Orange Cake

Sunshine on my window and winter is ready to bid adieu from Kolkata.

Before the winters are gone wanted to bake some cakes with oranges. Oranges are an universal fave during winters. Throughout the winters, me and daughter have been snacking on oranges. I don't like orange juice. I love to take the small bite size pieces in my mouth. The sweet natural juice that oozes out from each piece is pure heaven.

This winter we made and orange chocolate cake and today I baked a simple orange loaf cake.

Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

All purpose flour: 1 and a half cups

Sugar: 1 cup

White oil: 1/4th cup

Vanilla essence: 1/2 tsp

Baking powder: 1 tsp

Baking soda: 1/2 tsp

Eggs: 2

Oranges: 2 big ones

Chilled milk: 1 cup

Process:

1. First peel the oranges and take the pieces out. Discard the seeds and the white fibres.

2. Just squeeze the pieces with your hands to make a pulp. Mixer not required. Gather all the ingredients.

3. Mix the orange pulp, sugar and eggs. Mix well. Now add the milk, vanilla essence and oil.

4. In a bowl add the flour and baking soda + baking powder. In case you want to make a chocolate orange cake, add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.

5. Add the flour to the wet mixture in batches. Mix well to make a lump-free batter.

6. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.

7. Grease a baking pan. Pour the batter in the pan.

8. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C.

9. Take out of oven. Cool till cake is warm to touch.

10. Slice the cake and enjoy.

A Mango Surpise: Mangoccasion

(Adapted from a recipe given by the Hubby man)

This week the Kolkata Food Bloggers are displaying various recipes made from the king of fruits a.k.a Mango!

So, this week I present an easy dessert that is often made by my hubby dearest.

The mango milkshake is a staple in many households. This recipe has mango pulp and milk too but it is not milkshake.

Just see how gorgeous it looks

My little S named this dish Mangoccasion. You really don't need an occasion to have it!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Mango pulp from 3 medium size mangoes
Milk: 1 and a 3/4th cup
Sugar: 2 tablepsoon
Crushed ice (optional)
A handful of cashews, raisins, almonds, and tutti- fruiti to decorate.

Process:

1. First gather all the ingredients. Make sure that the mango pulp is also chilled. If you use, powdered sugar you will have a smoother dessert.

2. Pour all the ingredients in a bowl.

3. Now use a hand blender to mix everything well.

4. Do not add so much milk that it becomes a milk shake. The addition  of milk should be less. The consistency should be like thick batter.

5. Pour into glass bowls and decorate with tutti - fruiti, chopped cashews, raisins, and a sliver of almonds.

Set in the fridge for 2 hours. Serve chilled.

I am sending this recipe to the Mango Festival on the Kolkata Food Bloggers.

Quick Rabri in Ten Minutes (Noboborsho Special)

(Adapted from Instant Rabdi: Tarla Dalal)

Noboborsho is just round the corner. On this day, the "bhojonroshik" Bengali likes to indulge in gastronomical delights. A lavish lunch is usually on the cards. 

A great meal needs to be completed with a delicious dessert. So, at the start of the Bengali New Year (Poila Boishak), I present the queen of all desserts...Rabri. This is a quick recipe that needs just ten minutes of cooking time.

Yes...you heard me right! Only ten minutes. I got this easy-peasy recipe from Tarla Dalal's website. You can find her recipe here.

Just check out this sumptuous beauty!

Here is how I made it:

Ingredients:

Milk: 2 cups (I used toned milk but full cream is fine too!)
Condensed milk: 1/4th cup
Sugar: 2 tablespoons
Bread: 2 slices
Elaichi powder (green cardamom): 1/4th teaspoon
Saffron: few strands (optional)

Process:

1. First, discard the brown side crusts of the bread slices. Tear into pieces and dry grind the bread pieces in a mixer to get fine bread crumbs.

2. Gather all the ingredients.

3. Now boil the milk. Once the milk has boiled, reduce the flame.

4. Add the sugar, condensed milk, and bread crumbs.

5. Now keep stirring the milk for ten minutes in a medium flame. Do not stop stirring or else the milk may burn.

6. You will see the milk turning thicker. The breadcrumbs will lend a creamy consistency to milk.

7. After ten minutes, turn off the flame and add elaichi powder and saffron.(I did not use saffron)

8. Cool to room temperature and set in the fridge for 2 hours. I decorated the Rabri with some tutti fruiti.

Your delicious creamy Rabri is ready!

