It was last November/December when I had invited my friend Leslie and her family for dinner. She brought a big batch of sugar cookies that were beautifully decorated with some colored sugar. Ishaan was around 3 and 1/2 then. He ate atleast 4-5 cookies in one go. I had never seen him liking any cookie like that. I asked Leslie for the recipe and she was very kind to share it with me. It then sat there for a long time. I was pregnant at that time and somehow forgot all about it.
Then last month for Thanksgiving, I thought I would bake some cookies and send to Ishaan’s school. I remembered these cookies because I knew kids would love these. I asked for the recipe again. But then I got busy and could not bake. Finally we decided to bake this yesterday. Ishaan wanted to help decorate them. He decorated using M&Ms and chocolate chips. He said he is practising patterns – he had arranged the toppings in some pattern in all rows. Once done, he counted all to see how many we had in each tray. I really enjoyed the whole experience. I think Santa will get some of these cookies if Ishaan does not eat all of these before 24th!. Thank you Leslie for the recipe.
Pictorial: Mix all the ingredients. Shape and decorate cookies. Then bake them.
Sugar Cookies
Easy and tasty sugar cookies that are fun to make and sure to impress anyone
Beat together sugar, powdered sugar, butter and oil.
Then add all other ingredients and mix well.
Preheat the oven at 375F for 10mins.
Refrigerate the dough for 30 mins. (see notes)
Shape them into small rounds and decorate as you wish.
Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.
Notes
In the original recipe, it was mentioned to drop the cookie dough by teaspoon on greased cookie sheet as soon as it was prepared (no resting). Then flatten with a fork to create a + and sprinkle with colored sugars before baking. I wanted to bake round cookies, so I refrigerated them for 30mins and then shaped and decorated them.
School reopened for my preschooler in August. With that, all the invitations for birthday parties also started. So the child was pretty upset that his birthday is not coming soon enough. April is way too far and he had some meltdowns when I said he has to wait for 6 more months. When he started repeating the same question again and again, I told him I will make him something special for his 4 and 1/2 birthday. So he started counting down days for that. He wanted a big party, so to set the expectations, I told him he will get spiderman cake pops for the special day. (A friend had sent me this Spiderman Candy Apples link, I know he wouldn’t care for candy apples, so I thought of cake pops instead). He gladly agreed. He told me, “I will taste one, if I like, I will take to school and share them with my friends!!”. Lets just say I was really glad that day his school was closed, so I didn’t have to make some 20+ cake pops.
Most of the cake pops I have seen are prepared with crumbling a cake, adding some buttercream to it and then forming balls. I did not want to make that this time since I felt buttercream makes the pops very sweet. My child is not too much into sweets. He eats cakes once in a while, but not too much. He loves chocolates though. So after a lot of googling, I found out about cake pop pans which I got at Target.
I used eggless chocolate cake recipe for my pops. I used half the quantity which was perfect for the pan. The cake pop pan is greased with butter and sprinkled with flour. Unlike a muffin pan, each pop mold is filled completely (only one half of the pan) and then the other half is kept on it and locked. So when the cake bakes, it fills up the other half to get perfect rounds. I baked it for 15mins. The I let it rest till it was cooled completely and then removed the pops from pan. Then with a sharp knife, removed any round rings on the pops that were caused by oozed out cake batter.
In a cup, I melted some white chocolate chips. Each pop stick was then dipped into chocolate and inserted into pops. Then chilled in fridge till the chocolate is completely set.
Here is where the problems started!. I melted some chocolate and then colored it red. I kept mixing it and it all became mushy. Then I remembered something that I had read somewhere. Do not mix white chocolate too much!. So next batch I was lot more careful. Once the chocolate was melted, I dipped each pop into the colored chocolate. I had to be really careful here since they started falling apart, so I had to move quickly and carefully. Then I refrigerated them back till the chocolate was set.
Then I drew eyes with white buttercream and webs with black buttercream.
