Marmer Cake

I like simple tea time cakes which has to be easy and quick to prepare and delicious to eat, not to mention little less guilt since we don’t have any icing and goes well with tea/coffee.  Today is my sister in law birthday and nothing better occasion to post this simple and delicious cake recipe.  Happy Birthday didi.

This cake turned out much better than I expected soft, moist and  yum.  Of all the cakes I have baked so far this one is one of the best tea cake, it’s so simple to make keeper recipe for sure, looks pretty too right? Though am not much fan of chocolate cake but the cocoa effect in this is just so perfect.  You have to try this to know what am talking here, I done the baking part in late evening so do excuse the stepwise picture quality I can now see how bad it is

Ingredients:

Butter - 150g

Powder Sugar - 150g

Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

Eggs - 3

Plain Flour - 150g

Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp

Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp

Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp

Hot Water - 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Sift flour, baking powder, soda and set aside.  Dissolve cocoa powder with hot water in a wide bowl and keep aside, used a wide bowl here so later we can mix the flour batter directly to the cocoa mix.

2. Meanwhile Preheat the oven to 180C/356F and grease a 6” pan or a loaf tin.  I used loaf tin here.

3. In a bowl beat butter, sugar until smooth.  Add one egg at a time and mix well to combine everything together.  Now add vanilla essence and flour in batches and whisk well to combine. [Do you see how fluffy the batter is?]

4. Divide the batter in equal portion and combine one portion with cocoa mix and whisk well.  

5. Now add 1tbsp of white batter on the pan followed by 1tbsp of cocoa batter, continue doing it until you run out of batter. Create a marble motif with a toothpick or knife, I used a knife here.  Don’t over it to and be gentle, swirls looks beautiful don’t you think?

[While you add the batter and if doesn’t spread don’t panic, it will spread or you can gently tap the pan/tin] 

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, cool on a wire rack and cut in pieces.

This lasted me more than a week refrigerated, till the end cake was soft and moist.  And this cake taste better next day. 

Have a nice day ~~

Mango Tutti Frutti Cake

Tutti Frutti Cake is DH one of the favorite cake he likes to munch on these,  and tutti frutti is one of the cake that I bake most as these makes good tea cake and never really posted the recipe.  This time I made a twist and added mango to use the last mango I had,  which made the cake more delicious and added wonderful flavor, you must try this if you like mango.

Ingredients:

*All the ingredients to be in room temperature

Plain Flour - 1 Cup + 1tbsp

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Egg Large - 1

Granular Sugar - 3/4 Cup

Butter - 1/4 Cup

Milk - 1/4 Cup

Mango Chunks - 1/2 Cup (I used  one Alponso mango )

Tutti Frutti - 1/2 cup

Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

Method:

1. Sieve baking powder and flour 2-3 times and keep side.  Mix tutti frutti with 1 tbsp of flour and keep side.

2. In a bowl beat egg and sugar until light and fluffy takes around 3-4 minutes.

~ If you are using hand beater then use castor sugar or powder the granular sugar, it will save your time and energy, this is coming from my brownie experience.

3. Add butter and beat for a minute again to mix everything well.  Fold the flour in batches and mix well.

4. Add milk and beat light to mix everything together. Pre-heat oven to 180C or 356F

5. Now fold in vanilla essence, mango pieces, tutti frutti, do not beat just mix gently.  Grease a pan or loaf tin and pour the mixture into it, tap 2-3 times to remove any air bubble.

 

6. Bake for 30-40 minutes for until a toothpick inserted in center comes clean.  For me it took 35 minutes.

7.  Cool on a wire rack and then cut in slices.

Enjoy delicious and simple cake, exclude the mango and make it as only tutti frutti cake if you wish.

And sending this to Only Bake Event by Tamalapaku and a event started by Food delicious.

