Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Easy chocolate cake

Chocolate cake is one of my favorites. Whenever I crave for that, I would buy a ready-made cake mix pack or hubby may buy me a piece of this moist delicious chocolate cake from our nearby bakery. Also, Whenever I have to make a cake he will suddenly say that he WANTS a carrot cake, so I will be making carrot cakes often. On the other day I wanted to make some chocolate cake from scratch to share with our friends. I got the basic idea for my chocolate cake from this recipe. Thanks to the author I could figure out 'how to make a chocolate cake from scratch / without cake mix?' On that day I had Nestle drinking chocolate sachets only, but the recipe says to add cocoa powder. So I used what I had and the finish was excellent.
Very moist delicious chocolate cake



I love the way the cake came out spongy.

Plain vanilla cakes are Xav's favorite and I  made that too.

slight soaking made the chocolate cake incredibly moist and delicious.
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup
sugar - 2 cup
baking cocoa powder - 3/4 cup
baking soda - 1 1/2 tsp
baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
salt - 1 tsp
egg - 2
milk - 1 cup
vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
vanilla extract - 2 tsp
boiling water - 1 cup

(I substituted baking cocoa with 2 sachet Nestle drinking chocolate powder + 1/4 cup chocolate chips + 2 tsp bru instant coffee powder. It tasted absolutely delicious)

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
Grease and flour 2 pans of 9 inch size.
Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, (drinking cocoa, bru if any) together. Sift twice to get a fluffy porous cake. Put it in a big mixing bowl.

In a blender or mixie beat the milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, vegetable oil, (chocolate chips if any)  for a minute. Add it to the dry ingredients in the big mixing bowl.  Mix well.
Bring 1 cup water to boil. Pour in to the mixing bowl. Mix well.
Pour in to baking pans and bake for 40 - 45 mins. My cake came out by 42 minutes.
Let cool completely before slicing.
Chocolate cake is ready!


Note:
This recipe will make 2 cakes of 9x9 inch squares or two 9 inch round cakes or one 9 x13 cake.
Before baking, we may notice the cake batter to be very thin and runny. But the cake will come out perfect. Believe me:)

Serving suggestions:
I didn't do icing for this cake. (But any chocolate based icing will be perfect).
Instead I did the soaking. I pierced the top of cake. Then I made a simple sugar syrup with 1/2 cup brown sugar + 1/2 cup water and coated the top of the cake with this syrup. This plain cake tasted amazingly moist and delicious. That is the secret behind most of the moist cakes:)
Some people cover the top with chocolate syrup and it will be more delicious too.
Some pieces can be saved in freezer and used to make trifle.

Carrot cake (Veg)

Happy New year !
Let's start the New year with a sweet recipe, a carrot cake. 

Egg-less carrot cake.

Ingredients:
Carrot - 1 (small)
Apple (small) - 1/2 fruit
All purpose flour - 2/3 cup
plain yogurt - 1/2 cup
vinegar / lime juice - 1 tsp
sugar - 2/3 cup
oil / butter - 1/3 cup + 1 tsp for greasing the pan
shredded coconut (dry) - 2 tsp
vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
orange peel - 1 tsp
cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp
baking soda - 2/3 tsp
baking powder - 2/3 tsp
salt - pinch
walnut - 2 tbsp (chopped)
raisin - 15

Method:
Shred the carrot. Core, peel and shred the apple.
Preheat oven to 350 deg (175 deg C) for at least 30 minutes before we start baking.
Grease and flour the cake tin. Keep aside.
Beat the yogurt, vinegar / lime juice using a fork till smooth. Then add vanilla essence, sugar, oil and beat till its smooth.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt TWICE. Sifting makes the baked products perfect.
Put it in a mixing bowl and add the liquids from mixer.
Mix well.
Add the shredded carrot, coconut, orange peel, cinnamon, coarsely chopped walnut and mix slightly.
Now the batter is ready!
Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 40 - 50 minutes.
Eggless carrot cake is ready!

Note:
Apple makes the cake more moist.
Coconut gives the perfect flavor for this cake.
Makes a 6 inch round cake or 12 cup cakes.
Plain yogurt can be substituted by a mix of 1/4 cup milk + 1 tbsp lime juice / vinegar.
After baking the cake, pierce the top with skewer multiple times and soak it with few tsp of sugar syrup, to get a more delicious cake.
For cream cheese frosting and butter cream icing recipes, please click here.

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