Sumayya Usmani is back with her second book Mountain Berries & Desert Spice, a renowned food writer and cookery teacher, Usmani documents the varied desserts and sweets of her native Pakistan.
This is a very exotic and interesting book, like nothing else you’ll have on your book shelf. It features foods like halwa, rice pudding and other biscuits and sweets along with these apple samosas. There’s something for everyone.
The chapters are broken down into locations and flavour profiles like, ‘Sour morning berries’, ‘A saffron blaze’ and ‘Kites, kingdoms and cardamom samosas’. This book is guaranteed to include recipe you’ll never have heard of or tried before.
As I mentioned the recipe I created from Mountain Berries & Desert Spice is these apple samosas. The recipe includes cardamom in the spice mix and cinnamon,the cooked apple filling is then spooned onto rounds of pastry and deep fried to give them their golden colour.
The recipe was a little bland for my taste and I think the filling could’ve had more spice, or the pastry had some sugar in it. These are best eaten the moment they are made as they become very soggy the next day. As Usmani recommended, I served these with the rose whipped cream and the two complimented each other very well.
If you do make this recipe from her book, I would say halve the filling recipe, as I had a lot more filling than was needed for the recipe, also these made a lot more than eight little samosas, I was able to create almost 20 of them, so they are great for feeding a crowd.
If you’d like to win a copy of this book, enter using the giveaway below.
Mountain Berries & Desert Spice by Sumayya Usmani Giveaway
Thanks for reading.
Angela
Natalie Crossan
I’ve not really tried any but I certainly will 😀 xx
Victoria Prince
Cardamom cake! I was really surprised, didn’t think it would be a flavour that would appeal to me
Solange
Chocolate Cinnamon Gujiya which are sweet dumplings filled with milk solids, nuts, chocolate chips and rolled in cinnamon sugar.
Grace
Looks amazing!!! YUM.
Anne
Oh wow these look absolutely DELICIOUS!!! Although I would probably agree with the more spice comment (we can never have enough spice!), I’m pretty sure I would still eat ALLL OF THEM.
Anne
Saffron and cardamom, either in a sweet yeasted dough or to season rice pudding. Indian flavours blend so well and balance amazingly on the palate
Rebecca Beesley
i’ve always loved saffron and cardamom. Recently I’m enjoying turmeric in sweeter things too.
Katherine Sstrich
How exciting, looks different to what I normally cook!
laura banks
ive not really tried any deserts but they do sound yummy
Mike
My favorite Indian dessert is a square made with coconut and rice flavored with cardamom, I wonder if this book has it?
Jo Hutchinson
Yogurt Panna Cotta with Saffron and Honey
Tracy Nixon
Goan Coconut Cake is a favourite of mine!
Tracey Peach
I haven’t tried any before they do look delicious though 🙂 x