Lemon Cake

I love lemons and I love cakes. So for me this cake satisfies my cravings, both ways. The lemony aroma which fills the kitchen when its baking...hmm.. its so heavenly!!

This recipe is adapted from Nigella Lawson's :How to be a Domestic Goddess - Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking". This time I used Egg Beaters - a healthy alternative for eggs. I know nothing could replace eggs in a cake without comprising the flavor or the texture. But I must say with egg beaters, this cake came close to moist and dense - which is what eggs does in a cake. The best part for this cake comes after the baking when you soak this cake in a lemon syrup...Yummy!!!!!!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Eggs - 4
Butter - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
Milk - 3/4 cup
Zest of 2 lemons

For the syrup:

Powdered Sugar - 3/4 cup
Juice of 1 lemon

How to prepare:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degree F
• Butter and line a 9 X 4 inch cake pan
• Sift together flour and baking powder and keep aside
• Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy
• Add eggs and lemon zest, beating them well
• Add the flour and milk alternatively and mix well
• Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 45 min or until a skewer inserted comes clean
• In a saucepan, add lemon juice and sugar and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Add little water if the syrup becomes thick.
• Once the cake is baked, puncture the top the cake and pour the syrup all over.
• Let the cake cool thoroughly before taking out of the pan.

Kadai Paneer

Paneer or Cottage cheese is something which i like to eat in any form, grilled, cooked in gravy, fried. Since it was a delicacy during my childhood days,(it was never commonly supplied in groceries till recently) me and my bro always look forward to "paneer" days with so much anticipation. My mom used to make home-made paneer which was a long slow process of curdling the milk and separating the curd from water and hanging it in a cloth so that what you get in remaining is a mushy mass that was kept under a heavy weight for 2-3 hours. Nowadays its readily available in groceries and since then I have had lots of paneer to my stomach's content. Kadai Paneer is essentially a Punjabi dish, but what I have made here is completely my version of the dish.


Ingredients:

Store bought paneer - 250 gm
Red Onion - 1 big
Green Bell Pepper - 1 big
Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 teaspoon
Tomato Paste - 1/4 cup
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Chilli Powder - 1 teaspoon
Garam Masala - 3/4 teaspoon
Pepper Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Kasoor Methi - 1 tablespoon
Salt - to taste

How to prepare:

• Cut Red Onion and Bell Peppers lengthwise.
• Heat oil in pan.Once its smoking hot,add paneer and fry till all the sides are evenly brown.
• Remove from pan and add it to hot water with a pinch of turmeric powder and salt.
• Heat oil in the same pan and add onion and saute until tender.
• Add green bell pepper and saute it until peppers are tender.
• Add ginger - garlic paste and saute it for a while.
• Add tomato paste, all the powders and salt and cook on medium high for 5-7 minutes constantly stirring.
• Squeeze the water out of paneer and add it to the mixture. Cook it for few more minutes.
• Turn off the heat and serve hot with roti or rice.

Honey Cake

It has been a while that I baked anything.And my taste buds were itching for something sweet and home baked. Once we shifted to new apartment, time flew by while we set up our new home, trying to figure out what and where to keep. Then came my birthday when i thought of making myself a cake(not that i didn't get a cake, but that was completely consumed as face paint :)), but fell short of materials. And when I was waiting for that perfect moment, I got bad cold and sore throat.. Too bad... But little did I know that idea for this cake would come from a cold and sore throat!!! As I was gulping down honey(which is supposed to relive sore throat),I just thought how good(or bad) will it be if I make a cake with honey.


I did a little research and was astonished to know that honey cake is very popular over here . In fact this cake is specially baked during Jewish New Year Celebration. Anyways this cake turned to be the rich, warm and ultra moist. I was bit worried that the crust was sunken, but who cared when my taste buds were completely satisfied when I dug into cake.

Recipe adapted from "Marcy Goldman's A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking"

Ingredients:

Eggs - 2
Oil - 2/3 cup
All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Nutmeg powder - A pinch
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
Honey - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Orange juice - 1/4 cup
Brewed coffee - 2 tablespoon

How to prepare:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
• Butter and dust 9 inch round pan
  
• Combine together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt, baking powder in a small bowl.
• Beat together eggs and sugar in a large bowl until well combined.
• Add honey, oil, orange juice and coffee and mix until blended.
• Add flour mixture and mix until just combined
• Pour batter into pan and bake for 40-45 min. Since this batter is thinner than usual cake batter,it might take more time for baking.
• After 40-45 min, check the cake by inserting a knife or fork into the cake.If it comes out clean, then the cake is ready.Otherwise keep baking until its done, frequently checking the cake.
• Once done, take the cake out and cool it completely.
• Serves 8-10 persons.

