Kanda(Onion) Pohe,Cherry And Cashew Cup Cakes

Kanda(Onion) Pohe

Lot of friends had been asking for easy breakfast recipies.. I mean some simple yet tasty day today breakfast recipies. So here I am posting recipe for simple yet delicious maharashtrian breakfast/snacks.. This item is so common that whenever people get unexpected guest or there is "Ladaki Dikhana" program at ones place this is must :)

Ingredients

2 Cup Pohe

1/2 Cup Muttor

1 Onion

A pinch of Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Mustard

1/4 Spoon Jeera

4 Green Chillies

4 Spoon Grated fresh Coconut

4 Spoon Corriander leaves

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Wash the pohes and drain out excess water. Keep aside.
• Heat oil and let mustard and jeera splutter in it
• Add chopped green chillies and fry for a minute
• Add onions and cook them till they are translucent
• Add turmeric powder and cook for a minute
• Add washed poha and muttor in it adn mix well.
• Cover it and cook for couple of minute
• Open the lid, mix well, add salt to taste and again cover and cook covered for 3-4 minutes on low flame.
• Garnish with grated coconut and finely chopped corriander leaves and serve

Notes
Washing pohes and keep aside at first is important. It gives enough time for pohas to soak in the washed water to become soft. If you find your pohas are not enough soft just sprinkly little water before covering and cooking. But I never needed this if I washed them at first place. Dont forget to remove excess water. Washed water is just enough for them to be perfect soft.
Instead of muttor you can add groundnuts in the oil before adding pohas and fry them well. These are also tastier and ajoy's favourite. But authentic pohas are with muttor :) and I love them that way.
You can also add 1/2 cup potato cubes in oil and cook them before adding Pohas to it to get Kanda(Onion) Batata(Potato) Pohe :)

Cherry And Cashew Cup Cakes

I had been thinking of preparing cup cakes since I prepared muffins. But its only today I actually materialised the thoughts into the action :) :) So here is cherry - cashew cup cake recipy for you all.


Ingredients
2 Cup Canned Cherries
1 Cup Canned Cherry Syroup
1 Cup Castor Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Butter
2 Cup Maida
2.25 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Cashews

Method

• Blend butter, castor sugar and eggs well.
• Sieve Maida and Baking Powder together
• Add it to the sugar-egg-butter mixture and blend it till it just folds in
• Remove the seeds from the cherries
• Add deseeded cherries, cherry syroup and milk to the mixture and blend till mixture folds in well and cherries are half crushed
• Add Cashew pieces
• Prehead Oven at 200C
• Grease the Cup Cake Pans
• Fill in the cups with batter about 2/3rd
• Bake it at 200C for about 20 minutes

Notes
Cherry Syroup and Blended Cherry gives it amazing Taste of fresh cherries :) You can add Almonds or Walnuts as well apart from cashews. I wanted to add them but didnt have them available that time hence added just cashews
Also I used Salted butter hence didnt mix salt with the maida, if you are using unsalted butter, add salt to taste to the maida while sieving

Mung Daal Wada And Zebra Cake

Mung Daal

After a long time, I thought of trying out something from my so called 'bible' - a cookery book gifted to me during wedding :) This recipe though not exactly similar but is inspired from there. It is easy to digest yet spicy enough to enjoy, making it a good breakfast.

Ingredients

1 Cup Mung Daal

2 Spoon Besan

6 Garlic Cloves

1 Inch Ginger

2 Green Chillies

1 Spoon Jeera

1/2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

A Pinch of Eating Soda

Salt

Oil

Method

• Soak Mung Daal in water for 5-6 hours
• After the mung daal is soaked, add garlic cloves, ginger, green chilies and jeera to the mixer with couple spoon of water and grind to rough paste
• Add mung daal without water in it and grind the paste
• To this paste add in besan, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and eating soda and mix well
• Heat oil in pan and fry small quantites of the paste we preapred earlier to get crispy wadas

