Chocolate Marble Cake

Chocolate Marble Cake

Welcome back my friends, after a long gap. I am now in the middle of something.  So my blogging time has very much come down. Many of my dishes' picture sit idle in my camera. I don't know when they will see some light.  I had a couple of request from my  Facebook friends for the birthday cake's recipe which I posted on FB. This cake I made for my eldest son's 5th  Birthday. This time I was double-minded about baking a cake. Because his Birthday was on a weekday and I had to drop and pick him and my husband at school & office and besides he wanted his favorite "Pineapple Payasam" and as I told you before, I am in the middle of something. So my mind was like " To bake or not to bake". 

Many of my friends and family asked me which cake am I going to bake this time. And my neighbor was telling me that her kids started discussing the theme of this years Birthday cake that I am going to bake for the Bday party. And I told her this time it is  Baskin Robins Spiderman Ice cream cake and no baking on my part. But, On the Birthday morning he woke up, he sat on the bed and started recalling his last year's  Thomas Train birthday cake I made for him. My heart began to feel guilty. 

And I ended up baking this cake. This is an easy cake and I didn't spend time for frosting it, though I made a chocolate spread to pour over top of the cake. I began to scratch my brains for an easy theme that  I can make it last minute. Then I saw his ball lying down. " Eureka !!!". Coincidentally this year his school bag and his pajama day's pajama also was of this same theme. I made the birthday banner, Soccer ball and American football with fondant Icing and my son wanted to try his hands also in decoration. He made the 2 red balls and white ball with Fondant Icing.

Prep: 20 min
Baking time: 40-45 min

Ingredients:
1) All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 3/4 cups
2) Baking powder - 2 Tsp
3) Salt - 1/4 Tsp
4) Whole Milk Yogurt  - 2/3 cup
5) Whole Milk - 2 Tbsp
6) Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
7) Unsalted Butter ( At room temp) - 1 stick (8 tbsp)
8) Sugar - 3/4 cup
9) Eggs - 3 large ( At room temp)
10)Hershey's cocoa powder (or any  Unsweetened cocoa powder) - 1/4 cup
11) Instant coffee powder - 1 Tsp
12) Boiling water - 1/4 cup



Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 325 F. Butter a 9" cake pan. 
• In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
• In another bowl whisk yogurt, milk and vanilla extract.
• In a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition and scrape the sides. Reduce the speed to low. Add half of the flour mixture and then yogurt mixture, then remaining flour mixture. Beat well after each addition. Remove about 1 cup of batter ( 1/3 of batter) to a bowl.
• Pour 1/4 cup boiling water into a small bowl. Mix Cocoa and coffee powder until smooth. Cool it slightly. Stir it to the 'one cup' batter set aside.
• Alternate spoonful of vanilla and chocolate batters in the cake pan. Draw a knife through batters for the marbled effect. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 40-45 min. Cool on wire rack.

For Chocolate Spread:
   1) Semi-sweet chocolate chips- 1/2 cup
   2)  Heavy Cream -1/4 cup

• Place Heavy cream in a microwavable bowl. Microwave until hot, about 20-25 sec. Melt chocolate chips either in a microwave or by double boiling. Add it to heavy cream and stir until smooth. Let it cool to warm room temp. (Icing should still be pourable. ) You can drizzle this over the cake if you desire and add some sprinkles. Let the cake stand until icing has set.

Source: All You Magazine

Buttercream Icing/ Frosting on Thomas Train Birthday Cake

This is the first cake I made with Icing. Mainly I used Butter cream Icing in this cake. Sheet cake and tunnel I frosted with buttercream. Pond, Rails and trees I made with fondant Icing. Train is a toy.I made Butter cream Icing at home and gave colors using Wilton Icing colors. Fondant Icing I brought from store and colored it using  Wilton Icing colors and I shaped it to ponds, Rails and trees.Tree's bottom is cinnamon stick. For Pebbles, I used chocolate covered raisins. Birthday wish was written in edible ink. But that was a mistake. Edible ink work better on fondant icing not on butter cream frosting. You can see it on the cake.

This I made for my eldest son's 4th Birthday. He is fond of trains especially Thomas train. So I decided to make a  Cake with Thomas train theme for his birthday. He was really excited and started asking me for his cake I week before his birthday.

Finally his birthday was approaching. I baked one sheet cake and some cupcakes one night and kept it for cooling at room temp. Cakes should be cooled well before frosting. Next day I made Icing and started frosting. I haven't attended any Icing classes so far. So it took me hours and hours for the frosting and decoration. I slept around 2'O clock that night. My son's excitement and happiness worth all the hard work and 2 night sleep. He sat with me during Icing section till 1.30 am. Saying thanks in between. He had lot of questions and want to help me in between.(You can see his hands and legs in some pics). Sometimes his child like curiosity, naughtiness  and help  was giving me more trouble than help . He tried to move his train on his cake's rails and since Icing was not dried yet, I had to stop him. I promised that he can do it on his bday. He helped me with the pebbles and he enjoyed doing it.  I asked him to go to his bed since his eyes looked heavy. But he sat till decoration was somewhat over. Here, goes the Buttercream Icing Recipe.

