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Eggless Checkerboard/ Chequered Cake without the special pan & with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting – Happy Birthday to me :)

30 Sep

I’m the BIRTHDAY GIRL :) So what if the post is 3 days late, even then I can enjoy being the birthday girl for 1 more week :) I baked the cake & cut it on the D-day only but haven’t been able to post it.

Checkerboard cake have been on my to bake list from the beginning. The first time I saw this I knew I had to make it soon & finally the occasion presented itself in the form of my b’day. I gave this cake option to V but he wanted to stick to known entity of a Black Forest Cake. I guess it’s his loss & my gain. :D This cake requires 2 or more colored cakes/ batter to produce the checkerboard effect upon slicing. I initially contemplated going in for girlie colors – pastels for the cake batter, but since the colors here are local versions & not as specific as Wilton, I chose to stick to chocolate & white. The trick for this cake lies not so much in baking as in assembling. If you have a special pan required for this cake then no challenge, but I wanted to make this simply to try my hands at assembling it without the special kit.

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I googled a lot on this cake without the special tin, almost everyone used the method of cutting 3 different size rings from each cake & interchanging them. Then placing one such prepared layer over the other & voila you have a checkerboard pattern when you slice it. :) There was one more method used by only few – which works if you bake the cakes in square pan. For this method, you cut strips of each type of cake & then assemble them alternatively first in 1 layer & then on top of the first layer. I chose to work with ring method for my first attempt.

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I baked Hershey’s Lavish Chocolate Cake & an Eggless Silver White Cake from Bakin’ Without Eggs by Rosemarie Emro. I doubled the Hershey’s recipe, replaced sugar with brown sugar. Also I had to change the timing as I baked the batter in 1 pan instead of 3 pans. I followed white cake recipe as such. A silver white cake is typically made from egg whites & almond extract but here we are with an eggless version with no egg whites :) Go figure! I refrigerated both the cakes for 24 hours & then thawed sliced layers for 4-10 hours before decorating. The purpose of refrigeration is to slicing the layers easily, which is the most of the battle won.

I used Chocolate Buttercream for filling & frosting. The filling should be minimal so that checkerboard pattern can be clearly seen.

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake –

Eggless Chocolate Cake – Hershey’s {Recipe follows} I doubled the recipe & baked the whole batter in one 8″ pan

Eggless Silver White Cake – from Bakin’ Without Eggs (refer book for recipe) For both Heavenly Chocolate Cake & Silver White Cake I had to increase the time by atleast 10-15 mins from the given time in the book.

1/4 Cup – Coke (for soaking)

Chocolate Buttercream – from Joy of Baking {Recipe follows}

Eggless Chocolate Cake -

Recipe Source – adapted from Hershey’s

Ingredients -

  • 2 1/2 Cups – All Purpose Flour
  • 2 tsp – Baking Soda
  • 1 Cup – Butter
  • 2 Cups – Milk
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Extract
  • 2/3 Cup – Cocoa Powder
  • 1/4 tsp – Salt
  • 2 Cup – Brown Sugar
  • 2 Tbsp – White Vinegar

Method -

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Line & grease an 8″ round pan.
  2. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda & salt together.
  3. Melt butter using a microwave. Don’t burn it. Stir in sugar.
  4. Add milk, vinegar & vanilla to butter mixture & stir well.
  5. Add dry ingredients & whisk till well blended.
  6. Pour batter into prepared pan & bake for 60 mins or till inserted toothpick comes out clean.
  7. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack & then transfer to a plate.
  8. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap or cling film & refrigerate till required.

    Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

    Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Chocolate Buttercream -

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients -

  • 460 gms – Icing Sugar, sifted
  • 226 gms – Unsalted Butter (226 gms)
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Extract (I used Almond as I had run out of Vanilla)
  • 4 Tbsp – Milk
  • 120 gms – Melted & Cooled Chocolate (I used Milk Compound which was leftover with me)

Method -

  1. In a large bowl, beat butter till smooth & well blended using hand mixer.
  2. Beat in vanilla extract.
  3. On low speed slowly add sugar & continue beating. Scrape down sides if required.
  4. Add the milk & beat to combine.
  5. Add melted chocolate & beat.
  6. On high speed beat the frosting till light & fluffy, about 5-6 mins.
  7. Cover with plastic wrap when not using.

I felt that frosting was just enough to cover the cake & hardly any left to decorate on top or sides. So I suggest to increase the recipe by 1.5 times.

Assembling the Cake -

I’ve searched the net extensively for assembling this cake, most of them have tried to explain the 3 ring method as best as possible but few days ago I came across this illustration on Joy of Dessert which, she in turn has taken from flickr/avkelly. This is by far the best way to explain the assembling & hence I’m also posting it here along with due credit.

  1. Slice both cakes into horizontal layers such that you have 2 layers of each cake & 4 total.
  2. Cut out 2 rings each from all 4 layers. I placed 6″ dia removable bottom of tart pan & cut a circle around it & then I used a 4″ dia. lid & cut another circle within the 6″ circle.
  3. Carefully remove the middle ring of all layers.
  4. Using a spatula, lightly spread buttercream filling on the insides of the remaining rings. Lightly spread butter cream on outside of middle rings as well. This helps in sticking the rings together & not make a mess while cutting the cake. Then place the middle rings backs in alternating colors – place chocolate color ring in white cake & vice versa. Now you have 4 layers of cake with alternating colored rings.
  5. Now place 1 prepared layer of cake on the base or cake table. Soak in coke. Lightly spread the filling & then place the 2nd layer such that the rings are stacked alternate to each other – chocolate color ring on top of white colored ring, then place the 3rd layer again alternating colors on top of each other & then the last layer similarly.
  6. Keep the cake in freezer for 10 mins. This reduces the amount of crumbs to deal with while frosting.
  7. Quickly do a crumb coat on the whole cake & then decorate as per your whim. :)

    Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

    Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Tips -

  1. Refrigerating the cake 10-15 mins before slicing layers & rings will help in neater finish. It also gives lesser crumbs to mess while frosting.
  2. It may help, if you first place the layer you want as base on the cake table & then exchange rings & place other rings on top & biding together with buttercream instead of making separate layers. The risk of layers falling apart in transfer are reduced then.

No amount of planning & tips helped me in assembling this cake as it is very difficult to maintain the rings & adjust them within each other. Almost all my rings broke into many pieces & had to be glued together with filling. I also felt that adding another smaller 2″ dia ring would have made the cake even more aesthetically appealing.