Notes
Recipe had some more items like coconut, onions, curry leaves etc to be added but I think I liked this way better. It went really well with the coconut chutney

Zebra Cake

I remember around a year back I had received a mail from a colleague here about tasting the check box cake. She had described a lot about its procedure so when I was looking for something similar yet something where I wont need those card boards etc to make those check box texture. Then I came across the very famous concept of zebra cake. So today I gave it a shot and result was very impressive :)


Ingredients
3 Cup Maida
2 Cup Sugar
4 Eggs
2 Cup Milk
2 cup Oil
1 Spoon Vanilla Essence
8 Spoon Coca Powder
4 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

• In a bowl add eggs and sugar and blend them together till the mixture is fluffy.
• Add in Milk and Oil keeping two spoons of each aside. Blend well
• Sieve in maida gradually in the mixture. Blend well for a smooth batter
• Blend in vanilla essence and baking powder.
• Separate 4.5 cup of batter into other bowl and add in sieved coca powder in the separated batter. Blend well
• In the coca batter, add the remaining milk and oil (2 spoons each) into the batter and blend again
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the baking pan
• Add 1/4 cup of white batter in the center alternating with half cup of coca batter. Keep adding till the pan fills in half in quantity. Repeat same for other pan. The batter would spread on its own in layers
• Bake the cakes in oven at 350F/180C for 40 minutes

Notes
If you are going to make the cake in single big baking pan, then instead of adding 1/4 cup of mixture, add in 1/2 cup to make the correct sized strips. I noticed that if the layers are too thin then after baking they wouldn't be too clear to mark out the layering clearly.

Ginger Corn Flower And Plums Cake

Ginger Corn Flower

Ajoy loves cauliflower so we end up eating it every week at least once. So I keep trying variety of preparations instead of sticking to the usual one. So today I decided to make a gingery flower. To reduce the spiciness and pungent taste of the ginger I decided to use sweet corn. The recipe came out pretty well and here it is.

Ingredients

1 Cauliflower

2 Cup Corn

1 Spoon Grated Ginger

2 Tomatoes

1 Onion

3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder

Salt

Oil

Method

• Heat oil to high and fry the medium sized flower florets in it till light brown. Keep aside
• In a pan heat spoon full of oil and add onion. Fry till translucent.
• Add grated ginger and fry for another minute
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and fry for a minute or two.
• Add mashed tomato in it. Cook for couple of minutes.
• Add sweet corn, salt to taste and cook for 5-6 minutes till mixture dries up a little.
• Add fried flower florets and mix up gently so that masala coats the flower
• Cook for 2-3 minutes and serve.

Notes
Dont wait for the florets to be dark in color, after taking out from the oil they darken up a little.

Ajoy loves cauliflower so we end up eating it every week at least once. So I keep trying variety of preparations instead of sticking to the usual one. So today I decided to make a gingery flower. To reduce the spiciness and pungent taste of the ginger I decided to use sweet corn. The recipe came out pretty well and here it is.

Ingredients

1 Cauliflower

2 Cup Corn

1 Spoon Grated Ginger

2 Tomatoes

1 Onion

3/4 Spoon Red Chili Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Coriander Powder

Salt

Oil

Method

• Heat oil to high and fry the medium sized flower florets in it till light brown. Keep aside
• In a pan heat spoon full of oil and add onion. Fry till translucent.
• Add grated ginger and fry for another minute
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and fry for a minute or two.
• Add mashed tomato in it. Cook for couple of minutes.
• Add sweet corn, salt to taste and cook for 5-6 minutes till mixture dries up a little.
• Add fried flower florets and mix up gently so that masala coats the flower
• Cook for 2-3 minutes and serve.

Notes
Dont wait for the florets to be dark in color, after taking out from the oil they darken up a little.

Plums Cake
We had got lot of plums from Costco but they weren't ripe ones. So I had been thinking of making a cake using them for quite a few days. Finally today I got some time to experiment with it thought the plums were ripe now. I made it in heart shape in honor of today's Valentines day.


