Upside-down cherry almond rose cake

I love upside-down cakes. This one was made for one of my closest friends on her 30th birthday. She is not very fond of chocolate cakes or cakes with frosting. So I came up with something that I thought she would like and she certainly did!

Ingredients for a half kg cake batter:
75 grms butter/margarine
115 grams sugar
Few drops of Rose essence
2 eggs
115 grams all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the base of the cake tray which becomes the topside after baking:
A cupful of deseeded cherries
Handful of sliced almonds
A tablespoon of butter
A tablespoon of brown sugar

Cream the butter with sugar. Add the essence and eggs and whisk till light and fluffy. Fold in the flour and baking powder gently till it's well incorporated.
The cake batter is ready. Keep it aside.

Now take a cake tray. Spread the butter at the base. Sprinkle the brown sugar. Randomly place the cherries and almonds. Pour the cake batter over the nuts and fruit.

Put the tray in a preheated oven and let it bake for 45 minutes at 180°C.

Once done keep aside for 10 mins on a cooling rack and invert on a serving tray. Let it completely cool for a couple of hours before it completely dissappears in minutes! 

Passionate Flavours

Our friends, Jeshu and Shwetha, celebrated their first wedding anniversary last weekend. As a little gift from us I baked and decorated this peach and passion fruit cake with self made marzipan flowers, chocolate hearts and chocolate bars. It was a hit and disappeared in a matter of a few minutes!! Creamy, fruity, soft and delicious.

Happy Anniversary Jeshu and Shwetha! Our wish to you is that your marriage blossoms into a beautiful garden of love, trust, happiness and excitement!

Chocolate Truffle Cake

The truffle cake has been my all time favourite. I remember every birthday celebration at home meant a rich, moist, googy chocolate treat that we enjoyed with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some potato chips. I decided to recreate that old time magic in my own kitchen and boy... I couldn't have been happy with the results!

We celebrated one year of moving into our own home MIRAKEL on the 28th of April and we treated ourselves to this piece of magic!

First get the following ingredients ready for the half kg sponge cake. Bake in a 6 inch baking tin at 190 C for 35-45 minutes depending on your oven. Let the cake cool on a wire rack.
Flour - 100 grams
Powder sugar - 115 grams
Egg - 2
Margarine - 90 grams
Baking powder - 1/4 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp
Milk - 1/3 cup
Cocoa powder - 15 grams

While the cake is baking prepare the icing and the decor.
You could use either black or white chocolate icing. The icing is known by different names, most commonly chocolate ganache, but also as chocolate fudge icing and chocolate truffle. Most recipes I found on the internet suggest more or less equal quantity of chocolate and whipping cream. I experimented with the following which gave me the perfect taste, shine and texture I was hoping for.
235 grams of dark/milk chocolate (I had a lot of chocolate bunnies and eggs from Easter, so I used that too)
200 ml cream
30 grams of butter
In a microwave proof glass bowl melt chocolate and cream for 2-3 minutes. Mix well till you get a homogenous mixture. Now add the butter and mix well. The icing will still be very thin. Leave it aside to cool. It will thicken gradually. You could also put it in the fridge.

Cut the cake horizontally into two parts. To moisten it further prepare a sugar syrup and sprinkle it over the cake that forms the base. You could also flavour the syrup with rum or orange essence. Once the ganache reaches a spreading consistency, layer it between the cakes. Sprinkle some more syrup on the top of the cake. Now pour the ganache over the top and sides and decorate as per your taste.

You might be curious to know more about the dolphin and hearts on the cake. Its simply melted white chocolate spread as shown in the picture on butter paper. The shape is guided by cookie or marzipan cutters.

For the dolphins I actually used coffee top decorators.

Date and Walnut cake with Marzipan Xmas icing

I wanted to get into the mood of the Christmas season and I thought what better way to start than a Christmasy looking cake. I decided to try this recipe. I used cranberries instead of raisins. It tasted delicious. But there was way too much fruit and I couldn't enjoy the cake as much. I would recommend that you follow the original recipe with the following changes...

