Update

Hi Friends, have been working on the round up for the Semi Home Made Indian recipes event...will be posting it in one or two days...chk back this space for the same. Hope you had a lovely weekend !

Butter Pecan Cookies and Awards

I am glad to announce that over the past few days Lazzat has bagged few awards, courtesy of Fathima and Nithu . A big Thanks to both of you and I  do accept these with much appreciation.

Fathima  presented these awards

and Nithu presented these awards

Update : I would like to pass on these awards to Asha, Cham, Aruna, PJ, Priya,  Shaheen and Yasmeen 

Since it was such a joyful week I thought it would be apt to share a simple, quick and delicious, melt in your mouth sweet treat with you. So presenting the butter pecan cookies...

These are sooo easy and sooo delicious , you gotta try these. Not too sweet, melt in your mouth goodness. Its an eggless recipe, so you can actually taste the batter and make necessary changes or tweak the recipe, have fun with it ! The ingredients are as follows:

Ingredients:

1 C (or 2 sticks) butter, room temp,

1/2 C pdrd sugar, plus more for coating cookies

1 3/4 C all-purpose flour,

1 C finely chopped pecans,

1 tsp. vanilla extract.

Method :

Preheat oven to 270 F.

Using an electric mixer at low speed, cream the butter and sugar until smooth, add vanilla and gradually add the flour. Mix in the pecans with a spatula. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper.With floured hands, take out about a tbsp. of dough and shape it into rounds or crescents or squares. Place the cookies at least an inch apart and bake for 40 minutes. Roll them in more powdered sugar while still warm. Cool completely on wire racks and store in airtight containers.

Gulab Jamun

Fried dumplings of milk soaked in cardamom scented sugar syrup, this is generally how restaurant menus explain it.

Gulab Jamun is a favourite with me and my siblings. Growing up, the only sweet we would look forward to eat is Kala Jamun. Making Gulab jamun needs a perfect proportion of Khoya, Sooji or Paneer or what ever may be your recipe, the key is the proportion. This is what my mom says. For me making Gulab Jamuns, is as easy as opening a packet of my favourite brand and mixing it up. But recently I learned to kick it up a notch. Now this is how I jazz up the mix, well actually I learnt this trick from my sis who herself is a very good cook .

When you get a packet of instant gulab jamun mix (available at indian grocery stores), it comes with the instructions, in which they ask you to knead the mix using water or milk. So here is the trick, instead of that try using some condensed milk or evaporated milk (see tip below), sprinkle some elaichi powder, few blanched and finely sliced pistachios to the mix and then just knead it , fry it n soak it in sugar syrup just as the package says. I also add some rose water to my sugar syrup. You will see how richer and creamier and homier they taste just by tweaking the mix a tiny bit. Garnish with silvered almonds or pistachios and enjoy.

How much condensed milk to add: Just keep adding 1 tbsp. of condensed milk or evaporated milk at a time until you get the desired consistency, or until the mix starts to form into a ball.

Kala Jamuns can also be made using the gulab jamun mix...but lets save that story for another day :)

Thanks for sharing this trick Didi ! This is my entry to the Semi Home Made Indian Recipes event hosted by myself.


I am also sending this to the Hearts for St. Valentines Day event hosted by Priya .