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

But the overall effect was wonderful as you can see. The cake cutting was full of oohhss & aaahhhsss. V was jealous & told me that why his birthday cake was not this nice. Difficult to please husbands! Sonny dear wanted only edible beads & no cake. Everybody wanted to know the technique of assembling it. I’m glad people liked my effort & effect though the making was quite eventful. Taste wise also the cake was wonderful with both variety of cakes complimenting each other. A great success!!!

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Eggless Checkerboard Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

To top this, I had a pleasant surprise thrown in by V. He gifted me a Recipe Journal by Moleskine in which he suggests that I should put together best of recipes & pass on to my future daughter-in-law & Ved gave me a huge card :) Thank you to the men in my life :D

Birthday Gifts

Birthday Gifts

Sending this cake to Kalyani’s 100 day Global Fest at Sizzling Tastebuds which is a part of My Mother’s Kitchen. Hop on to her blog to get some interesting global dishes :)


Eggless Black Forest Cake with Chocolate Ganache & Cherry Pie Filling – Happy Birthday Dear Hubby

20 Sep

Let me tell you at the onset that this is a loooonngggg post. I’ve tried to keep it as short as possible.

More than festivals, I enjoy planning & creating our family days – birthdays, anniversary etc. Every year for last 5 yrs, I’ve been celebrating V’s b’day and plan a surprise (little or big) for him. Every year he complains about those surprises as he is not very pro to the idea of surprise – he likes them but would want to be forewarned than surprised. So this year I promised him I won’t give a surprise. He tells me that is a surprise in itself! MEN!!! This year V chose Black Forest Cake for his b’day treat. :)

I cajoled V into gifting me many b’day gifts this year – mind you all scattered through the last few months so that he wouldn’t realize how clever I had been ;) One such gift was a book from my wishlist, Bakin’ Without Eggs by Rosemarie Emro. I had read great reviews about this book & wanted to try my hand at the recipes from it. What I also liked about this book was that it wasn’t just catering to Vegan. Most of the books & blogs on egg-free recipes are Vegan oriented & I have harped many a times earlier that I cannot eat Tofu, soy milk etc. :( So this book came as a pleasant surprise – Rosemarie has used mostly White Vinegar as substitute for egg. From whatever recipes I’ve gone through I can assure you that they are good & just waiting to be made. Also the ingredients used are very basic & most baked recipes come with topping recipes as well. I chose Heavenly Chocolate Cake from Bakin’ Without Eggs. I’ve kept the recipe same except substituting buttermilk with curd.

I decided to assemble Black Forest Cake in a non-traditional version, adapting from a video on ehow – simple & beautiful BFC using Ganache, Cherry Pie Filling & Whipped Cream. Last time I tried frosting with Rainbow Cake I was supervised by my sister, this time I was going solo. I’ve been practicing frosting patterns using a mehndi cone for last 20 days on the back of the cake pan, to give me confidence of moving the cone with a flow which is most of the battle won, I guess! I have omitted liqueur from both ganache & soaking syrup as there was a slight chance that out little devil might eat a bite. :)

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

I will go into detail & recipe for all steps, except the cake as it is from a book & V was very particular that I should have permission for it before posting it. I see many bloggers posting recipes from book, so I wasn’t sure but he is RIGHT. So I unwillingly agreed to not post recipe for the cake. I’ve sent a mail seeking permission to the publisher of this book but they haven’t reverted to me yet, so till then I am not posting the cake recipe. Even when I started the blog, I took permission for my first few posts.

I prepared everything in advance & just assembled the cake on the day. Our Little Devil, designed the banner for his Dad! I just helped him a bit where he couldn’t manage – like cutting flags & writing. Enough of jibber-jabber & over to the recipe.

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Chocolate Ganache, Cherry Pie Filling & Low Fat Whipped Cream -

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Eggless Heavenly Chocolate Cake – minimally adapted from Bakin’ Without Eggs by Rosemarie Emro. I made it 2 days in advance and refrigerated it. I brought it out of refrigerator night before the assembly. {For Recipe refer book}

Cherry Pie Filling – I made it 1 day in advance & stored it in refrigerator in air-tight container & minimum 4 hours prior to assembly I allowed it to come to room temp. {Recipe below}

Cherry Syrup – I used drained cherry syrup from cans & stored it in refrigerator in air-tight container & minimum 4 hours prior to assembly I allowed it to come to room temp.

Chocolate Ganache – I made it the night before the assembly. Kept at room temp overnight to allow it set properly. {Recipe below}

Low Fat Whipped Cream – I made on the morning of assembling, thought kept the beater & bowl in freezer at night only :) {Recipe below}

Cherry Pie Filling – I used cherry liquid (drained) instead of water. I reduced the sugar by half as I was already using sugar filled cherry liquid.

Recipe Source – loosely adapted from Tammy of Tammy’s Recipes

Ingredients -

  • 5 Cups – Pitted Cherries {830 gms (wet weight) can yield 3 cups & 450 gms yield 2 cups pitted cherries, drained. Store cherry juice}
  • 1 1/2 Cups – Sugar (adjust as per the tartness or sweetness of cherries)
  • 1/4 Cup *+ 3 Tbsp – Drained Cherry Juice (adjust as per thickness required)
  • 3 Tbsp – Cornstarch

Method -

  1. Combine sugar & cherries in a thick bottom pan & stir. If cherries are soft & mushy, you won’t need more additional water but if they are firm, add 1/2-3/4 cup water.
  2. Mix cornstarch in 3 Tbsp drained cherry juice separately. Make sure no lumps are formed.
  3. When the cherries are boiling, slowly add cornstarch, stirring all the while. Allow the mixture to become clear & starch to dissolve completely. Do not overcook as the filling will start breaking down.
  4. Remove from flame & allow to cool. When cool, store in an air-tight container in refrigerator.

Notes -I made a mistake & started with 1 cup water, the filling became very watery as sugar also releases water upon being subjected to heat. It took me a lot of time to reach desired consistency & I was scared all the while of over doing the filling.

