Vanilla Chocolate Marble Pound cake

I am so happy that my lill one (ZB) is slowly getting to like cakes & asking for it more often. Cherry & I love cakes. We both can never say no to baking/eating:) Now the lill one also has joined the club I must say. Well my hubby loves to eat the batter which I don't & I recently figured out that ZB also loves doing it. 

You must have recently seen my recipe post on Pound cake & this post gave a lot of traffic to my blog which I am very happy. Daily I could see around 2000 odd visitors in my space. This cake indeed is now a favourite one at home. Yesterday ZB started asking for cake early in the morning. He was like... I want cake, i want cake, Mamma I wanna eat a cake in his American accent:). Now, that was all enough for me to get baking. Initially thought will bake some cup cakes, then the Pound cake craving in my head kept popping up. Instead of making the same plain one, thought will make a marble cake with chocolate combination. I followed the same recipe as my earlier Pound cake recipe with just by adding some coco powder. 

Serves: 25- 30 pieces

Making time: 30 minutes

Baking time: 1:30minutes

9.5 inch Non stick Bunt cake pan

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (220 gms) salted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering pan
• 3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) plus additional for dusting
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 cups sugar (powder it)
• 7 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup Milk/ heavy cream or whipping cream
• 1 Tspn lemon zest
• Special equipment: a 10-inch tube pan (4 1/2 inches deep; not with a removable bottom) or a 9.6 - 10-inch bunt pan (3 1/4 inches deep; 3-qt capacity)
• 4 Tbspn Coco Powder

Direction:

1. Put oven rack in middle position, preheat oven for 10 mins
2. Generously butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.
3. Sift together sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl (flour will have been sifted 3 times total).
4. Beat together butter (2 sticks) and sugar in a large bowl with an electric handheld beater at medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 8 minutes.
5. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour, then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become creamier and satiny
6. Now Remove 1.5 cup of batter into a bowl & mix in the sifted coco powder into it. Mix it well with a spoon or hand whisk to ensure the batter is smooth.  Keep this chocolate batter aside.
7. Now spoon the half of plain batter into pan and tap pan against work surface once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. 
8. Now fill the chocolate batter in a piping bag & fill it on top of the plain batter around equally. Tap pan against the work surface again once or twice. 
9. Finally add in the remaining plain batter equally on top of the chocolate batter. 
10. Place pan in oven and turn oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/2 hours or a little longer depending on your oven.
11. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool completely.

Notes:

• I used the piping bag to spread the chocolate batter because I wanted the batter to spread evenly. You can also use a spoon which can be a little messy. 
• There is no levelling agent used in this cake as the eggs do the job. This cake might have some eggy smell so if you don't like the strong smell, I suggest you add some extra Vanilla essence or any other you may like.
• I made my own cake flour. 1 Cup all purpose flour minus- 2 tbsp flour + 2 tbsp corn flour makes 1 cup of cake flour.
• Since I am new to my oven in  my new home, I am still experimenting on the temperature. I kept my cake at 220 degree & I felt my oven's 350 was very high. So if you are friends with your oven you already know how she works:) If not, you might need to talk to her & experiment:)
• I love the texture & taste of the cake. I am sure this is the cake you will fall in love with.
• Since I dint have whipping cream, I used milk this time in my recipe. I could see the light difference in taste nevertheless this was also good. If you are looking for super tasty cake then go for whipping cream only:) Which I will do it again all the time. 

Red Velvet cake

I am not sure if I have said this earlier that how sensitive my stomach is! If I eat anything that is stale or bad, I immediately fall sick. After coming to Austin this was the first time I had food Poisoning which happened mainly because of my carelessness, or call it laziness. This was a day before Valentine's day, when I was too lazy to cook a full meal. Since I had some leftover Roti's I decided to make enchiladas. I used some left over Canned tomato Puree that was lying in the fridge. This puree had some blackishness around & I was too lazy to open a new can; so just used it. This caused a very bad stomach pain & diarrhea:( The whole night, I spent in the bathroom & regretted for using that can of tomato puree. The next day went to the doc & I was admitted for 3 hours . I was given IV & some medicines. So my valentines day was a disaster & it was spent in the hospital. 