My friend’s beautiful daughter turned 6 years old over the weekend. I asked my friend if I could bake a small cake for her. Initially I thought of baking just a simple cake. Then last week, I thought I would decorate it into a Princess. I had seen that she enjoys Frozen movie. Then I found some Princess cakes onlines, with blue dress which looked so beautiful. So I decided to go with blue dress. The blue Princess cake, I think it came out very well. Someone asked me which princess it was based on, since it had the bindi, I really did not base it on any princess characters, it was just that I really wanted to make it a light blue cake. I added the bright yellow flowers for the extra pop of colors.
The cake was Simple egg cake. The frosting was creamcheese-buttercream frosting. The doll is plastic. It was a 4 inch doll. Since the doll was kind of small, I thought of keeping it on a oval shaped cake. It gave the much needed height to the cake. Before frosting the cake, I cut each piece horizontally and applied a thick layer of frosting in between to give extra taste to the cake. I have seen many Princess cakes where a dressed doll is used as the insert. That may be something I will keep in mind for future. For now, I really enjoyed making the whole dress.
Some of my friends surprised us on our anniversary last month with a cake. It is such a great thing to take out some time from our busy schedule and have fun with friends, at the same time making someone feel very special. One of my friends had her birthday last week. We decided to surprise her by showing up at her place with a cake and food. Since she is a vegetarian, I decided to bake an eggless cardamom cake.
I am little bit intimidated by eggless cakes. I usually bake cake with eggs, somehow I feel the eggless cakes become more dense. Whenever I have to bake an eggless cake, I usually bake date cake. I have baked this for my friends many times, so I wanted something different. When I was looking for the recipe, I came across Madhuram’s eggless vanilla cake. It looked very interesting. from there, I got to the original recipe from AllRecipes. I followed that version mostly with some minor modifications. As mentioned in many comments there, I used cake flour – all purpose flour + corn starch mixture. I replaced vanilla with freshly ground cardamom. The aroma of the cake was divine. When it was baking, my entire apartment filled with sweet cardamom aroma. The cake was not too fluffy like a cake with eggs, but it was soft and very tasty. I added a layer of strawberry jam in between two layers of cake for some extra taste.
I used cream cheese – butter frosting to decorate the cake. Instead of using the whole milk, I added cream. I also added a pinch of cardamom powder to the frosting. The frosting tasted so great and went well with the cake. I made the chocolate flowers and leaves using modeling chocolate. The recipe and method to make the modeling chocolate and roses can be found at Veena’s art of cake. (OMG, I am in love with that site, just check out all her tutorials!. I have learned so much from her in last few weeks). I mixed some of that melted modeling chocolate and mixed with frosting to write Happy Birthday on the cake.
My friends loved the cake. My efforts paid off. A big hats off to my 4 month old to let me work on the cake!.
Pictorial : Peel and powder cardamom. Sieve together all purpose flour, corn flour, baking soda and baking powder. Take butter, orange juice, condensed milk and cardamom. Beat well to mix. (It is a good idea to beat butter first and then add other things to avoid splattering!). Then slowly add the flour mix a little at a time and mix well. Add the batter in a greased pan. The batter is pretty thick, but it will bake beautifully. Bake in preheated oven. Let the cake cool and then cut horizontally. Spread some strawberry jam in between(optional). Keep the top layer. Make the icing and decorate the cake (optional step).
Eggless Cardamom Cake
A very fragrant eggless cardamom cake, that is flavored with Orange juice and freshly ground cardamom
Grease a baking dish with butter and flour, keep aside.
Sieve together dry ingredients - cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and keep aside.
Take condensed milk, orange juice, cardamom powder, butter in a bowl and beat till mixed.
Add the flour mixture a little at a time and mix till combined.
Bake at 350F for about 40-45mins till a tooth pick inserted in the center comes clean.