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Ganache -

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients -

  • 227 gms – Semi-sweet/ Bittersweet Chocolate, cut into small pieces (I used Hershey’s)
  • 180 ml – Heavy Whipping Cream (I used Amul)
  • 1 Tbsp – Unsalted Butter

Method -

  1. Put chopped chocolate in a large bowl & keep aside.
  2. In a saucepan, heat cream & butter on medium heat. As soon as it boils, remove from flame & pour over chopped chocolate.
  3. Allow it to stand without mixing for few mins (about 3-4 mins). Do not stir as we do not want to incorporate air in Ganache.
  4. Using a wooden spoon/ rubber spatula or whisk, gently stir by beginning in the center & gently moving out to the edge of the bowl.
  5. When the chocolate is fully melted & mixture is smooth, add any liqueur or liquid flavorings (all should be at room temp.)
  6. Allow it to cool down completely & set properly. Before storing, cover with a piece of plastic wrap pressed on the top of the ganache so a film doesn’t form.It can be stored at room temp in a cool corner for 2 days & freeze upto 3 months.

Whipped Cream from Low Fat Cream – I halved the recipe, reduced the amount of cream & increased butter little so as to achieve higher fat content & get stiffer peaks.

Recipe Source – loosely adapted from Deeba of Passionate About Baking

Ingredients -

  • 300 gms – Low Fat Cream, Chilled (I used Amul -25% Fat)
  • 90 gms – Unsalted Butter
  • 3 Tbsp – Icing Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp – Vanilla Extract

Method -

  1. Refrigerate bowl & beater for 1/2 hour. I kept them overnight. :)
  2. In a small pan, melt the butter & 1/2 cup cream, stirring constantly till the butter melts. Add vanilla extract.
  3. Transfer to heat proof measuring cup & allow to cool to room temp.
  4. In a large bottom vessel (I used a wok), place ice cubes & prepare an ice bath.
  5. Place the chilled bowl over ice bath & beat the remaining cream & sugar on low speed till soft peaks are reached.
  6. Now begin adding the butter-cream mixture in a gradual stream, beating all the while on low speed until stiff peaks are formed.

    Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

    Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Assembling the Cake – technique adapted from ehow

  1. Take a cardboard pieces & cut it out 1 inch bigger than the cake pan. Cover it with the golden paper. Cake base is ready.
  2. Allow your cake assembling ingredients to come to room temperature – cake, cherry pie filling & syrup. In the meanwhile, prepare the whipped cream.
  3. Place the prepared cake base on a flat base or cake table.
  4. Using a serrated knife, carefully slice the cake horizontally into 2 halves. Liberally sprinkle both sides of halves with sugar syrup. Place the top half on the base upside down.
  5. Fill the ganache in a frosting bag & using small star tip, make 2-3 circles of ganache on the base cake to create a sort of dam as we do not want the cream to spill out when we fill it in.
  6. Then using a rubber spatula, fill the dam with whipped cream, spreading till the edge of the dam.
  7. Now place some dollops of cherry pie-filling on the cream. This is just to give that extra flavor of cherry when we bite in. No need to spread a big layer, just some dollops would do.
  8. Place the second layer of cake with bottom up (as this has a smooth & flat top) on top of of first layer. Allow this to set in fridge for few minutes so that ganache is set & doesn’t get disturbed when we start decorating.
  9. Remove from fridge. With the help of frosting spatula, spread ganache on the sides of the cake completely. Smooth the ends & spread any extra ganache towards the top centre. Since we are going to fill the top with cherry pie filling, the top can be little untidy, it won’t show. :)
  10. Take the ganache filled frosting bag & make small scallop design, press & then pull forward, again press & pull forward the tip, at the base of the cake. This gives a clean edge to the cake.
  11. Now fill the remaining whipped cream in a frosting bag & using a bigger star-tip make alternate shells or any other design you want on the edge.
  12. Now fill the centre with the remaining cherry-pie filling & spread towards the edges without spoiling the cream.
  13. Chill the cake covered for atleast 4 hours for best taste. Slice & serve.

    Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

    Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

You can’t imagine the amount of butterflies I had in my stomach for last 1 week leading upto the day. I was hoping for atleast the photos to come out great & not let me down. The cake was very tasty, chocolatey, crumbly & soft. I guess use of Chocolate Pudding Filling in the batter gave it the extra chocolatey taste. Every bite was real heaven.

I turned out to be a bit messy looking cake as – I’m a clueless decorator, the cake broke into 2 while slicing into layers, I forgot to soak each layer & just did the top one. The ganache on the sides didn’t spread as neat as I had hoped & the whipped cream despite all my calculation for stiff peak, didn’t hold for even a minute. :( :( :( Nevertheless, the cake was very rich & heavenly!!!

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Eggless Black Forest Cake with Cherry Pie Filling & Chocolate Ganache

Sending this to My Favorite Dish Event by Ammu of Ammaji Recipes. In a pastry shop we are spoiled for choices these days, but time & again I come back to eating the good old Black Forest Cake/ Pastry & that is why it is a favorite dish with me.

Eggless Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam – Chocolate Rasoi – Part 6 (The Finale of Series)

20 Aug

All good things come to an end. How true! After writing about Chocolate Rasoi for last 3 months, it is now time to bid adieu to Eggless Baking Series from Chocolate Rasoi. We have covered Eggless Fresh Fruit Cake, Eggless Choco-chip & Oats Cookies, Eggless Brownie, Eggless Tutti Fruit Cake, Eggless Kaju Maawa Cake earlier. Last but not the least is Eggless Orange Cupcakes with Blueberry Jam.

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

I made this at my mother’s place & she didn’t have cupcake moulds, so I baked it into a cake by just increasing the timing. Also, my nephew and sister weren’t very keen on orange flavor, so I replaced it with Strawberry Crush & reduced the quantity. I’m posting the recipe with my changes in bracket.

Eggless Strawberry Crush Cake with Jam Filling -

Recipe Source – loosely adapted from Chocolate Rasoi Workshop

Ingredients -

  • 175 g – All Purpose Flour (I used 100 g)
  • 1-1/2 tsp – Baking Powder (I used 1 tsp)
  • 3/4 tsp – Baking Soda (I used 1/2 tsp)
  • 60 g – Salted Butter (I used 45g Amul)
  • 100 g – Powdered Sugar (I used 65 g)
  • 1/2 cup – Milk (I used 75 ml)
  • 1/2 tsp – Orange Essence (I used 1/4 tsp Vanilla)
  • 3-4 drops – Orange Color (I skipped this)
  • 1/2 Cup – Orange Squash or (I skipped this)
  • 1/3 Cup – Orange Crush (I used 40 ml Strawberry Crush)
  • 1/2 Cup – Blueberry Jam (I used 1/4 Cup Black Currant Jam)

Method -

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

  1. Pre-heat oven at 180 C. Line muffin pan or a desired pan if you are making cake.
  2. Sieve together flour, baking powder & baking soda.
  3. Beat sugar & butter well for 3-4 mins, add color & essence, if using. Beat again for a minute.
  4. Add dry mixture & milk alternatively, starting & ending with flour. Mix till uniform mixture.
  5. Now add crush or squash.
  6. Pour the batter in prepared muffin pan uptil 2/3rd level or cake pan.
  7. Bake for 15 mins for cupcakes & 35 mins for cake.
  8. Remove from pan & quickly insert jam in cupcakes using spoon. Bake again for 5 mins. I did the same step for cake. If you do not want to use jam then omit this step & bake directly for 20 mins for cupcakes & 40 mins for cake.

