gr of flour with 200 gr fresh grated carrots and 50 gr brown sugar. Add 1 spoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add just enough milk or water to make a thick batter, then pour in the moulds and bake immediately. |
Commercial sweets and pastries almost invariably contain chemicals (preservatives, colorings, flavorings etc) and by-products you may not like to eat or to give to your family and friends. You cannot control the amount of sugars and fats either - and this is a problem, too, especially when the labels of the products do not state the percentage of these ingredients. Besides eggs (which are detrimental for health in many ways) commercial pastries may contain a number of other "hidden ingredients" that can be derived from animal slaughtering, such as gelatine (made from bones, horns, hooves), "edible fats" (which legally can be obtained from non vegetarian sources) and even some colorings (like cochineal red).
The alternative is to prepare your own sweets. Actually it takes less time and energy than most people think, and there are many advantages. The happiness in the faces of your children, family members and guests when presented with a sweet treat made at home with pure and healthy ingredients is probably the greatest advantage you can imagine.
Cooking, and particularly making sweets, is a wonderfully creative hobby, by which you can create innumerable variations of the basic recipes according to the season and the ingredients you can find most easily. Depending on the geographical and climatic region you live in, you can creatively transform an entire cookbook by utilizing the local products. So instead of Apricot Turnovers you can have Mango Turnovers... Instead of almond Marzipan or Croccante you can make cashew nut Marzipan or Croccante, and so on. The possibilities are unlimited. Just learn the basic techniques and the properties of the various ingredients, and you'll become expert in creating your own recipes from zero.
Preparing sweets and pastries at home allows you to save considerable amounts of money, too. Just compare the cost of the separate ingredients with the cost of the pastries you generally buy in the shop.
Traditionally, sweets were served in special occasions like festivals, or as a separate meal - generally in the afternoon, with tea - or for breakfast. It is not advisable to consume nutritious sweets after a large meal: it will make digestion difficult. You can rather choose to consume sweets instead of a regular meal, if you don't have metabolic problems (like diabetes) and you need some extra energy to go through your day. Sweets, with their high contents of simple carbohydrates, are an immediate boost of energy both physically and mentally. However, you need to keep watch of the combination between sugars and fats, because when consumed together, they can be difficult to digest and slow your metabolism, increasing your bodily weight. Thus, a very small serving of sweets is equal in calories and energy to a large meal.
One of the most important subject in Sustainable Development at global level, it is also extremely important at the level of home economics. Recycling basically means "finding a new advantegeous utilization for things you can't use in a normal way", such as scrap paper, empty bottles etc. Many packages can be re-used ingenuously in several ways in your home- before ending up in the commercial recycling circuit.
However, recycling is not limited to containers and packaging. In the pages of Parama's Kitchen you have found several times how cuttings from dough sheets, pulp or juice of fruits or vegetable, pulp strained from soya milk, the whey from cottage cheese etc, can be utilized in other recipes. Let us see now some good ways to use up leftovers in the kitchen. Make sure that the leftovers are not spoiled or contaminated - in other words, just use what was left in the pot, not from people's plates, and utilize the food before it goes bad.
Some ingredients have the special ability to transform your plain dish in a special treat. You can use one of them or more, to give taste, texture and color to your desserts, especially the "recycled ones". Here they are: - a pinch of vanilla - 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind - a pinch of saffron - a pinch of cardamom seeds - 1 spoon of cocoa powder - 1 spoon raisins - 1 spoon shredded coconut
If you have cooked too much plain rice, and a sizeable amount is left in the pot, put it in the fridge and for your next meal make a wonderful Rice cake. Mix the boiled rice (about 1 cup) with 2 spoons wheat flour, 1 spoon powdered milk or khoya, sugar to taste, 1 or 2 spoons of dried fruits and nuts, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and beat with sufficient milk to make a thick batter. Pour it immediately in a baking pan and bake until the crust is golden
With a smaller quantity of plain boiled rice you can make an instant Rice cream. Blend 1 cup of plain boiled rice with 1 cup of milk, 1 spoon sugar, 1 spoon condensed milk, and one (or more) of the Transforming ingredients as above. Put the mix on the fire for 5 minutes, stirring, then pour in dessert cups and let it cool well before serving.
With the cuttings of sponge cake or with a cake that has taken an irregular shape while baking, you can make excellent small sweets called Truffles. Crumble the sponge cake cuttings, and for each cup mix 2 spoons soft cheese (tofu, ricotta, cottage cheese or cream cheese), 1 spoon sugar, and one of the Transforming ingredients described above. Mix well and press into small balls, then roll in cocoa powder or grated chocolate (for Black Truffles) or in dessiccated coconut (for White Truffles). Keep in fridge before serving.
Crumble 200 gr Marie biscuits, mix with 100 gr chocolate chips, 100 gr cocoa powder, 100 gr each raisin and Candied fruits or Candied orange peels, 100 gr flour, and knead with sufficient butter. Make flat cookies and bake in moderate oven. When cool, sprinkle with icing sugar.
This famous Italian recipe can be prepared with odd pieces and cuttings of sponge cake. The classic recipe is the following: sprinkle the sponge cake with coffee (you can use de-caffeinated or cereal coffee), make layers with cream cheese (or Sweet Tofu cream) and Chocolate sauce. Top with cocoa powder and keep in fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.
The fruit variation is made with layers of sponge cake with layers of cooked fruits, jam or fresh fruit, and Custard cream. After setting for at least 2 hours in the fridge, you can serve with Whipped cream.
Whether you are baking cakes, pastries or cookies, you must always heat the oven properly before you slide them in. Never try to bake anything in a cold oven, starting the fire at the same time when you put the cake or pastry in. Likewise, always extract the baking pan or sheet from the oven as soon as the cake or pastry is cooked, and turn the oven off. If you leave the baking pan with your cake or cookies inside the oven to cool (or in a warm place), they will become harder. If you want to have crunchy and dry biscuits or toasted sweet bread (which keep longer), cook them once, then after they have cooled put them back in an moderately hot oven, turn the fire off and let them stay in the cooling oven for a specific time - depending on the thickness of your biscuits and the dryness you require.
Mix 200 gr of wheat flour with 100 gr each of cornstarch and icing sugar. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and mix well. Cut in small pieces or slices 100 grams of butter or vegetable margarine and knead quickly into the flour. Add just enough milk or water to make a soft dough, then roll it quickly to a thick sheet (1 cm).
Mix 200 white flour with 200 shredded coconut and a pinch of vanilla extract. In a pan, melt 200 gr brown sugar, 4 spoons corn syrup and 100 gr butter or vegetable margarine. When it is starts boiling, remove from the fire, then add the flour mix. Let it cool, then add 1 teaspoon of baking powder, beat well and arrange in thin round shapes on a baking sheet. Bake until slightly golden.
Mix 125 gr blanched and ground almonds (of which 10 bitter), 125 gr white sugar, 50 gr butter, a little almond oil, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 50 gr milk. Knead and make small cookies, bake in moderate oven.
Melt 100 gr butter and 175 brown sugar, stirring for about 5 minutes. Let it cool, then add 50 gr cocoa powder, 75 gr white flour, 50 gr powdered milk or khoya, a pinch of salt, a pinch of vanilla extract, 50 gr chopped/ground walnuts and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Mix well, make cookies and bake as usual.
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