Notes
I did not have cake flour. So I made it at home. Take 2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour and take out 5 tbl spns from from it. Add 5 tbl spn corn starch to it. I used a 8" pan which became a tad smaller. 9" pan as specified in original recipe would be perfect
My 4 year old is having his summer holidays. That means continuously trying to find something to keep him busy. Sometimes when I run out of things to do, he gets some TV time. Few days back when he was watching Daniel Tiger, where the tiger makes a banana bread. So the child wanted banana bread. I waited for few days till I had some over-ripe bananas which are hard to eat. So I baked this for him.
Now, I am not sure why this is called Banana bread. When I read wiki, banana bread had the same characteristics as a cake, only thing was it was baked in a bread loaf pan. Anyway, I decided to use both names here.
From many days, I wanted to bake something that uses honey instead of sugar. Also, to make it a little healthy, I thought of using all wheat flour (I used chapati atta). It was not overly sweet, but was absolutely delicious.
Ingredients: 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup honey 1/4 cup oil 2 big cup over-ripe mashed banana (1 cup after mashing) 1 tea spn vanilla extract 1 tea spn baking soda 1/4 cup sliced almonds 1 tea spn butter and little flour for greasing the pan
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Grease a bread loaf pan with butter, sprinkle and spread flour. Keep aside. Sieve together flour and soda. Mash the bananas and add honey, milk, oil, vanilla extract. Beat well till everything is mixed. Now add flour a little by little mixing all the time. The batter is very runny, but it will bake beautifully. Spread half the almonds in the bottom of the prepared pan. Now pour the batter, spread remaining almonds on top. Bake in the preheated over at 350F for about 30-40 mins till a knife/toothepick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the pan once it cools down a bit. Tastes great warm or cold.
Today is my wedding anniversary. It has been 10 years since we got married. It has been a significant year for me, first Ayaan was born in March, then my parent’s 40th anniversary in May(although I could not celebrate with them since they were in India, I was still very excited), our 10th anniversary and a milestone birthday for aayi in August!.
Before kids were born, we used to celebrate this day, but now it has become another normal day. We wish each other and that is it. But this year, I wanted to celebrate it. We have been so busy taking care of our kids and V’s work, we forget to take time and enjoy. I wanted to create something that would remind us all the fun times we had. So I created a photo book for V that had all the good memories from our 10 years together. I spent hours looking into HUGE pile of pictures to pick these. It was such a wonderful experience for me. Then I wanted to make a cake for us – I don’t know when was the last time I baked a cake for our anniversary!. So I baked this.
Cookies and Cream – I purposely picked that flavor. Many years ago when we came to US, whenever we visited any icecream store, I used to pick the shakes they have instead of icecreams. The sizes they offer here are too big for us even if we both share!. So a shake was a better option for me. Somehow I loved the cookies and cream flavor. Since then, I would pick the same and ask V to try it. After asking a few times, V tried once and he was also a convert. Since then, he buys ONLY cookies and cream shake. Whenever we get icecream at home, it is always this flavor. We are kind of obsessed with it!!. Yes, we know it is high in calories and not a very healthy stuff, but we visit icecream store only 4-5 times in a year, so I am ok with it. So it had to be cookies and cream cake!.
The cake came out great. I could have spent more time on decorating the cake, but I had to squeeze the time for cake between my 3 month old’s sleeping schedule. I was happy to finish the cake before V came home. My 4 year old loved to help – I am sure few cookies went into the little tummy before they reached the cake. He kept saying it was his and his little brother’s “annivercity”, so he will cut the cake :)). It was supposed to be a surprise for V, when little dude realized that, he wanted to call pappa and tell him about surprise. He told V as soon as he stepped in the house 🙂 and he cut the cake yesterday itself. We were very happy to see his excitement.
I used a basic white cake recipe from epicurious and made up the cream part. It is heavy on calories, but amazingly tasty.
