Lemon Glow Chiffon Cake

Guess what the Baking Partners Challenge is one year old since this group has started. Congratulations to the entire team members to reach this wonderful milestone. Special thanks to Swathi  for starting this group. Each time I learn something very different from the variety of challenges in this group and I am so happy that I am part of this too.

Chiffon cakes are foam cakes, airy and pillowy in texture and combine richness of a butter cake with lightness of a sponge cake.

  

Coming to the cake, this  does require some mind blowing steps which were fun to do, but it is not a hard recipe. If followed correctly, the cake could be made within couple of hours.

This recipe was suggested by Saraswathi of Sara’s kitchen and she adapted this recipe from the book The Cake Bible written by Rose Levy Beranbaum. 

Chiffon cakes are foam cakes that have a soft and spongy texture. This cake is very similar in appearance to angel food cake and is usually baked in the same type of tube pan. Chiffon cakes, unlike angel food cakes, contain both egg yolks and vegetable oil. These two ingredients keep the cake moist, soft and tender that tastes great and keeps well.  

Even when refrigerated this cake remains soft. The reason being that this cake contains oil instead of butter which remains soft even in the refrigerator unlike butter which hardens when refrigerated. . Because of the lower fat level than butter cake and less cholesterol and saturated fat, this could very well be the guilt free cake that you could indulge in. 

        
The chiffon cake was created by Harry Baker, a Los Angeles insurance agent, in 1927.  Baker carefully guarded his secret technique for almost two decades, only selling his cakes to celebrities and the famous Brown Derby restaurant. The popularity of his cakes grew quickly, and he eventually sold the recipe to General Mills in 1947. 

Now, Mr. Baker had two big secrets with his chiffon cake recipe. The first is that chiffon cakes use oil instead of butter, which aides in the airy quality of the cake. It is also nice because the cake can be refrigerated without firming up. The second secret of the chiffon cake is to whip the egg whites separately from the yolks and to fold them ever so gently into the batter.  If done correctly, the results are divine. If not, you can end up with an oozy-gooey mess in your pans.

New York Style Cheese & pepperoni Pizza with Homemade Sauce

This time at the Baking Partners Challenge 10 Swathi had given us 3 recipes for the New York Style Pizza and sauce. Thank you for this wonderful challenge.

I used half the proportion of the crust ingredients and made one cheese pizza and another one was pepperoni, onion & olives. Both the pizzas were extremely good.

Pizza Sauce from here

Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 medium cloves garlic, grated  (about 2 teaspoons)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

pinch red pepper flakes

kosher salt (I used regular salt)

2 six inch springs fresh basil with leaves attached

1 medium onion chopped fine

Yield 4-3 makes enough for 2 – 4 ½ inch pies depending on how much sauce you like

Method:

Process tomatoes and their juice through food mill, pulse in food processor until pureed, or puree with hand blender. Puree should not be completely smooth, but should have no chunks larger than 1/16 of an inch. Set tomatoes aside.

Combine butter and oil in medium saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until butter is melted.

Add olive oil, onion chopped, garlic, oregano, pepper flakes, and large pinch salt and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, basil sprigs, halves, and sugar. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to lowest setting (bubbles should barely be breaking the surface), and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by 1/2, about 1 hour. Season  to taste with salt. Allow to cool and store in covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake

This has been in my to do list for some time, somehow backed out seeing the amount of eggs and cheese. This time at the Baking Partners Challenge 9 Swathi had given us 4 recipes for the cheese cakes. Since I have already baked the no bake mango cheese cake, I thought of going for the recipe given by  Reeni and thank you both of you for this wonderful challenge. Sometimes its so happen if you want to really enjoy some good cheese cake just close your eyes and bake this and dont count on the calories.

No regrets such a soft and fluffy cake this is, even whilst I was plating the cake I had hard time handling it to capture some good pictures. I did not want a chocolate toppings,  all I wanted was to add some fresh fruits but I landed up this way that I boiled some hot water and added some grapes to it and then  then tossed them on sugar  just to get the sugar coating.

Whilst baking my heart was beating so fast and kept looking at the oven reason being if the water would seep through the pan and spoil my cake although I had protected them well with the foil. Second reason  being I used APF when the recipe called for cake flour/super fine flour. Gathered my courage and gave it a try. 

Baking Partners: A new Baking Group

A group of home bakers helping each other to achieve perfection.

Baking a home made Baking a homemade bread, cake or cookies will give the best outcome. However in order to achieve the best results, a perfect recipe and right techniques are required.

We are a small group of home baker friends, who love and want to learn more about the nook and corners of baking.  We are planning to try out recipes from books/magazines and cooking shows.  Every member gets a chance to present their choice of recipe and share important points with the rest of the group.

Main purpose of this group is to learn the techniques, critic the procedure if there are ways to improve, and to eat a delicious food.

Rules are simple, we will choose one recipe and send it out to the group by 16th of every month and the reveal date will be 15th of the next month. On that day we will blog about it. A linky tool will be open during that time and each member can link their post.

First month we are going to do a recipe, 2nd and 3rd month will be a theme and the 4th month we will be back at a recipe. By doing in between recipes, we will able to learn more.

All enthusiastic bloggers interested in baking are welcome, please email Swathi  of Zesty South Indian Kitchen  at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com. 

We will appreciate the use of logo or worded link that will help to spread the word.  A bunch of thanks to Tina for designing this beautiful logo

If you   want to make it a gluten or vegan free diet, you can do those modifications also.