Ready for a chocolate filled morning? Say hello to the delicious recipe that we are about to share with you, a sure shot to turn your morning blues away.

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 1 tablespoon of baking powder
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 6 tablespoons of melted butter
- 1 cup of heavy cream

How to make Chocolate Waffles :
- Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt into large bowl and set aside.
- In medium bowl, beat egg yolks until light.
- Add milk, melted butter and vanilla and beat until well mixed. Add to flour mixture, beating only until moistened.
- In small bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into batter.
- Do the same with cream and fold it to the batter.
- Preheat the waffle iron and pour the batter .

Prep Time:15 Minutes
Cook Time:5 Minutes
Total Time:20 Minutes

After watching a series of Nigella Lawson episodes and her delectable desserts, I was inspired to make my own chocolate recipe. Although she uses caramel bars for this recipe, I chose to use irresistible dark chocolates. To give it a Makar Sankranti twist , we sprinkled some roasted sesame seeds on these choco delights.

Ingredients

• 2 slabs of dark chocolate ( 200 gms each)
• 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
• Roughly crushed corn flakes ( ½ a cup)
• Crushed cashews and almonds ( ¼ cup each)
• 1/2 a cup of dry roasted sesame seeds

Procedure

• Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
• Add the butter to the melted chocolate and stir well, take it off the heat.
• To this mixture add the crushed cornflakes, cashews and almonds. Ensure that the mixture is thick.
• Spoon a little bit of the mixture on your palm and roll it into small balls. The butter helps the mixture stick.
• Sprinkle some roasted sesame seeds on the chocolate balls before refrigerating them.
• After half an hour take them out of the refrigerator and your crunchy sesame coated chocolate ladoos are ready to eat.

The toasty sesame seeds adds just the right zing to the sweetness of jaggery. Don’t wait for those special occasions to make this delightful dessert. Since it just takes a few minutes to prepare, you can make loads of these round goodies and munch on them whenever you feel those hunger pangs.

This recipe is one of the most loved desserts in Indian households and is amazingly simple to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sugarcane jaggery
• 1 cup of sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoon of clarified butter
• 3 teaspoon of grounded cardamom seeds
• ½ cup of water

Procedure

• Dry roast sesame seeds over medium heat in a flat pan till they are pale golden and aromatic.
• Add Jaggery and water in a pan. Heat them till they form a thick syrup.
• Add the roasted sesame seeds into the syrup and mix them well.
• Take the mixture off from the heat.
• Spatter some oil on your palms and start making small balls (ladoos) out of the sesame seed mixture.
• Place the ladoos on a bowl and let it cool. They will soon harden to a candy like texture.
• Can store for up to 10-15 days in an airtight container.

I have an inexplicable penchant for peanuts. I use them liberally for upma, rice preparations, salads and even sweets. I prefer munching on peanut chikkis for evening snacks instead of junk food like chips and crackers. Chikkis are traditional Indian candies made of a variety of ingredients like peanuts, almonds, pistachio, cashews, etc along with jaggery or sugar. I although prefer jaggery because it’s healtheir too. People can also encourage their kids to snack on these healthy candies which provide nutrition and also fill the stomach. My Mother always makes a good stock of these and we carry it in our bags/purses to munch on when we feel hungry while traveling. The method of making Peanut chikkis and laddu is the same, the only difference being the shape.

Ingredients
•    1 cup – Roasted peanuts
•    1 cup – Jaggery
•    1 tbsp ghee

Method

•    Dissolve the jaggery in little water and remove impurities if any.
•    In a thick bottomed pan, boil the jaggery on medium heat, till jaggery thickens a bit
•    Once the syrup is ready, add the ghee and roasted peanuts.
•    Stir for a minute.
•    For the chikki keep a ghee greased plate ready
•    Transfer the peanuts to the plate and spread with a rolling pin so that the surface becomes even.
•    When it cools a bit, cut into squares
•    For the laddu apply a little ghee in your hands and make small balls of the peanut mixture

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Wouldn’t life be easy if we had food with the wave of a wand? Well, in an ideal world that is! But since that is not happening, here is an as easy recipe for you that tastes like years of effort has gone behind it, when the truth is all you need to do is wait! Coffee, TV, Cross stitch, eyeing and spying the neighbors- Take your pick as to how you’d like to wait!  Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

• 1 package marie biscuit
• 50 gms butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• Lemon curd
• tart tins

procedure

Grind the marie biscuits into powder, mix it well with the butter and powdered sugar.

