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.

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. 

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownie

How time flew by.   Today is a joyous occasion in our life. Let me share this with  all  my co-bloggers and my well wishers.  This is  my daughter  (Sanjna).

It’s a milestone celebrations and yes she is 18 today. Looking back the past few years, I find myself trying to conjure up memories of  her  first steps, first words, first day of school and now in the university  and every year has been so special with such  wonderful memories.

Fruit Cake or Christmas Cake or Plum cake

This recipe was given to me by neighbor aunty. I have made this cake several times. I love making this with alcohol as the tastes  so different.    In order for you to keep the cake for long time, aunty had told me that once we bake the cake. When its cooled  to  moist the cake with  diluted rum with water or inject using a syringe.

Although this cake was soft and moist,  smelled and tasted gr8. I did one blunder here that I removed the caramel a bit early to what I do hence the colour of the cake did not turn to the normal texture I get.  I had to make 2 big cakes and one small one hence the quantity was a bit big to handle.

Happy baking.

Ingredients

All purpose flour  - 200gms
Dry fruits – 200gms (cashew, dates, sultanas, raisins, tutti fruity)
Eggs  -  200 gms
Butter – 200gms
Sugar – 200gms
Rum – ½ cup (I have not added for my cake instead I have added orange juice)
Mixed spice powder – 1 tsp (you can add cloves, cinnamon, ginger,  nutmeg)
Lime juice  - 1 no.
Orange  and lime zest – 1 tsp
Baking powder – 1 tsp

Chocolate Date Cake

 

 

I love adding dates to the cakes reason being it gives such lovely color to the cake and found this recipe so good with chocolate. The outcome of the came was so fudgy, moist and lovely.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream  or whipped cream to be served with will be good combi.

Bake~ 40  to 45 mints

Serves ~ 12
Adapted from   here

Ingredients:

1 cup whole pitted dates, coarsely chopped.

½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups flour
¼  cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½  tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
½  cup chopped walnuts (optional) – I have not used as I wanted it chocolaty
Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream to serve

 

Molten Lava Cake

I always loved this cake at the Chilis outlets in Dubai.  Its gooey and soft inside and goes well with vanilla icecream.

So busy to grab it that we completely missed to capture the cake, some how managed a pic on the mobile. Surely will make this again and put a nice pic.

It’s a very simple and easy desert and everyone will love it.

Ingredients:

Semi sweet baking chocolate - 115gms
Butter - 115gms
Eggs – 2 nos
Sugar - 75 gms
All-purpose Flour – 40gms
Butter - for greasing ramekins

Method:

 In a double boiler, melt chocolate. Once chocolate is melted add butter and mix until the butter melts fully and let this cool down a bit.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat Eggs and Sugar until light and fluffy.

Add chocolate and butter mixture into the eggs, add all-purpose flour and mix until well incorporated.

Butter bottom and sides of ramekins or small bowls and pour in mixture  about ¾ of the bowls/remkin

Place ramekins on a baking tray and bake at 180 C for 10 - 15 minutes. If you like more gooey molten inside cook lesser and  longer for stiff inside.

Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

Latha

Brownies Stuffed With Oreo Biscuits

Ingredients:

¾  cup butter
2 tsp vanilla
½ tbsp baking powder
3 eggs  at room temperature
½ tsp salt
1 cup sugar
250 gms  semisweet chocolate chips
90gms -  unsweetened chocolate, chopped
½  cup flour
2 cups chopped Oreo cookies aprox. 20 cookies

Method:

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line and butter  an 8" x 8" baking pan.

In a heatproof medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, heat butter, chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate until melted and smooth. Allow to cool down for 5 minutes.

Dulce de Leche Brownies

Preparation Time – about 10 minutes

Cooking Time – about 45 minutes

Yield -12 brownies

Adapted from David Lebovitz

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons  (115g) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 ounces (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup (25g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 large eggs
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (140g) flour
 1 cup  Homemade Dulce deLeche

 optional: 1 cup (100 g) toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped 

Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour

¼  cup whole wheat flour

½  tsp baking powder

¼  cup cocoa powder {I heaped it}

¼  tsp baking soda

¼  tsp salt

½  cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 ¼  cup  sugar

2 eggs

100ml buttermilk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Celebration with Black Forest Cake

Today is the 4th day of Atham and I ensure that I put ‘Athhapoov’ at my home all the 10 days, it’s a kind of thrill that Onam is on the way. This is the ‘Atthapoov’ I put today.

