Whole wheat pancakes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

A classic breakfast. Thanks to the hubby for taking this scrumptuous picture.

Ingredients (Makes 4 pancakes) :

1. 1 cup whole wheat flour
2. 1 egg
3. 1 tsp baking powder
4. 1.5 tbsp sugar for the pancakes
5. 1/8 tsp salt
6. 1/2 cup milk
7. 1/2 tsp vanilla powder/essence
8. 1.5 tbsp melted butter

    For topping

1. 1 cup of strawberries, pitted and sliced
2. 200ml fresh cream
3. 3 tbsp sugar for whipped cream

How I made it :

1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla powder and salt.
2. Beat the egg and add to this mix.
3. Add milk, melted butter and mix well. DO NOT add the baking powder until you have the toppings ready and the tawa/griddle hot.
4. Make the whipped cream as described below.
5. Now, heat your tawa.
6. Add the baking powder to the batter and mix well.
7. Pour a ladel of batter onto the hot tawa. Keep heat on low. Cover the pancake.
8. After a minute or so take off cover and flip the pancake. 
9. Cook on low for another minute.
10. Serve hot with whipped cream and strawberries. 

Alternate serving suggestion - maple syrup, honey, milkmaid

To make the whipped cream topping :

1. Take two similar sized bowls.
2. Put ice cubes into one.
3. Place the other bowl on the top.
4. Pour in the fresh cream.
5. Beat with hand mixer/blender on high until soft peaks are formed.
6. Add sugar while continuing to beat.
7. Turn off once sugar is well incorporated
8. Do not over beat the cream, it will turn to butter.

Tips :

1. Add the baking powder only and only when your tawa/griddle is hot and the toppings are ready as well.
2. Do not over beat the cream. It will turn to butter.

Strawberry ShortCake recipe (Eggless)

I absolutely love short cake and I was dying to make this after eating the famous biscuits and gravy in the US. The biscuits reminded me so much of the short cake that I made them as soon as I got a weekend free after getting home.

Here's a pic of the short cake that I made last year.  Do try this one and I'm sure you wont stop making this. I owe this one to one of my mom's close friends who taught me how to make this one along with nan khattai. She is an amazing cook like my mom but does a lot more baking that my mom does now.

I got the recipe from here as I did not remember what I had learnt.

Ingredients (serves 4):
For biscuits :

1. 1 cup maida
2. 1/2 tbsp baking powder
3. 1/4 tsp salt
4. 1.5 tbsp sugar
5. 1/2 stick/60g butter chilled
6. 1/3 cup of milk or fresh cream

For filling :

1. Whipped cream  - instructions below
2. Homemade Strawberry preserve - as per liking

How I made it :

1. In a food processor, mix in the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. Add the butter cut into small cubes with the processor on.
3. Wait till the flour mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs
4. Add milk little by little till the dough almost completely comes together
5. Take it out of the processor and knead on a lightly floured surface till the dough is smooth and less sticky.
6. Preheat oven to 200 degree C.
7. Roll out the dough into a 1 inch thick rectangle.
8. Cut out circles or into sqaures, place on baking tray, brush with a little milk, sprinkle a little sugar and bake for 15 minutes.
9. Serve with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. I served it with my homemade strawberry preserve

Whipped Cream :

Ingredients :

1. 200g fresh cream

2. 3 tbsp sugar

How I made it :

1. On a ice bath, place a glass bowl. 
2. Pour in the fresh cream into the bowl and beat on low speed.
3. It takes about 8 minutes to get whipped cream with soft peaks. Add the sugar once you feel that the cream has begun to thicken.

Strawberry CheseCake

I remember making a no bake cheese cake from a recipe book printed by the Round Table group in Bangalore. It used Panneer/cottage cheese, milk maid and fresh cream. I somehow could not remember the recipe. So I browsed through some no bake cheesecake recipes and took a little bit of that and a little bit of this and out came a really good cheese cake. Take my word for it, it is the best cheesecake that I've made so far.

Ingredients :
1. 1 and 1/2 tubs of britannia cream cheese - about 275g
2. 1 tub of Nestle Strawberry Yoghurt
3. 1 tub of fresh strawberries
4. 200g of sugar + 2 tbsp
5. 200 ml of fresh cream
6. 1tbsp gelatin
7. 100 ml boiling water in which to dissolve the gelatin
8. 1 large packet of marie biscuits
9. 125 g of unsalted butter melted.

How to make :
1. Line your tray(in which you want to set the cake) with cling wrap such that the cling wrap is now your non-stick base.
2. Crumble the marie biscuits.
3. Add the melted butter to the biscuits.
4. Push this mixture to the botton of your tray and layer it evenly. Keep in the fridge to set.
5. Cream together the cream cheese and 200g of sugar. Try not to beat too much - I used the pulse option in my food processor.
6. Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling hot water by stirring. You could use the microwave on low power too to speed the process.
7. Add the strawberry yoghurt, fresh cream and gelatin to the cream cheese mixture and beat till creamy and smooth. Again, don't beat too much.
8. Get the tray out of the fridge. Pour the cream mixture over and put it back in the fridge to set. It needs about 4 hours to set.
9. Beat the fresh strawberries with the 2tbsp sugar (add more if you like) into a rough pulp.
10. Spread the above pulp on top of the cake when set. Garnish with fresh strawberries and serve. Do take out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before serving to soften the lower layer and ease your job in cutting.

I had made this for my hubby's birthday and therefore tried to pipe the pulp onto the cake but failed at the cone. I don't have a piping bag. I therefore used a toothpick and FREEHAND.

Eggless Strawberry Pancakes

Well, it is holidays now and I get really lazy, more so that it is quite cold this year in Bangalore. I woke up and Pras was like "I want some breakfast!!" I had hardly any ingredients on hand to make a healthy breakfast, not even eggs!! I went to open up the fridge and I saw "STRAWBERRIES". Out they came and pancakes were on my mind. Quickly, as almost always, I went to one of my favorite blogs and adapted the recipe from Eggless Blueberry Pancakes by Nags.I also had some condensed milk handy. So I served the pancakes with the condensed milk.

Ingredients  to make 3 pancakes :
1/3 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
Sugar - 1 tbsp as the original recipe. Use more if not serving with maple syrup or sweetened condensed milk
A pinch of salt
2 tsp olive oil
A little under 1/2 cup of milk
A handful or more of strawberries
2 tbsp nutella ( optional)
2 tbsp butter/oil

Method :
Mix together the maida, baking powder, sugar, salt, olive oil, nutella and milk to form a smooth batter. Chop the strawberries.
Heat up a tawa. Smear the butter. Pour on some of the batter on the hot tawa. Once the bubbles start appearing, sprinkle some of the chopped strawberries over the batter. Cover it for about 30 seconds. Make sure the heat is on low. Take off the cover and flip the pancake. Cook until golden brown on the other side. Take off pan and serve with sweetened condensed milk.

This is ready in minutes and is eggless. Do give it a try. It was truly yummy with the condensed milk ;)