Wish you all a very happy and colorful Holi. The festival of color is around the corner and I could not think of a better sweet than this Bottlegourd halwa or gardudde halvo . Aayi prepared this for us during Diwali and it was so delicious.
Bottle gourd was rarely bought at home when we were growing up. I would almost always ask aayi to make burfi(khadi) from it. I could eat it anytime. This is definitely an easier version of the same. Then we started hearing about the health benefits on TV. Ever since then I have been using it regularly. I normally make a quick dal or some spicy dish from it.
For halwa, grated bottlegourd is cooked in milk, which gives a fantastic aroma. Then the nuts and cardamom brings that divine aroma. Pictorial: Peel and remove seeds from bottle gourd. Then grate it.
Add milk, cashews and cook. When milk is absorbed, add jaggery.
Cook till all the jaggery is melted and well mixed. Take off heat and add cardamom powder.
Bottlegourd Halwa (Gardudde Halvo)
Ingredients
- 2 cups grated bottle gourd
- 1 cup milk
- 1 and 1/2 cup jaggery
- 1 tbl spn cashews optional
- 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Instructions
- Peel, remove seeds and grate bottle gourd.
- Cook cashews and grated bottle gourd with milk. (It looks like the milk curdled but that is the expected result.)
- When all the milk is absorbed, add jaggery.
- Cook till jaggery is all melted. Mix it well.
- Take off heat, add cardamom powder , mix well.
- Serve warm or chilled.
Bottlegourd Halwa (Gardudde Halvo)
Ingredients
- 2 cups grated bottle gourd
- 1 cup milk
- 1 and 1/2 cup jaggery
- 1 tbl spn cashews optional
- 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder
Instructions
- Peel, remove seeds and grate bottle gourd.
- Cook cashews and grated bottle gourd with milk. (It looks like the milk curdled but that is the expected result.)
- When all the milk is absorbed, add jaggery.
- Cook till jaggery is all melted. Mix it well.
- Take off heat, add cardamom powder , mix well.
- Serve warm or chilled.
My friend M is expecting her first baby. She is a huge fan of Harry Potter. She always talked so passionately about Harry Potter and how she would read the book to her baby whenever she had a baby. Much before she even got pregnant, I wanted to bake and decorate a Harry Potter cake for her. Last month, I got together with some of our common friends and decided to have a baby shower for her. I immediately knew what I was going to make for her. A Harry Potter baby shower cake.
We decided to keep it simple and asked everyone to get something that she really loves. We had pani puri, kachori-chole chaat, pakodi kadi-rice, paneer subzi-naan. Every dish was so good.
I knew I would not have much time to make too many things. My weekdays have become a little overwhelming with work, kids classes, cooking and other hundred things. I was a bit stressed out that I would probably not have enough time to finish the cake. I am so glad it all worked out. M loves chocolate cake, so I baked this chocolate cake . The icing was my salted buttercream . I wanted to make all the toppers with white chocolate as I did for this cake . I made the baby with white modeling chocolate, but after that, I just could not get it into required consistency. I totally panicked as I had very less time and I did not want to keep trying it. So I got marzipan (made of almond paste) from store and made rest of the toppers. M loved the cake so much. All the hard work was paid off when I saw her totally loving the cake. Although I got stressed during the whole process, every one of my cakes make me realize how much I love working on them. I am already looking forward to my next one!.