Ingredients:
1)Solid vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup
2)Butter - 1 stick or Margarine softened - 1/2 cup
3)Clear vanilla extract or Clear Almond extract - 1 tsp
4) Sifted confectioner's sugar - 4 cups
5) Milk/ Water - 2 tbsp

Method:

• In a large bowl, beat shortening and butter. Add extract. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. In between scrap sides and bottom of bowl. Icing will appear dry when all the sugar has been mixed. Add milk. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.
• Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Source for buttercream Icing Recipe: Wilton

Note:

• Keep the icing bowl in fridge when not in use. Refrigerated in an air-tight container this icing can be stored for 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.
• For thin (Spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tbsp light-corn syrup, water or milk.
• For Pure White Icing ( Stiff Consistency), omit butter, substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and add 1/2 tsp no-color butter flavor. Add up to 4 tbsp light corn syrup, water or milk to this for icing cakes

My inspiration into cake decoration is my friend, Manju. She got a real talent in cakes decoration and baking. Check out this link : mmkakes.wordpress.com, www.mmkakes.wordpress.com

APPLE GHEE CAKE

This is the first cake I tried in my life. It was during the first X'mas season after my wedding. I remember that I didn't have a beater at that time. So I made the cake batter using my mixie and it got overloaded and it stopped working. I had to reset it again. I didn't have a baking dish so I baked it on a Pyrex glass dish.Anyway cake came out well.And I baked 4-5 cakes and gave it to my family members, friends and neighbors. One day I had a craving for that cake again and that night I made it again using a beater and baked it on a regular baking dish . Here goes the picture of that. It is really a yummy soft cake. I got lot of compliments for this cake from my friends and neighbors. Many were asking for the recipe. Some of them have tried this recipe and told me that it came out pretty well.

Ingredients:
Sugar - 1-11/4 cup
Apple chopped with its skin - 3 cup
All purpose flour (Maida) - 2 cup
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder- 1 1/2 tsp
Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Egg - 3
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Chopped cashew nut - 1 cup

Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 325 F.
• Grease a 9" baking pan.
• In a saucepan, take half cup of sugar. Stir continuously. Add apple when the sugar become golden in color. Stir continuously in low flame till the sugar melts. Remove from flame and let it cool.
• Sieve Maida, Baking Soda and Cinnamon powder.
• Mix the remaining sugar, vegetable oil and ghee. Beat well. Add egg one by one, beating after each egg. Add vanilla essence. Beating in between, add the dry ingredients slowly. Stir in apple and cashew nuts.
• Pour the batter into the baking dish and bake for 40 min.

Topping:

Caramelized syrup - 2 tbsp

Butter- 75 gm

Condensed Milk- 1/2 tin

Mix all these ingredients and heat it on low flame until it thickness. Pour it over the cake when the cake cools.

Note:

I made the topping syrup only the first time I baked. After that I made plain cake. Because most of people seems to prefer plain cakes.

Source: Vanitha

Apple Harvest Cake and Apple Harvest Muffins

Apple Harvest Cake  
or
Apple Harvest Muffins


This recipe is actually a bread recipe. Original recipe asks to bake in 3 small loaf pans. I once made this dish and gave it to my sister in law. Whenever I make something special, I usually give it to my neighbors and my sister in law who lives close by.(They also do the same. So I always get to taste variety of dishes) She loved it and kept on telling me how soft it was. So for her birthday I thought I will make a cake out of that recipe. I decorated it with flowers made out of fondant icing. Well, I haven't attended any classes on icing or I don't have any flower cutters (now) so please excuse the imperfections of the flowers.
This recipe can be used to make either cake or  muffin, you just have to change the baking time.

Ingredients:


1) Flour - 2 cups
2) Packed light brown sugar -1/2 cup
3) Salt - 1/2 tsp
4) Baking soda - 1 tsp
5) Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
6) Ground Nutmeg - 1 tsp
7) Ground Cinnamon- 1 tsp
8) Ground Cloves - 1/2 tsp
9) Sugar - 1 1/2 cups
10) Butter (Softened) - 3/4 cup
11) Eggs- 2
12) Pumpkin (Cooked& mashed) - 1 lb or (Pumpkin 150z can)
13) Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
14) Apples (Peeled and diced or shredded) - 4
15) Raisins- 1/2  cup
16) Walnut - 1/2 cup (optional)


Method:

•  Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Grease 9 " cake pan or muffin pan.
• In a small bowl, Mix flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, spices and brown sugar.
• In another bowl, cream sugar and butter. Beat in eggs one by one.Add  pumpkin and vanilla. Beat again. Add the flour mixture slowly stirring until it is moistened. Stir in apples, raisins and walnuts. Pour the batter into prepared pans.
• Bake the cake for 45-50 min or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• For Muffins, Bake for 20-25 min
• Cool it for 10 min and remove it from pan and place it on wire rack for cooling.

