Creamy-Fruity-Custard

Creamy-Fruity-Custard

Custard powder though does not have much nutrition value except pure calories due to corn flour, flavor and coloring agent being the main ingredients; it is the filling in custard which makes it more tasty and nutritive. Lots of fruits coated with custard is a wonderful and healthy dessert. It is the simple, tasty and easy to make dessert. Children love it for the taste of it and mothers love it not only for the taste of it but also for the less work they have to put to make family happy.

Preparation Time: 15 min. (Fruit cutting time)

Cooking Time: 15 min

Servings: 4 Large Serving

Ingredients For making Creamy-Fruity-Custard:

• 250 ml. whole cream Milk

• 2 Tea spoon Custard Powder

• 50 gm. Cream (Optional)

• 50 gm. Sugar

• 1 banana

• 1 Small size Apple

• 20-25 Grapes

• 10-12 Straw berries

Directions For making Fruity Custard:

• Dissolve 2 teaspoon custard in 50 ml. milk. (Not hot milk).

Custard Powder Dissolved in milk

• Boil milk in a thick bottom container.

Milk for Custard boiling in thick bottom container

• Add sugar to the boiling milk and stir till the sugar dissolves in the milk.

• Lower the flame and add custard powder- milk mixture and stir nicely.

Custard-milk mixture being added to boiling milk

• Cook for just one minute with continuous stirring. Switch off the gas. Cover and allow the custard to cool.

Custard cooking on low flame

Consistency of custard before cooling

• When the custard comes to room temperature add cream mix nicely cover and keep it in the fridge for chilling.

• Peel banana, slit from center lengthwise and cut to thin pieces.

• Peel and cut apple to small pieces.

• Cut the grapes to half.

• Cut straw berries to half lengthwise.

• Mix all fruits in a bowl with chilled custard.

• Take the Fruity-Custard in a serving bowl and top it up with some grapes and straw berries.

Creamy-Fruity-Custard

Tips:

• Guava, chickoo and pomegranate with small pink fruit having big seeds do not go well in custard. do not taste well in custard. 

• For one measure of cooked chilled custard two measure of fruits are the best proportion. If not so at least the ratio should be 1:1.

• Taste the fruits before adding to custard. Fruits should be absolutely sweet, little bit of sour taste will spoil the taste of Fruity-custard.

• Mix the fruits just before serving otherwise they will lose their moisture and will become limp.

• Cut the fruits just before serving.

• If the fruits are cut and kept in fridge, then bananas and apple will become red and will spoil the looks and taste of custard. Remember the freshness of fruits and their individual flavor gives the Fruity-custard unique delightful taste.

• Custard should neither be thick as cake nor too runny. It should be of the consistency of cake batter.

• Do not remove the cover at any stage of cooling.

• Do not cover while custard is being cooked.

• Immediate and continuous stirring after milk-custard powder mixture is added to the boiling milk is must to avoid lump formation as well as to avoid it selling at the bottom and getting burnt.

Suggested Variations:

• Mango can be cut to cubes and added to the mixture of fruits for custard. make sure the mangoes do not have fibers and is sweet.

• Cubes of any flavor cake can be placed at the bottom of serving bowl before putting Fruity-custard in the bowl.

Milk Toast /Bread pudding

Crisp,Juicy Milk Toasts

Milk toasts are wonderful for breakfast as well as dessert. Brown bread or multi grain bread with milk and dry fruits make it a wholesome breakfast especially for children who do not want to take milk. It is also famous by the name of Shahi toast which is not fried, so is healthier than the Shahi toast which is deep fried and then soaked in flavored sugar syrup. Crisp from outside but juicy from inner core they are delightful delicacy
.

Preparation Time: 10 min.

Cooking Time: 30 min

Servings: 16 Milk Toasts

Ingredients Required for Making Milk Toasts:

• 8 slices of brown / white/ multi grain bread

• 250 ml. Milk (Full cream or Toned milk )

• 5 Tea spoon of Sugar 

Milk and Sugar for Milk Toast

• 2 Tea spoons Honey

• 1/4Tea spoon Green Cardamom Powder

• 10-15 cashew nuts

• 10-15 Almonds

• 3-4 Almonds

• 10-15 Pistachios

• 1 Teaspoon Ghee (Clarified butter) / Olive oil / Butter

Directions For Making Milk Toast:

• In a bowl take

• Milk

• Sugar

• Honey

• Cardamom powder

• Mix till sugar dissolves and a homogenous solution is formed.

• Cut the nuts and keep them aside.

• Heat a thick bottom non-stick Tawa / pan.

• Spread 1/4Tea spoon olive oil/ Butter / Ghee on the hot tawa.

Ghee spread on hot Tawa

• Place the bread pieces on the hot tawa and lower the flame.

Bread slices kept on hot Tawa with ghee and being toasted

• Let the bread pieces become light brown and crisp from one side.

Bread slices crisped on one side

• Flip and cook the other side also to crispness.

Bread sliced toasted to crispness on both sides

• Spread the milk mixture 4-5 tea spoons on one side. The slices of bread will become soggy initially during cooking. Allow them to cook on low flame till they become brown on the side touching the tawa/pan (Approximately 3-4 min). I like caramelized taste so I allow them to cook longer.

Milk being poured on the crisped toasts

Crisped Toasts soaked in milk being allowed to cook on low flame

Toasts with m,ilk cooked on one side and being cooked on the second side

• Flip the toasts carefully and spread 3-4 teaspoon milk mixture on the other side also and allow the toast to cook to brown color on the other side also.

