Gluten-Free Pineapple Upside Down Cake | Eggless Baking

More gluten-free baking @ Annarasa. Today I am sharing my go to recipe for a gluten free Pineapple Upside Down cake. This is a very simple recipe that is also eggless. It yields a very light, delicious dessert cake. Enjoy with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Whipped Mango Yogurt with Champagne Mangoes

A quick ripe Mango dessert recipe today. It is mango season and its time to enjoy mango recipes old and new!! Sharing this quick recipe that you can make if you have a bowl of mangoes on your countertop and you are itching to try something different with them. More recipes below if you have mangoes to share!!

Strawberry Coffee Cake | Eggless Baking

Strawberries may seem like an odd choice in a baked product, but they actually taste really yummy enveloped in a sweet batter cake. They cook and become incredibly soft and jammy. You almost feel like you are eating a jam cake with all the best flavors surrounding it - vanilla, cinnamon, strawberry. The crunch of the cinnamon sugar adds a wonderful texture to the finished product. There are two ways (well, so many actually!!) to enjoy this cake. The first is warm with a good vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of strawberry syrup. The second is with warm fresh vanilla custard. Yumm!!

Chocolate, Cookies, and Peanut Butter Fudge

I was browsing my blog the other morning and realized that I have not posted candy or fudge recipes here in quite a while!! Given that they are my favorite treats to make and share I lost no time in making a batch to photograph and share. Today's recipe is really simple. Just a few ingredients from your pantry and you are set.

Bananas Foster Cake | Eggless Baking

Bananas Foster makes for the most addictive dessert! Whenever I have some bananas sitting on the counter that are about to get over ripe, I am tempted to make Bananas Foster for dessert. So a couple of weeks back when just about 6 bananas were about to go over the edge, I decided to improvise. If you like Bananas Foster, what can be better than a batch of Bananas Foster jam? I made the jam by improvising on the Bananas Foster recipe.

Badam Nariyal aur Rava ki Barfi | Melt in the Mouth Almond Coconut Fudge

Barfi is the one classic Indian Sweet that graces festivals, birthdays, and all joyous occasions. Its also a wonderful tea time treat and a dessert that can be enjoyed on any day. I had planned to originally prepare this Barfi for the Navratris, but ended up making Badam aur Nariyal ki Barfi | Almond and Coconut Fudge!! This morning, as I was sifting through various ingredients in my pantry, I found two packs of dry coconut - one dessicated and the other shredded. I tend to use the shredded coconut to make chutneys and the dessicated is saved for cakes and cookies.

Vegan Mango Cake | Vegan Baking

Cake baking has been a passion of mine. I began experimenting with baking when I was not quite in high school and have never looked back since. As I always followed the recipes from my grandmother's very English book and magazines, all my baking was with eggs. I never even dreamed that one could bake without eggs - they play the role of both providing moisture to the dough and act as a raising agent. Of course, there are some recipes that cannot be attempted without eggs or even egg whites. But there are many many recipes that can be attempted eggless - or so I discovered many years when I decided to take my experiments to a different level.

Puran Poli | Flatbread with Cardamom Infused Sweet Lentil Filling

The first time I heard of Puran Poli was as a kid visiting a friend's home in Bombay! It was coming up to Holi and we had just popped in after an afternoon of skating. The home was replete with the aroma of ghee and cardamom and there was much bustle in the kitchen. On the dining table were large plates piled high with what looked liked parathas. But these parathas were sweetly fragrant, incredibly soft, and oozing with butter fat!!

The Best Banana Chocolate Chunk Cake | Eggless Baking

Three months ago in the throes of packing up to move, I baked a delicious cake. Yes, it was a banana cake, but this time I added a good cup of large chocolate chunks to it!! Banana and chocolate are undoubtedly made for each other and I generally like to pair dark chocolate with banana when I bake. Some of the recipes that are a favorite at my home are banana chocolate chip muffins, banana chocolate cookies and banana chocolate smoothie. The latter I always make with Ghirardelli chocolate sauce, mmmmm:)

Kesari Peda | Creamy Saffron Milk Fudge

It was Basant Panchami on the 4th of February this year!! Hard to believe with spring nowhere on the horizon this year. It seems that we are in a never ending cold spell. And this was confirmed by the local groundhog who announced bright and early on Sunday morning that we are to expect two more weeks of the chilly winter. Yet despite the frigid temperatures, I heard the sweet sound of a bird on the tree outside the bedroom window on the very same morning!! Yes, the cardinal is back. Every year we are treated to its sweet music around this time of the year. And this year is no different, there she was sitting on the frozen branch of a frozen tree, announcing her arrival. Oh, joy!!

