I came up with this recipe as I really wanted to incorporate some dried fruit with a normal / traditional barfi. I also wanted to try and make a healthy sweet, using natural sugars from the fruit and very little ghee. Traditionally Indian sweets are full of calories because of the amount of sugar and ghee that are used, so I wanted to create some thing which used the bare minimum of these ingredients. The other criteria I was trying to fulfil is to make a simple, easy and quick recipe. I chose apricots because of their taste and texture, not to mention the health benefits. Dried apricots are an excellent source of iron, vitamin A, high in fibre, potassium and low in fat. Apart from perhaps warding of cancer, heart disease and protecting eyesight, apricots also help increase the immune system as it is a good source of iron, which is essential for the renewal of red blood cells. These cells oxygenate the body, helping to stop feeling lethargic and tired. This is essential especially as the cold weather is setting in and days are starting to get shorter, we need to have feel good foods:)

Having decided on the fruit I started thinking about how to encase it and what other  ingredients, if any, to add. So I visualised the colour of the fruit and what other colours would go with it and what shape to give it etc. I just wanted to use the ingredients I had at home at the time. So I added some chocolate chips (which I now feel can be left out) and thought I would coat it with the barfi mixture with added flavour of cocoa. The triangle shape came about because this summer one of my husband’s aunties had given a gadget to make shaped mithai, which I wanted to use so that is why the shape is a triangular. The gadget is essential a V shaped long metal strip with a less than 90 degree bend along its length. Although the final shape I ended up making was by pressing roll of the mixture by hand into a triangle shape, so the strip of metal did not help in making the final shape. Everyone who has tried this sweet/mithai has loved and enjoyed it, so I am glad I thought out of the box and experimented with this sweet for diwali.

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I have lots of fond memories of Easter when I was young because we would go away for short breaks to lake Malawi. Then when we moved to Birmingham from Malawi, Easter would mean coming over to London to visit relatives. All of us getting together, keeping in touch and having wonderful food, with lots of chocolate of course!! So exchanging easter eggs became a new tradition for us. After the initial binging on the easter eggs we would find creative ways of using the remaining chocolate.

Recently we went visiting relatives and in a conversation we were having, as the children were given easter eggs, was – “how much we pay for a hollow egg – just chocolate !  It should be filled ??!!”. My cousin (Raju) and I were talking about it and she mentioned a conversation she had with her son Rushil about how to make a filled easter egg. So this recipe is his patent idea! I loved his idea of making pistachio barfi and then coating it with chocolate. As I got thinking about it more, I thought let me give his idea a go and this year give everyone home made easter eggs. So I made orange flavoured barfi then coated them with chocolate and placed them on crunchy nests made with chocolate covered cornflakes. The result – wonderful fun thing to do with children over easter and the taste match made in heaven – orange and chocolate

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I made these for breakfast on valentines day, thought it would be a good way to start the day – with a treat

I was planning to make some plain muffins with just blueberries, and some with chocolate. However as I was mixing the batter I saw some passion fruit which needed to be eaten and thought passion! – the correct ingredient to add to the chocolate muffins. I liked the combination from eating them with pancakes as mentioned in a previous recipe. It turned out to be a good experiment. I used some fresh passion fruit and some from the Easiyo squirt packet, which is normally used to flavour yoghurt. The taste of the fruit in the muffins was subtle but there were parts that had a very good tangy and sweet taste, with a little crunch from the seeds. So I guess my little experiment goes to show that you can add any kind of fruit, fresh, dried or jams to your taste, of course you may need to change the amount of sugar accordingly. In the past I’ve added blueberries, blackberries and cherries.

Because there are no eggs in this recipe, they don’t keep as well and have to be eaten within the week – although you may not have many left.  The smell and taste when eaten warm out of the oven is something else

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I still remember when we were young and my older sister had baked a cake for the first time and iced it saying ‘Happy Holidays’. My mother would get us to try out new recipes, just so as we would learn, she knows and cooks so much, yet until last year she had never tried to make a cake. Being vegetarian, it is always essential to learn to make things without eggs and if you don’t have the correct cake recipe then it can be too dry and not at all spongy. Like with everything else in life ‘practice makes perfect’ and my younger sister has perfected the art of baking the perfect cake. Everyone who has had this cake will know that it is the BEST eggless chocolate cake ever. My younger sister has surpassed both me and my older sister in making the best cakes. This recipe has been adapted from the Tarla Dalal’s recipe and the slight changes that have been made make all the difference in making a soft and moist sponge. This is the basic recipe that my sister has used to make various cakes for all our birthdays. At a future date we will show you a collection of different ideas on decorating and presenting cakes that we have done. Give this recipe a go and let me know how you like it.

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