Milk Toasts cooked on both sides and one toast caramelized

• Take out hot crisp juicy milk toasts on a plate and top them up with nuts.

Milk Toasts

• Enjoy with a hot cup of tea / coffee / milk for break fast or after meal as desert.

Tips:

• Due to sugar the toasts tend to caramelize. If you do not like the darker color then remove them before they start caramelizing. I personally like caramelized toasts.

• After spreading milk  mixture the bread slices will become soggy. Do not flip till the toasts are of brown color on the side they are touching the tawa. 

• Toasts should be cooked always on low flame.

• Do not cut the brown edges of slices before making the toasts.

• The bread slices should not be very thin else the toasts will break.

• While flipping after adding milk on one side care should be taken so that the toast do not break.

Suggested Variations:

• White sugar can be replaced with brown sugar as it is healthier and provides nutrition along with less calories.

• Jaggery can replace sugar this will add iron to your toast.

• Pinch of cinnamon powder can be taken instead of cardamom powder.

• The old bread from in the fridge can be cooked to crispness with little butter and stored. These crisp toasts can be used to make milk toasts as and when required, this saves time and old bread is used instead of discarding.

Gajar Ka Halwa /गाजर का हलवा (Carrot dessert)

Gajar Halwa

Carrots are much sought after vegetable in winters when they come in dark red color and are extremely juicy. Apart from being used in salad and soups they are used to make cakes and desserts. In winters piping hot Gajar ka halwa is the most favorite of all Gajar preparations. Whenever carrots used to be in my vegetable basket my son and daughter would start salivating at the thought of treat of Gajar ka halwa so I had no options but to make it time and again till the red juicy carrots lasted in the market.

Nutritional Value/100 gm (approx. Value) :

Saturated Fat 0.037g,  Polyunsaturated Fat 0.117g,  Monounsaturated Fat 0.014g,  Sodium 69mg,  Potassium 320mg,  Total Carbohydrate 9.58g,  Dietary Fiber 2.8g,  Sugars 4.54g,  Protein 0.93g,  Vitamin C10%,  Calcium 3%,  Iron 2%.  Thus with nuts sugar / jaggery added to it along with the milk it makes wonderful, nutritious, healthy very filling dessert.

Preparation Time: 20 min. Cooking Time: 90 min Servings: 6 medium helpings Ingredients Required For Making Gajar Ka Halwa: 1 kg. Carrots (Gajar) Carrots 1.5 Lt. Full Cream Milk 150 gm. Sugar 10-15 Almonds 10-15 Cashew nuts 15-20 Raisins 1 Teaspoon Ghee (Clarified butter) 100 gm. Khawa (Optional) 2-3 Green Cardamom Directions for Making Gajar Halwa: Wash carrots nicely of all dirt attached to it. Grate carrots. Grated Gajar Pound the green cardamom. Cut the nuts  finely. Take ghee in a thick bottom wok and heat on high flame till it is smoking hot. Lower the flame and add pounded green cardamom and cook for 30 seconds. In one Teaspoon of Ghee 2 pounded Green Cardamom Add grated carrots to the oil and cardamom mixture. Grated Gajar added to Ghee cardamom mixture Bring the flame to high and mix the carrots and oil nicely cook for 2-3 min. on high flame with constant mixing. Lower the flame and cook till all the juices of carrots are dried up. It will take 20-30 min. After 20 min. of cooking on low flame Add milk to the Pan fried carrots and mix nicely. Bring the flame to high till the milk starts boiling. Milk added and brought boil  Once the milk boils bring the flame to low and cook with occasional stirring till the mixture dries up and the carrots get cooked. Stage when Sugar should be added  Add sugar and mix nicely. The mixture will become slightly wet again as sugar will lose its water so cook  on low flame with constant stirring till all liquid dries and the halwa becomes semi-dry. Sugar added Sugar mixed and cooked for 10 min. on low flame Stage when Khawa should be added Take a thick bottom wok and heat it on gas. Lower the flame and add Khawa to hot wok and cook it for 2 min.  Khawa being cooked for 2 min. on low flame Before the Khawa starts becoming brown add the halwa in it and mix properly. Carrots cooked with milk and sugar added to khawa Cook for 2-3 minutes with constant stirring. Khawa mixed Add finely cut almonds, cashew nuts, raisins and mix. Nuts added to Gajar Halwa Gajar ka halwa is ready to be served. Take some halwa in a bowl put some nuts on the top of it and serve. Gajar Halwa Tips: Regular stirring is a must to ensure that the halwa does not get settled at the bottom and get burnt. Cooking must be done on low flame to ensure proper cooking of carrots and halwa not getting burnt. Wok or container in which halwa is being made should be thick bottom. Suggested Variations: The amount of milk can be increased to 2-3 lt. from 1.5 lt. If you do not wish to add Khawa then milk: carrot should be 2.5: 1Kg. For making the halwa more healthy and nutritious sugar can be replaced with jaggery. Halwa with jaggery is especially good for ladies post-delivery. Before adding Khawa cooked halwa can be pan fried with 4-5 teaspoon of ghee. Green cardamom powder can be added before adding the nuts. Pistachios, Walnut can be added along with other nuts. To make halwa quickly carrots can be cooked in 1/2lt. milk and then 500 gm. milk made can be added to it and cooked to semi-dry state. Amount of sugar should be reduced I to 75 gm. if milk made is added.