Polvorones - Spanish Almond Cookies

All my last month's pending challenges will be posted this month. Last month's International Food Challenge started by Saraswathi and Shobana, was hosted by Sharanya. Every month a region's cuisine is explored and for the month of February it was Andalusia, the southern part of Spain. She gave us four recipes and we were to choose any one from them. At first I wanted to try out a savoury dish but at the last moment I changed my mind and made these cookies. Polvorones are famous throughout Spain during Christmas. On the day of preparation, I had some guests and I was happy that I could serve these with coffee. The preparation was quite easy and the cookies turned out crispy and flaky and so delicious. Making the almond flour was the only lengthy task needed for these cookies, but if you can get it in stores then it is fine. While grinding the blanched almonds, pulse it in a mixer along with 2-3 tbs of flour to get a nice non clumpy flour. 

Recipe Source: Sea Salt With Food

Makes 16 Cookies

Ingredients:

Flour/ Maida-110 gm

Icing Sugar-40 gm

Almond Flour- 50 gm

Unsalted Butter-100 gm

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. In a bowl cream together butter and icing sugar.

3. Add the almond flour and flour to the butter mixture and mix to form a soft dough.

4. Roll it on a lightly floured counter and cut out cookies with your favourite cutter.

5. Arrange on a greased baking tray.

6. Bake the cookies for 20 minutes or until slightly brown.

7. Allow them to cool on wire rack.

8. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Take butter and sugar.

Mix flour and almond flour.

Cream butter sugar using a wooden spatula.

Add the flour mixture.

Knead dough and roll into a thick disc.

Cut the cookies using a cutter.

Arrange on a greased baking tray and bake.

Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Eggless Santa Claus Challah

For the Home Baker's challenge, I made two recipes from the recipes suggested by Priya. One being the Snowmen Butter Cookies, the other one I chose was Challah. Challah is a Jewish braide bread relished on Sabbath. It consists of eggs and that gives a fluffy bread. I have made Eggless Challah in braided form before and I was searching for other options to shape the bread. Recently I came across the Santa Claus bread in one of the groups. I am sorry I forgot the blogger but I searched for a detailed post and came across one in Taste of Home. The shaping was so much fun and the end result was awesome. My daughter loved it. The bread itself turned out super soft and the texture was very nice. You can use this recipe and braid the dough for an authentic finish. 

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Eggless Sfogliatelle Ricci- An Italian Pastry - Tribute To Lis - Queen Of Daring Bakers

Today while I visited the Daring Baker's group page, I was shocked to learn about the demise of DB's co founder Lisa who blogged at La Mia Cucina. Dearly called as Lis, she used to introduce us to the host every month. I am one of the silent admirer of Lis. I think Daring Bakers group is the first group to do monthly challenges. Nowadays there are so many groups among bloggers but Daring Bakers remain on top. I am proud to be part of Daring Kitchen for the past three years and this month's challenge post is a tribute to Lis for bringing so many wonderful cooks from all over the world together. I am extremely sad that every month I am doing a tribute post. First it was for my mom, then for my beloved chef Tarla Dalal and now for Lis. I hope this stops this year. I really don't want to lose anybody next year...

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Eggless Sfogliatelle Frolle

Yesterday I shared with you the first recipe I tried for this month's Daring Baker's Challenge. And here comes the other recipe. Thought the preparation is quite simple in comparison to Ricci, it tastes amazing. Hubby liked this more than the Ricci. I myself liked this very much. The outer covering is a pie dough and filling is the semolina ricotta filling used in Sfogliatelle Ricci. I used my eggless Apple Pie crust which usually turns out good. The result was a flaky, soft crust and a soft delicious filling. I made the pie crust dough during one of the cookery class session in which I had to demonstrate it to a student. I then used it to make this yummy pastry during evening.

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Snow Men Butter Cookies

This month's Home Baker's Challenge was hosted by Priya of Cook Like Priya. As December is the month of Christmas, she had suggested three cookies recipes, two cakes and two bread recipes. We were to choose any of the given recipes. I loved the look of this snow man cookie and so I tried it out. It was very colourful, crispy and very delicious. My daughter loved them. It was full of butter flavour and my house was so aromatic when these cute cookies were baking in the oven. It is a very easy dough but you need a lot of patience to make the figurines. The given recipe yields more than 20 cookies. 

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Eggless Slovak Paska Bread and Paska Peeps

Slovak Paska is an Eastern European Easter Bread made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour and yeast. It has so much decorative details on the top. For the Baking Eggless Challenge this month, everyone wanted anything other than sweets and so I selected this decorative bread. This is not loaded with sugar. And the technique used in the decorations was quite interesting. There is also peeps made out of paska flour. These are cute bird figurines made with the dough and then baked. So this became this month's challenge. We had to avoid eggs in the original recipe and come up with our own recipe without compromising on the texture of the bread. Here is my experiment with the dough....