The No-Fail Raisin Cake Recipe

This week I am posting a no-fail raisin cake recipe that I have made several times over. This recipe is extremely forgiving...you just cant go wrong with it. Just follow the measures as given in the recipe and you will get a yummy, moist cake that your family will love.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour: 1/2 cup

All purpose flour: 1 cup

Sugar: 1 cup

Eggs: 2

Vanilla essence: 1 teaspoon

Baking powder: 1 teaspoon

Baking soda: 1/2 teaspoon

Cocoa powder: 3 tablespoon

White oil: 1/2 cup

Milk: 1/4th cup

Raisins (chopped): 1/4th cup

Process:

1. Beat the eggs well. Add sugar and mix well. Now add oil, milk, and vanilla essence.
2. In a deep-bottom bowl, add the whole wheat flour, APF, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda.
3. Now add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in two batches. Mix well till you get a thick, lump-free batter.
4. Fold in the chopped raisins.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C for 10 minutes. Pour the batter in a greased cake pan. Make sure that batter fills up only half the baking pan.
6. Tie a wet towel strip around the pan to prevent cracking of the top surface of the cake.
7. Sprinkle a few chopped raisins on the top surface of the cake.
8. Bake the cake for 40-45 minutes.
9. Remove the cake from the oven. Set aside to cool.
10. After ten minutes, de-mold the cake. Slice the cake and serve with love.
    

A Healthy Indulgence: Wholewheat Chocolate Cupcakes

This week, it was Holi. I got an extended weekend and loads of time to rest. Hooray!

Made this wonderfully healthy choco cupcakes with wholewheat.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Whole wheat/ Atta: 1 and a half cups
All purpose flour: 2 tablespoons
Cocoa powder: 3 tablespoons
White oil: 1/2 cup
Eggs: 2
Baking powder: 1 teaspoon (level)
Baking soda: 1/2 teaspoon
Milk: 1 cup
Sugar: 1 cup

For decoration:

Chopped raisins: a handful

Process:

1.Crack the eggs in a bowl. Discard the shells. Add sugar and mix well. You can use a hand/stand mixer to do this.
2. Add oil, milk and vanilla essence. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl take the wholewheat, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa powder.
Mix well.
4. Now add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in two batches.
5. Mix well till you get a batter of dropping consistency.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C for 10 minutes. Pour the batter in cupcake moulds. Sprinkle chopped raisins on top and bake for 20-25 minutes.
8. After the cupcakes are well baked, take them out of the oven and keep aside to cool.
9. After 5 minutes, de-mold the cupcakes.
Enjoy the warm cupcakes with your hot cuppa.

I am sending this recipe to the Holi Special Recipe event on KFB.

Portugese Custard Tarts: Anwesha's blog

(Pasteis de Nata Recipe - Portuguese Christmas Custard Tarts: Peanuts on the Road)

This week the blogger of the week is Anwesha. Anwesha has a wonderful blog full of travel and food posts. She is very pretty girl with a lovely smile. I am quite surprised with her amazing repertoire of recipes.

While selecting the recipes, I hit upon this wonderful recipe of custard tarts.

These tarts are pretty easy to make. The filling is a wonderfully creamy custard which complements beautifully with the biscuity short crust pastry base.

You can refer to Anwesha's original recipe here.

Here is how I made it.

Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/3 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon  vanilla extract
2 large egg yolks, whisked
Pinch of cinnamon powder
1 ball of short crust pastry base

Process:

1. First you need to make the short crust pastry base. To know how to make this short crust pastry, refer here.

2. To make the custard base, add flour with the powdered sugar. Now add the egg yolks to this mixture.

3. Next, slowly add lukewarm milk and mix well.

4. Place this mixture over the gas on a low flame. Keep stirring to avoid formation of lumps.

 

5. The mixture will thicken. Take off the gas and keep aside to cool.

6. Now divide the short crust pastry into small balls, about 13 in number.

7. Roll the balls into small roundels (rotis). Grease small ramekins and place each roundel in the ramekin.

8. Spoon some custard into each ramekin. Make sure that the custard should not be filled to the brim.

9. Pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees for ten minutes. Place the ramekins in the oven (on the middle rack) and bake for 15-20 minutes. (I baked for 15 minutes)

10. Once the sides turn golden-brown, take the tarts out of the oven. Let it cool till you can touch the ramekins.

11. De-mold carefully and serve while warm.

Enjoy!

I am sending this recipe to the ongoing event on KFB "Know Your Blogger".