    Eggless Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

    Eggless Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

Serve warm or cold as desired. We had it with a dollop of ice-cream. If you are sinning then don’t shy sin full! That’s my motto :D This recipe can be twisted & turned around to create many flavour cupcakes. I’m going to post some in near future

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

Strawberry Crush Cake with Black Currant Jam

Notes:

  • You can use 1/2 tsp orange compound in place of color & essence in original recipe.
  • To convert into any flavor cupcake using a crush, just omit color & replace essence with vanilla. Then go ahead use any crush.

Sending this to Berries-Strawberry-Desserts by Anu of Anu’s Healthy Kitchen.

I have started to love this fruit only after marriage as V loves it in all forms & tastes. My elder sis also does but these things you adapt only after marriage. ;) I stay in a state known for it’s strawberry production and have enjoyed it over last few years. Since this is not a season of fresh strawberries, I’m using strawberry crush which has crushed strawberry in it.

Tri-color Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake – Chocolate Rasoi – Part 5 & Celebrating 64 years of Independence – Jai Hind!

15 Aug

Time for some patriotism. Sadly so, patriotism is celebrated & remembered only once a year, rest of the year we are discussing who is better – Hindu/ Jain/ Muslim/ etc etc. I’m also one of them who remembers it only once a year but I am still very proud of being an Indian.

Due to 15th August, we have got extended weekend and like others we also made plans of going to Mumbai to visit my aunt. BUT, the real deal was to get my very own – ramekins, 9″ springform pan & silicone muffin cups, which she has so kindly brought for me from US. :-) Since, I didn’t want to visit her empty handed and from the time of my home-baking days, I crib on buying sweets from outside, I decided to bake her a Tutti-Fruity Cake in tri-color and celebrate the occasion with her.

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

The recipe is of Cherry Marble Cake from Chocolate Rasoi Workshop I attended in May this year. Anjli introduced me to a contraption known as Electric Oven, which is easily movable, can be set up anywhere, has temp regulator but no timer.

Electric Oven

Electric Oven

And the best part is it is very cheap – in the range 1000/- If I already was not baking in convection oven, I would have bought this. I thought it was pretty good buy to start baking, as and when you become pro, you can upgrade to better and fancier ovens. :)

I’ve used a bundt pan for the cake, replaced yellow & chocolate color with orange & green.

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

Tricolor Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake -

Recipe Source – Chocolate Rasoi Workshop

Ingredients -

  • 100 gm – All Purpose Flour
  • 1/4 cup – Cornflour*
  • 1/2 tsp – Baking Soda
  • 1 tsp – Baking Powder
  • 200 gm – Condensed Milk
  • 3 Tbsp – Powdered Sugar (optional if you like less sweet)
  • 75 ml – Oil
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Essence
  • 1/2 cup – Milk
  • few drops – Orange Color
  • few drops – Green Color
  • 2 Tbsp – Tutti Fruity in Green, Red & Yellow Colors – mixed
  • 10-12 – Coarsely Chopped Almonds

Method -

  1. Pre-heat the oven at 180 C. Grease & dust a bundt pan.
  2. Slightly warm tutti-fruity & almonds and then coat lightly with flour.
  3. Sieve together flour, baking powder, baking soda & corn flour together.
  4. In a large bowl, mix together condensed milk, sugar & essence lightly for 1 min. While the hand mixer is running slowly add oil and mix it well.

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

  5. Add half the dry ingredients & milk and beat well for 2-3 mins.
  6. Add remaining dry ingredients & milk and beat well. Scrape down the sides & mix well till uniform.
  7. Slowly mix in half of fruits & nuts in the batter. Don’t over mix it.
  8. Divide the mixture into 3 parts – to one part add orange color & to the other part add green color.

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

  9. To make a flag – first pour green colored batter in the pan, lightly tap it so the batter is settled, then pour white batter (to which you have added no color) and in the end pour orange batter.
  10. Sprinkle remaining nuts & fruits on top. Gently tap the pan.
  11. Bake in pre-heated oven for 40 mins. Cool in the pan for 10 mins on a wire rack. Gently de-mould & allow to cool completely.

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

    Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

  12. Slice & serve with cold ice-cream. Enjoy celebrating Independence Day while eating.

* Cornflour is added so that the colors do not over mix among themselves.

The cake was loved by both my uncle & aunt & Mr. V (that goes without saying). Cake was rich, moist & soft. The colors didn’t form a very clearly demarcated layer as I had hoped they would. But who cares when it comes to taste. Happy Independence Day to all. Jai Hind!

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

Eggless Tutti-Fruity Cake in Tri-color

Here are some more tips by Chocolate Rasoi -

  • If the cake has already been baked for 10-15 mins in an oven and the power goes off, then it can be baked in gas tandoor or pressure cooker.
  • While baking cake in an OTG, only use lower rod, and for final browning you can turn on upper rod for last 5 mins.
  • The cake which is to frosted, should be made using oil instead of butter, otherwise the smell of butter overpowers the cream.
  • For longer shelf life, make a cake with butter. Cake made with oil smell faster.

