Cream Chop / Malai Chop, Raksha Bandhan Celebrations and BlogAdda Notable Newbie Award

The seasons of Indian festivals have started, beginning with Raksha Bandhan. It is day to celebrate the bond between brothers and sisters. It was a big day for us during our childhood days, when  all of us siblings were still  living together. Having grown up in a small town which didn't have an English medium school after 10th, we had to leave the town one by one as we passed our 10th class , for further studies. It became increasingly difficult to gather together on the Raksha bandhan day and now we just manage to celebrate the day by sending rakhis to our brother by post. Anyway to mark this special day, I wanted to make an Indian sweet. 

And I have another big reason to celebrate too . Last Week BlogAdda annouced the notable newbies for the month, And my blog was also conferred this award. Thanks a lot to the BlogAdda team for giving my blog this recognition.


This mithai / Indian sweet is easily available in sweet shops , but I wanted to give it a different shape and look ,so decided to make it at home. In my town it was called  Cream Chop / Malai Chop . I don't know what it is called at other places , but it is from the same family of chum chum  and Rasgullas . Their Sibling :))

Usually this sweet is a round or rectangular shape. The sweet is sliced into two and filled with sweetened reduced milk / Rabdi .Since I wanted to make a flower shape, I thought slicing would be difficult, so I made them thinner. This way, I could put two pieces together instead of slicing one.

Ingredients
[For 6 -8 sweets]

For Homemade Paneer
1 litre whole milk [about 5 cups]
2 tsp vinegar/lemon juice

For Sugur Syrup
1 cup sugar
3 cups Water

For Malai/Rabdi

1/2 litre whole milk
 2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp Cardamom powder

Preparation
For Homemade Paneer

1. Bring milk to a boil. When it comes to a boil,  add  Vinegar or lemon juice. Stir until milk  separates into curds and whey completely. Add some more vinegar/lemon juice it it doesn't seem to separate.
2. Pour this paneer on a muslin cloth or cheesecloth lined colander. Drain all water and then wash it with cold water to remove the sourness. Gather all sides of the  muslin cloth and twist and squeeze to drain all water. Put a heavy pan on top of this wrapped paneer for an hour to drain any remaining water.
3. After an hour, knead the paneer well to make a smooth dough for about 4 minutes. If you are making flower shape, make 12-16 small balls and flatten it and cut the shape using a cookie cutter. If you are making a round or rectangle shape, make  only 8 balls and shape them accordingly. 

For the Sugar Syrup

1.  In a pan, bring water and sugar to boil till all the sugar dissolves. 
2. Add the paneer balls/flowers and cover the pan with a lid and cook for 25 minutes.  The balls will get double in size. 
3. Turn the heat off and let the balls remain in the sugar syrup for 4-5 hours.

For the Malai /Rabdi

1. Heat milk in a wok/ kadhai . When a cream layer forms on the top, remove the layer with a spatula and spread it on to the sides of the wok. Repeat this process till  the milk reduces to 1/3rd. 
2. Scratch the cream layer that you have collected on the sides of the wok and mix in with the reduced milk. You can add some food colour if you wish.
3. Add sugar little by little and when it is sweet enough for your taste stop, and add cardamom powder . Stir for a minute or two and turn off the heat. Let it cool and then refrigerate it.

Assembling
  When the paneer balls are ready after having been in the syrup for several hours, take it out from syrup and slice it horizontally. Fill in the malai /rabdi between the two slices of the paneer balls/flowers.Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Garnish with chopped pistachios/

Chocolate Crackles



While I took a deliberate break from blogging , I did things which I hadn't been doing for some time, Like reading a novel, watching tv and movies, enjoying the Mumbai rains, accompanying my husband to his photography trails. The weather here now is the best to travel and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Maharastra.All  around you can see greenery,seasonal watererfalls. It is breathtaking.

The only dampener to this period of bliss was my finding a photo from my blog copied on  a reputed cooking site of a big television  news channel. The watermark had been removed and the photo was copied. I can't even tell how angry I was. Not that the photo was very great, but still the idea of your work being claimed as somebody else's work is surely infuriating.I took to all the social networking channels I had to bring this issue to notice and the photo was removed. They apologised saying that " We sourced the image from Thinkstock - perhaps you should check if it's still on offer there" . I went to the Thinkstock site but their image store is so huge that I couldn't validate their claims.   Anyway, I am glad the photo was removed but then I can never trust such sites for recipes who can't even post their own photos for the recipes they have.That means they haven't tried making their recipes themselves.

This whole episode reminded me of the post I had read from David Lebovitz about etiquette of recipe attribution and Food blogging. The article is here  Recipe Attribution and a must read for all those who are into blogging.  

Quoting  few basic points from that article here.

•  If you're modifying someone else's recipe, it should be called "adapted from".
•  If you change a recipe substantially, you may be able to call it your own. But if it's somewhat similar to a publisher recipe, you should say it's "inspired by", which means that you used else's recipe for inspiration, but changed it substantially.
• If you change three ingredients, you can in most instances call the recipe yours.
• When in doubt, always give attribution.
• If you're adapting a recipe from a website, link to that site's original recipe page URL.
• If you're adapting a recipe from a cookbook, link to that cookbook on Amazon, the publishers website, and/or the author's website.

I hope you will find this entire article and the discussion that is there in the comments section helpful.

Now coming to the Chocolate Crackles Recipe. It was kind of love at first sight when I saw them on the web. I don't know why I postponed making them for such a long time because it is such an easy recipe though requires some patience of waiting.

It has a cake like softness and moistness and are absolutely delicious.

The recipe has been adapted from Tasting Memories

For 30 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 large eggs
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp  vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Preparation

1. Beat granulated sugar and butter in a bowl using an electric mixture. Add eggs and mix. Add Cocoa, vanilla extract and beat till smooth and creamy.
2. Add flour,baking powder and salt and mix the dough for about 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Preheat the oven to 350°F /176C. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper .
4. Form the dough into 1 inch balls and coat them generously with the confectioner's/icing sugar. Place them on the cookie sheet 1 inch apart.
5. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the tops look cracked. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
   These  can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days.