Mahanandi

Living in Consciousness ~ Indi(r)a’s Food and Garden Weblog

Strawberry~Mango Scones

Strawberries

Strawberry mango scones are crisp outside and crumbly and soft inside. What makes them stand out is the flavor combination of sweet and tart in the same bite. This dessert is delicious, attractive and easy to prepare. Don’t fear the fancy title, scones are nothing but freeform style baked cakes.

Recipe:

All purpose flour : 2 cups
Sugar : 4 tablespoons
Salt : ½ teaspoon
Baking powder : 2 teaspoons
Baking soda : ¼ teaspoon
Cold and solid butter : 3 tablespoons, finely chopped
Wet Ingredients
Firm and fresh Strawberries : 1 cup, chopped
Dried mango : ¼ cup finely sliced
Yogurt : ½ to 1 cup of fresh yogurt
Lemon glaze
Lime juice – ¼ cup and sugar- 2 tablespoons. Bring them to a boil in a small saucepan and let the juice thicken a bit – lemon glaze is ready. (Prepare this while baking the scones.)

In a mixing bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder and soda. Stir in sugar and salt. Add and mix the finely chopped butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

To this flour mixture, add strawberries and dried mango pieces. Add the yogurt gradually and mix to form tight, sticky dough. Gently knead the dough for 2 minutes, take care not to break and bleed the strawberries.

Turn the dough out onto a floured or parchment covered baking sheet and press out into a big round with a thickness of half to one inch. (This is the messy and sticky part. Apply oil or ghee to the rolling pin or use flour to prevent dough from sticking. )

Preheat the oven to 425?F. When the oven is ready, place the baking sheet and bake. The dough will puff up and increase in volume. Bake until golden brown, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and drizzle the lemon glaze on top. Let it cool a bit, and slice into 6 to 8 triangle slices. Serve warm and enjoy.

Ready for baking - Strawberry Mango Scones
Dough ready for baking

Strawberry and Mango Scones with Lemon Glaze
Golden and Glazed

Strawberry- Mango Scone with Lemon Glaze
Berry Good Treat ~ Strawberry Mango Scones
For JFI-Strawberries Event, Hosted by Pastry Chef and Baker, the lovely Baking Fairy

Recipe Adapted from Foodblog – “Delicious!Delicious!”
Dried mango Source: Indian grocery shops.
Flour Choice: King Arthur brand All Purpose Flour

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in All-Purpose Flour(Maida),Mango,Strawberries (Thursday June 1, 2006 at 2:03 pm- permalink)
Comments (35)

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Strawberry & Mango ~ Popsicles or Icepops

Mango and Strawberry - The King and Queen of Fruit Kingdom
Mango and Strawberry – The King and Queen of Fruit Kingdom

RP of ‘My Workshop’ commented that if mango was the king of the fruits, strawberry could be the queen of fruit kingdom. Very true, indeed. The kind of fervor we, Indians, reserve for mangoes is often shown for strawberries by the people here in the States. Romance, weddings and any special occasions of life… there come the strawberries.

The delicate ruby red beauties, the queens of berries, strawberries are high maintaince as queens should be. They don’t like to be crammed and they need a certain temperature for their beauty regime. If it is too hot, they will get spoiled within a day. Too cold, their flavor becomes elusive. Divas and prima donnas, with a mind of their own, they are the attention grabbers. Color, shape and smell… nothing subtle about them, except may be their sweet flavor. Though looks red and bulky, the supermarket variety is more tart than sweet. One has to have a taste of Indian mangoes to know how good mangoes are. Just like mangoes, one must taste freshly picked strawberries from farms or from open meadows to really know how good they are to understand the reason for fervor. Fortunate are those, who have tasted the real things in this life.

Here is a recipe showcasing them both – popsicles or ice pops of mango and strawberries.

Mango and strawberries with little bit of limejuice and little bit of sugar – blend, pour and freeze – homemade popsicles for hot summer days would be ready. Who doesn’t have memories of hot summer days and colorful popsicles?

Pouring the strawberry juice into molds

Recipe:

2 mangoes – peeled, cut and seed removed, finely cubed
15 to 20 strawberries – stems removed and cut into half
Sugar to taste
2 tablespoons of limejuice
****
Blender
Popsicle mold with sticks or popsicle sticks and small cups
Refrigerator

1 Prepare Mango Juice: Take mango cubes in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of mangoes) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

2 Prepare Strawberry Juice: Take strawberries in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of strawberries) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

3 Making Popsicles: Pour the juice into popsicles mold or small cups in a tray. You can prepare at least 4 different types of ice pops with these two juices. Plain strawberry, plain mango, mango (bottom half)-strawberry (top half) and strawberry (bottom half)-mango (top half) combinations. If you are using the cups, then place popsicle sticks into cups. Freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight.