Coconut Cake: Comfort Food on a Cold Wintry Night

(Adapted from 1234 Coconut Cake: Simple Indian Recipes)

Lots going on at my end...so I have been missing in action all this while. Fist my Dad was hospitalized on the 31st of Dec. Next my little one fell ill. To top it all, I had crazy work pressure at the office.

Today life seemed a little bit normal than ever so decided to get back to my first love...baking. Baked this real easy-peasy and wonderful coconut cake. The hubby man had got some packaged grated coconut from the market so decided to bake this one.

Here is the original recipe. You can find it here.

This is how I made it.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour(Maida) - 2.5 cups of maida and 1/2 cup of shredded coconut
Butter - 1 cup (at room temperature)
Sugar - 2 cups
Eggs - 4 (yellow and whites seperated)
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Milk/Coconut Milk - 1 cup 

Process:

1 Beat the butter till it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar and mix well.

2. Now beat the egg white till stiff peaks form. Add to the butter mixture.

3. Now add the egg yolks, milk, and vanilla extract.

4. In a separate vessel, add the APF, salt and baking soda. Mix well and slowly add to the wet mixture.

5. Once the mixture is uniformly mixed, grease a baking pan and pour the batter till the pan is half-filled.

6. Pre-heat oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees C. Place the cake pan in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes.

7. Take the cake out of the oven, prick with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is made.

8. Garnish with some castor sugar and shredded coconut on top.

9. Enjoy with a hot cuppa!

Christmas Fruitcake

(Adapted from Light Fruitcake: Joy of Baking)

Christmas day also happens to be my father-in-law's birthday. This year he stepped into his 80th year.

An ex-Army man, he has a never-say-die spirit. After surviving a paralyzing stroke 10 years back, he has been confined mostly to his room. But on his birthday every year, it is his demand that his children should be there with him on his special day and his birthday cake should be baked by me. One year, we got cake from outside and he was really sulking all day!!! So, however busy or tired I am, I always forward to baking for this lion-heart man who does not let illness or old-age dampen his birthday spirits.

This year I had planned to make the authentic Christmas Fruitcake for him. This cake is full of candied fruits and nuts. It is really a spicy cake because you will get the whiff of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. Here are the lovely cakes.

This recipe also calls for use of almond powder, meaning the dry powder of almonds. Since, almond powder is not available near my place, I chopped dry almonds and ground it dry in my food processor. This cake takes some preparation time, so plan well ahead.

I got this wonderful recipe from the Joy of Baking website. You can find the original recipe here.

I tweaked it a little bit to suit my requirements. So, here we go...

Ingredients:

3/4 cup (120 grams) candied mixed peel (I used a mix of tutti fruiti and chopped cashew nuts)

1/2 cup (100 grams) candied red or green cherries (cut into quarters)

1/3 cup (40 grams) dark raisins

1/2 cup (113 grams) butter, room temperature

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract ( I skipped this ingredient!)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (50 grams) ground almonds (almond meal/flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoons salt

Zest of one small lemon (outer skin)

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk (whole or reduced fat)

Process:

1. The first step is to chop the almonds and the cashew nuts if you use it.

2. Next, dry grind the chopped almonds in a coffee grinder/mixer. While grinding the almonds, I also added half a teaspoon each of cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves for a wonderful spicy aroma.

3. Take two tablespoons of sugar in a pan. Add one teaspoon of butter and heat the pan. Once the sugar starts browning, add 1/4 cup water and 1/3rd cup tutti-fruit (and cashew nuts). Once the syrup becomes thick and coats the fruit pieces, take off the flame and keep aside to cool.

4. Next, take the flour, almond flour, baking powder, and salt in a deep bottom dish. Add all the remaining fruits and nuts to this dry mixture and mix well. All fruit pieces should be coated with the flour.

5. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar till creamy. Add eggs one by one and beat well. Now add half the dry mixture with milk and mix.

6. Add the remaining flour and mix the batter. Add the candied fruits with the sugar syrup and vanilla essence.
7. Mix the batter well. Don't worry if the batter is thick. If batter is too thick and you cannot move your spatula in it, add two tablespoons of milk.

8. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree C for 10 minutes. Grease a baking tin of your choice and line with butter paper. This aids the de-molding of the cake. If you dont have butter papaer, simply grease the tin.

9. Pour the batter in the tin and place in the middle rack of the oven. If you are making one big loaf cake with this batter, you need to bake at 180 degree C for 60 minutes. I baked two small cakes that were done in 45 minutes.

