Butter Cake , a delicious, rich and soft cake with wonderful butter flavor. It's one of my favourite cakes to bake for evening snacks. It's such an easy cake and the output is awesome every SINGLE time.

My kid loves this butter cake so much and he asked for this cake as an after school snack. So ever since he started school, i have baked this cake almost every other week and now i almost lost count how many times that i had baked this cake for the past three months.

If you're looking for a make ahead snack for your kids, i would highly recommend to give a try on this. I'm sure that you and your kiddo will love this. 

Couple of years back, i saved this recipe from somewhere and i don't even know where it was from, now. Few months back , when i browsed through my drafts, i noticed this cake and tried it and it turned out super delicious. Ever since it became a regular in our house. 

Usually i bake this cake in a small loaf(4*7) which is enough for our small family , so here i'm sharing the recipe for a small loaf only. It would be sufficient for 2-3 people for one serving. If you're looking to bake a larger cake, you can easily double or triple the recipe. 

Flour

For the recipe that i have shared today , i have used only all purpose flour. But i tried the same recipe with the combination of wheat flour and all purpose flour as well as only wheat flour(aata). 

To be honest, i don't see any major difference in taste and texture. The color of the cake only differs with the wheat flour. So use whatever flour you have or like.

Now let's check out how to cake this super easy and delicious cake.

Butter Cake | Easy Tea Cake

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 40 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Cake | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Butter Cake, Cake,Easy Cake, Tea Cake Butter Cake , a delicious, rich and soft cake with wonderful butter flavor.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Butter - 1/4 cup

Sugar - 1/4 cup

All purpose flour - 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp

Salt - a pinch

Baking powder - 1/4 tsp

Vanilla Extract - 1/4 tsp

Milk - 2 tbsp

Egg - 1

Procedure

Preheat the oven @ 350 F. In a bowl, add the softened butter and sugar. Whisk the both together for a couple of mins.

Then crack open an egg and add it along with vanilla extract. Whisk it all together well. It may look curdle but that's totally fine. 

Next place a siever over the bowl and add the flour, baking powder and salt. Sieve it into the egg butter mixture and mix it well.

Then grease the baking tray with butter and dust it with the all purpose flour. Place a parchment paper on the bottom and transfer the cake batter into the pan. Bake it in the preheated oven for 40 mins or until the toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Delicious and spongy Butter cake is ready ! 

Related: How to make Hot Milk Cake

Notes:

• Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature.
• Slice the cake when it's cooled down completely. It give a neat slices.

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Homemade Pumpkin Bread | Pumpkin Bread

Homemade Pumpkin Bread, a delicious, soft and quick to make bread with wonderful flavor. I had tasted pumpkin/banana bread from the cafe often and really liked it much. 

Though i had baked banana bread at home often, recently only i started to bake this delicious pumpkin bread. It's a instant hit at home. They are super soft and mildly sweet, tastes best with cup of coffee/ tea. In the given recipe, you can increase the sugar quantity up to 1 cup for more sweet.   

Here in today's recipe, you can use home made / store bought pumpkin puree. If you're using store bought pumpkin puree, it's quite thick than the home made, so if needed add couple of tbsp of milk to get the correct consistency of batter. 

Serve this bread after couple of hours of baking, that's when the flavor get intensified and tastes best. The leftovers can be stored in refrigerator/freezer for later use. Microwave it for 20-30 secs and it tastes as good as fresh. 

Pumpkin Bread

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 1 hr | Makes : 2 small loaf 
Recipe Category: Bread | Recipe Cuisine: International
Pumpkin Bread, Bread, Pumpkin Puree,Baking Homemade Pumpkin Bread, a delicious, soft and quick to make bread with wonderful flavor.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Pumpkin Puree - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Egg - 1 
Butter - 1/3 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Cinnamon powder -1/2 tsp
Cloves powder - 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp

Procedure

First take the butter in a bowl, whisk it well and then add the sugar.

Mix it with butter well and then crack open a egg and mix it until it's creamy. 

Next add the pumpkin puree and give a good mix and then add the flour.

And all the spices ( cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg), baking soda and salt. Mix it all together.