Ingredients for cake : 2 cups all purpose flour 1 and half cups sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract 2 tea spns baking powder 1/4 tea spn salt 6 large egg whites 1 and 1/2 sticks butter (1 stick is 1/2 cup) 3/4 cup milk 9 Oreo cookies
Method: Grease a cake pan with butter and flour and keep aside. Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Mix flour salt and baking powder in a dry bowl. Separate the eggs. Discard the yolks (or save for something else). Mix the egg whites, vanilla and milk in a bowl. Beat until they are mixed. Keep aside. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar till they are mixed. While beating slowly, add a little milk mixture and flour mixture into it till all the flour and milk has been incorporated. Do not over beat. Take the Oreos in a ziplock bag and beat it with a heavy object till they are crushed. Now add this to the cake batter and mix very carefully. Add the mixture in the pan and bake for about 35mins or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely.
PS: I did not have white sugar with me. So the color turned slightly brownish. Use white sugar for light colored cake.
Ingredients for Cream: 1 pint (2 cups) heavy cream 1/2 cup butter(at room temperature) 1 cup confectioner’s sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract
Method: Take all the ingredients and beat well until it is fluffy and light.
Assembling the cake: Take 8 Oreos in a ziplock and crush them (make sure they don’t become a powder). Cut the cake horizontally and spread cream over it. Then spread some cookie pieces on it. Then spread another layer of cream. Cover with the second piece of cake. Cover the cake with cream and decorate it as required.
Last one week had been one of the busiest weeks of 2014 so far. Our little Ishaan is going to be 4 year old very soon. It feels so unreal!. It feels like yesterday I had posted about his birth! Our life has completely changed in these years. He has turned from a tiny infant to cranky toddler to a smart and very passionate boy that he is today. We feel so blessed to have him as part of our lives.
This birthday has been very special to us. Probably this is the very first birthday when he understood a lot about birthday parties. I love birthday parties, especially little kids birthdays when it is a magical day for them and they feel so special. Ishaan started going to preschool last July. Few months after he joined the school, he attended many of his friends parties. That is when he started asking when will be his birthday. He was frustrated it was not coming soon enough!. In December, he started saying, “I have waited so long! how much more do I have to wait”. Sometimes he would ask every single day. By then, he had decided where he wants the party, what theme it would be and what kind of cake he wants.
This was by far the biggest party we have arranged. A total of 60 people (including 24 kids) attended the party. We had to leave out some of our friends because we knew the venue could not hold more than that!. V thought we should order the cake from outside since it would be a lot of work to bake a big cake. But I had other plans. I had planned for this cake from last few months. I had shown different pictures of Spiderman cake to Ishaan and chosen one which he had liked, that would be easy to decorate. I knew the Spring break for the kid started this week and he would be home and that meant I would get little chunks of time to work on it. So I wanted something simple.
Although I initially wanted to choose a different cake, I finally chose my trusted chocolate cake recipe. I have prepared cakes with this recipe many times and every time the outcome was fantastic. So I did not look further. I wanted a different kind of icing though. I wanted to cut down the sweetness from the icing, but I still wanted the sturdiness of buttercream icing which makes it easier to give smooth finishing to the cake. So after a lot of researching, I decided to use cream cheese in the icing. I did not want to use whipped cream in the outer icing because I did not have a very good experience with it when I used it in jungle cake where it started melting down after a while. Cream cheese has a little salt in it which helps in cutting down the sweetness. Although I used a lot of sugar, it was not overpowering. The icing held up beautifully even after I kept it out at room temperature to smooth it out (It was not still completely smooth even after all that, but I thought it was ok). Around last month, I baked a small trial cake to make sure the chocolate frosting and cream cheese icing went well with the cake. I was totally happy with the taste and now I had to worry only about the look.
Did I say the cake was a superhit at the party? It was gone in minutes.People wanted more helpings of the cake but nothing was left. I was surprised when I saw that not even crumbs were left!. V declared it was the tastiest birthday cake I have ever baked. The child was very happy with how it looked and tasted. We kept few of his spiderman toys around the cake for that extra spidy effect.
