Hi Friends,

                  I’m really excited to write my 100th post. Its been 4 months since I started my blog. I’m very happy that I shared and posted almost 100 posts. Thanks for the comments, support and appreciation as I continue travelling in my culinary journey. Thank you everyone 🙂 🙂

Gayathri Ramanan

     Ingredients

• In a bowl, add sugar and curd or yogurt, wait until all sugar completely dissolves. Now add baking powder, baking soda to the sugar-curd mixture and stir well.

• Keep it aside for 3 – 5 mins and you can able to see the bubbles appears at the top. Now add the vanilla essence, cooking oil and stir well.
• Add maida, slowly to the sugar – yogurt mixture. Beat well with a whisk or forks until it turns thick and creamy as you see in the pic.

• Preheat oven to 400 degree F for 10mins. Meanwhile place the muffin liners in the muffin pan and pour the batter to the muffin liners in the muffin pan and keep it ready.

• Bake in preheated oven at 400 degree F for 10 mins, then reduce the temperature to 350 deg F and bake it for 30-35 mins. Check it by inserting fork or tooth prick in the center of the muffin, if it comes out clean, then your muffin is ready. Just brush the top of the muffin with 1 tbsp milk, 10mins before the ending time to get a nice polishing glaze.
• Allow the muffin to cool down for 10mins, then carefully take it out from the pan and enjoy !!!!

• Don’t keep the batter to sit for long time after mixing, as baking soda reacts faster and makes your muffin harder.
• If you don’t have muffin liner, just grease the pan with some oil.
• You can also add nuts to the batter, for extra richness and crunchiness.

• Vanilla extract contains small amounts of B-complex groups of vitamins such as niacin, pantothenic acid, thiamin, riboflavin and vitamin B-6.
• Reduces anxiety and stress
• Vanilla extract has been used to help calm patients with queasy stomachs.

Recipe Source : Sharmi’s Passion

         Kaju katli or cashew diamond is a delicious Indian dessert. KAJU means cashews and BARFI is a Indian sweet, usually in the form of lozenge.This barfi is made with cashews, sugar and milk. This sweet is relished and gifted extensively during festival occasions in India. Recipe is very easy and simple to make in very less time. Give it a try and enjoy….

  Ingredients

           1 Cup of Cashews
           1/2 Cup of Sugar
           1/4 Cup of Water
           2 Tbsp of Milk
           1 Tsp of Ghee(Clarified Butter)

  Method

• Grind the cashews to a fine powder using coffee grinder or blender.

 Making of sugar syrup

• In a heavy bottomed pan, add sugar, water and milk. Allow it to boil.

• Keep checking every half minute, until you get single string consistency.This takes about 5-7 mins.

• Single string consistency can be checked by taking a sugar syrup between index finger and thumb, a single strand should form.

 Making of cashew dough

• In a medium flame, add cashew powder to sugar syrup, keep stirring, to avoid lumps.

• Switch off the stove, when you get a soft dough. This takes about 4- 5mins. Also check the dough by doing soft ball.

• Adding little ghee and mix well so that you get smooth and glossy dough.

 Kneading the dough and forming of cashew diamonds

• Transfer the dough to a bowl and knead the dough for 1-2 mins.
• Transfer the dough to a ghee greased plate and flatten it with a rolling pin. Let it cooled down for 1/2 hr.

• Take a knife or a pizza cutter and cut the dough into rectangle or square or of any desired shape. 

• Store in an airtight container and keep it in refrigerator.

  Tips

• Adding milk is optional, because it will reduce the shelf life of the sweet. But adding milk gives a rich taste to the sweet.
• String consistency of sugar syrup is very important because if you overcook, the sweet will turn hard.
• If you find your dough is dry, then knead with little milk.
• Do not cut into shapes when the dough is warm.

  Health Benefits of cashews

• Good for nerves ,heart health, bone health and prevents cancer and gall stones
• Rich in magnesium and copper.