Cherry Almond Cake

Milo’s colleagues from Norway were down sometime last week, and we baked this cake for them. They enjoyed it with a cup of black coffee. Photo courtesy Oddlaug 🙂

This is Neeta Mehta’s recipe attempted by us.

Ingredients –

1 cup All Purpose Flour/Maida,

1 tsp Baking powder,

1/2 cup Glazed Cherries cut into round slices,

1/2 cup Almonds chopped,

3/4th cup powdered sugar,

2 Eggs,

1/2 cup oil (vegetable/sunflower or any oil that does not smell),

1/2 tsp Almond essence (I used mixed fruit essence)

Method –

Sift together flour and baking powder and keep aside.

Beat together powdered sugar and eggs till frothy.

Add oil and beat it for a while.

Add the flour to the egg batter and mix well.

Add the essence, chopped cherries and almond and mix well again.Keep a few cherries and almond to put on top of the cake batter. The cake batter for this cake is quite thick.

Pour into a greased tin and bake in a preheated oven (175 degree centigrade) till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

If the top is browning too quickly,loosely cover the top with a foil.

Remove from oven,let it cool for 10 minutes and then remove to a wire rack.

Slice and serve.

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Eggless Chocolate Brownie

Ingredients –

1 cup All Purpose Flour/Maida,

½ cup coco powder,

3/4^th cup powdered sugar,

5 tbsp ghee (homemade clarified butter) (you can substitute ghee with 5 tbsp cooking oil),

1 cup buttermilk (you can substitute buttermilk with 1 cup water + 2 tsp yogurt and 1 tsp lime juice),

1 tsp coffee powder dissolved in 2 tsp warm water,

1 tsp Baking soda,

A pinch of salt,

A few chocolate chips (I used small chunks of dark chocolate),

A handful of dry fruits (I used cashew and almonds)

Method –

Take all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix gently till all the ingredients are mixed well.

Grease and dust a baking tray, pour this mixture in the tray and bake in a preheated oven at 175 degree centigrade for approx. 20 minutes.

Cut into pieces when cooled completely.

Mango Cake (Eggless)

Last year during Mango season I tried this cake with whole wheat flour from SuchetasKitchen. It turned out good but somehow we don’t prefer the smell of wheat flour in the cake. So this year I tried it with All Purpose Flour (Maida) and we all relished the cake. Do give a try before the season gets over.

Ingredients –

2 cups All Purpose Flour / Maida,

½ cup milk powder,

1 tsp baking powder,

1 tsp baking soda,

1 cup sugar,

1.5 cups of fresh mango pulp,

½ cup yogurt,

½ cup refined oil

Method –

Sift together maida, milk powder, baking powder and baking soda.

Blend well sugar, mango pulp, yogurt and oil till smooth.

Pre heat the oven at 175 degree C for 10 minutes.

Mix gently the flour and blended pulp mixture.

Grease and dust a cake tin and pour the batter into it.

Bake the cake till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Zebra Cake

April 3rd was my MIL’s birthday and I baked this cake for her. This was the first time I was baking a cake with eggs and I was glad to see the end result – it was soft, fluffy and tasted just great. (Please overlook the cracks on the cake. No matter what I always get it.). It just took 15 minutes of preparation time. We polished off half the cake in less than 5 minutes 🙂

There are many blogs that have this cake recipe, but I followed Divya’s blog. She has put step by step images to assemble the cake. Thanks Divya!!

Ingredients –

2 cups All Purpose Flour,

1 tbsp baking powder,

3 large eggs,

1 cup sugar,

1 cup milk,

1 cup oil,

1 tsp vanilla essence,

2 tbsp coco powder

Method –

Mix All Purpose Flour and baking powder together, sieve and keep aside.

Beat 3 eggs and sugar till fluffy. (It took me approx 6 to 7 minutes).

Mix in the milk, oil and essence.

Pre heat the oven at 175 degree C for 10 minutes.

Now start mixing the flour in the above mixture. Mix well and break all the lumps.

Divide the mixture into 2 halves.

In one mixture add coco powder and mix well. Keep the other mixture as is.

Take a greased baking pan and pour one ladle of white cake batter in the center. Let it spread on its own. Do not tilt the pan to spread it.

Now put one ladle of coco cake batter on top of the white batter and let it spread on its own.

Again put white cake batter and coco batter alternately till all the batter is over.

Bake the cake till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean (In my oven it took approx 25 minutes)

Christmas and New Year 2012 Celebrations

Best Seasons greetings to you all…. Wishing each one of you the BEST in 2012!!!!

  

We baked 2 types of cakes (Dates Cake and Chocolate Cake) on the occasion of Christmas for family and friends. See the above pic.

I also tried my hands at Zebra Cake for the New Years celebration. The recipe and the pic will follow soon….

And last but not the least I made this awesome Corn Radbi on the eve of New Year. This recipe was given to me by my colleague and friend Jaykumari (affectionately called as Jayku). It’s a very quick and easy dessert and tastes yummyyy when served chilled….. She got the third place for this at the Cooking Competition that took place at our office. Here is the recipe…

Ingredients-

1 big sweet corn,

500 ml skimmed milk,

½ cup sugar,

2 tsp ghee,

A pinch of cardamom powder,

2 pinches of saffron,

Broken pieces of cashew nuts

Method-

Grate the corn on a grater and collect the pulp.