I tripled all the measurements given in the chocolate cake recipe. Refrigerated the cake till it was completely cooled down. Every tier was then cut horizontally and brushed with sugar syrup from all sides and spread with a thick layer of chocolate icing (like a sandwich with two layers of cake with a layer of chocolate icing in between). Then a crumb coating of cream cheese icing was applied to each tier and refrigerated till the icing settled. Next day it was decorated.
Sugar Syrup: Mix about 1/4 cup water and 2 tbl spn confectioners sugar and microwave for few seconds. Mix a little vanilla extract. I had to make this syrup few times to get enough to brush entire cake.
Chocolate Icing : 8 oz cream cheese at room temperature 4 tbl spn confectioners sugar 1 cup(1/2 pint) whipping cream 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1 tbl spn vanilla extract 1 tbl spn cocoa powder
Heat 1/2 cup whipping cream with chocolate chips. Mix till they melt. Keep aside till it cools down. Add vanilla extract, cocoa powder and mix. Make sure cream cheese is at room temperature. Beat it with sugar till it is smooth. Now add remaining 1/2 cup whipping cream and beat it. Pour chocolate mixture in it, a little at a time beating all the time. Beat till peaks form.
Cream cheese frosting : 16oz cream cheese at room temperature 12 tbl spn (1 and 1/2 cups) butter at room temperature 1 tbl spn vanilla extract 6 tbl spn whole milk 3 cups confectioners sugar
Beat butter and cream cheese till they are well mixed. Now add the sugar (I sieve sugar to make sure there are no lumps) Add all the remaining ingredients and beat till soft peaks form. Make sure cream cheese and butter are at room temperature. If not, small pieces of butter/cheese remain in the icing. I had lot of trouble with these since I tried to rush. I used the icing in that consistency for crumb coating. After that I added about a cup more of sugar to it so that it was not so runny.
Storing and Transporting a tiered cake: I own a plastic Wilton cake carrier that I bought many years ago. I use it very extensively and I love it. But the problem is, it is not tall enough to hold 3 tiered cakes. I could use it before I applied the icing. Once the decorations were done, I realized the cake would not fit in that carrier. I don’t like refrigerating the cake without cover. V searched all major craft stores for paper carrier boxes but nothing was available that would hold the cake. So he got a cardboard box.
I cut open the top of the box with a sharp knife. Then, I covered the entire inside of the box with aluminum foil. I did not want the cake to touch the sides in case it slid when we were carrying it. It was perfect size(luckily) to fit the cake. Then I covered the top with plastic wrap. It fit into my fridge perfectly and we could carry the cake without any concerns.
I have always stayed away from eggless cakes we cause we love very fluffy cakes which are usually made by lot of eggs. But recently, we have got few strict vegetarian friends who do not eat eggs. So I have been venturing into eggless baking. Slowly we have started liking them now. It is amazing that last few cakes that I have baked are all eggless. I baked the very popular date cake for a get together recently and it was gone within minutes. So when we were planning to go for a trip to animal safari over the weekend, I started thinking about cakes. I decided to bake this eggless banana cake with carrots and raisins. I have baked couple of times before and everyone loved it – ofcourse you should like the banana flavor to like this cake!.
This cake is based on a old recipe banana-carrot cake. I tried to change it a bit to taste different and make it little more healthy. Cardamom gives a great aroma to it. I was a bit lazy to make cardamom powder, so I just used 1/2 tea spn. I think 1 tea spn of it would have given a better aroma. The cake came out very moist and soft. The biggest fan was Ishaan, so I was very happy.