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Eggless Crème Brûlée

Crème Brûlée is an egg based custard topped with a crunchy caramel layer. The crunchy caramel layer is usually formed with sprinkling sugar and heating it with a blow torch to caramelize it. A caramel disc may also be prepared and the custard can be topped with this disc while serving. For Baking Eggless Group Challenge, Vimala Lakshmi of Cooking Club suggested this from Sanjeev Kapoor's website. The egg in the custard makes it a creamy pudding. And the caramel layer needed a blow torch. These were the challenges we had to face during the preparation. I successfully replaced the eggs with china grass and used a heated spoon instead of a blow torch ( the idea is not my own. I adapted it from here) and the custard turned out fabulous. Though the caramel layer was uneven, it's crunchiness was a perfect combination to the creamy pudding. The quantity made 6 small ramekins of crème brûlée and we both enjoyed them to the core. The Baking Eggless Group has completed two years successfully and we really had a great time converting twenty four egg based recipes into eggless ones. And I hope to continue it for this year also and you will see more interesting recipes in future...

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Golubsty / Cabbage Rolls - Vegetarian Version

Golubsty is a classic Russian dish made of cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and beef. I made a vegetarian version of Golubsty with mushroom and rice. I made this for this month's Daring Cook's challenge. This month's host Olga gave us three versions of cabbage rolls for this month's challenge, one the authentic version, one with fish and the other with vegetables. I chose to do the vegetarian version and made some changes to Olga's recipes to give an Indian touch to it. I added chilly powder to make it more spicy and hubby dear liked it so much. It was such a satisfying dinner. I added lots of sauce and the rolls turned out so saucy. If you want, you can decrease the amount of sauce you add to the rolls.
The procedure is quite interesting. Usually large cabbage is used but as I get only medium sized cabbage here, I bought it home. You need to cook the whole cabbage in water until the leaves come apart and becomes transparent and soft. You need to prepare the filling and the sauce, then stuff the cabbage leaves with the prepared filling, roll it, arrange in a baking pan, our the sauce over and bake. You can also do it on stove top but you need to ensure that the flame is on the lowest setting as it takes 1 1/2 hours to finish cooking.

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Eggless Black Forest Cake

Every time I see the snap of Black Forest Cake, I am so tempted to try it at home. But thinking about the richness of the cake and the calories, I just stay away from it. I have started taking cookery classes and one lady who came to get the details of the classes wanted me to teach Black Forest Cake. So it was the perfect time to try the cake and test the recipe. Immediately I started collecting all the ingredients required and made it the next day. I made an 8" chocolate cake, layered it with whipped cream and cherries, and frosted the cake with whipped cream and decorated it with cream and cherries.  I made the cake as two layers but if you want it, you can slice the cake into 3 or 4 slices and layer them with whipped cream and cherries. For the soaking syrup I used the syrup that came in the tin with the cherries. As whipped cream frosting is used, it is better to refrigerate the cake once it is prepared. And after the cream was set, I sliced it up. I was so excited. And it turned out awesome...The cream, cherries and chocolate cake mingle together to create a divine dessert...If you want to know what I am talking about, you need to try this cake. The cake just melted in the mouth..

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Eggless Blondies / Blonde Brownies

Who knows about blondies? I heard of blondies only two months back but never bothered to check the recipe. This month Sharanya of Just Not The Cakes hosted the challenge at Home Bakers and one of the recipes she chose was a Blondie. So I googled to know about it. IT is nothing but a Brownie minus cocoa powder and so it is light in colour while the brownie is darker because of the cocoa powder used. Blondies or Blonde Brownies are usually served as it is without frosting or glazing. The brown sugar gives the necessary sweetness. Blondies can be made plain or with nuts or chocochips to give the extra crunch.

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Eggless French Yule Log/ Buche de Noel

Yule log is long and hard log burned during traditional  Christmas and Yule celebrations. This cake is related to the log and is made for Christmas. It is called as Buche De Noel and the recipe has a lots of eggs to get the perfect sponge. This was suggested by Tanushree of Ma Niche along with so many other drool worthy recipes. This has been in my to do list for long and so I chose to do it for this month's Baking Partner's Challenge. Making the eggless sponge for the roll was a challenge. I have tried so many recipes in the past but always end with a cracky roll. So this time I googled for a perfect eggless sponge sheet and I came across one at Artisan Vegan Life. For the filling I adapted the recipe from Williams- Sonama and both the recipes came out really well...

