Where there is a will there is a OREO !

It's been so long since I posted, more than a month and half, but I am not to blame, it is the oven god as I would like to refer to him/her LOL ! In the end of March the oven god showed its displeasure by shutting down in the midst of me baking a fantastic savory pumpkin feta pie ! Then there were problems finding a new oven that would fit in the place of the old, finally followed by some heavy carpentering and installation of a brand new state of the art cooking range. But the problem did not end there, the cooking range was an exhibition piece and had some programs installed in it to make it ''safe'' so that it would not start and heat the oven accidentally in the shop as a consequence no baking for a few more days till the technician came by and reprogrammed the oven. So by the first week of April the oven was again in operation, but then I had so other things keeping me busy. First was my fantastic trip to Dresden, for the International Orchid Show, where I had the opportunity to be a steward (trainee judge). And then work as usual.
From the savory palette I managed to bake the Pumpkin feta pie that I had to abandon earlier followed by a spring vegetable pie and then a Zucchini Mushroom frittata. From the sweet department I managed a Mango cheese cake to welcome the mango season and today I baked Oreo cookies
 To everyone who has grown up in the 90s in India the biscuit Pure Magic from Britannia should be no alien. I myself enjoyed prying the dark chocolate biscuits apart and then licking the vanilla cream filling. Suddenly this biscuit vanished from the market, don't know why. It is still available in the US and in Europe under the brand name Oreo and is termed to be the most famous and most sold cookie ever. I wanted to make these cookies based on a principle I term reverse recipe i.e try and formulate the recipe from the nutrition info and ingredients listed on the packaging. By analyzing the carbohydrate, fat, protein contents of the product and the ingredients I formulated a recipe and it sure worked out well and here are the results.

The cookies according to me lack the more intense dark almost black colour of the original Oreos, this can be attributed to the different Cocoa brands used, but nonetheless they tasted identical to the originals, something I will be baking quite often now LOL.

The recipe is very easy, for 20 cookies you need

For cookies

• 70 g all purpose flour
• 60 g Dark Dutch processed Cocoa powder
• 60 g brown sugar
• 2 g salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 ml sunflower oil
• 100 ml skimmed milk

For cream filling

• 70 g fine Castor sugar
• 35 g butter/coco fat
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tbsp warm water

Procedure

1. Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly and sieve to remove any clumps etc.
2. Slowly add in the oil and milk and mix gently until a firm dough is formed.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Roll out the dough on a baking parchment to a thin 0.5 cm thickness. Using a suitable mold like a lid cut out small circles of the rolled dough, remove the adjacent dough and use it later.
5. If you want to add any decorations like designs or patterns add them on the cookies, I just made criss cross marks with a knife.
6. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, be observant and careful as the thin cookies will easily burn and it is difficult to tell when the cookies are baked due to their already dark colour.
7. Remove from the oven and let them cool on a rack.
8. Now for the filling, add the warm water to the coco fat or butter and mix gently till the butter melts, add the vanilla essence and mix followed by the castor sugar. Mix thoroughly.
9. Now take one cooled cookie, place half a teaspoon of the vanilla cream on it and gently press another cookie on it until the cream distributes evenly. Your delicious homemade Oreos are ready.

Precision, patience and perfection

   Hey ! Its been a long time since I posted, had so many things going on at work. That didn't keep me from cooking and baking though :) just not enough time to post.
  Today I would like to emphasize on three critical aspects which one must master in order to be good at any field related to science. When I started baking or cooking in general, I quickly assimilated that even though baking would be classified as an art it actually is science and hence obeys the laws on which science functions. The key aspects are precision and patience which ultimately lead to perfection. The right ingredients in the right order baked at the right temperature and for the right time were not sufficient to give me a perfect Donauwelle, what was lacking was the last bit of precision and a lot of patience which I am always short of. During my first attempt I used the wrong baking form, traditional recipe calls for a flat rectangular baking form called Backblech in German, as I didn't have one, I tried making it in a normal round form, the result was a tasty cake that took way longer to bake, had messed up layers (thanks to my short patience) and did not look like a Donauwelle. As I have a mild OCD, I cannot rest till the goal is achieved, so the very next day I was back with a Backblech some observations at one of the best Bakeries in Bremen (Cafe Knigge for those of you who know it) and a lot of patience, really lots of it. The result was a near perfect Donauwelle.

 Now a little about the subject, Donauwelle is a traditional south German cake literally meaning  "waves of Danube", Danube is a river that originates in south Germany and flows all the way across eastern Europe and empties into the Black sea. Coming  back to the Donauwelle, it is a very rich marbled cake topped with cherries, vanilla butter cream and a namesake chocolate layer with a wave like pattern. As pictures speak a thousand words so here we go, the picture of a Donauwelle.)

  I hope the picture will motivate you to read further, but I am short of time and the recipe will be added soon in the next post. Bye for now !

The Concoction

Finally squeezed in some time to add the recipe for the Ambrosia cheese cake, so here you go!