 Enjoy your day ~~

Vanilla Cake with Frosting

Last week was my neighbor cum friend anniversary and like last year I baked a cake this year too.  Last year I did a tutti fruity cake with butter cream frosting and this year I decided to go with vanilla cake as she doesn't like chocolate. I wanted to try cream frosting and this seems to be perfect occasion for it.  I followed the sponge cake recipe from Prema blog and for the design too followed her chocolate cake recipe, her steps are quite detail n helpful and ofcourse she cleared all my doubts generously so thanks to Prema :)  

Ingredients:

For Sponge/Vanilla Cake

Plain Flour - 130 grams/ 1 Cup heaped

Egg Whites - 4

Egg Yolks -7
Granular  Sugar - 200 grams/ 1 Cup

Salt - 3 grams / a pinch

Milk - 30 ml / 2 tbsp

Oil - 30 ml / 2 tbsp

Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

For Cream Icing

Whipped Cream - 200ml

Icing Sugar - 130 grams / 3/4 Cup

Pink Food Color - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. In a bowl beat egg whites and sugar until sugar dissolves and egg white form peaks.

2. Add egg yolks and beat until everything blends well.  Double boil for 2 mintues or until it reach 40-42C.

3. Add flour and mix well.  Now add vanilla essence, milk and oil and mix well to blend everything together. 

4. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 9' pan and pour this cake batter.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown.  Insert a toothpick or knife in the middle, if it's comes out clean then the cake is cooked if not bake for 5 minutes more. 

5. Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack till we prepare the icing.  

6. Beat the whipped cream and icing sugar until it form peaks.  Divide the cream into 2 parts, in one part add any color of your choice, I used pink and mix well. 

7. Once the cake is cooled cut it into 2 layers.  Do it slowly and this cake is very soft and it tends to break.  

8. Add a good amount of whipped cream on one layer and over the top well.  Remove excess cream.

9.  Now keep the second layer cake on top if it and cover the whole cake with pink color cream.  

 

10. For cake decoration you can do anything that fancy you, I just tried here basket weave  design and used pink and white color cream, so we need 2 piping bags one with pink and other with white whipped cream using wave tip.

11. Draw vertical 2-3 lines with pink color and then on top of if white horizontal lines.  

12. Pipe vertical lines and then horizontal one's that fits the horizontal lines.   Repeat this process to cover rest of the cake.  

13.  On a cake top I did rope design which is done with white cream using star nozzle, arch the pipping bag and draw a curve in 'S' shape; insert tip under the bottom curve of the "S" shape and draw a curve 'S' again.  Repeat this for the whole cake.  

14. In the center written is happy anniversary, just add some brown color with white whipped cream.    You can place some fresh fruits or flowers too. 

And this how the cake looks inside.

Eggless Wheat Almond Cookies

Remember the sweet punch gals made eggless almond cookie few months back?  Well the cookie was so tempting that I made it the same day as the recipe is very simple, any one can just try that and ya you have guessed it right, this post is liked waited for a very long to be published ;)

I followed from Manjulaskitchen, she also have youtube video which makes these cookie more easy to make.  The outcome was as expected, DH loved the cookies and no time everything was finished, I literally had to hide the cookies to take pictures !! I have made these few times for friends and all of them loved it too, the freshly crushed cardamom flavor is just amazing and adds a extra zing to the cookies so do not miss that.   

Makes 22-24 medium size cookies

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Flour - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1/2 Cup

Almonds Flakes/ Sliced Almonds - 1/4 Cup

Green Cardamom - 1/2 tsp [coarsely powdered]

Salt - 1/4 tsp  [skip salt if using salted butter]

Unsalted Butter - 1/2 Cup [at room temperature]

Milk - 2-3 tbsp if needed

 

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 360F or 180C.

2. In a bowl or plate add flour, sugar, salt, cardamom powder, almond flakes and mix well.

~ I powdered the sugar and also sieve flour n sugar.

3. Add butter with flour mixture and make soft dough.  Add milk only if required, and each time add 1tbsp of milk.  I used 2 tbsp milk.  The dough will be very soft.

3. Divide the dough into equal 22-24 pieces and make them into balls, press lightly between palms each ball and keep thickness of about 1/2".

4. Place the dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet about a inch apart from each other.  Use a fork to make a impression or just leave it as it is.

5. Bake the cookies for 18 minutes or until cookies are lightly brown.  Let the cookies cool on a wire rack for 2-3 minutes and then remove them from the cookie sheets.  Once completely cooled to room temperature store in a air light box if anything left to store ;)

Enjoy these cookies as it or over a cup of tea/coffee ....

Note:

• We find the cookies to be extra sweet so reduce the sugar little if you prefer.  
• Do not miss the cardamom.  Freshly crushed/powder is better.
• Replace almonds with any other nuts of your choice.
• Remember to have the butter in room temperature if not you will use more milk.