Healthy Blueberry and Peach Cobbler | Eggless Baking

I have a weakness for peaches. And blueberries are a favourite in my family. So when I manage to get my hands on juicy peaches and fresh blueberries I just cannot resist whipping up some delicious Peach and Blueberry Cobbler! Now this may seem more like a recipe for the autumn, and yes I love baking fragrant crumbles, cobblers, and fruit cakes during the autumn. Its an ideal way to enjoy the last fruit of the summer while welcoming apples and pears into my kitchen.

Pineapple Ricotta Basundi | Milk and Ricotta Pudding with Pineapple Bits

In March I announced the first ever giveaway hosted at Annarasa ~ Essence of Food. This food event and giveaway ended on the 20th of April 2013 and I will announce the winners of the giveaway in the coming weeks. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every contributor and participant for taking the time to make this event a wonderful success. Over seventy unique recipes have been shared through this event by bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

Badam ki Kheer | Almond Milk Pudding

Diwali Greetings to all my readers!! I have been wondering for some time what sweet I should make to mark this festival and I realized that it has been some time since I made Kheer!! Badam Kheer or Almond Milk Pudding is one of my favourite Kheer recipes. The Kheer has a deliciously soft grainy texture, is fragrant with cardamom and saffron, and if you pay close attention gives a hint of heady almond towards the end.  Here is the delicious milk pudding recipe.

Chocolate Doodh Burfi | Chocolate Milk Fudge: Indian Festival Sweets

Chocolate Doodh Burfi is one of the most popular burfi items around festival times in Delhi. When I came across this confection the first time I was quite frankly horrified by the idea. The very thought of combining creamy milk burfi with cocoa seemed strange!! But one bite and I was hooked. This delicious sweet is seldom found in the Mithai Shops we have around here. This year I was simply craving this burfi and so I decided to just go ahead and make it. All I can say is that there were no regrets and the family just loved it!!

Rava Laddoo | Rava Laddu | Suji Laddoo: Indian Festival Sweets

Oftentimes we are in a great hurry and find it difficult to spend time in the kitchen laboriously making sweets. This is all too true during the festival period when there are so many activities at home and events elsewhere that attract our attention. Yet the thought of store bought mithai is so depressing, especially to many of us who have homes on other continents! All sweets tend to taste the same - full of sugar and no flavour of their own, so much so that it becomes impossible to distinguish one from the other!!

Nariyal Barfi | Coconut Burfi (Soft) | Coconut Fudge

Come Autumn, its the beginning of festival season in India. Festivals of course mean family, friends, and food!! Lots and lots of delicious food made especially to celebrate. Festival food tends to be rich in every way - full of sugar, deep fried, packed with dried fruits and nuts, and topped off with lashings of ghee (clarified butter). Everyone has their favourites and can't imagine the festival season without them.

Doodh Peda | Milk Fudge for Krishna Janmashtami

I have been wanting to make Pedas at home for a long time now. I find most Halwai Pedas to contain way too much sugar. Not that they don't taste good - lots of sugar can make for a delicious melt in the mouth Peda. But I was looking for something a little less intense. Here I have used condensed milk for that extra milkiness and sweetness. My recipe has no sugar and I found that the proportions below gave me a delicious milk fudge.

Firni | Phirni | Creamy Ground Rice Custard - Three Ways

Monday night and I was craving some really creamy dessert!! No, not ice cream or even cream cake. I was looking for something smooth, milky and sweet. Phirni, the fabulously easy milk custard had been on my mind for a while! Thickened with rice paste and sweetened with sugar, this dessert harks back to hot Delhi days when cold desserts were a welcome relief. Prepared in the heat of the day, garnished with nuts fried in ghee, and chilled to perfection in the refrigerator, Phirni always marked the perfect ending to spicy meals!

Delicious Apple Pecan Crumble

Its apple season here, and we getting a wonderful variety of local apples at the many orchards that dot the countryside. While some orchards have a pick your own policy, some do all the hard work for you and you can just walk into the barn and get a 5lb bag of you favourite fruit or even a bushel if you fancy!! 

Very Orangey Orange Cake (Eggless)

I love citrus in cakes and bakes!! While I bake lemon pound cake and my olive oil lime cake every so often, I have not baked an orange cake in quite some time. Several years ago, I would bake an orange cake that required a syrupy drizzle icing, one that would soak into the sponge of the cake making the crumb juicy and moist. Mmmmm