Ingredients
1 Cup Butter
1.5 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Maida
1 Cup Hazelnuts
1 Cup Walnuts
1 Cup Groundnuts
3 Eggs
1/2 Spoon Baking Powder
6 Plums
2 Spoon Lemon Juice
4 Spoon Powdered Sugar
2 Spoon Almonds

Method

• Grind hazelnuts to powder
• In a bowl, beat in sugar and butter till light and fluffy.
• Add a egg to the butter and beat well
• Then add in 1/3rd of hazelnut powder and beat well.
• Continue adding remaining eggs one at a time alternating with hazelnut powder and beat well
• Add in walnuts and peanuts and mix well.
• Sieve maida and baking powder together and add in to the above mixture. Mix well.
• Grease a pan and add in the batter
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Bake the cake at 350F/180C for 45 minutes
• Take out the cake out of oven and arrange in halved plums(without seeds) over the top
• Bake again at 350F/180C for 10 minutes. Take out and let it cool down
• In a small pan mix lemon juice with powdered sugar and let it simmer till thickened
• Pour it over the cake, garnish with finely chopped almonds.

Notes
Alternately you can use marmalade jam if you have. I wanted to use that for the glazing but since I didn't have it I made lemon, sugar mixture.

Malpua And Almonds Topped Chocochip Muffins

These days its been raining so much that I had to drive to and from work. Most of the days I end up getting stuck in traffic and by the time I reach home I dont feel like adventuring into anything other than meals.. Yesterday I decided to beat the traffic by leaving early instead and glad it did almost work (got stuck in traffic for just 5 minutes that's an achievement :)). When I reached home I realized that my laptop had succumbed to death just last night and I had to revive it before I can continue my work from home. So while my laptop was getting its life I decided to bake these ones especially with almonds because these days I have become little forgetful. They say almonds help improve memory :D now is the time to see if they can :) Thankfully my laptop has become as good as new and working even better than what it was like when it was new. I give credit to win7 and also to the fact that I kept it light unlike those whole bunch of installs that came from Dell. Now I am looking forward to see if my memory can come back after this almond's dose :) So here I am sharing this extremely simple recipe of these delicious cakes I made.

Ingredients

1 Cup Butter

2 Cup Sugar

4 Cup Maida

2 Cup Choco-chips

3/4 Cup Almonds

1 Cup Milk

4 Spoon Brown Sugar

2 Spoon Vanilla Essence

1 Spoon Baking Soda

1/2 Spoon Baking Powder

2 Eggs

Salt to taste

Method

• In a bowl beat sugar and butter till its fluffy.
• Add in eggs and beat again.
• Add in vanilla essence, milk and beat till creamy, fluffy mixture is formed.
• Add in maida, baking soda, baking powder and salt to taste and mix in with light hands till everything is nicely accommodated in the egg-butter-sugar mixture.
• Add in 1.5 cups of choco-chips and mix lightly. Keep aside
• Chop almonds to coarse pieces and mix them with brown sugar and remaining 1/2 cup choco-chips. Keep aside
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
• Grease muffin pans and fill them in with the batter to 2/3rd level each.
• Sprinkle the almond-chocochip-sugar mixture on all these muffins equally.
• Bake the muffins at 350F/180C for 25 minutes.

Notes

I used raw almonds and sprinkled them on top instead of mixing it in the batter. The almonds were roasted amazingly while the cake baked. 

I also mixed in brown sugar and chocochips with the almonds because I thought it would give nice sweetness to the cake while taking a bite. And guess what it really worked :)

Every weekend Ajoy asks me if I can put oil in his hair (he does it for me). So my reply is always same : I can cook whatever you ask but doing the oil massage every weekend just for those short hair and that too for one hour - doesn't work :) :) probably once in couple of months is ok :) :) So when last weekend I replied with the same answer, he mentioned that he wants to eat malpuas. I searched on net for quick recipes, every recipe was quite different so I had to make up my own after lot of research and here I am sharing this.