80 grams walnuts

30 grams raisins/cranberries

For the decor I used white marzipan* and green and red food colours. Roll out the green marzipan and cut out the leaves. Make small balls from the red marzipan for cherries. Roll out the white marzipan to make two circular sheets with even edges. Place over the cake loaf as shown in the picture. Arrange the leaves and cherries. Just one more step...... EAT THE CAKE! :D

*Marzipan recipe in my next blog.

Brazilian Chocolate Cake with Nutella icing and chocolate plastic flowers

Sharmi this post is especially for your mum! :)

This I baked a few months ago for a friend's surprise baby shower.

Brazilian chocolate cake + Nutella Icing + Chocolate plastic flowers

+ coarsely crushed nuts of your choice

Cut the edges of the cake so that it is smooth and even. Do not throw the extra pieces. Crumble and save for later. Divide the cake horizontally to have two parts. Spread a generous amount of icing to sandwich the two parts and then spread the remaining over the top and sides of the cake.Sprinkle the cake crumb and some crush nuts of ur choice on the side of the cake.

The Plastic chocolate was quite a pain I must say. I had planned to abandon my trusted marzipan and decided to make a tasty baby cradle out of chocolate plastic. The plastic sure tasted great but working with it was very very difficult. In the end I did what I do very often... When plans don't work, IMPROVISE. Since we didn't know if the baby was 'blue' or 'pink', I made flowers of the two colours to keep the guessing mode on.

The result was decent in appearance but great in taste. Soft, creamy, lightly chocolately! :)

Cakes and toppings... and my online baking recipe books

A close friend recently mentioned to my husband 'your wife is a super woman. She always gets everything right!' On that note I have to say that I so far I have only put up posts and pictures of the things I have managed to do decently well. The credit for all that perfection goes to all the failed experiments and the insight they bring. Sometimes things go exactly as planned, sometimes they fail terribly. We have eaten half baked cakes, burnt dosa's, seen ugly looking crafts, broken our head about what could have possibly gone wrong till we finally figured out the 'right' way. It sure does take long to find perfection... though not forever! :)

Coming to cakes and toppings... Many of my friends who have mastered the art of baking suggest that one must find a good cake recipe book to get the basic recipes right. So as I set on my quest for one, I came across this blog. Pamela has done an excellent job of reviewing different recipes and posting them. I have been mixing and matching the icing and cakes from this blog and others to come up with yummy combinations. Videojug and youtube are other great sites to visit. 

This is the Black Forest Cake I baked recently on my husband's birthday. 

Look out for more posts on other baking delights. 

Maize Cake

I am back to blogging after a long break. So I thought lets revoke some sweet memories from the time I was away. This recipe was shared by my friends from Afghanistan in my German language class. The recipe is simple & light and makes a great tea/coffee time snack. If you don't indulge in evening coffee or tea like me, simply give the cake your undivided attention and relish a slice or two.

You need:
1 cup vegetable oil (I used Olive oil)

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups Maizeflour (Yellow flour. It is not the same as the white cornflour used for thickening soups and sauces.)

1 tsp Elaichi/Cardamom powder

1 1/4 cups Maida/All purpose flour (If you want to make a super healthy version, use whole wheat flour instead)

2 Eggs

1 tsp baking powder

Beat the eggs, oil, milk and sugar in a bowl. Now add all the dry ingredients through a sieve (to avoid forming lumps) into the liquid mixture. Beat the mixture well for few minutes till smooth. Grease a cake tin and add in the mixture. Bake in microwave oven or regular oven for 45 minutes at 180 to 200 C (temperature setting depends on type of oven).

Cake is now ready.... The aroma of maize and cardamom very tempting.... But wait... let the cake cool for at least an hour before you dig in! ;)