10. If the top crust is browning fast, cover with foil.

11. After the cake is baked, remove from oven. A toothpick inserted in the cake should come out clean. Cool on a wire rack till you can touch the cake.

12. De-mold and cut the cake. You can eat this cake on the same day. This cake stores very well for a week and you can freeze it for a month.

Enjoyyyy!

I am sending this recipe for the ongoing event on Kolkata food Bloggers, "Christmas Recipes".

Eggless Chocolate Cookies for the Christmassy Spirit

(Adapted from Chocolate Chip Cookies: Tarla Dalal)

As Christmas draws nearer, I feel like abandoning all care to the winds..and bake, bake, bake away to glory. Alas! work does not always permit me to do all my dream baking.

But when the Kolkata Food Bloggers put up an event for Christmas, I just jumped right in and baked something on a tiring week night.

Since, there were not too many ingredients at hand, I wanted something simple. And the best I could come up with was chocolate cookies. I did not have any eggs at hand so of course they had to be eggless. I got a very good recipe from Tarla Dalal's website for chocolate chip cookies. I tweaked it some more and came up with this versatile and easy recipe.

This recipe yields around 15 cookies. They are crunchy, munchy and super-yummy. My little S ate 9 of them!!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

APF/Maida: 1 cup
Powdered sugar: 3/4th cup
Cocoa powder (unsweetened): 2 tablespoons
Butter: 1/3rd cup or 60 grams (softened at room temperature)
Vanilla essence: 1/2 teaspoon
Baking power: 1/2 teaspoon
Milk: 2-3 tablespoon

Process:

1. Beat the butter and sugar till they are creamy. You can use the hand mixer to do this.

2. In a separate bowl add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder.

3. Add the butter sugar mix to the flour. Add milk and knead into a dough.
4. Roll the dough into lemon sized balls.
5. Press into flat cookie shape with your hands. Don't apply too much pressure or else the cookie will crack.

6. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree C for 1 minutes. Spread butter paper on a baking tray and grease with oil. Place the cookies on this greased tray.
7. Bake the cookies for 25 minutes.
8. The cookies will turn brownish on the under-side. Cool to room temperature.
9. Munch away with your evening cuppa.

I am sending this recipe to the event on Kolkata Food Bloggers,

Eggless Savoury Jeera (Cumin) Cookies

(Adapted from Jeera Biscuits: Recipe Junction and Eggless Jeera Cookies:Peanuts on the Road)

In the ongoing event on KFB: Know Your Blogger, I came across a wonderful recipe of savoury cookies. These cookies were savoury cookies with a flavour of jeera (cumin). Indrani, my fellow KFBian had posted this wonderful recipe in her blog. Check out her original recipe here.

Then another fellow KFBian Anwesha, posted an eggless version of this recipe. This clinched the deal for me! I was looking for an eggless recipe for my Saturday evening tea time.

So here it is!

The recipe is:

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/ Maida: 1 cup

Whole-wheat flour/ Atta: 1 cup

Powdered sugar : 1/2 cup 

Vegetable/soyabean Oil : 1/4 cup

Butter: 1/4 cup

Cumin seed: 2 tblsp.

Salt: 1 tsp.

Baking powder : 1 and a half tsp.

Water or milk(in room temperature) to knead the dough 

Process:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degree C or 375 degree F.
2. In a bowl, take both the flours, salt, powdered sugar, jeera (cumin seeds) and baking powder. Mix well.
3. Add butter, oil, and enough milk/water to knead the dough.
4. Knead the dough till it all comes together. Do not over-knead the dough. Just make sure that there are no lumps.
5. Now roll into lemon size balls.

6. Now flatten the balls with your hands. Make sure you flatten the cookies well. This will make the cookies more crisp. Press the sides of the cookies with a fork. Decorate with some jeera or cumin seeds.

7. Place an aluminium foil on a baking tray with some grease with some oil. Dust lightly with some dry flour.
8. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 180 degrees C.
9. Cool to room temperature and serve with steaming mugs of tea.

A Road Trip and Lemon Flavoured Pound Cake

(Adapted from Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake: Recipe Junction)

This weekend we went for a road trip to my cousin's wedding in a nearby town. It's really been ages since we went on a road trip. Hubby generally stocks up on lots of fruit, biscuits, and juice when we take up a trip. But this time, he requested me for a cake. As if I need an excuse to bake something!!!