When mixed, it should look like wet sand.

Fill a tart tin 3/4th with the crumb mixture and press to form a tight base.

Freeze this for atleast 2 hours

Next, ladle the lemon curd and freeze for another hour.

Now you are officially ready to enjoy the fruit of your patience!

Let me guess! You are drifting off to the story of the Gingerbread man who came to life after all the baking it underwent. Well, this one’s about a Gingerbread Man Cookie and it definitely doesn’t crumble.

So here’s a little cookie treat for your little ones to amuse over and gorge on.

Yup, the recipe is the same probably a little more personalized, but this gingerbread man / boy ain’t running off like the one in the fairytale did. Hmm! The poor little gullible ginger boy.
Ingredients:

• ¾ Cup of Butter Shortening
• ¾ Cup of Unsulphured Molasses
• ¾ Cup Brown Sugar (Dark if possible)
• 3 Cups of Baking Flour or All Purpose Flour
• 1 Beaten Egg
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• ½ tsp Baking Soda
• 2 tsp Grounded Ginger
• 2tsp Grounded Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Salt
• Cookie Sheets
• Cookie cutter
• Raisins, gems, frosting and candies to decorate.

Recipe:

• Place the molasses in a glass bowl along with the butter and melt. In case you don’t have a microwave, use the gas stove. Let the mixture cool for a bit.
• Beat the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar and salt in a separate bowl before adding the molasses blend and the beaten egg.
• Blend the mixture well and refrigerate it for an hour so that it is taut enough to be kneaded.
• Now preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
• Meanwhile grease the cookie sheets and divide the dough into two halves.
• Roll out the dough halves to a thickness of around ¼ inch.
• Let one of the halves refrigerate while you work on the other one.
• Now use the cookie cutter to cut out the shapes to form a batch of gingerbread men.
• Place these cuts-outs on the buttered cookie sheets.
• Push in the raisins to give it eyes to peer at you. If not raisins you could later use confectionary frosting to squirt out its eyes.
• Now bake the cookies for up to 15 minutes by the end of which the edges are slightly brownish.
• Let the batch of baked cookies cool off on the wire racks.
• Now whip out the frosting you bought at the local bakery shop to decorate as per desired. Use the colorful gems as the buttons to its imaginary clothes.
• Use could raisins to make a bowtie at its neck.
• Add red food coloring to a portion of the frosting to give it a pair of red lips. Serve.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

Serves: Around 4 people for a batch of 15 to 17 cookies

It is a truth universally acknowledged that chocolates are perfect.

Chocolates do have, dare we say it, a flaw: You can’t help thinking about the size of your waistline when gobbling up these rich and creamy delights!

For this reason we have included a low fat chocolate recipe in our chocolate special. These chocolate truffles are low in fat and high in protein, making them a healthy treat.  By substituting the heavy cream with light cream cheese, we have a delicious desert that is not only good for your stomach but also your bones.

Recipe:

(Time taken: 25 minutes, makes 20 Truffles)

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 115 gm light cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1.5 cups powdered sugar

Method:

• Melt chocolate chips in a microwavable glass bowl for about a minute. Stir with a spatula to turn the chocolate into a smooth paste.
• With the help of a mixer, beat the cream cheese until it becomes smooth
• Throw in the melted chocolate and mix together once again.
• Add the cocoa powder and mix until all the ingredients blend together. It will turn from a crumbly mixture to dough.
• Slowly add sugar and beat until the dough turns soft and creamy
• Roll dough into 1 inch balls
• Pour sifted powdered sugar or sifted cocoa powder into a shallow bowl. Dip the balls into whichever ingredient you have selected
• Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Put the truffles in the lined baking sheet and allow them to cool down (around 1 hour.)

Chocolate truffles and a glass of warm milk are the perfect way to fight the winter chills. Don’t forget to leave some for Santa Claus though!

Chocolate when combined with the good things in life results in even better marvels. Such is the sinful scheme of works when chocolate gangs up with a spot of raspberry. Who could possibly resist that? So as I head off to whip out a batch of Raspberry Chocolate Macaroons, I leave you with this special recipe sent straight from heaven.

