Seviyan barfii

Trial and Error..

Thats what comes to my mind whenever I think of this yummy dessert. One of my cousins once brought a box of these barfis to our house and one bite of it was enough for us to start guessing the recipe, so that we could recreate it later. And as soon as She got the time, My Mom along with her two helpers (me and my sister) tried cooking up a batch that would be similar to the orignal barfi that we had got.
What mummy concluded after tasting the crisp, n crunchy barfi was that, it had three main ingredients - seviyan, condensed milk and nuts.
The First batch - It was not at all the same, it stuck to our hands..and we couldn't even get out proper pieces.
Second Batch - we decided to increase the amount of vermicelli and roast the quite a lot and with a little ghee. But the result was still not perfect - it was still lacking in the crunchiness
TADAA.. THE THIRD BATCH - This one was perfect and it became a frequently mad edessert in our house, the only difference in this batch was that after spreading it on a tray, mummy put it in the oven for a bit to crisp up the top, and it turned out perfect....

Ingredients:
150 - 200 g seviyan (vermicelli)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (400g)
2 tbsp ghee
100 g mixed nuts (almonds, pistachios, cashews or walnuts), you can toast the nuts a bit if you want.

Method:
Prepare a tray by lining with foil and grease with a little ghee.
Dry roast the vermicelli till a little fragrant. then add ghee and roast for a few minutes. the vermicelli should be golden brown and fragrant. add the condensed milk and chopped nuts. Mix till all of the vermicelli is coated with condensed milk.
transfer into lined tray immediately, and flatten with the backside of a bowl or the underside of a glass.
score with a knife into diamonds or squares.
bake the barfi in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius. to crisp up  the top, and make it nice and crunchy. (you can skip this step if you like it softer)
Let cool and separate the pieces.

Perfect to carry as a gift for your friends and family

crisped to golden perfection

Marble Cake

Perfect tea time accompaniment...

Its amazing how something so simple, can look so sophisticating. When i was a child it always used to fascinate me that how can two flavors be baked in a single cake with such beautiful designs ( I also used to try fist eating all the white cake parts and then the chocolate parts from the slice).

I always used to love a slice of marble cake either with tea in the evening or in the lunch box, or a late night snack. We used to get this lovely slabs of freshly baked marble cake at the bakery which would get over in no time at all.

Its one of those things that makes you realize that beautiful things don't always need a lot of effort, its more about the technique and the thought behind it.

A marble cake is a basic white cake, with cocoa powder mixed with some of the batter and then swirled in. the technique is the same as chocolate swirl cake

i also tried this coffee swirl cake with the same technique.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup ground oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup plain, yogurt
25 g cocoa powder
2 tbsp milk

OR

2 tbsp butter, room temperature
2 1/2 tsp instant coffee granules
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/4 cup brown sugar


Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract.
Stir in half of the flour mixture, followed by the yogurt (or sour cream), then stir in remaining flour mixture. Batter will be thick.
In a seperate bowl dissolve the cocoa powder in the milk, and then mix it with half or 1/3 of the cake batter.

OR


In a small bowl, beat together butter, instant coffee/espresso, cocoa powder and brown sugar until well combined. Mixture will be crumbly. add 3 - 4 tbsp of the batter to this mixture

Spread half of the cake batter into prepared pan. Spread the chocolate or coffee batter in the center of the layer of cake batter (doesn't need to be neat), then top with remaining cake batter, spreading it evenly to cover the chocolate or coffee mixture. swirl with a knife or a wooden skewer.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Allow cake to cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Plain Marble cake

Coffee swirl cake

If you have more time on hand or if you are feeling more adventurous, you can even try piping a design with the brown colour batter on the base. although my first try din't turn out rite, i guess it was because of the brown sugar in my coffee batter...maybe next time

Failed attempt at making hearts