I baked a light and airy Lemon flavoured Pound Cake from my blogger friend Indrani's blog. Indrani is one person who I esteem not only as a talented food blogger but also as a wonderful human being. A loving wife and doting mom to her three fabulous children, she is a bundle of positive energy and good cheer. Once when she wanted to bake bread, she no qualms about picking up the phone and asking me for tips...though we have never met in person. That's Indrani...direct, straight-forward, and down-to-earth. This time too, when I was having jitters about which recipe to pick, she asked to make whichever my children would like. I feel very close to her. Be sure to visit her blog for a wide variety of recipes.

You can view Indrani's recipe here.

The Pound Cake is basically an English/British recipe where a "pound" (nearly 250 grams) of each ingredients is required. So that would be a pound of eggs, a pound of flour, and a pound of butter. However, you can go by the measures given in this recipe. You will get a golden-brown beauty of a cake.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

APF(all-purpose flour) : 3 and 1/2 cups

Butter : 1 and 1/2 cups (softened, in room temperature)

White sugar : 2 and 1/2 cups(powdered)

Eggs : 4

Salt : 1/2 tsp.

Baking Soda : 1/2 tsp.

Buttermilk : 1 cup (mix 1/3 cup curd with 2/3 cup water)

Lemon Juice : 1 tblsp.

Lemon zest : 1 tblsp.

Process:

1. First, beat the butter and sugar till the mixture is soft and fluffy. You can use a electric mixer to do this. I did it using my hands.

2.Next, add the eggs one by one. You should add one egg, beat some more and then add the next egg.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking soda. Now add half of this dry mixture to the butter-sugar mix. Add half cup of buttermilk.

4. Now add the rest of the flour and half cup of buttermilk. Mix this till the mixture is even and there are no lumps. If the batter appears thicker than a normal cake batter, dont worry. Pound cake batter is thick!!

5. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest. I also added half teaspoon of lemon extract (optional).

6. Pour this batter into a cake tin of your choice. Make sure you grease the cake tin. I used a aluminum loaf tin that I lined with butter paper and greased with oil,

7. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C for ten minutes. Now bake this cake for 50 minutes at this temperature.

8. Take the cake out of the oven. Let it cool to ten minutes.

9. Slice and enjoy with a hot cup of tea.

I am sending this recipe to the ongoing event on KFB "Know Your Blogger: Week 4".

Besan ke Ladoo: Diwali ki Mithai

(Adapted from Besan Ladoo Recipe: Veg Recipes of India)

This weekend it was Diwali. My little S, who is all of 7+ was mighty excited about the whole thing. When she was younger, little S was not too fond of Diwali. But now she is at a stage where she loves lighting up phooljhari and rangmashal. She laughs delightedly when her father lights up chakris.

In my in-laws place, the Kali Pujo/Diwali night is celebrated as the Lokkhi/Olokkhi Pujo.

So in the evening, we decorated the house with diyas and my shashuri (ma-in-law) performed the pooja. After which we all went to the terrace to burst the Diwali sparklers. We generally avoid bursting crackers because we dont like all the noise.

This Diwali, I made besan ladoos from the super-talented Dassana's blog. You can find the recipe here.

The recipe is very simple. And you can store the ladoos for long in an air-tight container.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Besan: 2 cups
Ghee: 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon
Powdered sugar: 3/4 the cup
3-4 green cardamoms
Raisins: 1 tablespoon
Chopped cashews: 1 tablespoon (optional)

Process:

1. Powder the green cardamom seeds to a fine powder.

2. Now take the besan in a kadhai/wok and dry roast on a medium flame. Keep stirring contstantly, so that the besan does not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

3. After stirring this way for about 10-12 minutes you will get a nutty smell of the roasted besan. Now add the ghee to besan amd mix well. Make sure you have roasted the besan well or else you will get a raw smell of besan in your ladoos.

4. Keep stirring the besan with the ghee till you get a lovely nutty aroma. The besan will leave ghee from the sides. Now switch off the gas and add the powdered sugar. Also add the powdered green cardamom powder and chopped raisins.

 

5. Mix all of this well. Let this mixture cool. 

6. Roll into small or medium sized ladoos.

Serve immediately or store in airtight container.

Note: If you find it difficult to mould into ladoos keep the mixture in the fridge overnight. If you still find it difficult to roll the ladoos, add 1-2 tablespoons of melted warm ghee.

I am sending this recipe to the ongoing event on the Kolkata Food Bloggers called "Deepavali - Festival of Lights".