So I had made this cake on 13th morning & I decided to refrigerate it. Since I was sick & had aversion towards food, I dint want to cook nor eat anything for few days. After 4 days I decided to decorate this cake. I went ahead with a simple decor as I dint wanted too much icing in the cake. Well this was a tall cake & I sent almost 70% of it to my hubby's office. My hubby told me that the cake got over within minutes:) I was very happy that the cake got over fast or else I will end up eating a lot & put on weight:(. This was the easiest & tastiest red velvet cake I have eaten. This cake is very moist & yummy. I got this recipe from Mccormick site. I just copy pasted the recipe & the result was just amazing. This is how I made the cake. 

Serves: 45- 30 people
Making time: 30 minutes
Decoration: 30 minutes
Need 2 9 inch Pan (I used use & throw silver foil pans)
Recipe: mccormick

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups Plain flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coco powder
• 2 cups sugar (powdered)
• 1 tsp Baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 sticks Butter (226 gms)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp food color Red (I used wilton gel paste)

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 350* F. For the cake, grease & flour 2 (9 inch) round cake pans. 
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda & salt. set aside.
3. Beat Butter & powdered sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light & fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. 
4. Mix Sour cream, color, milk & vanilla in a separate small bowl. Now add in this mixture into the bowl butter sugar egg mixture. 
5. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not over beat. Pour the batter in the prepared Pans.
6. Bake for about 35 to 45 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the centre comes out clean. 
7. Cool in pan for 10 mins, remove from Pan & cool completely on wire rack. 

Vanilla Butter cream:

• 350 gms salted Butter
• 8- 10 Cups sifted Icing sugar
• 6 Tbsp Whipping cream
• 1 Tspn Vanilla Essence
• Pinch of salt
• 10 Strawberries to decorate. 

Directions:

• Make sure butter is at room temperature & not very soft.
• In the bowl cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes with an electric beater on medium speed.
• Add 9-10 cups icing sugar one cup at a time. Once the icing sugar is well mixed add whipping cream and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. This should take about 6 to 8 minutes. If if you feel the frosting consistency is not right, then add in some more icing sugar. 

Here are the step by step picture collage. 

If you don't like so many layers, you need not cut the cake into half. You can just have one layer of icing in the middle. I made 3 layers of icing coz it looks good. 

Notes:

• It is always better to cut the cake cold. So refrigerate the cake before you ice it. Make sure you bring the cake to room temperature before you eat it.
• Once you ice the full cake, keep the cake in the fridge. Make sure you have a big cake box.
• Cut the cake while it is still cold to get the perfect slices.

Pound cake

You already know that I have moved into our new apartment a month ago & I am still settling down. Now that the unpacking is all done, I have time to laze around at home while my son is at school. I love my mornings, as I get to watch serials, cook food & anything I want. The last week I spent watching Scandal I cant tell you how much I loved that serial. After it was over, I was so bored coz I was so addicted to it. So, I decided to bake a cake with all that time I had. 

I have always wondered how the store brought pound cake looked! I used to love the texture it had, but taste wise I was not very satisfied.  I have also seen in cookery shows how some chef's add in so many eggs into their cake recipes. I wondered if so many eggs were really required. If you have followed all my cake recipes, then you will realise that I have never used more than 3 eggs. After doing some recipe research on google, I decided to try out Elvis Presley's Favourite Pound Cake recipe. I was not too happy with the amount of eggs used in it, but I went ahead with this recipe. I must say "yes" the eggs does make a difference to your cake texture, taste, etc etc... Although the cake has a little eggyness, but I loved this cake. In fact we loved this cake at home. I am sure everyone who tried this recipe will definitely get addicted to this cake. This cake is so tasty, moist, rich & the texture is superb. I am sure you must have already fallen in love with the pictures. This is how I made it....

Serves: 25- 30 pieces

Making time: 30 minutes

Baking time: 1:30minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (220 gms) salted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering pan
• 3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) plus additional for dusting
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 cups sugar (powder it)
• 7 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
• 1 Tspn lemon zest
• Special equipment: a 10-inch tube pan (4 1/2 inches deep; not with a removable bottom) or a 9.6 - 10-inch bunt pan (3 1/4 inches deep; 3-qt capacity)

Direction:

1. Put oven rack in middle position, preheat oven for 10 mins
2. Generously butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.
3. Sift together sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl (flour will have been sifted 3 times total).
4. Beat together butter (2 sticks) and sugar in a large bowl with an electric handheld beater at medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 8 minutes.
5. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour, then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become creamier and satiny
6. Spoon batter into pan and tap pan against work surface once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. Place pan in oven and turn oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. 
7. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool completely.