Ingredients: 1 cup all purpose flour 1/2 cup wheat flour 1 cup grated carrot 1 cup sugar 1 cup mashed banana (approx 2 bananas) 1 tea spn freshly ground cardamom powder 1/2 cup oil 2 tea spns baking powder 1 tbl spn raisins 1/4 tea spn salt
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Mix sugar, bananas and oil till they are well mixed. Sieve together flours, baking powder and salt.
Add this mixture to the banana mixture, a little at a time, and mix well. Add carrots, raisins and cardamom powder. Mix with a spatula. Pour it in a well greased baking dish. Bake at 350F for about 30mins or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Ishaan is already 3 years old! I love this beautiful age – his imaginary stories, his own on-the-fly songs, his craze for cricket and soccer and everything that involves balls, his love for his bike etc. Unlike last two years when we had big parties for his birthday, we decided to keep it simple this time. Since he loves to have his friends, we decided to call our friends home. according to him, ALL the kids are his friends – even those that he sees in parks, playgrounds, library or anywhere else, they don’t even have to talk to him!!. Instead of having everyone at home once – which was not possible in our small apartment, we thought of calling them as and when possible. So it is not actually a birthday party, but just fun time for Ishaan and his friends.
We had some friends over in the last week of March, Ishaan had a blast with our friend’s 2 year old daughter. We had four families for dinner yesterday – 9 kids of ages between 2-11, they were all jumping up and down till 11PM!!. We have some more of these dinners coming up in next couple of weeks. He is on cloud 9!!
Now coming to this cake. This cake has everything he loved in last 1 year. Backyardigans is a kids show he is totally crazy about. He caught on to it around 2 and has been watching it ever since. It has 4 seasons and he has watched every episode many times. He somehow still likes to watch it and sings songs from it. When I asked him what he wants for birthday, he said he wants Plablo(the cute blue penguin’s name is Pablo and he calls him Plablo) then he said he wanted all 5 characters.
‘Old Mac Donald had a farm Ei-Ei-Oh’ is his all time favorite nursery rhyme. It must be the first ever song he sang. We have a book which has this song and he made me read that book almost every day for a long time. He sings this song loudly when he is in the car. We frequently visit Deanna Rose Children’s farmstead – which is a cute little farmstead-Â here in Kansas. He loves to pet the goats, feed the goat babies with a bottle, go on wagon ride, riding the tiny tractors, watch milking of cows and everything else that this farmstead has to offer. He calls it Old MacDonald’s farm. Everytime we step in there, he sings ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’ very loudly. It is so funny when he stops near each animal display and sings the song. They have many animals which are not in the song – so he makes up his own song/sounds!. He gives a nice entertainment not only for me, but also many others who listen to him and start laughing :)).
The love for the song is not limited to this farmstead. When we visited India, whenever he saw any animal on the road, he sang this song. There was one time when my dad wanted to take us to his teacher’s home. We told him it was Old MacDonad’s home, because he lived in a house surrounded by fields and had chickens and other livestock in his home. Ishaan held small chicks, fed them rice and he was very happy.
So I decided to combine these two on the cake. I explained him that on the cake, backyardigans are visiting Old MacDonald farm. I cannot explain how happy he was to see this cake. My gift was all those sloppy kisses and hugs and that cute smile. All my efforts paid off.
The cake was chocolate cake sandwiched with chocolate frosting. The cake came out perfect this time. I followed an awesome tip – covering the cake pan with a wet towel – this time to get a flat top cake. This worked as a charm. If you want to bake and decorate a cake, you should watch this video, I wish I had seen this earlier. I could have saved so many cakes!.
All the animals are made with gumpaste. I made gumpaste using this recipe. This is the first time I used gumpaste. I had lot of trouble with it and I think I need a lot of practice with it. The animals kept breaking. I don’t like the cracks on the animals or the finishing on them. I now feel I should have used fondant instead of gumpaste.
I was a bit lazy to make buttercream all these years. I always used Wilton’s ready to use buttercream or made it at home from their recipe – but it bothered me because it was made of shortening. I would rather use something that was made from butter. So this time I made buttercream at home and it gave me the best results. Here is the recipe I used.