Ingredients

1 Cup Maida

1/2 Cup Rawa

2.5 cup Milk

1 Spoon Saunf

1.5 Cup Sugar

A pinch of Saffron

Almonds, Pistachios for garnishing

Method

• Mix in maida, rawa, saunf and milk and keep aside for 4 hours
• Boil Sugar with 1.5 cup of water to form 1 threaded sugar syrup.
• Add in safron and keep aside.
• Heat oil in a pan and add 1/4 cup batter each time to form the malpuas
• Fry to golden brown on both sides and then dip them in the sugar syrup for couple of minutes.
• Take out of the syrup, garnish with almonds and pistachios and serve.

Notes

Actually lot many videos had asked for frying the malpuas, but i am going to try shallow frying instead next time.

Also I had used 1 cup sugar, water each for the syrup and last few malpuas didnt have enough syrup to soak in.

I have never eaten malpuas earlier except once when badi ma had gotten it to hyderabad. So next time I am also going to ask my mom-in-law for her recipe and see how different it turns out.

Molten Lava Cake

Its been a while since I learnt about this cake and was so much facinated by the concept.. I also researched that this is the easiest and quickest dessert to make.. The only issue I had was I didnt have Ramekins to bake this in and neither did I have the paper cups to go in cup cake pan. Finally today I made up my mind to buy ramekins and make this. I am glad I did.. Totally worth it..

Ingredients

1 Cup Maida

1.25 Cup Semi Sweet Choco-chips

1 Cup Butter

5 Spoon Coco Powder

3 Eggs

3 Egg Yolks

2 Cup Sugar

Method

• Grease the ramekins liberally and keep aside.
• Preheat oven to 450F/230C
• Microwave butter and chocochips together for one minute.
• Stir well to get nicely blended choco-butter mixture. Keep aside
• Whisk eggs, egg yolks together till blended well within
• Add in sugar and whisk till creamy, fluffy and thick mixture forms.
• Add in the melted chocolate-butter mixture to it and whisk.
• Sieve in maida and coco-powder. Fold lightly till everything accomodates.
• Divide the mixture into 6 ramekins
• Put ramekins in a baking tray and bake in oven at 450F/230C for 13 minutes so that the sides are cooked.
• Immediately after taking out from oven flip the cakes into plate and serve.

Notes

Alternate method is to use the paper cups inside the cup cake pan - little extra in height so that you can pull it out and flip it in the plate.

To flip the cake into the plate put the ramekin on a plate. Flip another plate on top of it. Holding both the plates flip the ramekin into the just placed plate. This helps since ramekins would be really hot when you take out the cakes into the plates.

Lemon Date Cupcakes

Recently i started watching food network and some programs are really good.. One of them is Cup cake wars.. I was amazed at how people come up with their own recipe and create those beautiful cupcakes. So here i my share of mix and match inspired cup cake.

Ingredients

4 Cup Maida

3 Cup Dates

2 Cup Milk

1 Cup Butter

2 Cup Cream

1 Cup Icing Sugar

1.5 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Lemons

1 Spoon Baking Powder

1/4 Spoon Baking Soda

Salt to taste

Method

• Grind a cup of dates in with the milk to form smooth paste. Keep aside.
• Whip sugar and butter using hand mixer till mixture is smooth and fluffy
• Add eggs and blend well to get smooth mixture.
• Sieve Maida, Baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
• Add it to the butter, sugar - egg mixture in portions alternating with milk-date mixture, beating well with each addition.
• Add in remaining 2 cups of dates - chopped and a lemon's peel grated and as well as its juice. Mix lightly till combined.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Line the cupcake pan with the cupcake paper cups and fill each of them to 2/3rd with the cake batter
• Bake the cakes at 350F/180C for 25 minutes. Keep aside to cool down completely.
• Add cream in a bowl and mix it with the icing sugar.
• Whip it using hand mixer on low speed till the cream becomes fluffy and stiff
• Scoop it on each cup cake or decorate using piping bag. Garnish with grated lemon peels.

