THE BAKING SKILLET - Page 2 of 6 -

Pimm’s Summer Fruit Crumble

July 11, 2017 17 Comments

It is summer and everyone wants to be out and about. I get it! So, I won’t blabber on too much coz I have some sun to soak up, patios to be at and summer cocktails to sip! Do people here drink Pimm’s Cup? Or is it just an English thing? My sister-in-law, who is not a big dessert person, made a Pimm’s fruit crumble and she loved it. I trust her taste buds so I had to make it! But not before I made a couple of drinks for myself and I discovered I quite enjoy the herby, citrusy flavour. I haven’t had one of these since I first tasted it in a small town outside of London while visiting some friends. I am an Aperol Spritzer person and that is usually my summer drink of choice. However, it is nice to change it up and since I have purchased a bottle of Pimm’s now, I think I will be drinking Pimm’s long drinks with lots of fruit this summer! Since everyone is looking for easy summer desserts, this is a great option, especially to make good use of all that gorgeous fruits we are buying in bulk! And since I am a big sucker for mini / individual portion desserts and adding alcohol in my dessert, this one hits all the right notes. I mean, I am pretty sure that 80% of the time you have a chilled drink at hand while cooking so why not add some to the food right! From start to finish this takes about 45 mins with actual standing-at-the-counter time being 10 mins. Really, every amateur baker / cook should have a crumble in their repertoire because it is so easy, delicious and fool-proof! And intermediate / advanced bakers need not feel shame in making such a delightfully easy dessert because sometimes you need to chill with everyone else without having to fret over a show stopping 4-layer cake in a hot kitchen! Notes - I used rhubarb and cherries because that is what I had at home, but you can substitute for your choice of fruit. Make sure to chop into small pieces. - Use all AP flour if you prefer, I like the mix of the two and the nutty taste of whole wheat. - Baking the crumble topping in two layers helps all of it to crisp evenly – ref. Fine Cooking - The crumble is ready when the fruits is bubbling and overflowing. Make sure to place the ramekins on parchment lined baking sheet for easy clean-up. Pimms Summer Fruit Crumble Ingredients – makes 4 individual servings For the Rhubarb Cherry Filling 1 cup (135g) Rhubarb – chopped into ¼ inch pieces 1 cup (170g) Cherries – pitted and chopped into half 3 tbsp Pimm’s ½ tbsp Cornflour 1 tsp lemon zest 3 – 5 tbsp fine granulated sugar (at 3 tbsp, it is slightly tart. Go up to 5 tbsp for a sweeter filling) For the Crumble Topping ¼ cup (55g) butter – medium soft ¼ cup (40g) brown sugar ¼ cup (25g) AP flour 3tbsp whole wheat flour ¼ cup pecans – chopped Make the Fruit Crumble Preheat oven to 375F. Grease 4 ramekins slightly with butter. Place on a parchment covered baking sheet. Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Mix all the crumble topping ingredients in another bowl with two forks or your fingers till it comes together in chunks. If it seems to wet, add some more whole wheat flour – 1 tbsp at a time. It should not be too dry and grainy and not too wet like a dough. You need whole pecan sized chunks. Divide the filling equally amongst the ramekins. Top with a thin layer of topping. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Add the rest of the topping and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes till the filling is bubbling over and the topping is golden brown. Enjoy warm with a chilled Pimm’s drink!

A super easy summery dessert with rhubarb and cherries and a to die for pecan crumble, this Pimm’s Summer Fruit Crumble is great for summer entertaining! It is summer and everyone wants to be out and about. I get it! So, I won’t blabber on too much because I have some sun to soak up, patios to be at and summer cocktails to sip! Do people here drink Pimm’s Cup? Or is it just an English thing? My sister-in-law, who is not a big dessert person, made a Pimm’s fruit crumble and she loved it. I trust her taste buds so I had to make it! But not before I made a couple of drinks for myself and I discovered I quite enjoy the herby, citrusy flavour. I haven’t had one of these since I first tasted it in a small town outside of London while visiting some friends a couple of years back. I am an Aperol Spritzer person and that is usually my summer drink of choice. However, it is nice to change it up and since I have purchased a bottle of Pimm’s now, I think I will be drinking Pimm’s long drinks with lots of fruit […]