Ambrosia cheese cake

Preparation time: 30 minutes; baking and resting time: 3 hours

Ingredients

Dark chocolate cake (base)

• 4 tbsp (35 g) plain all purpose flour (maida)
• 1 tbsp (8 g) unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
•  3 tbsp (40 g) Castor sugar
• 40 g butter
• 25 g dark chocolate
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp milk

Chocolate cheese cake

• 4 tbsp (60 gm) Magerquark/Philadelphia cream cheese or (chakka)
• 5 tbsp (75 ml) Unsweetened condensed milk
• 3 tbsp (40 g) light brown sugar 

(if you have sweetened condensed milk at hand use 100 ml of it instead of the sugar and the unsweetened condensed milk separately)

• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp Rum (optional)
• 50 gm Milk chocolate
• 1 tbsp starch

Caramel mousse

• 100 ml whipping cream (30% milk fat) cooled (warm cream does not form stiff peaks)
• 4 tbsp light brown sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tbsp water

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Line the bottom of a 24 cm baking pan with baking parchment and butter the sides.
3. For the cake melt the dark chocolate on a water bath and keep aside to cool. Beat the suagr and butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Slowly add in the cooled melted chocolate and beat on low. Whisk the egg separately and incorporate it slowly into the chocolate mixture.
4. Now sift the flour, baking powder and the cocoa together and slowly sift it into the chocolate mixture little at a time. Mix well and adjust the consistency of the mixture with 3 tbsp of milk. 
5. Put the cake batter in the readied baking pan, tap down to remove the air bubbles and bake it in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until the surface of the cake is firm.
6. While the cake is baking, melt the milk chocolate on a water bath and set aside to cool. Beat the cream cheese, condensed milk and sugar till light and fluffy, add the cooled melted chocolate and rum and mix well. Beat in the whisked egg and sifted starch.
7. Remove the dark chocolate base from the oven and let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes remove the baking parchment from the bottom and replace the cake in the baking tray, then pour the cheese cake batter on top of the cake and again put it in the oven and let it bake for another 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature of the oven to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 15 to 20 minutes until a knife inserted in the cheese cake comes out clean and the surface is firm. Switch off the oven, remove the cake from the oven after 10 minutes and let it cool on the wire rack.
8. Now for the caramel mousse, take the brown sugar and water in a sauce pan and turn on the heat on medium high. Let the sugar melt without stirring, once it gets a golden amber colour, stir the mixture until the syrup starts foaming, add 20 ml cream and mix well and again bring it to boil, remove from heat and let it cool slightly. Then add the 2 egg yolks one by one and beat on high till the mixture is nicely incorporated. Slowly cook the mixture on a water bath till it thickens, then remove from heat mix in the butter and let it cool in a refrigerator.
9. Whisk the remaining cooled cream with vanilla till it forms stiff peaks, now slowly fold in the caramel mixture till it is nicely mixed in.
10. Now layer the caramel mousse on the cooled cheese cake and spread it evenly on the surface. Top it with your favourite toppings like caramelized almonds, chocolate chips etc and refrigerated for atleast 3 hours. Ambrosia is ready !!!

Comments are welcomed, do try out this recipe and let me know how you like it. You can also simplify the recipe if you want by omitting one of the layers for eg. double the amounts for the dark chocolate cake and layer it up with just either the cheese cake or the caramel mousse, that would also taste good.

Ambrosia - Its time we tasted it

According to Greek and Hindu mythology Gods feasted on, or drank a substance called Ambrosia (Amrut) that supposedly gave them immortality and divine powers. Also gods created Ambrosia to their liking so it must have tasted good, (contrary to the wheat grass and Aloe juice which we humans have penned as ambrosia YUCK)
  So making a long story short, if I were a God what would I make Ambrosia out of? hmm the first thing that comes to my mind would be COCOA (I am not the only one, the latin botanists also named the cocoa tree as Theobroma cocoa which also means food of the goods in latin). Cocoa in itself is very bitter and dry, so what is better to complement it but sweet, gooey CARAMEL! Put in some luscious creamy CHEESE and voila you have become the alchemist and discovered Ambrosia.
  So here I present to you the very first creation in my kitchen after starting the blog, the Ambrosia cheese cake, made out of the most basic ingredients yet so divine in taste.

Ps. Its my original recipe

                                              Ambrosia cheese cake

                                                                       

The next post will be about the most important part for most of you LOL, the recipe, keep folllowing, see ya !

Its time

Hello to everyone whoever is reading this. I thought it was time that I embraced the 21 st century technology and started blogging. My blog will be about ME and things that are dear to me, like orchids, gardening, cooking, crafts etc etc. Not that Facebook already existed for this thing, but I wanted to personalize it and share more with everyone interested. Thanks Purwa and Vineeta for pushing me forward with it. 

You might have got an idea that I am passionate about cooking and frankly speaking I am good at it (I could use some modesty, but that won't be me right LOL) so as I was saying I love cooking, especially baking. Not so long ago I watched the movie Julie and Julia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_%26_Julia) , and I was inspired by it so much so, that I decided to do something similar, bake one cake, cookie, muffin etc etc every week, try different recipes, modify them to my liking and finally indulge. So all my friends be ready for the Theobroma to tickle your senses and let the endorphines flow LOL (sorry that only geographically close friends will benefit). As I will be also posting the recipes, people who are motivated enough could also try them out and let me know. Thats it for now got to go grocery shopping, do follow up for updates and let others know incase they are interested.

Regards Amey