Eggless Kaaju Mawa Cake (Cashew Cake) in Blind Bake Mode – Chocolate Rasoi – Part 3

23 Jul

 

This is the 3rd recipe from Chocolate Rasoi Workshop that I attended in May. Earlier recipes were Eggless Chocolate Brownie & Eggless Blackforest Cake.  Most of the recipes are using condensed milk in place of egg. Till date condensed milk is considered the best substitute for egg. This is also made using condensed milk. Apart from richness of condensed milk, this cake also contains the richness of Cashew & Maawa. Maawa is also known as khoya in many parts & most widely consumed in northern India in form of many sweets. Any sweet made with khoya & cashew is bound to be a favorite with all elders. And this is exactly why Anjli of Chocolate Rasoi nick-named this cake as Mother-in-law cake. Very apt name!!! :)

Kaaju Maawa Cake - A Slice

Kaaju Maawa Cake - A Slice

I baked this cake in 2 small tins as I wanted to try my hands at baking in Gas Tandoor. You see I didn’t want to burn the whole cake – so divided the batter. :) Baking in tandoor or pressure cooker is known as Blind Baking – as there is no temperature or time setting. For baking in tandoor, pre-heat the tandoor (covered) for 15 mins on slow flame before placing the cake. And even the cake is baked on slow flame till it is baked well from inside. To test, touch the cake & see and if you are sure it is done, then insert the toothpick and check as final step. (Please see my earlier post to know why not to insert toothpick many times in cake while baking). My experience says that time taken is almost same as an oven.

Kaaju Maawa Cake in Tandoor

Kaaju Maawa Cake in Tandoor

Kaaju Maawa Cake - in Oven

Kaaju Maawa Cake - in Oven

Kaaju Mawa Cake -

Recipe Source – Chocolate Rasoi Workshop

Ingredients -

  • 100 gm – All Purpose Flour
  • 1 tsp – Baking Powder
  • 1/4 tsp – Baking Soda
  • 200 gm (1/2 tin) – Condensed Milk
  • 100 gm – Khoya/ Mawa*
  • 2 Tbsp – Milk Powder
  • 2 Tbsp – Cashew Powder/Meal
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Essence
  • 3 Tbsp – Unsalted Butter
  • 15-20 – Chopped Cashew (for top)
  • 100 ml – Milk

Method -

  1. Line & grease 7″ tin or 6 muffin cups. Pre-heat the oven 180 C**.
  2. Sieve flour, baking powder & soda together 2-3 times.
  3. Mix all ingredients together except milk & cashew pieces. Add half milk and beat 3-4 minutes.
  4. If required slowly add the balance milk.
  5. Pour the mixture in prepared tin & decorate pieces of cashew on top.

    Kaaju Maawa Cake - Batter

    Kaaju Maawa Cake - Batter

  6. Bake for 20 mins. Remove from pan & allow to cool completely.
Kaaju Maawa Cake - Oven & Tandoor

Kaaju Maawa Cake - Oven & Tandoor

Kaaju Maawa Cake - Baked in Tandoor

Kaaju Maawa Cake - Baked in Tandoor

The cake was really yum! I haven’t felt that good after eating a cake. This recipe is definitely a must when elders are visiting & I am looking forward to serve it to my MIL whenever I get the chance. (read – earn some brownie points ;) )

Kaaju Maawa Cake - Baked in Oven

Kaaju Maawa Cake - Baked in Oven

* In absence of mawa – use 2 Tbsp heaped cashew powder + 2 Tbsp heaped milk powder in addition to the quantity suggested above of cashew & milk powder. Or you can use Mawa Burfi in place of mawa.

** I baked at 180 C in oven but felt that my cake browned a lot on top. I suggest reducing the temp to 160 C as mawa cooks faster. Baking time depends on quality of mawa & hence you should check after 20 mins for bigger pan size.

Being from North India, success in baking in Tandoor has taken a worry off me – “How to bake when there is no electricity?” :)

Eggless Rainbow Cake with Fresh Cream & Pineapple Cherry Frosting – Chocolate Rasoi – Part 2

17 Jul

I’d never ever baked a cake & decorated with whipped cream. Always believed that this is a task meant for outer world species. ;) I decided to join them when I had support (read – mom & sister to help me in any misadventures). Both my mom & sister have fair amount of experience in baking & frosting in which I sadly never participated earlier. To be just, I did not do a wow job but it wasn’t a bad job either. I strongly believe in practice, practice till you succeed and baking is such an aspect for me where I need tremendous amount of practice.

Whenever I make family recipes or even Italian, I am confident of the product as well as taste, irrespective of what the photo might say. But whenever I bake anything I am so unsure of myself. I literally reach out to all the baking goddesses – Dorie Greenspan, Rose L Beranbaum, please help me. :)

Eggless Rainbow Cake - pattern

Eggless Rainbow Cake - pattern

For this attempt I chose a recipe which was tried and tested. Too many unknown factors.. naaah! During the Chocolate Rasoi workshop, we had done a Blackforest Cake, I doubled the recipe & adapted it to plain Cake. The technique followed to decorate also was taught in the workshop. I’ve followed the same as I was familiar with it, just adding pineapple slices to it.

I gave the cake a twist by making it in a rainbow of colors, 5 color batter & beautiful insides. I wanted to add blue color as well to complete the rainbow but sadly that was not available in the local market.

Eggless Rainbow Cake -

Recipe Source – Loosely adapted from Chocolate Rasoi Workshop

Ingredients -

  • 2 cups – All Purpose Flour
  • 1 tsp – Baking Powder
  • 1 tsp – Baking Soda
  • 400 g – Milkmaid
  • 4 Tbsp – Unsalted Butter
  • 200 ml – Plain Soda (you can use left-over soda which has lost it’s fizz)
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Essence
  • 1 tsp each – red, yellow, green, orange color

Method -

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Line* & grease an 8 inch round pan.
  2. Sieve flour, baking powder & soda together 2-3 times.
  3. Beat together butter, milkmaid & essence**.
  4. Mix flour mixture using soda water into wet ingredients. Add soda & dry ingredients alternatively, starting with flour & ending with flour.
  5. Divide the mixture into 5 equal parts. Add 1 color each to a part, so that you have plain, yellow, orange, green & red colored batter. The quantity of color will determine the depth of color in cake, however too much color will leave the smell of burning after baking so avoid a lot of color.

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - Colorful Batter

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - Colorful Batter

  6. Now pour the white batter into the pan. Follow with green, yellow, orange &  red. Ensure to drop all the batters in the center of the pan, as you pour the next batter, the lower layer will be further pushed automatically towards the sides of the pan.
  7. Bake for 30-40 mins or until toothpick comes out clean.
  8. Remove from oven and allow to stand in pan from 10 minutes. Then gently demould.
  9. Allow to completely cool on wire rack.

Assembling the Cake – Technique loosely adapted from Blackforest Cake*** of Chocolate Rasoi.

