Fruit Inspired Archives - Page 2 of 10

Cookies, Brownies & Bars, Fruit Inspired, Pies & Puddings, Sweet

Lemon Brown Butter Tart + My Latest Crush

As is typically the case when a brilliant new book hits the market (especially by some of my favoured sources of inspiration) I waste little time getting my hands on it. By some gross error, I landed up ordering this gem a tad behind schedule, but oh, it is so worth having in my arsenal! I’ll admit, a lot of the main meals are primarily not vegetarian, but the other chapters {Meatless Mains, Vegetables} quickly make up for that. What I love about this book is that it is an amalgamation of people’s favourites, by phenomenal chefs/bloggers/geniuses, and genuinely meant to be catered towards honest home cooking – none of that layered and complicated deconstructed stuff! Hence, I used two recipes from the book as inspiration for my Lemon Brown Butter Tart. The first is Paule Caillat’s Brown Butter Tart (which BTW is ridonkulously easy) and the second is Elizabeth Falkner’s Eggless Lemon Curd.

Right so in case you thought that this is my latest crush, it isn’t. I mean, I love recipe books and all, but this crush is totally legit. And Yellow too! It’s none other than the Read more…

July 7, 2015 | 0 comment

Fruit Inspired

Breakfast Like a Queen

Off late, I’ve been steering away from the home-style Indian hot breakfasts, not because I don’t enjoy them, but because I just felt my body getting a bit sluggish and almost screaming for a change! Also, I’ve generally (i.e. for about a decade) been a big fan of breakfasts comprising of muesli, granola, fresh berries, dried and fresh fruits and beautiful yoghurt. Yes, breakfast looks and tastes pretty this way, but it’s also packed with fresh and super nutritious foods. I love adding compotes too the mix, especially when fresh strawberries are in season. I’m tempted to try out a cherry compote, inspired by the bounty of cherry in the city off late (and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that using my cherry pitter is oh-so-much-fun!), but haven’t gotten around to it just yet!

I recently discovered a brand of Greek Yoghurt called Epigamia (by the same people behind Hokey Pokey Ice Creams), which I must admit, I really enjoyed. One of the biggest selling points to me personally is, that it is a local homegrown brand, selling products at par with the world markets. This also very efficiently beats my mundane process of leaving homemade skim-milk yoghurt to drain overnight, resulting in a silky greek yoghurt consistency by morning. Here are the two combinations I’ve attempted to create over the last week, with more and more to come! Read more…

July 6, 2015 | 0 comment

Bread, Cake & Cupcake Heaven, Chocolate, Fruit Inspired, Sweet

Breakfast Banana Muffins with Coffee-Chocolate Chunks, Hazelnuts and Oats

The last weekend has been a busy busy but fantastic one. It started with a day dedicated to cooking and baking and making everything look pretty and yet relaxed. My idea of entertainment involves very little effort once the guests arrive, I prefer everything to be laid out and let the guests have a little fun DIY-ing and playing around with different stuff, that may to may not work well together. But that’s all the fun! There was: mango feta crostini with red wine fleur de sel, paprika spiked hummus, valrhona cointreau cupcakes, layered lemon cake with lemon cream cheese topped with fresh cranberries and gaufres shards, as well as some mini-mosaic apple tarts. It was quite a day night! And, of course, when at 2am this and this (the British version, of course!) makes a debut, you know the entertainment has taken the best possible turn!

With a Friday like that, even the best of us couldn’t rise and shine from the wee hours into a domestic diva. The thing is, I love the idea of grabbing a weekend (or any day, really) breakfast/brunch/late lunch comprising of breakfast favourites. I love the concept of brinner too (breakfast for dinner, get with the lingo!). The only part which tends to evade this achievement is the fact that it’s usually in the morning, and mornings and me haven’t become quite that friendly yet. That’s kind of how I stumbled upon the idea of making Breakfast Banana Muffins with Coffee-Chocolate Chunks, Hazelnuts and Oats the previous day, so I wouldn’t have to rise and shine early (eek!) to made a hot breakfast treat, I’d just drizzle it with some homemade warm salted caramel, and breakfast is served! Read more…

June 8, 2015 | 0 comment

Cake & Cupcake Heaven, Fruit Inspired, Sweet

Pear & Vanilla Preserve Cake

I adore fruit cake and tea cake. I adore cake that doesn’t get lost or doused in layers of cream and sugar. But sometimes I like that too.

Ok fine.

I love cake.

ALL cake.

And this Pear & Vanilla Preserve Cake is no exception.

The standout ingredient is (most obviously) the pear and vanilla preserve, which honestly I don’t know if I would ever again waste on toast. Like ever. again. The entire bottleful went into this cake, and worked so wonderfully well with the crunchy walnuts and the spicy cinnamon and nutmeg. Almost like carrot cake meets orange marmalade cake!

Brown Butter Apple Crisp

I can never imagine having reached where I have in my culinary journey without having simple and effective recipes like this one, in my arsenal. My Brown Butter Apple Crisp has been labelled an apple crumble, has been made with peaches, with almond & strawberries, and with mixed fruit. It’s gone through a bevy of avatars, adding some cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, brown butter, almonds, hazelnut, walnut, raisins. You get the gist.

The reason I love this particular version is not only because it is simple (it is, really simple!) but also because I adore crumbles/crisps that use oats in the topping, and not only flour. The texture and wholesomeness of flavour that the oats adds, is rather lovely, and needless to say, it is a whole lot healthier than flour. For the gluten intolerants out there, Read more…

May 7, 2015 | 0 comment

Cookies, Brownies & Bars, Fruit Inspired, Sweet

Coconut Brown Butter Cookies

Do you notice a Brown Butter trend? I sure do!

Plus, I adore coconuts.

Maybe it’s because I have childhood memories of stopping at the neighbourhood naariyal paani wala for a chilled coconut water in the blistering summer heat, and then asking the naariyal paani wala to scoop out the tender inner flesh of the coconut, to eat as a glutinous snack [and he’s even make a spoon out of the husk, as we watched]. I also distinctly remember my first Thai curry, at the famous and favourite Thai Pavillion. Now given my love for spicy and coconut, Thai curry was a no-brainer instant love affair that just hasn’t ended, and I don’t see it ending, any time soon. But it continued. Coconut macaroons, coconut ice cream, khopra pak, and I finally noticed a strong personal preference developing.

So when I came across this recipe for coconut brown butter cookies from Smitten Kitchen, it because almost impossible to ignore.