Notes:

• There is no leveling agent used in this cake as the eggs do the job. This cake will have some eggy smell so if you don't like the strong smell, I suggest you add some extra Vanilla essence or any other you may like.
• I made my own cake flour. 1 Cup all purpose flour minus- 2 tbsp flour + 2 tbsp corn flour makes 1 cup of cake flour.
• Since I am new to my oven in  my new home, I am still experimenting on the temperature. I kept my cake at 220 degree & I felt my oven's 350 was very high. So if you are friends with your oven you already know how she works:) If not, you might need to talk to her & experiment:)
• I love the texture & taste of the cake. I am sure this is the cake you will fall in love with.
• This is the first time I tried this cake & the net time I will try baking it in a regular round pan.

French Almond Cakes

We are spending our last 1 week in Singapore & cant believe that we have been living here for the last 4 years. We have enjoyed every moment here & feels sad to say goodbye to this country. The only bitter feeling that we have is our current Landlords behaviour. He has been mentally harassing us for the last 1 month asking us to pay him 4.5 months of rent as compensation for breaking the rental contract in between. Now this man has been really been a big pain & we are still sorting out on this issue. Because of this we are having a very bad taste:( Hopefully things should resolve in a couple of days. The only bad part about this place is that majority of Land lords are very bad & greedy. They try & bully the tenants. Try to extract as much as money from the tenants:( We have been very unfortunate to get one such bad Landlord. 

Well coming back to today's post, since we are moving, I have been busy with finishing off the groceries in the pantry. I figured out that I have a big packet of almonds & wanted to put these into use. We all know the good benefits of almonds & hence I made a cake out of these. I got this recipe from Happy home baking site, you can check here beautiful  site here .  I tried to tweak in the recipe a little & the results were fabulous. This cake is very moist & soft. Its like melt in your mouths type. We all loved this cake & here is the recipe.

Baking time: 45 mins

total time: 1 hours

6 inch round pan or 8 inch round pan

Ingredients:m

• 150 g butter at room temperature
• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 90g ground almonds (almond powder) (almost a cup)
• 100 gms plain flour (almost 3/4th cup)
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)
• 1/4 tspn salt

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven at 180degC. Grease (with butter) and flour the sides of a 6 inch  pan, line the base with parchment paper, set aside.
2. Cream the butter & sugar for 2 minutes until light & fluffy. 
3. Add in the eggs into them & beat for another 1 minute.
4. Now add the almond powder, four, baking powder, vanilla essence, salt & milk. Beat with an electric mixer or whisk. When quite light and fluffy, spoon into the prepared pan and spread the batter evenly.
5. Bake at 180degC for 40-45mins, or until the sponge just springs back when pressed . (If you are using 8 inch pan then the baking time can be reduced to 30- 35 mins)
6. Run a thin bladed knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool. 

How to powder almonds: Just put the whole almonds in the mixer or blender & blend it to a fine powder. I did mine with the skin on.

Dulce De Leche Cake

Happy Children's day & here is the treat for Children's day!

We had a special guest over for lunch on Sunday & I cooked so many things. I made 3 types of starters, Prawn Ghee roast, Prawn Pepper fry, & Chicken 65 to go with drinks. For the Main course it was Appam, Chicken Stew , Beef Fry, Chicken Biriyani & Pineapple Raita. For the dessert it was our home fav " Banoffee pie.Our guest was so happy to see & try so many different variety of food. He kept saying very good for every dish that he tasted & also said it was of 5 star standard:) Now tell me what else do I need? I was all flying in the air:).Sundays are my maid's off days & I had to manage all by myself. I had told her to cut all the vegetables that I need in the morning itself, so it was easier for me to cook. All went on well & I was able to cook all of the above, except Beef fry under 2 hours. I had made Beef fry the previous night, as it taste better as it gets older.

Since I had some left over Dulce De leche, I thought of baking a cake with it. Xmas season being around the corner, we all want to bake different kinds of goodies. This is a very nice cake to make as part of your X'mas baking. I just baked this cake this afternoon & its so moist & yummy. The flavor, texture is amazing & I loved this cake. My lill Zion also loved it & had a big slice, which is very unusual of him. The recipe is very simple just like the way I make butter cake, with just an addition of Dulce de Leche. If you have been following my blog, then you know that I have a post on how to make Dulce de leche. Just to add color & make the picture look bright, I just chopped some grapes, cranberries & garnished the cake. I also sprinkled some icing sugar to give it a Xmas feeling. This is how I made the cake. 