Preheat the oven at 325 F and then grease the baking tin with butter and dust it with flour, keep it ready. Transfer the batter into baking tin and bake it for 50-60 mins or until the tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the pumpkin bread to cool and then cut into thin slices.

Delicious pumpkin bread is ready.

Related:How to make Chocolate Banana Bread

Notes:

• Instead of all this spices, you can use 2 tsp of pumpkin mix.
• Don't over bake the bread, otherwise it became very dry
• If your batter is too thick, add couple of tbsp of milk. 
  

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Apple Jalebi, a quick and easy to make sweet recipe with apples. I had seen this recipe long back on manjula's kitchen, even since i wondered how would it taste and also wanted to give a try. 

At last, a year back i tried this sweet for the first time and we really enjoyed it. The sourness from the apple while eating this jalebi exactly reminded me about the slight sourness from the traditional jalebi(do check out the traditional jalebi recipe also, one of the popular post in my blog and turned out so good each time.), guess that's why they named this dish as "Apple Jalebi".

 If you're looking for some indian flavored sweet recipe with apples, then do give it a try, you won't be disappointed for sure. 

This jalebi becomes little bit soggy when it's cooled down, so I would recommend to fry as many apple slices as you want at a time and refrigerate the remaining(apples, batter and sugar syrup).

Fry them whenever needed and then slightly reheat the syrup and dip the fried apples in it, that way ,it give you crispy and tasty apple jalebis every time!!! 

Now let's check out the recipe for this yummy Apple Jalebis.

Apple Jalebi | Sweet Recipe

Preparation Time : 30 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 2 to 3 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Apple Jalebi,Indian sweet,Green Apple Apple Jalebi, a quick and easy to make sweet recipe with apples.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Green Apple - 1
Maida/All purpose flour - 1/3 cup
Instant yeast -1/4 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Oil - for deep frying
Water - as needed for batter
For Sugar Syrup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Lemon Juice - 1 tsp
Saffron Strands - few
Orange food color - a pinch(Optional)

Procedure

Take all the required ingredients, in a bowl, add the maida & yeast, mix it well.

Then add the sugar and salt, mix it well and then pour the needed water to make the batter.

The batter should be free flowing but not too thin. Cover it with lid and let it rest for 30 mins.

In the mean time, let's make the sugar syrup, heat the pan with water and sugar, add few strands of saffron.

Let it comes to boil, reduce the flame and cook till the syrup becomes sticky. Switch off the flame. If you're using food color, add it now and then add the lemon juice. Mix it well and your sugar syrup is ready.

Next, peel the apple and cut them into thin circles, remove the seeds from the centre and keep it ready.

After 30 mins, the batter should be all bubbly and became thick.Heat the oil in the pan for frying.

Deep the apple slice into the batter and coat them on both sides well.

Gently drop them into oil and cook on both side till it becomes golden in color. 

Drain from the oil and add it into the sugar syrup, let it soak for 2 mins and then remove from the syrup and arrange it on the plate.

Tasty Apple Jalebi is ready. Serve immediately!

Related: How to make Traditional Jalebi

Notes:

• Sugar syrup should be warm while adding the fried apples, it helps to absorb the syrup easily.
• If the sugar syrup becomes cold & not absorbed by apples well in between then slightly warm them.
• Instead of saffron flavor, you can cardamom flavor too.
  

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Muttaikose | Sweet Bonda | Vettu cake | Street food

Muttaikose, a mildly sweetened bonda made from all purpose flour and it's a quite popular snack in tea stall around South Tamilnadu. Those who knew tamil , may wonder why this is called as "Muttaikose", in tamil "Muttaikose" means "Cabbage". Is this sweet made of cabbage? No. Then why is this name for sweet bonda?? Seriously i don't know the answer, but we used to call this snack as muttaikose as far as i remembered.

But let me guess !! I have heard that in some places, this snack is prepared with eggs. In Tamil "Muttai" means eggs, so that may be the reason for the name  or else in tea stall, this sweet bonda is usually prepared in big size and it's somewhat look like a muttaikose(a small cabbage with open leaves) with those cracked texture on the top. 

Related: How to make Paneer Soda(Regional famous aerated drink)

All these are my wild guess and honestly i don't know the real reason, even i asked my mom, she also don't know the reason for the name. So if any one know the name reason, please let me know.
Now coming to the recipe, it's one of my favorite after school snacks in my childhood days. Amma used to make this at least once in a week as our evening snack especially for me, of course. You know, i have a big sweet tooth in my family. 