  • 400 gm- Whipped Cream, stiff peaks
  • 1/2 tin – Sliced Pineapples
  • 1/4 cup – pitted & split cherries
  • 4 Tbsp – Cherry Syrup
  • 10-12 – Sugar Coated Candies (gems)
  1. Using a serrated knife, carefully slice the cake horizontally. Giving you 2 beautiful looking layers in a flowery pattern.

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - Beautiful outside & inside

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - Beautiful outside & inside

  2. Level the cake to get layers with even top.
  3. Now the inside of top layer – spread a very thin layer of any fruit spread or cream & place on a base on which you will decorate. Jam/ spread allows the cake to stay in one place while you frost. When you place the cake on the base, the inside layer of the cake is now the bottom & the leveled top layer is middle of the cake.
  4. Using a toothpick or a fork, gently pierce the cake. Soak the layer in sprite/ fruit juice/ coke. I soaked it in syrup from cherry tin.
  5. Apply a layer of whipped cream all-over the cake. Place chopped pineapple & cherry pieces.

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - soaked & frosted

    Eggless Rainbow Cake - soaked & frosted

  6. Place the second layer of cake such that side which was base of the cake is now the middle & the inside of the cake is now the top.
  7. Apply the whipped cream all over the cake and decorate as you please with pineapple slices, cherries.

    Eggless Rainbow Cake

    Eggless Rainbow Cake

My nephew was active part of the whole assembling process & wanted to give his touch by adding some sweet candies. The cake was good, soft, moist & just enough sweet. I love pineapple pastry & hence liked the crunchy taste of pineapples pieces in between layers a lot. Cutting the cake was a great pleasure, looking at all the beautiful colors peeping from inside made my effort worthwhile.

Eggless Rainbow Cake - Sliced

Eggless Rainbow Cake - Sliced

This cake really looks awesome from inside. My elder sister bullied me into not leveling the layers as she said it was a waste of good cake and they would even out with each others weight eventually. Though there was and is logic to her argument but the brown layer & dome shape peeping from sliced cake slightly takes away from a beautiful looking cake. I learnt a lesson – NOT to be bullied by elder sister. I guess I am total case of being bullied with people around me – first husband and now elder sister. They don’t let me create. :(

Eggless Rainbow Cake - ready to eat

Eggless Rainbow Cake - ready to eat

* I usually line my pans with plain brown paper which was something taught to us in Home Science classes. I have continued to do so, as so far they have worked for me and I get to recycle brown bags which come into house from various shopping trips.

** Tip by Chocolate Rasoi – For uniform & stronger flavor, essence should be added in oil medium rather than in the end.

*** Replace 2 Tbsp Flour with 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder to get Blackforest Cake. You can add 1/2 tsp Chocolate color for darker shade & replace vanilla with chocolate essence.

Perfect Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – A Sweet Punch 2nd Attempt

7 Jul

Baking this cake turned out to be a perfect example of Murphy’s Law in terms of planning. Whatever I had planned to do with it, went straight out of the window. I had promised myself to bake the next cake on a weekday, but as luck would have it, V decided to come home for lunch, right in the middle of mixing batter on speeds and demanded LUNCH! My oven had been pre-heated for so long, that it went off to zero and had to be re-heated once my batter and tin was ready. And if this wasn’t enough, to my utter dismay, we had to cancel our trip as V got fever in the evening. :( How I was looking forward to this trip only I know. Pune is full of must-see neighboring places during rainy season but since our move here 4 years ago, I haven’t been able to see much as pregnancy, infant and toddler kept me busy. Even this chance went for a toss. booo hooooo :( some more tears.

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Ready to Eat

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Ready to Eat

To start from where we left, I made Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting for this month’s Sweet Punch with not so much PERFECT results. So I did a second attempt – for reasons see the earlier post. I used cocoa & Ricotta Cheese (paneer) for my recipe. I still added baking soda to it.

Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – I replaced the eggs with Ricotta Cheese in this recipe – (1/4 cup paneer replaces 1 egg). This time I used my 8 inch round tin as I was planning to take this cake for a trek to Raigarh Ropeway and there were others to share. So I increased the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.

Recipe Source – A Sweet Punch Team

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake Batter

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake Batter

Ingredients -

  • 4 Tbsp – Milk
  • 1 cup – Home made Paneer (replaces 4 eggs)
  • 2 tsp – Vanilla Extract
  • 2 cup – Sifted Cake Flour with Cocoa (see below)
  • 1 cup – Sugar
  • 1 tsp – Leavening Agent (3/4 tsp Baking Powder + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda)
  • 1/4 tsp – Salt
  • 246 gms – Unsalted Butter

Method – I replaced the egg with paneer in the steps. Use only home-made paneer.

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line & grease 8 inch pan.
  2. Puree the paneer in a blender till smooth.
  3. Lightly whisk together milk, paneer and vanilla in a medium bowl.
  4. Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low-speed for 30 secs, until blended.
  5. Add butter & half of the paneer mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed beat for 1 minute. This will aerate and develop cake’s texture. Scrape down sides.
  6. Add the remaining paneer mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs between each addition. Scrape down sides.
  7. Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with spatula. Baked for 45 mins.
  8. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 mins before inverting onto a greased wire rack.

    Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Cooling

    Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Cooling

For making Cake flour at home – Take one cup of APF and remove 2 Tbsp from it. Replace 2 Tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use. I removed 4 Tbsp from 2 cups of cake flour and replaced with 4 Tbsp of Cocoa Powder.

I had read many times that replacing more than 2 eggs is very difficult, next to impossible. But I didn’t feel so. The cake was very good – moist, soft, crumbly, tasty. V couldn’t stop praising or eating. V praising is big because he drives me to tears many a times with his curt remarks about my cooking. So if he praised to the extent that this by far is the best cake I’ve baked then I believe him and you do so too.

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Sliced

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Sliced

I felt that sugar was less and could have been increased more, which was due to addition of cocoa powder. But I didn’t alter any ratio as I wanted to maintain that. I sprinkled the cake with some powdered sugar and I was home. Since the cake was big and I didn’t want us piling kilos, I gave half to our dear friend & neighbor – They also loved it in equal measure as V. :) This one is for more Sweet Punch to experiment with!

