Cakes, Cookies, Pies

One of our friends, who had helped us in everything for the last 9 months of our stay here, has been admitted to the hospital due to an emergency. It was heart breaking to see him lie down in the hospital. He is a very cheerful and happy-to-be-around kind of guy. We were with him and his family all the weekend and we visit him daily now. So I wanted to take something for him yesterday and I remembered he loved the cakes that I prepare. But instead of cakes, I thought these cookies would be best thing to take to the hospital. He and his family loved it very much. I hope he gets well soon.

Aruna mailed me this recipe many days back. Here is what she has to say about it “These are moist and flavorful like little cakes. This is from the sugar packet I purchased. The product name is Bayview and this recipe was posted on it. Since you received request to post such quick recipes, I thought I should send it to you. What I am writing to you is exactly what is written on the cover. I used half of the proportion they mentioned. It turned out to be excellent. Should stay good outside at least for 3-4 days. My son who is a cocoa fan, and generally does not like things without cocoa, liked it very much. Do give a try. Hope you try in half the quantity, in case they turn out to be more also you can freeze the same and microwave the same at the time of eating.”.

Thanks Aruna for the recipe.

Ingredients:
Granulated sugar 1 1/2 cups
Shortening 2/3 cup
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Eggs 2
Mashed ripe banana 1 cup (3 to 4 medium)
All purpose flour 2 1/4 cups
Baking powder 2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Baking soda 1/4 tsp
Chopped nuts (optional) 1 cup
Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp

I prepared only half the quantity. Reduced the banana to 1 because I don’t like the heavy banana flavor. I did not use baking soda. I didn’t use nuts.

Method:
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Grease cookie sheets. In a large bowl, beat 1 1/4 cups sugar, shortening and vanilla untill fluffy. Beat in eggs, then bananas.
Combine flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Beat into sugar mixture. Stir in nuts.

Chill 30 minutes. Drop by teaspoon 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.

Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle over cookies.

Bake 10-12 min or untill lightly browned.

Makes 5 dozen.
Preparation time : 10mins (excluding the baking and ‘standing’ time)

Since I like slightly hard cookies, after the first batch, I added 1/2 cup flour and 2 tea spns of sugar to make a thick dough. The cookies became hard(the way I like them).

In the above picture, the left cookies are the one with the above recipe and the right ones are hard(with my twist).

Usually whenever I try new recipes from other food blogs, I update “from other blogs” link which I created recently. But since many of my readers had asked for this recipe, I thought of posting it here.

Few days back I had tried preparing chocolate cake without eggs. It came out well, but had completely forgotten the measurements I used. So when I saw Priya’s chocolate cake, I gave it a try and I loved it very much. Thanks Priya.

One thing I have to learn is decorating the cakes. As soon as I baked it, I tried decorating it and the icing melted due to hot cake :(. May be next time when I prepare it again, I will change the pictures.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour 1 and 1/2 cups
Cocoa powder 3 tea spns
Baking soda 1 tea spn
Salt 1/4 tea spn
Water 1 cup
Sugar 1 cup
Vanilla extract 1/2 tea spn
Vinegar 1 tea spn
Oil 1/4 cup

Method:
Mix water, sugar, oil, vanilla and vinegar till the sugar completely dissolves.
Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda.
Add the flour mix to the liquid mixture one table spoon at a time. Mix well to form a uniform dough.

Preheat the oven for 10mins at 350F.
Grease the oven proof dish or line with a parchment paper. Pour the dough.

Bake in oven at 350F for around 40mins or till a knife inserted comes out clean.

Serve it cold.

Preparation time : 50mins

This recipe is from Deepa. Just 4 months back, I didn’t know about her. Since then, I interacted a few times and absolutely loved to get emails from her. When I came to know she is from my neighboring state Goa, I requested her to send some authentic Goan recipes. She sent two recipes, one was the prawn balchuan and the second was ‘banana cake’. She even mentioned that “It’s a different way of making a cake, with rava instead of flour”, but somehow, I just missed that line. But last week I was going through some of my old emails and I read more cautiously this time and was amazed to see a cake recipe without flour.

I have been going through different food blogs and saw dishes from different parts of India. But couldn’t find any Goan recipes. So this is my entry from beautiful Goa for the Independence day parade.

I baked this one today, just to be sent to the parade. I wanted to decorate it like Indian flag, but didn’t manage to get it right. When I bought different colored icings from Walmart, the lady on the counter asked me – “planning to decorate cake?”. I said “Yes, I am trying to learn”. She said “Don’t worry, however it looks, it will taste great”. That time I was 100% sure that I can decorate it well. Today I realized whatever she said was correct. I think I still have to try a lot before learning to decorate :(.

Before this, I tried two varieties of banana cakes, this and with Pushpa’s recipe. Both were amazing. What makes this cake different is the amazing aroma of cardamom and no egg in it.