4 Popsicle time: Place the tray in hot water for few seconds and pull out the pops from the molds or cups. Enjoy!

Mango-Strawberry Popsicle
Saying Goodbye to Mango Month and Welcoming the Strawberry Month with Mango-Strawberry Popsicle

Strawberry Popsicle
Strawberry Popsicle for JFI~Strawberries

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Fruits,Jihva For Ingredients,Mango,Strawberries (Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 3:07 pm- permalink)
Comments (34)

The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Burger and Fries ~ The Sweet Kind

We’ve received some unexpected guests yesterday and I had to prepare a quick appetizer/sweet. My guests are very Indian but their ‘chic’ children absolutely don’t like anything remotely Indian, that is what the parents informed us. So with the gifts they brought and with some things we purchased from the shop, I put together a quick appetizer/dessert mainly for children. There is no excuse to feed them this kind of stuff but that was all I’m able to comeup with and they seem to like my burger and french fries imitation.

I also prepared mango shakes to go with burger and french fries. My American fast food simulation seem to really impress the parents and their equally gullible children. After they left, I couldn’t refrain from temptation any longer, so I prepared this special burger for myself. First I took a photo and then I took a bite. The burger-fries are rich in calories and super rich in taste – the whole combination felt sinful, with all the chocolate, strawberry and mango flavors included. Imagine the taste if I had used the glazed donuts, instead of plain ones! It is a dare, any one?

Burger and Fries - The Sweet Kind

Shopping List & How to:
For Burgers: Donuts, glaze free(bun), brownies(patty), white chocolate(cheese).
Slice the donuts into half. Cut brownies into thin layers. Size the chocolate to match the size of cut brownie. Put together a sweet burger.
For ketchup:
Puree strawberries, orange juice and some honey for ketchup.
For french fries:
Peel the mango and slice the mango into thin french fry shaped pieces

Prerequisites to participate in dare: 4 miles running or walking:).
Recipe idea: Cooking show on TV

This is my entry to “Virtual Cooking Competition~Appetizers“, by VKN of My Dhaba. The gracious host has just announced the prize – 250 dollars, can you believe it?, for the winning entries and requesting your nominations for favorite entries. Go, nominate your favorites and have fun.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Fruits,Mango,Strawberries (Monday April 10, 2006 at 9:59 am- permalink)
Comments (30)

The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org

Tropical Fruit Tart

Stephanie’s beautiful fruit tart inspired me to make one myself. Also I saw this month’s SHF theme was tarts and that gave me the final push I needed.

I used a store bought lard-free pie shell as base for fruits. Did I say that this was my first time making tart, may be next time I might make my own tart shell. For now, this will do. For filling, I went with toasted walnuts and fresh fruits – ripe mango, strawberries, plums, cherries and cantaloupe.

Baked the pie shell in the oven for 15 minutes as per instructions on the cover of the pie shell package. Meanwhile I started to cut the ripe fruits in different shapes needed for my tart. With all the remaining scraps of fruit, I made jam/jelly, just like that. I added 6 tablespoons of brown sugar and watched the fruit bits turn into bright, colorful mush on high heat. I let it cool, stored half of it as jam and to the remaining half, I added half a cup of toasted walnuts and pureed them together to a smooth paste. This was my tart filler.

bits of fruit for jam Jam/Jelly

After filling the tart shell with the fruit-walnut puree, I arranged cut mangos, strawberries, plums, cherries and cantaloupe in order and refrigerated the tart for about one hour. Ta da… check the photo of fruit tart below, isn’t it colorful and pretty?

What a quick and easy recipe, but it gives the impression as if it took hours to prepare. We shared this delicious fruit tart with our next-door neighbor to congratulate on her new job.

Tropical Fruit Tart

My maiden attempt at fruit tart was a delightful success. I will definitely make many more.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in All-Purpose Flour(Maida),Fruits,Mango,Strawberries,Sugar,Walnuts (Friday June 17, 2005 at 7:49 am- permalink)
Comments (8)

The New Home of Mahanandi: www.themahanandi.org