Perfect Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting – Sweet Punch for July & Happy Father’s Day

7 Jul

This is my first sweet punch bake. I’m not sure where to start and what to write. I guess I’ll start from scratch! A Sweet Punch is started by Divya of Easycooking, Ria of Ria’s Collection & Maria of Maria’s Menu. I’ve been following Easycooking since December last year and I’m grateful to Divya for starting me on the journey of baking. I had a microwave/ convection oven and not an OTG, so for years I believed I can’t bake in it (I did try a couple of times, but they were such a disaster, let’s not talk about them here!). One fine day, while surfing for some recipes on Chef in You, I came across a post by Divya on Baking in Microwave/ Convection mode. I couldn’t believe it!! There was actually someone out there who does her baking in Convection mode. You gotta be kidding!! Slowly when it all sunk in, I searched for eggless recipes on Divya’s blog and started on my baking life :)

A Sweet Punch is for bakers like me – Home Baking Made Simple. I guess we would like it simple. :) Thank you Divya, Ria & Maria for making it simple.

This month’s Sweet Punch was a Perfect Pound Cake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Apart from choosing her recipe, they also chose to follow the method of mixing the batter differently, which would ensure a tight crumb just like Sara Lee Pound Cake.

When I first read the recipe on reveal date, I was in a fix as I don’t eat or use eggs. For me it became more than Perfect Pound Cake, it became my first cake wherein I have substituted egg on my own account. I googled for eggless pound cake recipes, there are many but none that follows this proportion or method and I didn’t want to deviate from both. By following available recipes on google I felt I was missing the whole fun of being a Sweet Punch Member.

Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

So I decided to simply substitute the eggs in the given recipe with best possible subs. In this endeavor, I ended up making 2 cakes – Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting & Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake. I substituted egg with banana & ricotta cheese respectively. In the process I learned to make cream cheese, coconut cream cheese frosting at home and that Paneer is a closest alternative to Ricotta Cheese. :) Enough of jibber-jabber, here to recipe -

Eggless Banana Pound Cake – I replaced egg with ripe Banana & Baking Powder in this recipe – (1/4 cup ripe Banana + 1/2 tsp Baking Powder replaces 1 egg) Also my fluted tube pan is smaller than 6 cup, so I reduced the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.

Recipe Source – A Sweet Punch Team

Ingredients -

  • 2 Tbsp – Milk
  • 1/2 cup ripe Banana + 1 tsp Baking Powder (replace 2 eggs)
  • 1 tsp – Vanilla Extract
  • 1 cup – Sifted Cake Flour
  • 1/2 cup – Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp – Leavening Agent (1/4 tsp Baking Powder + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda)
  • a pinch – Salt
  • 123 gms – Unsalted Butter

Method – I simply replaced the egg with banana in the steps. Baking powder is added in dry ingredients along with other leavening agents.

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease fluted tube pan. Sift dry ingredients together 2-3 times.
  2. Puree the banana in a processor.
  3. Lightly whisk together milk, banana puree and vanilla in a medium bowl.
  4. Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low speed for 30 secs, until blended.
  5. Add butter & half of the banana mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed beat for 1 minute. This will aerate and develop cake’s texture. Scrape down sides.

    Banana Mix

    Banana Mix

  6. Add the remaining banana mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs between each addition. Scrape down sides.
  7. Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with spatula. I baked for 25 – 30 mins.
  8. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 mins before inverting onto a greased wire rack.

    Eggless Banana Pound Cake

    Eggless Banana Pound Cake

For making Cake flour at home – Take one cup of APF and remove 2 Tbsp from it. Replace the 2 Tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use.

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting – When the cake was ready, I felt it was incomplete without a frosting, so I promptly used my search engine and came up with a very simple recipe of cream cheese by Khushboo. Thankfully this recipe doesn’t call for fancy ingredients like some others do. She has given 3 recipes I chose the simplest one as the ingredients were available and time used was minimum (with a toddler to manage time is of great importance to me).

Again search engine came in handy for finding a recipe for coconut cream cheese frosting. This one is from Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic.

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Khushboo of Notecook & Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic

Ingredients -

  • 1 cup – hung Curd (hang 2 cups of curd to get 1 cup of hung curd)
  • 1 cup – full Cream

I used 1 cup cream cheese to make frosting as my cake was small.

  • 1 cup – Cream Cheese
  • 50 gm – unsalted Butter
  • 1/4 cup – fresh grated Coconut
  • 3/4 cup – Icing Sugar
  • 1/4 cup – fresh grated Coconut for sprinkling on top

Method -

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

  1. Mix hung curd & cream together to get 2 cups of cream cheese. Remember this method gives slightly curd smelling cream cheese.
  2. Cream the butter and cheese together for about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides.
  3. Slowly add the sugar. Fold in the coconut. Chill for assembling.

Assembling the Cake -

  1. Spread onto the cooled cake. Sprinkle grated coconut on top of frosting.
  2. Chill and serve. My cake tasted much better once we chilled and cut.

    Coconut Cream Cheese Frosted Cake

    Coconut Cream Cheese Frosted Cake

I especially timed the cake to celebrate Father’s Day. And I had to give in to lot of demands from him – being V is not patient, I can’t wait to eat, who cares for frosting or photos is his motto!! He didn’t let me chill the frosting and didn’t even let me sprinkle the whole cake with coconut. So I had to make do with half sprinkled cake. For every resistance I would get – It is my day and it is baked for me, so what I say will prevail. MEN!!! May be it’s another excuse for a bad photo job :( I’m learning you see…. my learning curve is slow. I learnt not to bake when V is around. Next attempt will definitely be on a weekday. :)

Eggless Perfect Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Eggless Perfect Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

The cake came out good with a distinct taste of both banana & coconut. Though as I mentioned, it tasted very good after chilling and eating. I felt the cake was slightly on the denser side – which I attribute to lack of eggs, no hand mixer & addition of baking soda.

SO, I made a second attempt as this shot was far from Perfect Pound Cake -

  • I tried paneer as a substitute for egg.
  • I bought a hand mixer :) finally and wanted to use it on this cake. This cake is all about timing and speed of hand mixer so I guess this cake deserved my first mixer use.
  • I added baking soda with presumption that it is just enough to utilize the slight acidity of the bananas to create the desired carbon dioxide bubbles. However, I may be wrong, as addition of soda in absence of proper acidic medium gives a denser cake. So in second attempt I added cocoa powder (acidic medium) to make full use of soda properties.

In short I made Perfect Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake for second attempt. :) :) :) Since this post is already too long, I have decided to put together my workings for next attempt as a separate post. I hate long posts! So see you around in a couple of days.

