BakeEscape by Hetvi & Shradha

11/07/2020

Baked Oreo Cheesecake (eggless)

20/06/2020

Back with a bang!!
Tart with cream cheese and Berry jam filling..Topped with fresh fruits!!

10/03/2020

Holi hai!! So when your birthday and holi fall on the same day.. Why take the effort to bake a cake and make thandai both separately.. Better to make this.. A thandai flavour cake!! 😀

Happy Holi to all and Happy Bday to me!

22/01/2020

With the end of the long festive season and enduring indulgence in sweets of all forms – from sri khand on Janmashtami to modak during Ganesh Chaturthi, from kaju barfi during Diwali to rum cake on Christmas; I am sure most of us would have started the year 2020 with a resolution to either control weight / diet or tame our sweet tooth.
Well, who says baked stuff is always sweet! Let’s start afresh with a quick and healthy baked spinach & corn main course recipe. I have learnt this recipe from a super talented cook, my mother in law, Mrs.Madhur Narang Saroj Lulla so all credits go to her. Hope you enjoy it!

Spinach Corn Baked Veg
1 cup – spinach finely chopped
½ cup – corn kernels
2 to 3 tbsp – wheat
2 tbsp – white butter
1 cup – milk
½ cup – water
½ tsp - crushed black pepper
2-3 tbsp – grated cheddar cheese (optional)
Salt to taste

1. Wash & finely chop the spinach
2. Put the spinach and corn kernels with salt in a pressure cooker & cook for 1 whistle.
Note: Do not add water to this.
3. In a separate pan, put butter. Let it melt a little, then add wheat flour and keep stirring & cooking it till it turns slight brown in colour.
4. Turn off the flame and add water to it. Keep stirring in order to avoid lumps.
5. Add milk to this & give it a boil. Add salt & pepper to it.
6. Now add the cooked spinach & corn to this and cook for 5 mins. Keep stirring else the sauce will stick to the bottom of the pan & burn.
7. Pour this in a baking dish & add grated cheese on top.
8. Bake it on 200 degree C for 15-20 mins.
9. Serve it with toasted garlic bread.

Stay tuned for homemade garlic bread recipe!

04/10/2019

Navratri special – colourful, sweet & fresh
Baked Yogurt with Fruits

Ingredients:
1 cup - plain yogurt
1 cup - fresh cream
1 cup - milkmaid
1 tsp – honey (optional)
1 tsp – ghee / butter
1/2 tsp - Cinnamon
Fruits of your choice

Method:
- Preheat the oven on 180 C for 10 mins.
- Mix yogurt, fresh cream and milkmaid in a big bowl and whisk it well.
- Pour this in small baking glass bowls till 2/3rd of the bowl’s height. (This quantity will fill around 6 bowls)
- Fill your baking tray with water and place these bowls in it.
- Bake this for 15-20 mins at 180 C.
- Once baked, let it cool & refrigerate it for 2-3 hrs.
- Cut thin slices of seasonal fruits of your choice. Use fruits of different colours to make it look attractive. I used apple, kiwi, grapes & strawberry.
- For hard fruits like apples / pears, apply a little ghee or butter on it and roast / bake it for 5 mins just to make it little soft. For other fruits, this step is not required.
- Mix honey & cinnamon in a bowl & brush the fruits with it. (you can skip this if you are fasting)
- Arrange these fruits on the yogurt & serve it chilled.

29/07/2019

Healthy Substitutes

#3 Oil / Butter

Well, if we want our dessert to be really melt in mouth & soft then we can’t skip this completely for sure. But maybe, we can use a healthier alternative like olive / canola / coconut oil. Do you know any other alternative apart from these? If yes, please share your secret ingredient & recipe. Till then, let’s try baking some muffins or brownies without using butter. But when you’re trying that, remember a few tips:

1) Though unrefined / virgin is the most beneficial grade of coconut oil, it may add a little flavor, hence you can try the next best option expeller-pressed, which has its scent and flavor removed through a gentle deodorizing process.

2) Don’t swap equal quantities of vegetable oil with olive oil. Olive oil is greasier, so the proportion needs to be reduced when substituting it with any other oil. When substituting it with butter, remember that butter also has some proportions of milk solids and water apart from fat. Reduce the proportion of olive oil and add some milk solids to the existing recipe. The suggested substitution is 3 tablespoons oil for every 1/4 cup of butter.

19/07/2019

Mini Tarts topped with fruit pudding - This recipe is a great combination of health and nutrition to fulfill your sweet cravings.
These tarts are really easy to make.
Servings: approx. 24 mini tarts
Ingredients:
For the tarts
2 cups - whole wheat flour
4 tsp - ghee (clarified butter)
2 tbsp - organic jaggery powder
Water to combine

Method:
Preheat the oven at 180°C, and lightly coat mini tart mould with ghee.
To prepare the tarts, take wheat flour and add ghee & jaggery powder to it. Mix well until they blend well. Add little water at a time and make a dough just like how you make dough for chapati. Roll a slightly bigger chapati than tart cups and place it over cups. Gently press the rolled dough down to adjust inside tart mould. With the help of a fork, make small holes so that they don’t get fluffy.
Bake it for around 10 minutes or until golden brown at 180°C.
Let it cool down completely before you add pudding inside.

