Tequila peach pie

My family celebrated Diwali this past weekend. Diwali, as is the case with all Indian festivals, necessarily includes lots of food and sweets. My sweettooth was only willing to oblige. For my part, I decided on peach pie. I had seen pictures of this beautiful peach pie my friend had made, so I couldn't wait to try out a similar arrangement. For recipes, I modified Not without Salt's awesome Tequila peach pie recipe and added some spices. The tequila gave the right amount of kick to the recipe. I was very pleased!

Ingredients: 

Pie crust (see below)
3 peaches
3 tbsp tequila
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup sugar syrup
3 cloves

1. Prepare the pie crust. Bake the pie crust for around 20 minutes at 350 F until brown.

2. Slice peaches into thin pieces and arrange on pie crust. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Mix in the rest of the wet ingredients and pour over the pie.
4. Preheat oven to 385 F. Bake for 45 minutes.

Vegetable pot pie

I have to admit, I did not know much about pot pies, and they didn't seem too interesting to me, until I had my friend's delicious pot pie that blew my mind away. They are simple, delicious and easy to make, and what can top a great buttery, flakey crust? This particular recipe probably doesn't count as pot pie, necessarily, but was delicious nevertheless. Next time, I would probably add more ingredients to the filling. The filling was rather dry, here.

Ingredients:

Pie crust
2 cups of an assortment of root vegetables- I used carrots, beets and sweet potato
1 Onion
2 cloves, garlic
tarragon

1. To make the pie crust, I followed Martha Stewart's pie crust recipe. 
2. Cut up the vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Cut the onion sideways to give long pieces. Cut up the garlic.
3. Season the vegetables with the tarragon, garlic, and salt and pepper.
4. Roast the vegetables for 30-45 minutes until vegetables are soft at 400 F.
5. Bake the pie crust for 20 minutes until brown.

6. Place roasted vegetables on pie crust and bake for 35 minutes at 385 F.

Egg-less chocolate hazelnut cake with LAYERS!

 Mapcap Cupcake 's amazing blog and this particular recipe got me into food blogs, in a big way, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog. I had been looking for a vegan (read egg-less) cake recipe for a while. I simply converted the vegan recipe to vegetarian by using buttermilk. I tried out this particular one, and I don't think I have had such delicious cake- with or without egg. This one is a keeper. I've made the cake at least three times before, and I have to say, it still hasn't lost any of its glory.

Ingredients:

Hazelnut Cake 

1 cup buttermilk
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup hazelnut flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 6-inch pans, and line bottoms with parchment paper. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and combine. Add buttermilk with remaining wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients to we ingredients. Bake for around 22 minutes. 

For the praline:

1 cup hazelnuts, skinned and toasted.
2/3 cups sugar

Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly grease. Place sugar in a skillet and heat for around 10-20 minutes until the sugar stars to melt. After 20 minutes, if sugar has not melted, stir lightly.  Return to low heat and stir in the hazelnuts, making sure that the nuts are thoroughly coated. Pour mixture on parchment paper and let cool. Once cooled(it should be brittle) chop into small pieces, using a food processor. 

Hazelnut Buttercream:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup praline
1 cup milk powder

Using a mixer, blend sugar and butter. Add milk powder and water and combine. Add in the praline bits.

Ganache Glaze:

4oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup

Heat the heavy cream, butter and the maple syrup(maple syrup can also be skipped) until the mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat and add in the chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly. 

To assemble the cake, carefully split the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Add the buttercream on the first layer and then place the second layer on top it. Glaze the cake the chocolate ganace, and decorate with more of the hazelnut buttercream, if desired.