Pineapple Sponge Cake

Another amazing year..and its time for us to move from our apmt to a new place.. Since It was our first home together(although rented),it holds a special place within me..this home along with my husband has witnessed many of my culinary disasters,the tantrums and also the small victories I had in the culinary world... Before I start to pack up my tools, I thought I'll bake one last cake in this home. I had some canned pineapple and some cream leftover in my fridge, so baking a pineapple cake was sure an tempting idea..Help came in from my mom and from an old magazine for the basic sponge cake, and got generously inspired by Deeba Rajbal's recipe to bake this fuffy cake. I highly recommend you to check out her website for all the gorgeous recipes.



Ingredients

For the Cake:

Medium Eggs - 6
All Purpose Flour - 150 g
Sugar - 150 g
Baking Powder - 1 teaspoon
Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon
Salt - A pinch
Canned Pineapple - 1 tin (separate the juice and the pieces)
Pineapple Juice - 1/2 cup

For the Icing:
Heavy Cream - 2 cup
Sugar - 3 tablespoons

How to Prepare the Cake:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Butter and dust with flour two 8 X 2 inch round baking pan.
• Sift the flour and baking powder twice.
• Separate egg yolk and egg white.
• Beat the egg yolk and sugar until its creamy and lemon yellow in color.
• Add vanilla essence and beat to mix.
• Add sifted flour and pineapple juice alternatively to the mixture and beat slowly until everything is mixed through.
• In another bowl, put egg white and a pinch of salt and beat until it becomes stiff.
• Add this to the cake mixture and fold them gently until its just mixed.
• Pour the cake mixture into prepared baking pans and bake for 30-35 min.
• Cool it for 10 min and remove from pan.
• Brush the juice (reserved from the canned pineapple) generously over the cakes and let it cool completely.

How to prepare the Icing:

• Whip the cream with the sugar until it's thick.
• Take 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the whipped cream and mix it with the equal amounts of pineapple pieces(reserved from the canned pineapple)

How to assemble the Cake:

• Place the first cake and spread the whipped cream mixed with pineapple pieces over it.
• Place the second cake and spread the rest of the whipped cream over the cake.
  
• Spread it evenly on top of the cake and also on the side.
• Decorate with pineapple pieces.
• Serves 6-8 persons.

Notes:

1. Bring the Eggs to room temperature before baking.
2. Before beating the egg whites, make sure that the bowl is absolutely dry.
3. While preparing the cake, if the cake mixture gets too thick,add little pineapple juice to get the right consistency.

Fuji Apple Crisp

Lazy afternoons sometimes turn interesting when I stumble upon some recipe and realize that I have the ingredients to make it then and there. The first time I saw this recipe in a food show in TV, it looked so easy and simple to make which indeed was. Since then whenever I have excess of apples in our home,which we usually have I make this one. I tried varying the apples and also with additional ingredients such as raisins, dries cranberries, walnuts etc. The combo which I liked was the Fuji Apples & Raisins. You can also use Granny Smith apples if you are into tartness. Here goes the recipe.



Ingredients:
For the Filling:
Fuji Apples peeled, cored and cut into small chunks - 4
Raisins - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 2 tablespoon
Lemon Juice - 1 tablespoon

For the Topping:
All purpose flour - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup
Ground cinnamon - 1/4 teaspoon
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

How to prepare:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Combine the ingredients for the filling and place it in a baking pan. I used an 8 x 6 x 2 inch Pyrex glass pan.
• Combine flour, sugar, salt and ground cinnamon in a bowl.
• Add butter into this and using fingertips or fork mix it till it becomes crumbly. (This closely resembles the puttu mix which we malayalis make).
• Spread the topping over the apple evenly.
• Bake this for 35- 40 min.
• Once done, increase the oven temperature to broil and broil it for 1 min. Make sure that you broil it only for 1 min, otherwise the topping will get burnt.
• Once done, cool it before serving.
• Goes well with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream.
  
• Serves 6 persons.

Chocolate Cake

I've been always fond of chocolate cakes. I can gorge on chocolate cake by myself.. But baking a cake was never on my mind... never even took any interest in it except for eating it.. It was after my marriage I really found this love for baking. I started baking cakes,with the recipes I got from my mom..But I wanted to do something bigger,better than normal cake. So when my husband's birthday was coming up, I though why not I bake a chocolate cake for him,which would be special for him too. That's when I decided to bake this cake.



I got this fantastic recipe from www.joyofbaking.com. This is an excellent site for those who are interested in baking. The author gives you a full detail of the cake that you are going to bake and has collection of tempting photos.

Here is the link for this cake:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateButterCake.html

I did personalize this cake.Instead of a two layer cake, I made it four layer by using an 8 x 2 inch pan. I also did the decor on top using grated White chocolate bar. Below is one more snapshot of the cake.