For the fruit pudding
250 ml - milk
1 tbsp unsweetened custard powder
3 chikoo
1 red apple
1 banana
(You can take any fruit of your choice or any seasonal fruit)
Handful of pistachios & almonds soaked and diced
1 tsp Cardamom powder
Pinch of saffron
Some more pistachios and rose petals for garnishing

Method:
In one bowl whisk 1tbsp of custard powder and 4tbsp of milk together.
Place custard mixture, cardamom and remaining milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until custard comes to the boil and thickens.
Simmer, stirring for 1 minute.
Turn off the gas and add a pinch of saffron to it and let it cool.
Cut banana, apple & chikoo into small cubes and mix them into custard pudding. Also add diced almond and pistachios. Mix well and take spoonful of fruit pudding and place it inside the tart cups. Garnish with some pistachios and dry rose petals.
Serve chilled!

18/07/2019

Mango & Saffron Semolina Cake

1 cup - semolina / fine sooji

1/4 cup - any unflavored oil

1/2 to 3/4 cup - jaggery powder / sugar (depending on which mango are you using for pulp and how sweet it is)

1 cup - mango pulp (fresh or canned, I used homemade frozen pulp of kesar mango)

1/2 tsp. - baking powder

1/4 tsp. - baking soda

1/4 tsp. - cardamom powder

8-10 strands of saffron

1/4 cup - chopped pistachio & almonds

In a bowl, mix semolina, mango pulp, jaggery powder / powdered sugar & oil.

Keep this aside for 15-20 mins.

Add baking powder, baking soda, saffron & cardamom powder to it.

Transfer it in a greased pan. (a narrow one as this cake doesn’t rise much)

Bake at 1800C in a pre-heated oven for 30-35 minutes.

Insert a toothpick at the centre of the cake to see if it is properly baked. If it comes out clean, then it is done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool completely.

Unmold the cake and garnish it with thinly sliced pistachios & almonds.

15/07/2019

Healthy Substitutes

#2 Sugar

We all know how healthy sugars are, especially in combination with our sedentary lifestyles. While we would have replaced refined sugar with raw or brown sugar in our hot beverages, we still need to find the correct way to replace sugar while baking desserts. Replacing sugar means, a change in recipe measurements and a change in taste too as sugar can be replaced with ingredients like jaggery, dates, honey, maple syrup, fruit juices or at times even sugar substitutes which add their own flavor to the dish. Have you tried replacing sugar with any other ingredients? Do share your experiences & recipes!

11/07/2019

Ragi Banana Mug Cake

Ingredients:

100 gms Ragi Flour
1 Over Ripe Banana
2 tbsp Oil
2 tbsp Sugar / Jaggery Powder
2-3 tbsp Milk
¼ tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Baking Powder
¼ tsp Cinnamon Powder
3-4 Crushed Walnuts (optional)

Method:

Sieve the ragi flour once or twice. This will help in making the cake more fluffy.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Blend banana, sugar/jaggery together in a blender.
Add oil to the blended mixture.
Add this to the dry ingredients.
Add milk so as to have a thick flowing consistency. (similar to idly batter)
Put this mixture in a greased heat-resistant mug.
Preheat the oven at 2000C for 10 mins
Place this in the preheated oven for 25-35 mins at 1800C

Once done, you can top it up with coloured sugar balls or nuts and its ready to eat!

You need not de-mould it.

08/07/2019

Let’s explore some healthy substitutes to most of the key ingredients as part of the baking process during the coming week

#1 Flour, to start with

What if we replace all purpose flour in a cake with a healthier option? An ingredient like more commonly used wheat or oats or nut flour or ragi or any other millet. Has anyone of you tried using millets as the core ingredient? If yes, do share your experiences & recipes here. If not, then let’s try one out few this week and post our recipes to spread some healthy baking tips!

05/07/2019

The ease of baking

Is baking easy? We have contemplated on this many a times..especially when we tried baking something different.

We would say..it is precise. Just like cooking, where our traditional methods, our expertise & experience counts, baking too follows the procedure & measurements to the 'T'. This may sound technical but it gets creative when you start exploring different ingredients with a little tweak in the proportions and start creating your own recipes.

For beginners, it is always better to start with following the recipe and exact measurements. But once you have confidently nailed it, go ahead to create your own combinations.

We would recommend a few articles to read before you start baking:
https://bake-escape.blogspot.com/2019/07/basic-tools-required-for-baking.html
http://dish.allrecipes.com/essential-baking-ingredients/

We tried our best to find a ready to read article on the most basic tools required for beginners in baking to post on our Facebook com...

03/07/2019

Why are we here?
We are here to join hands with any of you who feel the same joy when they bake as we do:
-You may be a beginner or an aspiring baker or someone who wishes to start, but needs some guidance and tips.
-You could be a professional baker who bakes for their clients with a lot of love and passion.
-You may be a silent follower or you may be someone who simply loves to post recipes.
Above all, we are all here to motivate each other to follow their passion for baking, therapeutically helping out each other in the process.
So, let’s get started with some good reads, recipes and more…

01/07/2019

Who are we?
We are responsible home makers and enthusiastic home bakers who believe that baking is not just making delicacies for family and friends but also a way to escape into a blissful state of mind. It is a therapy that requires a person to be both physically and mentally attentive, and that provides them with a productive outlet for ones emotions.
We are also mothers who want their young kids to eat freshly home baked, healthy and nutritious food. We are constantly trying to find healthier & creative alternatives to feed our active kids.