Ingredients for buttercream icing: 1 cup butter 4 cups + around 1/2 cup confectioners sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract 4 tbl spn whole milk
Method: Bring the butter to room temperature so that it is soft but not melted. Now mix everything else to get a smooth icing. I added 4 cups first and then added another 1/2 cup when I saw it needed little more sugar. Mix required coloring needed.
The biggest trouble I have with any cake is saving the cake. I have a cake carrier that I use to cover the cake. But if the cake is big, this cannot be used. It was not fitting properly in fridge either. So cake had lot of smudged edges.
How much push a person like me (who loves cooking & baking) needs, to try something new? A year ago, I would have said, not much!, but I have become a very lazy person lately. I keep thinking about cooking something, but it never happens. I make something simple and get away with it. I do not like this phase at all!. I call it a phase because I want to get back to the way I was.
Now, coming back to this recipe – Many months back, I saw this on Baking with Julia on Create TV. Then I saw it again and again and again on those repeat shows. Every time I made a mental note to try it out, but never got to it. Then few days ago, I got an email from Pallavi about her event I Must Make that. I haven’t participated in any blog events in a very long time, but I wanted to send something for this and the first thing that came to my mind was this cake. It had a deadline of Valentine’s day!. White chocolate and raspberry are two of V’s favorite things in the world. So I had to bake this cake.
We celebrated Valentine’s day with this cake. I baked this one day before, so that I can post this here. It is one of the simplest cakes I have baked. It needs a LOT of eggs, I do not think you can substitute them with anything because we do not use any baking soda/baking powder in this. The cake is super spongy and very tasty. I think I will be making this very often. I followed the recipe exactly, which yielded very good results.
Ingredients: Cake 12 ounces white chocolate chunks 1/2 stick unsalted butter 2 tbl spn water 1/2 cup all purpose flour + 1 tbl spn corn starch (or use 1/2 cup cake flour) 10 egg yolks 6 egg whites 3/4 cup sugar
Crush: 12 ounces frozen raspberries 2 tbl spn sugar 1 tea spn lemon juice Fresh raspberries for decorating
Method: Preheat the oven at 320F. Grease two oven safe pans with melted butter. Line them with a parchment paper (the paper helps while un-molding the cake).
Take white chocolate, water, butter in microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1min. Whisk the contents till the contents come together into a smooth mixture. (This is usually done on a double boiler, but I feel melting chocolate in microwave is much easier and less clean up). Let it cool to room temperature.
Sift together flour and corn starch (or sift cake flour). Whisk the egg whites till soft peaks form. Then add 1/4 cup sugar and whisk them again. (I did this in my stand mixer fitted with the whisk). Slowly transfer them to another bowl. With the paddle attachment, beat the egg yolks with remaining 1/2 cup sugar till the mixture is pale yellow and slightly thickened. Now add the melted chocolate mixture and beat again till everything comes together.
Now with a spatula, slowly mix the flour in the mixture. Fold in the egg whites.
Divide the batter between the two cake pans. Bake in the preheated oven for about 26mins to 30mins or till the cakes are done. Let the cakes cool down completely.
For the craush – Blend frozen raspberries, lemon juice, sugar and push the mixture through a strainer.
Take one cake on cake board. Slightly press down on the edges. Spoon about half the amount of the raspberry crush on it. Then keep the second cake and do the same.
Today is my wedding anniversary. It has been 10 years since we got married. It has been a significant year for me, first Ayaan was born in March, then my parent’s 40th anniversary in May(although I could not celebrate with them since they were in India, I was still very excited), our 10th anniversary and a milestone birthday for aayi in August!.
Mix sugar, bananas and oil till they are well mixed.
Add carrots, raisins and cardamom powder. Mix with a spatula.
Pour it in a well greased baking dish. Bake at 350F for about 30mins or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
