Healthy Pizza base

I have forgotten where we found this recipe, but it is a time tested one. We have made so many pizza's using this recipe.
Ingredients
1 tbsp Sugar / Honey (havent tested it with honey)
1 1/4 cups warm water
1/4 ounce dry yeast
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)
2 cups flour (atta)
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Method
Dissolve sugar in warm water, add yeast. Keep for 15-20 min till the liquid starts frothing.
Combine yeast liquid, 2 cups flour (atta) and 1 cup all purpose flour (maida) (keep the 1/4 cup for use during kneading)
Knead till dough is no longer sticking to your fingers
Allow to rise - 45 min to an hour. The dough should rise to double. What we do is preheat the oven to 40 deg C and then put it off and keep the dough inside. It hasn't failed to rise till now.
Roll into whatever size pizza's you want. If you want it thicker or thinner it is up to you. After rolling, keep aside for a little while for it to rise a bit. then keep it inside the refrigerator.

Dough rolled out with Cheese filled on the sides

Regular pizza rolled out

For making the pizza -
Pre-heat the oven to 230 deg C. (pizzas are best baked at the hottest setting for shortest time)
grease the plate / pie tin and put the rolled out base on it, use a fork to make holes all over (to let the air escape when baking, else it will fluff up like a chappati). Bake (convection) at 230 deg C for 4-5 min. Once you see it firm up on the outside, you can take it out. This is not a necessary step, however we feel that it helps prevent the pizza from getting soggy when you put the sauce on top.

Take it out, allow to cool a little, put the sauce and toppings and bake once again at 230 deg C for 10-12 min (the time varies depending on the thickness of the pizza)

Toppings of garden fresh cherry tomatoes, olives, onions, bell pepper, cheddar and mozzarella cheese

The pizza is ready!!

Garden fresh veggie bonanza just before it went into the oven

Garden fresh veggie bonanza is now ready!!

Pizza sauce(s) and filling ideas coming up... keep watching this space.

Methi matar malai

You can also make it with chicken/ mushroom/ corn

Ingredients
3 tbsp- oil
4- green cardamom
4- cloves
2”–dalchini
1-Bay leaf
1 tbsp- ginger paste
1 tbsp- garlic paste
2 onions & 2 green chillies (boil together and make a paste)
½ tbsp- white pepper pwd
3 tbsp- kaju paste
1 -cup milk
2 tbsp- kasuri methi (can be substituted with ½ cup fresh methi + 1 tbsp kasuri methi)
¼ tsp- sugar
1 ½ cups- peas

Add everything in the order written. Add salt to taste.

Same gravy can be used for navrattan korma with veggies , fresh fruits and dry fruits. Malai kofta can be made with khoya and paneer balls (1:2 khoya:panner, or aloo:paneer). Add in the same gravy.

Paneer Shashlik

Can also be made with Mushroom/chicken/prawn/mixed veg

Ingredients
Garlic grated/paste- 2tbsp
Chilli flakes- 1tsp
Mixed herbs -1tsp
Mustard pwd/sauce- ½ tsp
Lemon juice – 1
Tomato sauce- 5tbsp
Worcestershire sauce- 3 tbsp
Olive oil – 2tbsp
Capsico/Tabasco sauce- 1tbsp
Salt – to taste

Method
About 300 gms of paneer will make about 20-25 pieces. Mix all the ingredients together, it will make the sauce. Make shashlik by inserting paneer, then capsicum , then onion in a toothpick. Add sauce over the shashlik pieces and marinate for at least 1 hour or overnight in the refrigerator.
Cook in OTG/grill/microwave for about 8-10 mins at 180 degrees. Can also be pan cooked in non-stick pan, add some oil on top.

Pepper Mushroom Fry

Ingredients
Oil-4tbsp
Green chillies- 3
Onions-2 (both julienned)
Fry these till dark brown
Add ginger-2tbsp
Garlic- 2tbsp (both chopped)

Method
After onion is dark brown, add 400 gms. Mushroom chopped. If using potato/mutton boil and add. Saute for 2 mins. After that, add a spice mix (ground dry) of 4-5 green cardamom whole, whole black pepper-1tbsp, 1tsp saunf, 2tbsp whole coriander seeds. Add into mushrooms. Add ½ tsp sugar and salt to taste. Add juice of half lemon, chopped coriander, chopped mint and serve.