Ingredients:
Ripe bananas 3
Rava (wheat sooji) 1 cup
Sodium-bi-carb(baking soda) 1/2 tsp
Cardomom powder 1/2 tsp
Coconut milk 2 cups
Sugar 1/2 cup
Cashewnuts 1 tsp
Salt

I did not add salt and used 1 tea spn baking powder instead of baking soda.

Method:
Roast rava over low heat in a kadai until aroma wafts from pan. Soak the rava in coconut milk for 2 hours.
Mash the bananas and add to rava along with sugar. Add soda, salt and cardamom powder. Mix the cashews. Apply little ghee to cake mould (I used parchment paper in the baking tray), pour in the mixture.

Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Bake for around 35mins at 350 F or until a knife put in center comes out clean.

Decorate in whatever way required (optional).

Makes 8 pieces
Preparation time : 10min (excluding the baking time).

I had a large stock of bananas and carrots with me and that was the time I was learning to bake the cakes. Before that I never knew about carrot cakes. Thanks to google, I found a recipe for banana-carrot cake. It looked very easy. So I baked it.

Grated carrots make this cake very very soft and tasty. One piece of this cake leaves you with full stomach. These days I bake a lot of carrot cakes since I keep a big stock of carrots always :). I will share some of them in coming days.

In the above picture, I have applied a bit of pink cream on the cake, it was just for fun :D.

Madhura baked this cake recently and sent me the gorgeous looking cake picture which I have pasted below. I didn’t know this cake can look so good :D. Thanks Madhura.

Ingredints:
All purpose flour or maida 1 and 1/2 cup
Sugar 1 cup
Mashed ripe banana (about 2 bananas) 1 cup
Oil 1/2 cup
Eggs 3
Baking powder 2 tea spns
Salt 1/2 tea spn
Cinnamon 1 tea spn
Grated carrot (about 3 med. carrots) 1 cup
Chopped nuts(optional) 1/3 cup

Method:
Beat together sugar, banana and oil. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon mix well. Stir in carrots.
Pour into greased baking dish. Sprinkle nuts.
Bake 40 to 45 minutes at 350ºF (or until a knife or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean).

Makes 10 to 12 pieces
Preparation time : 1 hr

Sharing the cake recipes, that I have tried recently, was on my to-do list for a long time. I thought may be I can start with this cake. I have posted banana cake recipe a few days back, but this will be the first recipe anybody will give you, if you want to learn baking cakes).

I am successfully pursuing the baking art and its whole and sole credit should go to my Pachi(Aayi’s sister). When I was a kid, many times I observed her baking some delicious cakes. I always wondered, ‘How she manages to do that? Only professional bakers are supposed to do that!!! Its such a big procedure’. I never thought one day I would bake cakes!!. I never even tried to ask her about the recipe.

Then when we got our first oven, Pachi gave me this recipe. I prepared it and it was so good and it was so easy :D. Still this cake is on my favorite list.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 and 1/4 cups sugar
1 and 1/2 cups maida or All purpose flour
1 tea spn baking powder
4 eggs
1 tea spn vanilla essence/extract

Method:
Preheat the oven at 350F for 10min.
Sieve together flour and powder. Keep it aside.
Beat sugar in butter till it becomes a smooth paste. Then add one egg at a time beating it all the time. Add essence and mix.
Add flour 1 tbl spoon at a time mixing slowly.
Grease an oven safe dish with butter. Then sprinkle some flour on it and spread the flour. Now pour the cake mixture into this dish and bake the cake for around 40min at 350F (or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean).

Serves : 4
Preparation time : 1hr

After trying many things with my limited resources here, I have been trying my luck with cakes these days. Before coming here, I knew only two types of cakes, one is the simple egg cake and the delicious date cake. I will post the recipes of these two soon.I had thought that preparing cake is very difficult and long procedure. But now I think it is as simple as any other dish. But still I can not make the fabulous looking cakes that we get in bakery. I hope one or the other day I will succeed in making them too.

Recently I had lot of ripe bananas at home. So I cooked all possible dishes with them. This cake was one of them.

Ingredients:
Banana 1
Egg 1
All purpose flour 1 cup
Baking soda 1 tea spn
Sugar 3/4th cup
Butter 1/2 cup
Cashew nuts 1 tbl spn
Salt 1/4th tea spn

PS: If you use ‘baking powder’ instead of ‘baking soda’, cake becomes a bit harder.

Method:
Sieve together flour and soda. Keep it aside.
Beat sugar in butter till it becomes a smooth paste. Then add egg and beat again.
Now add mashed banana and mix well. Add this mixture to flour and mix slowly.
Add some cashew nuts if desired.
Bake in a greased vessel for 40min at 350F.

Makes : 8 pieces
Preparation time : 1 hr(Including baking time)