Mango Cake with Sweet Sweet Mango Sauce – A Sin

23 Jun

Last weekend we shifted to a new residence & now all city delights are more easily accessible to us. :) On Sunday we left home for a walk and ended up inside Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways. The Museum is hardly 500 meters from my place. I had read about it on the net but the experience can not be described by words. It was a reality with real looking trains & people, city, circus but still a show for 25 mins. Since we had not planned this, I didn’t carry my camera. Just for a smallest brief, Mr. Joshi started on this train journey with a hobby of collecting train models & from there on, it grew big. For the museum they have taken into account even smallest of details like material used for stairs, clock, etc. All 3 of us loved the experience. My only regret is not availing the head phones for English translation as I read the placard only towards the end. The entire script was in Marathi & went over my head. But I surely plan to re-visit the museum and enjoy once more. Over to baking!

Being the season of Mangoes, any food blog or for that matter kitchen is incomplete without mangoes. So I lapped up the opportunity to bake a mango cake for the first time. It was a real learning experience.

Mango Cake with Sauce

Mango Cake with Sauce

Since this was a new ingredient of baking so far for me, I started with zeroing on a cake using fresh mangoes and then I hit the search engine. I came across many recipes, out of which I found Lata’s recipe very simple & easy to make. I wanted to go a step further & hence again googled for some sauce recipes to go along with it. I again liked a very simple recipe on ehow.

Mango Cake - I halved the recipe as I wanted to make only small cake. Since I was making this for my mom, I wasn’t sure how keen she would be for wheat flour, so I replaced it with APF. Also, I used combining dry ingredients, wet ingredients & liquid medium method to achieve my batter.

Mango Cake Batter

Mango Cake Batter

Recipe Source – Loosely adapted from Lata-Raja

Ingredients -

  • 1/2 cup – Diced Fresh Mangoes (approx 1 medium)
  • 1/4 cup – White Sugar
  • 1/4 cup – Milk Powder
  • 1/4 cup – Yogurt
  • 1/4 cup – Crushed Pista
  • 1/4 cup – Vegetable Oil
  • 1 cup – All Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 tsp – Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp – Baking Soda
  • 1/8 cup hot water – to adjust consistency, maximum 1/4 cup

Method –

  1. Preheat the oven to 175 C.
  2. Grease & dust the required pan with flour or line with butter paper. I used a small heart shape pan.
  3. Puree the mango pieces in a food processor.
  4. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, milk powder 2-3 times.
  5. Beat oil & sugar together. Then add puree and curd to the mixture. Mix well.
  6. Lightly warm pista & coat in flour. This ensures that pista doesn’t sink.
  7. Now add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Using water to adjust consistency.
  8. In the end lightly fold in the pista.
  9. Pour into prepared pan & bake for 20-25 mins or until the toothpick comes out clean.
  10. Leave in the pan for 10 mins and cool on a wire rack. Then de-mould & cool completely.
Mango Cake Out of Oven

Mango Cake Out of Oven

Mango Sauce –

Recipe Source – Minimally adapted from ehow

Ingredients -

  • 2 – Medium Sized Mangoes
  • 1/4 cup – Orange Juice
  • 3/4 cup – Sugar
Mango Sauce

Mango Sauce

Method –

  1. Peel & deseed mangoes. Puree the mango pieces in a food processor.
  2. In a heavy bottom pan, mix together all ingredients.
  3. Cook on low flame stirring often until the sauce reduces by one-third and begins to thicken nicely. Allow it to cool.

Assembling the Cake -

Mango Cake - ready to be decorated

Mango Cake - ready to be decorated

  1. Place cake on a decorating surface.
  2. Pour the sauce over the cake and garnish with some crushed pista.

I felt the sauce was too sweet & less tangy. Next time I’ll decrease the sugar to 1/2 cup (or lesser) and increase the juice to 1/2 cup.

As promised by Lata, the cake was really wonderful & every bite was mangoey. Sweet Sweet Mango!!! Do try this recipe to enjoy mangoes of the season.

Update – Just came across a Mango Event hosted by Sameena of My Culinary Creations. Check out the event for some more mouthful of mango recipes. :) Sending this awesome mango cake for the event.

Mango event

Chocolate Rasoi Workshop in May 2011

16 Jun

As promised in Eggless Chocolate Brownie, this post is about the workshop I attended in May 2011 in Ghaziabad, UP.

Chocolate Rasoi

Chocolate Rasoi

While I was hunting for some wedding paraphernalia for my younger sis last year, I came across Chocolate Rasoi at a shop in Ghaziabad market and stored it in my list of to do things. Till December last year I had never tried my hand at baking as my experience in college was close to disaster. But I guess the love to give my son home baked goodies finally made me don the baking apron and I started my baking journey. Though I have been baking for 6 months but still attending a workshop gives insight which is always useful. I firmly believe there is always something to learn from others.

When I planned my trip to my in-laws place in Ghaziabad this year, I just had the perfect opportunity to sort through my to-do-things and attend the workshop. Also I had ready-made arrangement to leave my son behind and attend without worrying. :)

Chocolate Rasoi conducts classes in various vegetarian cuisines – from baking (both eggless & with egg), chocolate making (basic & advance), regional (Gujarati, Bengali Sweets), Snacks, Sizzlers, Chinese etc. Please visit their website for more details.

CR is run by Anjli Agarwal, who is a great cook and loves to share her culinary experience.

Anjli Agarwal of Chocolate Rasoi

Anjli Agarwal of Chocolate Rasoi

The workshop was easy to attend with 24 hrs back-up in case of electricity issue. The fees was also reasonable and if you book in advance then you get additional discount as well. Also they had options of taking packages for people who want to attend multi-workshops.

I took Eggless Baking workshop which includes 6 recipes across – cakes, cookies, brownies, muffins & basic decoartion. The recipes for which I will be posting in series.

Eggless Choco-chip Cookies

Choco-chip Cookies

Choco-chip Cookies

Eggless Cherry Almond Cake

Eggless Cherry Almond Cake

Eggless Cherry Almond Cake

Eggless Kaju Mawa Cake

Eggless Kaju Mawa Cake

Eggless Kaju Mawa Cake

Eggless Black Forest Cake

Eggless Blackforest Cake

Eggless Blackforest Cake

Eggless Chocolate Brownie

Eggless Chocolate Brownie

Eggless Chocolate Brownie

Eggless Blueberry Orange Cupcakes

Eggless Orange Blueberry Muffin

Eggless Orange Blueberry Muffin

As promised the experience of the workshop was worth time, money and energy spent. I’m looking forward to attending more workshops with them – Cake Decorating, Eggless Desserts, Sizzlers, etc.

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