Serves: 15 slices

Preparation time: 15 mins

Baking time: 40- 45 mins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup +2 tbspn of Plain Flour
• 180 gms Salted Butter
• 1.5 Tspn of baking powder
• 1/4 Tin or 7 tspn of Dulce de leche sauce
• 2 Large eggs
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1/4 tspn of salt
• 1 Tspn Vanilla essence

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C and place rack in centre of oven. Butter and line an 8-inch Chiffon cake pan/round cake tin/6 inch square tin. 
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In the mixing bowl beat the butter, Dulce de leche and sugar until smooth. Continue beating on high speed until light and fluffy for 3 mins. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla  and beat until incorporated.This should take about 2 mins.
4. Add the flour mixture and mix just until incorporated. Or for 1/2 minute on high speed with the electric beater. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
5. Bake for about 40 - 45 mins.
6. Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 20 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely.

Cranberry Orange Mini Bundt Cakes with Orange Glaze

Its been almost a month since I posted anything in my blog nor visited any other blogs. 2 reasons why I haven't been very active in blogging (1. laptop crash, 2. On a diet )If you are my face book page follower, then you already know that I am on a diet & have been cooking just the diet food. Well I will be posting more about this diet in my next post. I am posting this from my hubbys laptop & I hope to get my laptop fixed soon.

Today I would like to introduce you to my blogger friend Shema from "Life Scoops" I am sure most of you already know her & her amazing cooking/baking skills. I got to know her through a common friend & I cant tell you how much I admire her cooking/ baking & photography skills. She is my first guest to post in my blog & I am so glad to have her in my virtual space.  To know more about her visit here. She has made some delicious lovely looking "Cranberry Orange Mini Bundt Cakes with Orange Glaze" Now lets go on to her post...

From Shema author of  "Life Scoops"

I got introduced to Sheela, through Renu, a common friend of ours, who wanted to get us seemingly like-minded people together. This is one another reason why I love blogging as it’s a great medium to bring together people who share common passion and interests across the world, exchange ideas and notes and just get to know each other on a personal level. Sheela resides in Singapore, with her husband and a terrific toddler, Zion.

These mini bundt cakes burst with a nice citrusy orange flavor and the tart Cranberries and crunchy Pecans add a wonderful texture and taste. You can use the same batter to make mini bundt cakes, muffins or even bake it as a normal sized cake.

Ingredients

• 2 cups - All purpose flour

• 2 Tsp - Baking Powder

• 1 Tsp - Baking Soda

• 1/2 Tsp - Salt

• 2 - Egg

• 3/4 cup - Sugar (*Refer Notes)

• 2 Tsp - Finely grated orange zest

• 1/4 cup (56gms or 1/2 stick) - Unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 Cup - Plain Yogurt

• 1/2 Cup - Orange juice fresh

• 3/4 Cup - Dried cranberries

• 1/2 Cup - Pecans or Walnuts, chopped

Glaze Ingredients(optional)

• 3/4 Cup - Orange Juice, freshly squeezed

• 4 Tablespoon - Powdered Sugar

• 2 Tablespoon - Butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven 350 degrees.
2. Grease the mini bundt cake pan or line the muffin pan with cupcake liners and set aside.
3. Sift the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl and set aside.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the butter and sugar
5. Add eggs and whisk until combined
6. Stir in the orange zest, orange juice and yogurt and mix until combined
7. Add the flour in 3 batches and whisk until the batter comes together.
8. Mix in cranberries and pecan/walnuts and whisk until they are evenly distributed. Do not overmix.
9. Evenly divide the batter in between the mini bundt cakes or the muffin pan
10. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
11. Transfer the Mini bundt cakes/muffins to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before glazing.

To Make The Glaze:

1. Add 3/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice and butter to a non-stick sauce pan
2. Heat until the mixture reduces it to 1/2 Cup.
3. Let it cool.
4. Add 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar and whisk until combined
5. Pour the glaze over the bundt cakes with a teaspoon or use a brush to apply the glaze.

Notes and Tips

• If you are not making the glaze, increase the sugar to 1 cup for the muffins
• Make sure not to include the white part of the orange skin while zesting the orange
• Use freshly squeezed orange juice