Condensed Milk Chocolate Pedas

I love Indian sweets. Unfortunately in Singapore, the so called Indian sweets are a bad concoction of food colouring and sugar! But I have to say some of our sweets are soo tedious to make, and it takes many trials to get it just right. There was this one time I tried hot jalebi, it was so much work, and at the end of two hours it turned out to be soggy!

  So here is a quick and easy recipe to help you through your sugar craving moments, and it gets better with an added touch of chocolate! This recipe was adapted from Niya’s World. 

Condensed Milk Chocolate Pedas:

Makes  18 pedas.

Ingredients: 

• 2 teaspoon – butter/ghee
• 1 tin (400 g) – Milkmaid Condensed Milk*
• 1 Tablespoon – Cocoa Powder
• 2 tablespoon – Sugar
• 2 teaspoon – more ghee

*I used Evaporated milk for a richer taste. 

Cooking the milk and cocoa mixture,
stirring continuously.

Directions:

• Grease a steel/glass plate with a little bit of ghee/butter.
• In a non-stick pan, heat the 2 teaspoons of butter/ghee, on a medium flame.
• Add the condensed milk along with the cocoa powder and sugar. Mix well
• Stir continuously for 20-22 minutes on a low flame, or until the mixtures thickens and leaves the sides of the pan.
• Pour the cooked mixture into the greased steel/glass plate and keep aside to cool completely, about half an hour.
• Apply the remaining ghee on both palms and shape the cooled mixture into small balls/pedas.
• Garnish with slivered almonds or cashews.
• Store in the refrigerator,  for up to a week.

Fluffy Blueberry Lemon Cookies

Sorry I have been away for so long. Went to India a while back, and I still haven’t gotten back to blogging. Last week, I picked out these lovely blueberries at the supermarket. Since they were in a really good condition, I wanted to try freezing them, for future.

I know all of us are new to SOFT cookies. I was a bit worried as to the texture of the cookies. When I baked them, it was a bit crisp, but after a few hours it became so soft, almost like cupcake tops! This is a new texture of cookies, I enjoyed the fluffiness and the zingy taste from the lemons. I love blueberries, so this was a win win recipe for me!

Cookie dough ready to be refrigerated.
The green specs seen are the lemon zest.

I had saved this recipe for Blueberry lemon fluffy cookies a month back from http://bakerbettie.com/. And thought I would give it a try. I got a new zester from India during my recent trip. So this would be a perfect recipe to give my new zester a go, along with the frozen blueberries!

Spooned and flattened cookie dough.

You don’t have to have blueberries and lemons to make these, you can use the base recipe and make your own flavours, like chocolate chips, or even just plain vanilla. The cake flour mentioned in this recipe gives these cookies their fluffy texture. Cake flour has a low gluten content with allows the cookies to rise while baking.  

Frozen Blueberries

Thawed Blueberries

Blueberry and Lemon Cookies

Makes – 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 cup - unsalted butter, softened

1 cup - sugar

2 - eggs, room temperature

2 tsp-  vanilla extract

Zest of one lemon

Juice of one lemon

1/2 tsp - salt

1/2 tsp - baking powder

1/2 tsp - baking soda

1/2 tsp - cinnamon

3 1/4 cups - cake flour*

1 1/2 cups – blueberries (frozen or fresh)

*NOTE: Cake flour has a lower gluten content than all-purpose flour and therefore creates a lighter and fluffier cookie. However, you can sub all-purpose flour.  Decrease the amount of flour to 3 cups minus 2 tbsp.  The cookie will still be tasty, but the texture will be slightly different.

Instructions

• In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  
• Add the eggs one at a time, and beat after each addition.  
• Add the vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice and beat to incorporate.  
• In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.  
• Slowly add the dry ingredients into the batter.  
• Scrape down the bowl as needed and mix until incorporated.  
• Fold in the blueberries gently as to now break them.  
• Allow the dough to cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour or up to overnight.  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
• Use a small scoop (about 1 tbsp size) and place rounded mounds of dough on a cookie sheet lined with Butter paper, And flatten the round mounds slightly.  
• Bake for 14-16 minutes until the bottoms look slightly browned (the edges should not brown).

Enjoy this pillowy soft and fluffy blueberry and lemon cookies. So unique and delicious! Perfect with your morning cup of coffee.