Cake - 12 serving

Muffins- 24

Recipe adapted from Home cooking the Costco way

Neapolitan Cheesecake

Neapolitan Cheesecake


This is the first cheesecake I made. This cake has 3 layers- Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla. 

Prep. 45min. Bake: 65 min + chilling
Serves- 12


Ingredients:
Oreo cookie  crumbs (or any cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookie) - 1 1/2 cup
Sugar - 5 Tbsp
Melted Butter -  5 Tbsp

  Filling:

 1) Softened Cream cheese - 32 oz

 2) Sugar - 1 1/3 cups

 3) All purpose Flour - 2 tbsp

 4) Heavy whipping cream - 2 tbsp

 5) Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

 6) Almond extract - 1/2 tsp

 7) Eggs (lightly beaten) -4

 8) Semisweet chocolate chips - 3/4 cup

 9) Strawberry - 1 cup

 8) Red food Coloring (optional) - 2 drops (I didn't add)

 9) Seedless strawberry jam (Warmed) - 1/4 cup

Method:

• Place a buttered 9" springform pan on a double thickness of heavy-duty foil (about 18in.square). Securely wrap foil around the pan.
• Combine cookie crumbs, sugar and butter.  Press onto the bottom of springform pan. Set aside. This is the crust.
• In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in the flour,  heavy whipping cream and both extracts. Add Eggs. Beat on low speed until just combined. Divide  batter into 3 parts.
• Melt the chocolate chips by double boiling. You can also melt it in a microwave. Cool to room temp. Stir melted chocolate to one portion of batter and pour it over the crust.
• In a mixie or food processor, puree strawberries. Add pureed strawberries and food coloring to the second portion. Gently spread over chocolate layer. 
• Place springform pan in a large baking pan and add one inch of hot water to the larger pan.
• Bake at 325 0 for 40 min or until center is just set and top appears dull.
• Gently spread remaining batter over the top. Bake for 25-30 min or until top appears dull.
• Remove springform pan from water bath. Cool on a wire rack for 10 min. Carefully run a knife over edges to loosen. Cool 1 hr longer and refrigerate overnight.
• Remove sides of pan and drizzle with strawberry jam.
• Decorate with strawberry .

Source: Taste of home contest winners

  

Oatmeal Applesauce Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Oatmeal Applesauce Cake With Creamcheese Frosting 

This month is a month of birthdays for me. I have many relatives celebrating birthdays on this month.Especially my grandmother who turned 90.Happy Birthday to all. This cake I specially made for my husband on his birthday. Panda I made with fondant Icing and birthday message was written using edible ink.

Ingredients:

Cake:
All purpose flour (Maida) - 1and half cup
Uncooked Oatmeal  - 1 and half cup
Salt - half tsp
Ground Cinnamon - 1 and half tsp
Ground Cloves - 3/4 tsp
Baking Powder- 1 tsp
Butter (Kept at room temp) -3/4 cup
Sugar- 1 and half cup
Eggs-4
Applesauce - 1 cup
Milk -3/4 cup
Raisins- 1 and half cup

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
•  Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Keep it aside.
• Mix all the dry ingredients - flour, oatmeal, salt, cinnamon, cloves and baking powder.
• In a large bowl, Beat butter with sugar. Add eggs, applesauce and milk. Beat again until it is well blended. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in raisins.
• Bake in the prepared pans for 30-35 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Let sit for 5 min, then remove from the pan and cool it well on wire racks.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
Butter softened- 1/2 cup
Cream Cheese- 8 ozs
Confectioners' Sugar- 2 Lb
Clear vanilla or almond extract - 1 tsp

• Beat butter and cream cheese until its smooth. Gradually add confectioners' sugar, beating until smooth. Add vanilla or almond extract and blend well.

Frost the cake when it is completely cool.You can add little water if the frosting is thick. 

Store it in a refrigerator.

Tips:

In cake recipes it is always advised to keep the butter and eggs at room temp.When I have to make a cake fast what I always do is that I put the butter in microwave 5 sec on each side or until it is softened. Eggs, I put it in warm water. 

Recipe Adapted from Home cooking the Costco way

Serves: 8-10