Heat ghee in a deep bottomed pan and fry cashew nuts till golden brown.

Add corn pulp to it and keep stirring. Fry the corn pulp till the raw smell goes off. This will take approximately 6 to 7 minutes.

Mix in the sugar and add hot milk, cardamom powder and saffron.

Let the rabid cook well. It will thicken as it cooks. Once it is done switch off the gas and allow it to cool to room temperature. Keep it in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours and serve chilled.

Eggless Banana Semolina Cake

I had a couple of ripe bananas in my fruit basket and I had all the ingredients to make this simple cake. Also my parents have come to visit us so I wanted to bake a cake of semolina for them. (My mom enjoys semolina cakes more then the flour ones).

I baked it in the night and served it for breakfast the next day. Milo did not like it so much and the reason for his dislike is he cannot stand the strong taste of bananas. But my parents and Anaya enjoyed it. It had a strong banana aroma and was quite fluffy. You can reduce the quantity of bananas to 2 if you don’t want the banana flavor to overpower the cake.

Ingredients-

3 ripe bananas,

1 cup Rawa/semolina,

½ cup sugar,

1 cup yogurt,

½ tsp baking soda,

1/ tsp cardamom powder,

Broken cashews for garnishing

Method –

Blend well ripe bananas, sugar and yogurt in a mixer.

Dry roast semolina over a low flame and once it gets cooled mix it well with the banana sugar mixture.

Mix in the baking soda and cardamom powder.

Allow the batter to stand for 1 hour.

Transfer the contents to a greased cake tin and sprinkle cashew nuts on top.

Bake till the knife comes out clean in a preheated oven at 175 degree C.

Allow the cake to cook in the cake tin for 10 minutes.

Later invert it on a wire rack and cool it completely.

Eggless Dates Cake

Here is another recipe from Shilpa’s ‘Aayis Recipe’. This is one of the best cakes I have every made. The best part about this cake is its vegan and puffs up very well even without egg. I have made this many times for my family. The first time I made it I used ground nut oil as that was the only type of oil I had at hand and the cake smelt bad. Always use refined sunflower oil or canola oil to make this. You can also add walnut and chopped dates to make a walnut cake (This reminds me of the walnut cake from the famous Major Bakery of Goa).

Here is the link for the original recipe –

http://www.aayisrecipes.com/2006/05/27/date-cake-eggless/

Thanks to Shilpa of Aayis Recipe.

Ingredients-

10 dates(Khajoor),

3/4 cup milk,

3/4 cup sugar,

1 cup all purpose flour or maida ,

1/2 cup oil,

1 tsp baking soda,

Method-

Soak the dates in warm milk for 3 to 4 hours.

Remove the seeds. Add sugar and grind them to a smooth paste along with the milk in which it is soaked in.

Add oil and mix.

Sieve together flour and baking soda. Add the flour one table spoon at a time and mix slowly.

Preheat the oven at 175C. Bake the cake in a greased oven proof dish for 35-40min (or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean).

Rava/Semolina Cake (Eggless)

I had tasted this cake long time back and I wanted to make it, but didn’t have an oven. So I surfed a lot about making cakes in a pressure cooker but I never had the guts to try it in the fear of burning the cooker. So now since I have an oven I decided to make it. I got this recipe from a blog. Almost every blog has a recipe for this, so I don’t remember which one I followed. I also reduced the ghee/butter quantity in this.

Ingredients-

2.25 cups fine rava or semolina,

2 cup milk,

1.5 cup sugar,

2 cup yogurt,

1 tbsp ghee,

1/8 tsp cardamom powder,

3/4th tsp baking soda,

Few pieces of broken cashews,

1/4^th tsp salt

Method-

Beat the yogurt and sugar together till the sugar is dissolved.

To this add the milk, salt, ghee, baking soda, rava and beat this together.

Keep this mixture aside for 6 to 7 hours.

Grease a baking pan with butter and transfer the contents to it.

Garnish with cashew pieces.

Preheat the oven and bake if for 20-30 minutes at 175 degree C.

Use a knife and pierce the center of the cake with it.

If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. Let it cool and they invert the pan to remove it.

Moist Chocolate Cake (Eggless)

It was my FIL’s 60^th birthday on 10^th June. I baked 2 of these cakes of which one was iced (See picture below). This is a very moist, soft, chocolaty cake from Aayis Recipe. It exactly tastes like the chocolate cake from Café Central of Panaji – Goa. It’s very easy to make and does not take much time. Just follow the recipe to the T. The only modification I did to this was I increased the coco powder to get extra chocolate taste. I used 6 tbsp for 1.5 cups all purpose flour. This cake was baked at 175 degree centigrade for 20 minutes. A must try cake recipe if you like chocolates. Thanks a lot to Shilpa of Aayis Recipe.

This icing was done by Milo and my MIL. We used Blue Bird ready whipping cream for the white icing and Pillsbury chocolate icing.