Crispy veg in mushroom sauce

Ingredients-
Carrots-2
Cauliflower-1cup
Beans-10-12
Cabbage-1cup
(All medium chopped)
Cornflour- 1/2 cup
Maida- ½ cup
Rice flour- 2 tbsp
White pepper pwd. – 1tsp
Ajinomoto (optional) – 1tsp
Salt- to taste
Water

Mix all together and consistency should be like pakoda batter. Drop into hot oil like pakodas and fry.

For the sauce-
Oil- 2tbsp
Butter-2tbsp
Green chillies- 2
Garlic-2tbsp
Ginger-2tbsp
Onion-2
Capsicum-2(medium size)
Mushroom- 10-12
Celery-2tbsp
Spring onion- 2tbsp
Coriander-2tbsp
Red chilli paste- 2tbsp
(All finely chopped)

Saute these ingredients all together and add-
White pepper pwd- 1tsp
Sugar-1/2 tsp
Dark Soy Sauce – 2tbsp
Tomato sauce- ¼ cup
White vinegar – 1tbsp
Salt – to taste

Mix pakodas in this sauce just before serving. You can take out mushroom and chilli paste and add water and cornflour and it can be served as Manchurian.

Rich Chocolate Cake

This was was made for anta's b'day.

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
185g butter (again we used the regular pasteurised butter)
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 3/4 cups castor sugar (we just used plain sugar, ground it in a processor)
3 eggs
2 cups self raising flour (go back to the previous recipe - 1 tsp baking powder to 1 cup processed flour / maida)
2/3 cup cocoa
1 cup water

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE ICING
90g dark chocolate
30g butter
1 cup icing sugar (again since we ran out of it we used regular sugar in powdered form)
2 tbsp water (i think we added more water than that - just went by feel of the icing)

TO MAKE CAKE
Combine butter, vanilla essence, sugar, eggs, sifted flour, cocoa and water in a large bowl and beat at low speed with an electric mixer till combined and then at medium speed for 3 min. (for a lil while the batter appeared like it had curdled but then it turned out ok)
Grease a pan and pour in the batter.
Bake at 180deg C for approx 1 1/2 hours. Stand for 5 min before removing to cool.
Once cold, spread the icing.

CHOCOLATE ICING
Melt Chocolate and butter in a bowl over hot water (we used one big bowl with hot water over which we put a smaller bowl)
Gradually stir in the icing sugar and slowly mix the hot water to make a spreadable consistency. We used more water (around 3-4 tbsp) to make it pourable consistency. Then we poured the icing gradually to make parallel lines over the cake to gradually ice the entire cake and let it drip off the sides.

NOTE - another experiment tried by sanju was to put some of the extra batter into small steel bowl (katori) with a piece of cadbury's dairy milk inside. Turned out good as well.

Frosted choc-orange cake

OH YES... WE ARE BACK.
Its been a long time, and thanks to mave, who sent some amazing baking books with ma, we are now back to our baking ways. This time it is not a question of need or requirement as it was in Chabua, now it is the foodie in us who is baking cakes. This first one turned out amazing. Thanks again Mave.

Frosted Choc-Orange Cake

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
125g butter (we used regular Amul pasteurized butter)
1 tbsp grated orange rind (this gives an amazing twang to the cake)
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups self raising flour (for us indians - maida and baking powder in the proportion of 1 cup maida : 2 tsp baking powder. sift the mixture together)
1 1/3 cups castor sugar (we just ground the sugar in the mixie)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup orange juice (we used 'Real' Orange juice from the tetra pack)
1/4 cup water

TO MAKE THE CAKE
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Beat at low speed till all the ingredients are combined; increase speed to medium and beat till the colour changes and the mixture becomes smooth.
Pour into greased pan and bake at 180 degC for about 1 hour. Remove, let stand for 5 min and then remove from pan to cool further.

INGREDIENTS FOR ICING
100 g cream (we used pre-sweetened cream from a bakery, so we cant give you how much sugar to use, so you can go by the recipe that we had and substitute the sweetened cream with 60g of butter and 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar)
1 tbsp grated Orange rind
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp cocoa

TO ICE THE CAKE
Beat the butter and rind in a small bowl until light and fluffy, gradually beat in the icing sugar and milk. Divide the frosting in half, stir in sifted cocoa into half and mix well. In the other half, add orange essence and a little orange colour (if you want it to look more colourful).
Top the cake with spoonfuls of orange and chocolate icing, swirling the iceing with a knife to give a marbled effect.