God bless our chocolaty souls!
Ingredients:
Special Equipments:

• Bakery release paper or Parchment paper (used as a non sticky base for baking)
• Plastic bag with Ziplocs to seal the macaroons

Macaroons:

• 6 ounces of Sliced Almonds
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1 ½ Cups of Confectioner Sugar
• 3 tbsp Powdered Sugar
• 3/4^th tsp Salt
• Pink Food Colour

Raspberry Chocolate Ganache:

• 3 ounces of fine dark chocolate preferably with a 60 to 64 percent cocoa concentration
• 1/3^rd cup Thick Cream
• 1 tbsp Soft Butter preferably unsalted
• A small pinch of Raspberry Extract

Raspberry Chocolate Macaroon Recipe:

• Toss the almonds along with half cup confection sugar into a mixer and ground them until they are finely granulated. This should take around 2 to 3 minutes roughly.
• Empty the mix in a bowl along with the remaining confectioner sugar and sift a little more.
• Take another bowl and beat the egg whites either manually or using an electric mixer adjusted to medium speed.
• Add salt to along with the granulated sugar little by little and continue beating the mixture. If you’re using an electric mixer increase the speed until the white portions go taut with a glossy surface.
• Add a few drops of food colour as per your tonal preferences and continue mixing.
• Add the almond mix into the resultant meringue.
• Transfer the meringue into the plastic bag and press out the excess air in the bag.
• Coil the plastic around firmly above the batter
• Spread out 2 baking parchments.
• Pin in a hole at one of the corners of the plastic bag’s base and neatly squirt out the batter into a twirling round shape that is about as wide as a cookie with the parchment as a base.
• Dole out a batch of these samples with each distanced at an inch from the other.
• Let it settle into a crust surfaced mound. This should take around 20 minutes.
• Now heat this batch in a preheated over of 300 F for about 20 minutes until the outer edges grow a little dark. At this point the macaroons are crisp to the core. Let it cool.
• Melt the chocolate along with the cream in a pan simmered with very little water till it is smooth.
• Add in the raspberry extract along with the butter and stir until it reaches velvety smoothness. That completes your ganache
• Now, peel the macaroons carefully off the bakery paper.
• Take two mounds at a time and sandwich a thick layer of ganache in between. Serve.

Preparation Time: 1 hour

Serves: 3 to 4 people

A who’s who list of chocolate desserts cannot be complete without ‘Death by Chocolate’. There is a very good reason for this inclusion. This sinful creation packs in a whole lot of chocolate and more!

This chocolate cake is the lifeline of every chocoholic in the world. Its popularity is so great that these days you can purchase a ready-made packet mix from your local supermarket.

However, to make a killer version of this cake, you need to bake it from scratch. By taking the trouble to make it with your own hands, this chocolate cake will taste even better!

Recipe (Serves 12 people, time taken- 50 minutes):

Ingredients:

• 225g dark semisweet chocolate
• 140g butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 heaped Tbsp plain flour
• 4 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 tbsp sour cream
• frosting
• 2/3 cup  heavy cream or whipping cream
• 260g semisweet chocolate

Method:

• Preheat oven to 380 degrees F
• Line a 25cm cake tin with grease proof cooking paper
• Break the chocolate into small pieces, and melt over a double boiler
• Beat the eggs with sugar, mix with flour, cocoa powder, vanilla and baking powder.
• Slowly fold in the melted chocolate and butter and sour cream.
• Bake at 350 degrees F (approximately 50 minutes)
• Allow cake to cool completely. Then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before removing cake from the tin. Otherwise the cake is sticky and difficult to remove.
• Remove crust surface and rough edges before cutting horizontally to make into individual pieces.

Frosting:

• Heat 2/3 cup heavy cream in a pan. Remove from heat and add the chopped semisweet chocolate, stir until smooth. Then remove from heat and cool to allow it to thicken.
• Use 1/3 of the frosting in the centre, 1/3 on the top and the other 1/3 around the edges. Put cake in refrigerator for cooling. Allow the frosting to harden. The cake should be served at room temperature.

Death by chocolate is one chocolate cake that cannot be eaten meagerly. To really enjoy the unholy pleasure of eating this cake, forget about the calories in it and live for a while on the wild side!