Notes

I created a cone that i made from the parchment paper and piped the icing on top of few cakes and scooped the icing on others. So making cone is alternate to using piping bag :)

While whipping the cream its better to use hand mixer as its easy, fast and reliable. :)

Nutty Butterscotch Chocolate Cake

Yesterday I was looking for cake recipe so that I can bake a cake to take into my cake decoration class. First I thought I will bake some simple quick cake and get done with it, but as I approached kitchen I couldn't resist but look into my recipe book for some instant reference to cook something different. I liked a peanut butter recipe in there but because I didn't have peanut butter I decided to give it twist and make my own version of cake. It was delicious and even smelling so good that it was huge hit in my decoration class as well.

Ingredients

4 Cup Maida

2.5 Cup Butter

1 Cup Hazelnuts

1 Cup Almonds

1.5 Cup Sugar

3 Eggs

1 Cup Milk

2 Cup Butterscotch Chocochips

2 Spoon Baking Powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Grind hazelnuts and almonds to fine powder and keep it aside.
• Cream butter and sugar together till fluffy.
• Add in hazelnut-almonds powder and whisk again.
• Add in each egg one at a time and beat well after each addition
• Sieve maida and baking powder couple of times. Add salt to taste.
• Add maida-baking powder mixture alternating with milk slowly into the egg-butter-sugar mixture and fold in carefully.
• Microwave chocochips for 1 minutes and stir well to get molten chocolate. Fold it in the batter lightly
• Grease the pan and line it with parchment paper. Grease the paper as well. Pour the batter in the cake till half full.
• Bake the cake in oven on 350F/180C for 40 minutes
• Decorate with icing or serve as it is.

Notes

I used two 8 inch round tins to bake the cake but after baking I thought I should have used one 8 inch and one 6 inch instead to get perfect rise in both the cakes.

I iced one cake with butter icing as part of my cake decorating classes and we ate another cake as it is. Both taste awesome, but I would use dark chocolate or less sugar if I am going to ice the cake next time.

Recently I came to know that preheating oven at least 15 minutes in advance helps to get oven to heat uniformly even hot so I tried this time and results were superb, the cake rose from all sides and there was literally no bump.

Plain Cake

I made this simple cake for my Fondant decoration class.. It tasted awesome with and without icing :)

Ingredients

5 cup Maida

2.5 Cup Butter

2.5 Cup Castor Sugar

2 Spoon Baking Powder

1.5 Spoon Lemon Juice

4 Eggs

Method

• Preheat oven to 325F/160C
• Sieve through baking powder and maida in a bowl
• Add in sugar, melted butter, lemon juice and eggs and mix thoroughly till the mixture is glossy
• Prepare a cake pan ready by greasing it. Add the batter into the pan
• Bake the cake on 325F/160C for 1 hour
• Take out of the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes and then take it out on cooling grid and let it cool completely. Decorate or serve as it is.

Notes

The cake was really ok as it is but when i decorated it, it was little extra sweet. May be next time i should reduce the sugar quantity if i am going to decorate it.

Chocolate Cake

This week I had to bake two cakes one for fondant decoration class and one for flowers decoration class. So this is the cake i made for flowers decoration class. I wanted to decorate it with white flowers which would have tinge of pink/yellow but I ended up with bad icing.. Thats when I decorated with whatever flowers I had made over last month in the class. So here is yet another simple cake recipe that came out so well.