Desserts, Indian Inspired

Mango Ginger Popsicles

June 28, 2017 22 Comments

Mango ginger popsicles for mango lovers! These are refined sugar free, dairy free and so so easy to make! I have highly sensitive teeth. I could never bite into anything that is sub-zero degrees even when my permanent teeth had newly popped and were probably at their strongest! As a kid, when we got to treat ourselves to kulfis i.e. the Indian street food ice-cream on a stick I’d slowly suck on it while half of it melted in streams down my hands, and invariably the last few bites would drop to the floor. All these years later, my teeth have obviously not become less sensitive; it’s a miracle they are still there after all the sugar attack they endure. As an adult, I stick to ice-creams in bowls (boring? Trying having sensitive teeth!) Watching others bite into popsicles gives me goosebumps! But its #popsicleweek and I had to participate, because we want to constantly be part of something, even if it is a virtual summer party exploding with happy, colorful ice-pops. Last summer when I started using Instagram seriously i.e. started using the explore feature and following a bunch of bloggers is when I first heard of popsicle week. […]

Cakes, Desserts

Triple Coconut Cake

June 14, 2017 20 Comments

A deliciously light and moist coconut cake, lightly covered in coconut swiss meringue buttercream and drizzled with coconut caramel sauce. This Triple Coconut Cake is a delightful tropical party in your mouth. Triple Coconut Cake has been sitting on my list of things to bake for months now. However, I kept procrastinating because I felt that a cake so gloriously delicious (in my head) should be baked for a special occasion to feed many people. This week my sister suddenly decided to visit from New York and she loves cake almost as much as I do and what is a more special occasion to make a Triple Coconut Cake than when you are meeting your sister after 5 whole months! I did think of dedicating this to my dad since Father’s Day is around the corner, but a coconut cake is hardly what a Keralite man will be thrilled about! I mean, coconut is our staple food. The flesh, the milk, the water go into almost every dish we prepare at home. From our breakfasts to our desserts, everything has coconut. So much so that, when I was in school, I would hate being on coconut grating duty especially on […]

Desserts

Chocolate Whisky Caramel Pots de Creme + Blog Anniversary!

June 6, 2017 29 Comments

Dark chocolate, coffee and whisky come together in this chocolate whisky caramel pots de crème, guaranteed to satisfy the most intense chocolate cravings! May 22, 2016, I put up my first blog post – it was more a mini thesis on pound cakes. The simple, basic, humble pound cake so fascinated me. It was the perfect beginning to my baking journey. I was so green and so obsessed with the idea of starting at the very beginning. Getting my foundations right. Ahem… all that went out of the window after a couple of wins in the oven! Soon my experiments were dictated by my cravings and whims rather than the structured list I had set out at the start which involved tackling one baking basic after another. There are no regrets. I am sure that most bloggers struggle at the start to find their true niche, their area of expertise. It is a journey of evolution, we grow with it, we learn new things, discover new paths and new interests along the way. By the time we have been blogging for a year or maybe even two, we may have found something we know from the bottom of our tummies that we want […]

Savory

5 Things To Consider Before You Go On a Diet + Chicken Soup

May 16, 2017 21 Comments

If you are first-time dieter like me, consider these things before you jump into a diet. Planning and research are key for successfully completing a diet plan. Ok, I am not a seasoned dieter and this is by no means expert advice on best and worst diets and their health benefits or side effects. This is a beginner’s checklist really. For someone like me who has never ever gone on any sort of diet and have no clue as to what it entails. A few simple things to contemplate upon before you embark on a journey chasing health and weight-loss. Now that I am on my last week of the Fast Metabolism Diet (yayyyyyy), I feel like these pointers are so important in selecting, kickstarting and sticking with a plan. What do you hope to achieve by going on a diet? Weight loss, detox, cholesterol issues, diabetes scare, heart problems or simply change of eating habits? In my case, it was primarily the last – kicking my addiction to sugar and making fresh fruits and veggies a bigger part of my regular meals. Putting down a goal helps to remain focused and not get distracted. For example, if your personal […]

Breakfast Treats, Savory

Healthy Breakfast Tacos

May 10, 2017 16 Comments

A much healthier substitute for regular tacos. These quinoa and oat flour breakfast tacos are gluten-free and can be topped with toppings of your choice! Hello Hello! I am so excited today to bring this recipe because this is my first, second savory recipe that I feel proud of. Savory recipes intimidate me. I am always hyper aware of the balance of flavors, combinations and spice levels; the kind of anxiety I don’t have when it come to desserts. With desserts and cakes, it seems to flow naturally. I am confident if it is good or needs improvement or should never be mentioned again. With savory, I keep asking “is it good”, “but is it good enough to be on the blog?” Steve is very patient in this and always gives me helpful inputs because he is definitely more of a spicy / savory person than a dessert person! This recipe actually formed in my head as another sweet breakfast option filled with luscious spring fruits cooked down to bring out their sweet juices. Let’s just say it did not translate into tasting as good as it sounded in my head. The strong quinoa flavor completely empowered the fruits. Yes, quinoa flour […]

