Sorry for the unannounced break!!

Hi all,
I am really sorry for the unannounced break at Creative saga. I had infact given a faint idea in my previous post that I will be taking a break after a few more posts, but couldn't manage doing so because of the tight schedule before taking a trip to India. Yes, now , I am in India after almost a year. We had been doing a lot of travelling during the past two weeks and now I am relaxing and am just too lazy to do anything right now. But I promise , I will come back with some new and yummy recipes soon. I will also be updating my craft blog with so many other exciting crafts which I had done a couple of years back.
So see you soon. I will be visiting your blogs soon , am eager to see what I have missed so far!!!Till then, Take care!!

Chocolate Cake - perfect and delicious

I think this was the best chocolate cake I have ever made. I was so satisfied with the recipe and the result. I made this for my friend a couple of days back and somehow kept postponing to post the recipe. But not anymore, because I want this to remain in my records before I take a break from blogging soon. I will be taking a break for a while after probably one more post.
According to me , this recipe is perfect and the cake was so beautiful, spongy,moist and soft.
Hope you enjoy this one!!!

Ingredients-

Self raising flour- 2 cups (or 2 cups of plain flour/maida+4tspn Baking powder)
Cocoa Powder- 2tbspns
Eggs- 3
Oil- 1/2cup
Milk- 1/2 cup
Sugar- 1cup
Vanilla essence- 1tsp

Method

Beat the eggs till soft and fluffy. Add the sugar and mix well. Now add the self raising flour in small parts and mix well. Then add the milk, oil and vanilla essence. Mix everything together.
Pour this batter in a greased cake batter. Bake in a preheated oven at 180c for 45 minutes. Cool and invert the cake on a plate and cut into slices.

Paneer Jhalfraizee

As I have mentioned before, I have always loved paneer. Though paneer bhurji and matar paneer is something which I make quite often, I have tried using them in different ways too like as in Paneer tikka and few other dishes. I have always been using the amul paneer which is quite good. But I made paneer for the first time and used them in rasgullas. Making paneer is quite easy, but I have always found the readymade packets very convinient.Lazy me!!
I saw this recipe in sanjeev kapoor's recipe book and as I had all the ingredients , I made this for weekend lunch one day to go with chapatis.

Ingredients-

Dry red chillies- 2
Onions- 2 medium sized
Ginger- 2 one inch pieces
Green chillies- 2
Tomatoes- 2 medium sized
Capsicums- 2 medium sized
Paneer - 400gms
Oil- 3tbspn
Cumin seeds- 1tspn
Red chilli powder- 1 1/tsp
Turmeric powder- 1tsp
Vinegar- 1 1/2tbspn
Salt- to taste
Garam masala Powder- 1tsp

Method-
Break the red chillies into 2 pieces. Peel onions and cut into thick slices. Seperate the different layers of onion. Peel ginger and cut into julienne. Wash green chillies and chop them.
Cut the tomatoes and capsicum into long slices. Cut the paneer into finger sized pieces.(I used paneer cubes directly from the Amul paneer packet).
Heat oil in a pan. Add cumin seeds. When they start to change colour, add the red chillies, ginger and sliced onions. Saute for half a minute. Add red chilly powder and turmeris powder. Stir well and mix the capsicum pices and green chillies . Cook for 2 -3 minutes. Add paneer and toss. Add salt and vinegar and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and garam masala powder.
Serve hot garnished with chopped coriander leaves.

Eggless beetroot carrot cake - easy and healthy

I have so many other recipes, even a few cakes in my draft, but this one, when I made it yesterday and it came out really good, that I was quite eager to post it immediately, when the taste of it is still fresh in our minds!!!
Actually I had the idea of trying this cake for my son who is a very picky eater, but I kept on postponing it for sometime. Last evening, all of a sudden my son wanted some cake. And I was quite happy to bake some for him. The recipe is so easy with the easily available ingredients. I just had to mix everything together and bake it in a oven. The only time consuming job was to grate some carrots and beetroot. The whole process was over within an hour.We had them warm and fresh from the oven. It tasted just superb. And I was quite happy that my son loved them too. I just realised that he likes these kind if cakes more than those store brought ones which has lots of cream and bitter chocolate.
You can add eggs if you want, but this had a lovely texture and was moist too.

Ingredients-

Dry
Self raising flour- 1 3/4 cup
Wheat flour- 1 1/4 cup
Sugar- 1 1/2 cup
Carrots grated- 1 cup
Beetroot grated- 1 cup

Wet
Milk- 1cup
Canola oil- 1 cup
Vinegar- 2tsp

Method-

Combine the dry ingredients and wet ingredients seperately in different bowls. Then mix them well together.

Grease and flour a cake tin. Pour the batter in the tin. Bake it in a preheated oven at 180c for 45 minutes

Cool for five minutes and invert the cake on a plate. Slice them.
Have them warm. Would be great with some ice cream if you prefer.
Left overs can be stored in a refrigerator. Microwave for few seconds before having them.

I updated my craft blog today with some home made greeting cards. Do have a look.

An update- Thanks Madhuram for the info on your whole grain event. I am sending this recipe for the whole grain baking event hosted by Madhuram of eggless cooking.

Blueberry Cake

As promised in my previous posts , I am posting the recipe for blueberry cake. Bluberries have been so cheap nowadays, that I don't miss a single opportunity to buy them . I have seen a lot of blueberry cakes and muffins in so many blogs and I was tempted to try it. The cake was kind of crumbly and could not be sliced too neatly, but who cares when it tasted so good!!!

Ingredients-
Self raising flour- 2cups
Blueberries- 1 1/2 cup
Eggs- 3
Oil- 3/4 cup(I used canola oil)
Milk- 1/2 cup
Sugar- 1 1/2 cup(You can reduce the quantity to 1 cup)

Method-
Beat the eggs well. Combine the sugar and mix well. Then stir in the flour. Add the milk and then the oil. Mix well. Grease and flour a cake tin. Add the batter. Place the blueberries on the top of the batter. Some of them will sink down.
Bake the cake in a preheated oven at 180c for 45-50 minutes. Check the doneness with a skewer or a knife. Cool and invert the cake.