More than the sweet bonda, i like the dough back then or even now, so i always asked Amma to set aside some dough whenever she prepared this muttaikose. It's been ages since i had this therefore last weekend i prepared this and relish to the core with cup of tea. Some foods are extremely comforting just because of the memories associated with it .This is one such food for me!

Related: How to make Rava Kothu

I have seen similar dishes in the different name like vettu cake/ Kajada / maida bonda. Once i had tasted the vettu cake in road side tea stall while driving from bangalore to tiruppur and it was more or less similar to muttaikose that we used to have in our native. But i don't have any idea about how other tastes.

Actually muttaikose is very mildly sweetened with crispy outside and soft inside. It really goes well with coffee/tea. That's why you can see this on the road side tea stall in southern Tamilnadu especially in small village around Tirunelveli and Tenkasi. 
Before check out the recipe,if you want to know what i have prepared for past 7 days under "Street food" theme, here they are
Day 1 - Dahi Papdi Chaat
Day 2 - Bhel Puri
Day 3 - Jalebi
Day 4 - Nannari Paal Sharbath
Day 5 - Spinach Masala Dosa
Day 6- Paneer Soda
Day 7- Bread Cheese Omelette

  

Muttaikose

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 15 mins | Makes : 12 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Muttaikose,Sweet Bonda, Veetu Cake, Snack, Tamilnadu Snack Muttaikose, a mildly sweetened bonda made from all purpose flour and it's a quite popular snack in tea stall around South Tamilnadu.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Sour Curd - 1/4 cup
Powdered sugar - 1/2 cup
Coconut oil - 1 tbsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Oil - for deep frying

Procedure

In a bowl, add curd, baking soda and powdered sugar.

Add coconut oil into it and whisk it all together until it became forthy.

Then add the flour and mix it well with spoon once all the flour is wet, keep the spoon aside and mix it with your hand until it became dough.

Pinch a lemon sized dough and roughly roll into a ball . Heat the oil for deep frying. Once the oil is heated(if you drop a pinch of dough in oil,it should rise up slowly to the top), keep the flame in low and add the dough into the oil.

Let it cook evenly on all sides until it's golden brown. Drain the muttaikose from the oil and place it on tissue paper.

Tada, Muttaikose is ready to serve. (A quick reel on how to make muttaikose)

Related: How to make Rava Maida Appam

Notes:

• The temperature of oil is very important to get the correct texture. When you drop a piece of dough into oil, if it's rise up immediately, it means the oil temperature is too high, let it comes down a bit and then start frying.
• Cooking in low flame helps to cook the inside well.
• Amma says that the sour curd gives great texture to the muttaikose. But fresh curd also works.
• Coconut oil flavor goes well with this bonda, but you can use any oil or butter or ghee too.
  

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Home made Crispy & Juicy Jalebi | Jalebi Recipe | Indian Sweet

Jabeli, the most famous Indian sweet throughout  the world. It's made from deep frying the fermented  batter and then dipped in saffron flavored sugar syrup. They are crispy and so juicy , on every bite, the sugar syrup trapped inside the jabeli oozes out from it. Simply Delicious it is ! 

The jalebi that I had tasted in my home town(Tirunelveli) were not very thin and it was almost similar to Jangiri and was white in color, thick and soggy. And I didn't like them back then and now. Later I got introduced to this crispy and thin jalebis when we were in Bangalore.

Near our home, there was a food cart where they sell only jalebi and samosa in the evenings and I had a chance to watch them making jalebi whenever I went for a walk in the evening. 

I really loved to see how effortlessly they made those jalebi and the cost was just 15 rs/ 100 gram of jalebi. Since I love to eat them hot, we waited for the fresh batch of jalebi from the stall and had it on the spot, seriously i didn't have the patience to bring it back home and eat it. 

Does anyone like to have the sweet as hot?? or it's just me , whatever the sweet, i love to have them as soon as it's made and hot !!! Right from kesari, gulab jamun,jangiri , palkova on the list goes on. I had quite the experience of burning on top of my mouth and tongue by tasting like this !!! But still it's hard to give up that habit. 