Breakfast Treats, Healthier Baking

Berry Almond Baked Oatmeal

May 2, 2017 22 Comments

This Berry Almond Baked Oatmeal will make a great summer breakfast and it won’t make you feel guilty one bit since it is gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free and vegan! Things I learnt this past week. I can live without cake My brain wont die without coffee My world won’t collapse without chocolate Cooking without oil or any kind of fat is not awful Berries and nuts make as great a snack (if not better) as cookies I can be a cynical person. I have always been skeptical about diets and I never understood why and how some people can be on constant diet. Giving up good food, different kinds of food, the ability to indulge in fried / cheesy / decadent goodness in order to be thin always seemed like sacrilege! I believe in balance and being healthy and eating well. But lately, I had been at the other extreme of the leaf-eating kind, with way too much sugar and indulgence and no self-control. I follow enough food bloggers to know that they don’t sit and eat their amazing cakes for all meals. Many of you give it away to friends and neighbors or share with work colleagues. Since I […]

Cookies

Brown Butter Pecan Cookies

April 12, 2017 26 Comments

Chewy, nutty, crunchy, these Brown Butter Pecan cookies deserve to be stocked, so you can sneak out a couple every time you need an indulgent snack! Was it brown butter day sometime last week or the week before? If it was I totally missed it as I do with all the food days. Can never for the life of me keep track. But I did catch up on all the posts that the amazing bloggers I follow posted. I felt rather proud of myself when there were no unread emails in my inbox and my Pinterest boards were slightly fuller. There were all these mouth-watering brown butter recipes like the Brown Butter, Miso, Dark Chocolate Blondies over at The Brick Kitchen, the Brown Butter Dark Chocolate Cookies at Petit Bakes, and Brown Butter Blueberry Crumb Muffins on Itsy Bitsy Kitchen. How awesome is that. And how is a girl not to be inspired to go brown some butter and get baking!! Now, the thing we all know is that when it comes to beurre noisette (sounds so much fancier in French) it is not a quick fix thing. Unless you want to brown the butter and drink it. You gotta […]

Cakes

Cardamom Coconut Cupcakes

April 4, 2017 26 Comments

Soft, fluffy, fragrant Cardamom Cupcakes topped with luscious Coconut Swiss Buttercream and crunchy Coconut bacon. You know when you haven’t done squats in a million years, then you do 100 at a go only to have stiff legs for a week! And it hurts like hell. But it is also a kind of sweet pain because you know your muscles worked out so hard and your hurting hamstrings are like trophies you can show off while saying that you pulled off a 100 squats!! That’s exactly how I felt the last two weeks after marathon projects and assignments. After a year of vacationing filled with fun things like exploring Toronto, baking, blogging and occasional assignments from my Digital Marketing Course my brain has become slightly lazy I assume. But now my sabbatical is over (sob-sob) and job hunt has begun (which is not easy). So between, job applications, freelance marketing projects with real deliverables and deadlines and school assignments it feels like my brain is doing 100 squats and it aches!! My brain had to remember working out once again and tasks that would have taken 1 hour in my previous life, took […]

Cakes, Leftovers

Lemon Curd Cupcakes

March 15, 2017 24 Comments

Soft, spongy, buttery, Lemon Curd Cupcakes are a perfect way to use up a bit of leftover lemon curd. What to do with lemon curd? After you have finished making lemon meringue pie, constructed a beautiful layer cake, topped it on your pancakes and oatmeal and sundaes, added to your fruit trifles, and licked it off a spoon. If there is still a tiny bit left and you feel you can’t eat anymore, put the last bit of it in a basic butter cake recipe and eat it as a cupcake. The best part of it is that, in this form it a subdued, subtle version of itself rather that a big, bold hit of tangy, lemony which is the main reason I personally cannot eat it off a spoon. It feels like a punch in my mouth that I don’t care for. But I do enjoy the lemony brightness when complimented with other balancing flavors. This post has started off as a SEO exercise and I promise I did not mean to do that. What to do with a small amount of leftover lemon curd was what I was searching for when I had 3tbsp of lemon curd sitting in […]