Have a nice day ~~

Eggless Banana Cake | 200th Post

How you guys doing? I know I had kinda unexpected break due to various reason which we should not focus on.  I'm so glad to say this is my 200th blog post and it took me almost 3 years ...infact just 1 one more month and it will be 3 years of blogging.  And as the norm goes everything celebrated with sweet/dessert so how can I miss this occasion?  I had some plan for 200th post but then I settle myself with simple banana cake. 

The cake is so good you have to try this.  In a week's time I already made this cake 4 times, yes it's that good, easy and super hit with everyone at my place.   This makes a perfect tea time cake, very soft, dense and delicious.  

Ingredients:

Plain Flour - 1 Cup

Granular Sugar - 3/4 cup [1 cup if using caster sugar]

Ripe Banana - 1 Cup mashed [I used 2 long bananas]

Cooking Oil - 1/2 Cup

Fresh Curd/Yogurt - 1/4 Cup [ OR 1 egg]

Fresh Milk - 1/2 Cup

Walnut - 1/4 cup chopped

Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Salt - a pinch

Method:

1. Peel and mash bananas with a pinch of salt, chop walnut and keep aside.

2. In a bowl beat sugar with yoghurt until fluffy.  Add mashed banana and mix well until thick.

3. Add milk and beat well, fold flour in small quantities with baking soda & powder and combine everything well.

4. Add oil and mix well until oil blends with mixture.  Lastly add walnut and mix it.

5. Pour the mixture in a greased tin and bake at 200C for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean, mine was done in 20 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack and cut in desire shape.  Every time this cake comes so well, I have used bread tin, round cake tin, square cake tin to bake this cake.  

Well the uneven shape is cause I cut the cake before it cool completely, so you let the cook gets cool and enjoy the delicious yet easy banana cake. 

Have a good day ~~~

Eggless Almond Brownie

I got this sudden fit of baking brownie and I end up doing this.  I settle myself with Joy of Baking but made few changes in the recipe.   The brownie are tasty, yummy, soft and easy to make.  Few ingredients and you get this delicious brownie.  I don't want to say much so let's check out the recipe.

Ingredients: 

White Granulated Sugar - 1/2 cup 

[original recipe asked for 2/3 cup of sugar but for us/12 C was more than enough]

Butter - 1/3 cup [at room temperature]

Vanilla Extract or Essence - 1 tsp

Fresh Cream - 1/4 cup OR 1 Egg

All Purpose Flour - 1/3 cup

Cocoa Powder - 1/3 cup

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Sour Cream - 1/4 cup [ I used yogurt)

Almond Flakes - 2 tbsp or Chopped almonds [optional]

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/392F.

2.  In a bowl beat sugar and buttery until smooth.  If you are suing hand beater then it's going to take some time.

 

3.  Add vanilla extract and fresh cream and beat again well.

[My hands started to pain while beating as it was granulated sugar so  I add essence and cream and beat it well till sugar dissolves]   

4. Whisk or sieve flour, baking and cocoa powder in a small bowl/plate.  Fold flour mixture in to sugar and butter mixture.  Add half of flour mixture fold it nicely then add the rest of flour, this is to ensure no lumps are formed.

5. Now add the sour cream or yogurt and whisk nicely to bring everything together. Fold almonds flakes.  Grease  8" square pan and pour this mixture into it, smooth the top.

7.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the edges starts to pull away from sides of pan but the center of brownie is still slightly soft.

[ Do not over bake, or the brownies will be too dry]

8.  Remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool.  

 Once completed cooled, place a plate on top of tin and invert the tin, tap few times with a spoon on top of tin...this will help the brownie to come out.  Cut in squares with care. Well this what I did, if you have any better way to take the brownie out of pan please do share.

Do ignore the little crumble on the pic...I was excited and it result in few crumbs ...if you didn't notice that ..well then let's move on.

Brownie are soft I ever tasted and purely melting on mouth ....the taste was so good ...better than what we get outside.  Enjoy as it is or with ice cream ...choice is yours.

You have to try to believe me :)  This goes to Divya's place to celebrate her blog 3rd Anniversary and also to Torview's Food Paltte Series Brown.

Have Nice Day ~~