This is the cake I baked last evening to celebrate 20^th wedding anniversary.

Pineapple Cake for my Leo

August is a month of celebrations in my family, as its my hubby’s B'day and then  comes our wedding anniversary. So its perfect  time for me to do some good  baking for these occasions. My hubby did not want chocolate  in the cake for his birthday, then was contemplating to make a fruit cake or a pineapple however I felt  I would bake a  pineapple cake as I had not shared the recipe here.  

Well  the flavor of the pineapple with the combination of soft spongy vanilla and whipping cream and with some chunky pineapples in between is really amazing.  Infact I love baking these layer cakes wonder why  I like that so much.

For the vanilla sponge:

Eggs – 6

Sugar – 1 cup

Cake flour – 1 cup all purpose flour minus 2 tbsp + 2tbsp cornstarch/ flour

Vanilla extract - 1tsp

Mix the  below ingredients and make the soaking liquid

Pineapple can : 1 tin *

Water – 1  cup or the pineapple juice from the can **

Sugar –  6 tbsp

Pineapple essence - 2 tbsp

* Cut some pieces of the pineapple and  keep some rings for garnishing on the top of the cake

** If the canned pineapple is not sweet then you may have to add more sugar to your taste as we need the syrup to be sweet and not sour. Be generous and  make the cake moist with the pineapple soaking liquid. The cake will taste amazing.

Additional

Whipping cream – 400ml 

Powdered Sugar - 4 tbsp 

For the Butter cream for yellow flowers:

Butter : 4 tbsp

Food Colour : I used yellow  or  your choice of the colour

Powdered Sugar  : 1.5 tbsp

Beat this well to a creamy form and let it sit in the refrigerator for 10 minutes and put this into a piping bag and decorate as you wish.

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Grease and line  the tin with a bit of butter and put ½ spoon of the flour and dust the pan and keep it aside.

Sift the  dry ingredients together and keep aside.

Beat the eggs and sugar on a high speed using an electric beater for about 10 to 15 minutes. This step is highly important because we are not using any oil or margarine. The beating of the mixture will cause air to be incorporated and later give volume to the cake.

Now fold the dry ingredients into the batter carefully so that you do not lose the air incorporated. The mixture will deflate a little but that is ok and go ahead making it.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remember Oven temperatures do vary, keep an eye on the cake after 20 minutes so that it is not burnt.

Cool the cake completely.

Now cut the cake into 2 or 3 rings and keep aside.

Keep one ring on the flat surface and pour the soaking liquid little to make it moist and spread  some whipped cream and chopped pineapples on this layer. Place the  2^nd ring and do the same as the 1^st  ring and if you have third keep that on the 2 layers and then spread the whipped cream all over the cake and garnish with chocolate flakes  and pineapple slices and decorate using your imagination.

Let it chill in the fridge for few hours, the more chill the cake is so tastier and yummy. Believe me we both loved the cake so much.

Latha

LAMINGTON

Yet another cake for the chocolate lovers. Vanilla sponge, coated with chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. Its an amazing combination. Very simple and not a big task to make this cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

All purpose flour-2cup
Baking Soda-1/2 tsp
Powdered Sugar-7 tbsp
Milk-1  1/4 cup
Eggs-2 nos.
Baking powder-2 tsp full
Salt-1/4 tsp
Unsalted butter-125 g
Powdered Sugar-7 tbsp
Milk-1  1/4 cup
Vanilla extract-1 tsp

Checkerboard Cake (My 1st Post)

This post is very dear to me cause of two main reasons, first being this is the first post for my blog. Second  being  a week ago was  my birthday and this cake I had baked for myself, what a way to start my blog right !!

This birthday was something to remember. Unlike other birthday’s which are showered with gifts & parties. But this birthday was not so special for me as it could have been the reason that my daughter  (she is my bundle of joy……and a grown up teenager) was away from me. So me n my hubby celebrated with a small dinner at home. Hence we baked  this cake to make my day a bit special. My hubby helped me on the major part of the cake baking (especially the cake beating part was taken care by him).

It was an amazing cake, so soft with a spongy texture of the chocolate and vanilla, moist with the sugar syrup, very easy to make provided some good exercise to the hands as the egg beating takes some time and that is the most important aspect which makes the cake so good.