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Eggless Classic Chocolate Whoopie Pie

Whoopie Pies are cross between a cake and cookie. With two cookie like cake slices with a sweet creamy filling, whoopie pie also tastes like cupcakes but they are easy to pack and carry. These are also known as Black moon, Bob, Gob or BFO (Big Fat Oreo). There are so many variations of the cake and filling. For this month's Daring Bakers Challenge, the host Bourbonnatrix of Bourbonnatrix Bakes selected an easy recipe. She gave us three versions of Whoopie Pies with three different fillings. I went for the Chocolate version but for the filling I used my butter cream recipe along with mixed fruit jam. Though the whoopie pie looks not very smooth on top, they tasted amazing. Nowadays, there is a craze of Choco Pies which come in individual packings. Sruti likes it so much but whenever she eats it she becomes sick. So it is completely banned at our house. When I saw this recipe I was happy to recreate my daughter's favourite snack at home and she too was so happy. My niece and my dad also like it so much. The two chocolate cookies have a crispy top and a soft crumb which goes very well with the jam and fluffy butter cream. When you take a bite, the combination sizzles your taste buds. This is pretty easy to make and assemble and it can make a great party snack...

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Yesterday it was my daughter Sruti's birthday. For this day my daughter has been planning since 6 August. One fine day on August 2013, she came to me with i pad and asked me to look at a video clip on how to make a rainbow cake. And after I finished watching, she told me that I have to bake this cake for her birthday. I said OK and have been looking for different frosting techniques since then for the perfect birthday cake. I came upon so many techniques but every technique seemed either so easy or so tough. Finally I settled on Ombre technique. Ombre means shaded in French. This is used everywhere nowadays. A colour along with many shades of the same colour applied in a certain way makes it ombre. Even there is ombre hair colouring. So I decided to do Ombre Frosting with my daughter's favourite colours purple and pink.

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Eggless Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Icing

Wishing All My Readers A Merry Christmas!!

Yesterday I planned on making these cookies but couldn't finish it with so many other works. I made the dough yesterday and refrigerated the slabs for a whole day. Today I made a batch of two dozen cookies in the morning but couldn't find time to frost as I had some guests. I had the recipe of buttercream icing pinned on my Pinterest Board and finally after lunch, I decided to make a small quantity of the icing to frost the two dozen cookies. My BIL visited us with his family and this made a nice after lunch treat for them. I frosted the cookies and hurriedly took some snaps and then served them for the guests. The whole plate vanished within 1/2 an hour and I was so so happy. Hubby dear didn't even get a cookie to taste. As I have one more batch of dough in the fridge, I am planning to make it tomorrow. 

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The Baking Eggless group has completed two years and is entering the third successful year. For the last 24 months, in the group we have done so many experimenting and have prepared 24 dishes without eggs. We have done so many cakes and desserts. And for this year, we just want to stay away from cakes. To start it, this bread recipe suggested by Priya of Priya's Versatile Recipes is perfect. I have seen so many bread recipes which uses eggs for giving the softness. But according to the group, we can make soft bread without eggs. And here is the result to prove us right. Sesame covered ring shaped bread is a famous street food in Turkey and Greece. In turkey it is called as Simit ( I have already posted the recipe here) and in Greece it is called as Simiti/ Koulouri. The traditional Simiti is like simit, a ring shaped bread covered with sesame seeds but Politiko Simiti is a braided version of the simiti.  

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Eggless German Tree Cake / Baumkuchen / Schichttorte

What is more challenging? Taking part in a Daring Baker's Challenge or twisting the given recipe to get a replica of the original bake? I think the latter is the most challenging as far as I am concerned. I joined the Daring Bakers as soon as I started the blog and it has been three years. There are only few challenges I have missed and I can proudly say that I have been quite successful in changing the recipes into eggless ones. In that list I can add this tree cake / Baumkuchen - a special cake from Germany. The cake consists of nearly 20 layers of sponge finally covered with chocolate glaze and decorated with almonds. Doesn't it sound rich and delicious. I have been eyeing this cake for long but never got the courage to try it as it has a huge number of eggs. But when I am given a challenge, I usually don't run from it. So I made this cake one fine day replacing all the 10 eggs in the original recipe. I am not completely satisfied with the result as the layers are not plainly visible. But still the cake tasted wonderful.

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Glaze Icing on Sugar Cookies (with liquid glucose)

Happy Pongal To All My Readers

Hope you all are celebrating Pongal today. Though it is Pongal, I am writing a post on cookies. I am that crazy. Last week, I wanted to try my hand at glaze icing the cookies. I have already posted my adventures with Buttercream icing and plain icing sugar glaze icing. Today I will be sharing with you my experiment with Glaze Icing using liquid glucose. The actual recipe uses corn syrup but in India as corn syrup is not available, we usually substitute it with liquid glucose. This substitution works best and my cookies turned out beautiful, though I had wrist pain for two days.

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Eggless Christmas Bakes

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up