fall flavours - chai spice shortbread cookies...

fall...


days getting shorter..

leaves turning...

temperatures dipping...


soft autumn rains falling...

its such a beautiful time of the year... i think autumn brings out a yearning in everyone for earthy tones and warm spices...

i tried making some chai-spice shortbread and its just a medley of flavours in your mouth... 

i love shortbread since its a very basic and versatile canvas to start with and you can make easy modifications to suit your taste. you can see the chocolate dipped shortbreads i make earlier, here.

this time i took the shortbread dough (1 cup all-purpose flour/maida, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar) and added a couple of spoons of chai-spice or tea-masala that i always have in my spice rack, along with a spoon of vanilla extract and some powdered cardamom... (about 2 spoons of tea masala to a cup of all purpose flour should be fine, but you could reduce it if you want it milder) tea masala will be readily available anywhere indian spices are sold, but if you cant find it, try making your own chai-spice blend by taking some cinnamon, nutmeg,dry ginger,cardamom pods,cloves, a few black peppercorns and powdering them in a blender or spice grinder...

make small balls from the dough and place them on baking sheet. to get the small squares like above, take a fork and press on the dough ball, horizontally once and vertically once. or just make any shapes you want. give each one a small prick with a fork, and chill them in the fridge for at least half an hour so that they retain their shape while baking.

bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 mins till the bottoms and edges start to brown. remove from oven and allow to cool before eating, or taking pretty pictures :)

chocolate dipped shortbreads

what could be better than shortbread ? chocolate dipped shortbread. of course.

being, as they are, two of the best tasting things in the history of food, it only makes sense to bring them together...

i love the taste of shortbread, and i love the fact that it is one of the easiest things to make, and takes only a few simple ingredients (3, + salt, to be precise) ...  and chocolate dipping them proved to be no big feat either - so here goes, the result of yet another of my experiments...

shortbread itself is very easy to make - take 1 part all purpose flour (or maida in india), 1/2 part of butter, and 1/4 part of sugar. soften butter to room temperature (not melt), cream or beat together butter and sugar (light brown sugar is best, but you could just make do with normal sugar if you dont have it), add flour, a small pinch of salt, and make a soft dough... a dash of vanilla extract is optional if you want. (if you dont have real extract, just skip it, and dont bother with the imitation essences...) chill the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 30 mins, take out and cut into shapes and bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 mins, till the bottom starts becoming brown. take them out and allow to cool. (you can cut the dough into shapes and then chill them to retain their shapes better, or even make the dough a day ahead and refrigerate it, and bake it when you find time.)

now for the chocolate dipping part, melt chocolate pieces or chocolate chips in a double boiler. a double boiler could be any vessel or pan that sits on top another, with water boiling in the bottom one, the water level not actually touching the upper one. see how i managed to come up with what is likely to be the world's smallest double boiler ?  -

well, it was just perfect for the amount of chocolate i needed - about half a pack or 6 oz (abt 170 gms) of chocolate chips.
the heat from the boiling water will melt the chocolate in a few minutes. keep stirring and the chocolate chips above will transform into something glossy and beautiful like this -

take the cooled down shortbreads and dip them one by one in the melted chocolate, and allow them to set. they are an absolutely pretty sight while still glossy -

see ? all pretty right after their chocolate bath...













once the chocolate cools down and sets, its ready to eat, best as a teatime snack, but irresistible any time of course...

and that, my friends, will bring you one bagpipe's length away from scotland :) sink your teeth in, and enjoy the buttery, crumbly, goodness... !

after a long long gap i am baking oatmeal cookies today... as i type this the house is filled with the sweet aroma of the batch that has just come out of the oven and is cooling off...

try as you may, its just impossible to take your mind off some things... or take some things off your mind. i suppose the warmth of a freshly baked oatmeal cookie is one of those. hmmm.

indulgence on an impulse ...

maybe i decided to take a break from days of moping around and doing nothing, or maybe the shifting-of-the-saturn did really have an effect on my essentially indian psyche -
whatever be the reason, i had a sudden inspiration to bake some muffins. after a couple of not-so-successful attempts at eggless baking, i had given my experiments a rest for sometime (some = long).

muffins had been on my agenda for a long time (for the uninitiated - muffins are a humble variant of cupcakes, commonly had as a breakfast food in the US, the most common variants having chocolate chips, blueberries, or nuts), and since i like them a lot, had wanted to try out an eggless version at home - especially since k is a staunch ovo-abstainer !

i decide to give up searches for a direct eggless recipe - instead picked a simple recipe from here - and just substituted each egg with 2 Tbs. water + 1 Tbs. oil + ½ tsp. baking powder.
the recipe also calls for brown sugar, but since i didnt have it on hand, i just used regular sugar all the way...

the muffins came out really well - they were really soft and rose well, inspite of being eggless - sweet surprise indeed :)
an added bonus was the lovely aroma that filled the house as they were getting baked... mmmm !

yummm !!

yesterday was PBM nite, after a long time... i love Paneer so much that a paneer dish is a must-have when i go to a restuarant that serves north-indian food...

and paneer butter masala is one of those things which bring you one step closer to heaven :)

when i made it yesterday, i simply couldn't resist taking a pic of it...cottage cheese with tomato and onion purees, cooked in butter...hmmm...pure poetry :)