While writing this, I remember a line from one of the Tamil stories(can't remember the story name) written by Mr. Thi. Janakiraman. It's like this "சூடு ஒரு ருசி போல ?"(is hot really a taste?). Is it or isn't it ? It's debatable, right ? :-)

Ok, back to jalebi, after a few failed attempts, finally i can make some decent jalebis. The key to get perfect jalebis are the batter consistency and the oil temperature. 

The batter should be well fermented and also free flowing. Next, don't let the oil smoke at any time of frying, it should be at a low medium temperature. See notes on how to check the perfect oil temperature without a handy thermometer. 

The main reason for sharing this yummy sweets today is, it's my 500th post !!! So here is the virtual treat to all the readers on my blog, thanks for being so supportive and encouraging. 

Still, I can't believe that I have posted 500 posts, phew !!! Before check out the recipe,if you want to know what i have prepared for past 2 days under "Street food" theme, here they are
Day 1 - Dahi Papdi Chaat
Day 2 - Bhel Puri

And some FAQs

How to get perfectly shaped jalebis ?

• The oil temperature is the key to get the perfect shape of the jalebis. If you add a drop of batter into the oil, it should take at least 3-4 secs to float on top. If it comes up on top immediately, the oil is very hot, you need to reduce the oil temperature. 
• If the oil is too hot, squeezing the batter as a concentric circle is difficult because once the batter touches the oil, it floats on top immediately and you can't squeeze the batter  as circles further .
• If the oil is not heated enough, then the jalebis would be flat.
• If you're having a number system in your stove, once the oil is heated , keep in between 3 & 4 for the entire cooking of jalebi.
• I kept  my stove at number 3 while squeezing the batter into the oil and then increased it to 4 till it's crispy.

Why are my jalebis not absorbing the sugar syrup?

• No need to make single string consistency sugar syrup for this jalebi, sticky consistency is perfect and it's easily absorbed by jalebis too.
• Make sure that the jalebis and the sugar syrup is warm, it will help to absorb the syrup easily. 

Home made Jalebi

Preparation Time : 24 hr | Cooking Time : 30 mins | Makes : 35-40 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
How to make Jalebi, Jalebi recipe, Crispy Jalebi, Juicy Jalebi Jabeli, the most famous Indian sweet throughout the world. It's made from deep frying the fermented batter and then dipped in saffron flavored sugar syrup.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
For Batter
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Corn flour - 3 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Curd - 2/3 cup
Orange food color - a pinch
Water - as needed
For Sugar Syrup
Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 3/4 cup
Lemon - 1/2
Saffron - few strands

Procedure

Take all the ingredients for the jalebi batter, in a bowl, add the curd and whisk it until it becomes creamy.

Then add the all purpose flour,corn flour and food color. Mix it well with the curd.

Add the ghee and the required water and make the batter as lump free and easy flowing.

Cover it with lid and let it aside for 24hrs to ferment.

After 24 hrs, the batter should be all bubbly and has strong sour smell. Mix it well with laddle and check the consistency again. It should be free flowing.

Let's make sugar syrup before frying the jalebis. Take the sugar in a sauce pan, add the water and saffron.

Bring into boil and keep it simmer until the sugar syrup becomes sticky.Switch off the flame &  squeeze the lemon juice , mix it well & set aside.

To fry the jalebi, heat the oil for frying, pour the batter into zip lock bag and make a small hole at the end.

Once the oil is heated(add a drop of batter into the oil, it should  takes 3-4 secs to float on the top, that's the correct temperature of oil), squeeze the batter into the oil as concentric circles. Cook it both sides of the jalebis are crispy. 

Take it out from the oil and drop it in the sugar syrup and let it in the syrup for 10-15 secs and remove it on the plate. Do the same for the remaining batter.

Tada,Crispy & Juicy  Jalebis are ready. 

Related : How to make Jangiri

Notes:

• On the day that i have prepared the batter, the room temperature at my place is between 72-76 F and it takes exactly 24 hrs to ferment as expected.
• I just placed the batter on the counter. No need to place inside the oven and turn on light.
• Store it in a dry container and it stays well for days.
• When it's warm, it's crispy and juicy. Once it's completely cooled and after a day,it became soft.

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