Ingredients

1.5 Cup Maida

1 Cup Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Spoon Coca Powder

1 Spoon Baking Powder

3 Eggs

Method

• Preheat oven to 325F/160C
• Sieve through maida, coca powder and baking powder in a bowl
• Add in melted butter, sugar and eggs and mix well till the mixture is uniform
• Grease the cake pan and add in the batter
• Bake at 325F/160C for 30 minutes
• Let the cake cool down the cake for 5 minutes and then take it out and cooling grid. Let it cool completely. Serve

Notes

I made two batches of this cake in a 8 inch loaf tin and them i used melted chocolate between them to make a tall rectangular cake. Covered with chocolate flavored butter icing and decorated with royal icing flowers

Red Velvet Cup Cakes

I had made these when mom dad were around but they weren't perfect especially they were little on drier side. So this time I made little bit change in quantities and they come out perfect. I frosted them with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.

Ingredients

2.5 Cup Maida

1/4 Spoon Coca Powder

1/4 Spoon Baking Soda

1/4 Spoon Salt

1.5 Cup Sugar

1 Egg

1.5 Cup Oil

2 Spoon Curd

1 Spoon Liquid Red Food Color

1/4 Spoon Vinegar

1/4 Spoon Vanilla Essence

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C
• Sieve Maida and Coca Powder in a bowl
• Mix in baking soda, salt and sugar in it
• In separate bowl add in egg, oil, red food color, vanilla essence and vinegar.
• In a cup add in the curd and fill it with water. Mix well with the fork and add it to the wet mixture (oil-egg mixture)
• Beat the mixture on low speed till smooth
• Add in sieved dry mixture of maida-coca powder a cup at a time and beat slowly till it accommodates in the mixture.
• Line the cupcake pan with the paper cups. Divide the mixture in 12 cups.
• Bake the cake on 350F/175C for 22 minutes

Notes

I normally turn around the cupcakes after 70% of baking time in this case around 15 minutes. It helps in even baking of the cakes.

Lemon And Apricot Cake

I was on lookout for something more like pound cake yet not something plain for Ajoy's birthday celebration. He enjoys plain cake more than anything so something based of that yet something more richer would make perfect for the occasion. I wanted to either use lemon or orange especially after seeing all these food networks making use of their zest. So when i found a recipe for this cake in one of the books i have, i modified it bit to his taste and came up with this.

Ingredients

3 Cup Maida

175g Apricot

1 Cup Almonds

1.25 Cup Pistachios

2/3 Cup Sliced Almonds

2 Cup Sugar

1 + 1/3 Cup Butter

1.25 Spoon Baking Powder

3 Eggs

1/3 Spoon Salt

1 big Lemon

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C/350F
• In a bowl, blend butter and 1.5 Cup sugar together till smooth
• Sieve together maida and baking powder 3-4 times.
• Add it to the butter-sugar mixture.
• Add in eggs, salt, zest of the lemon and 1/2 cup of warm water and blend till smooth.
• Fold in chopped apricot, 1 cup almonds powdered and 1 cup pistachios chopped.
• Line the loaf pan or any other cake pan you want to use with parchment paper on bottom as well as sides and spoon all the batter in it.
• Put remaining pistachios and sliced almonds over the mixture and press it lightly over the cake.
• Bake the cake in oven for 75 minutes on 180C/350F, covering the top with foil after around 50 minutes.
• Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes.
• In the mean time, over medium heat with constant stirring, cook lemon juice of the lemon with remaining sugar till sugar dissolves completely an mixture bubbles up slightly.
• Pour the mixture over the cake and then take out the cake on wire rack to let it cool completely.

Notes

Covering the top midway into baking helps not overcooking the nuts and burning them. The lemon-sugar syrup adds the flavor as well as a little moistness to the cake.

Pear Bars

Pear Bars

I was looking to bake something new and yet something that would be ready in couple of hours. This turned out amazing twist to the lemon bars I had made last month. Since with lemon bars I felt the presence of egg was too strong for my liking, I was interested in something that would use less egg and that's when I decided to create these using fusion of cheese cake and bar. I cant believe that this was my so far the most bold *experiment*given that I was to serve the friends who were coming over for dinner right away without any margin to recover but thankfully this turned out really great.

Ingredients

1 Cup Butter

2.25 Cup Sugar

1.5 Egg

1.5 cup Maida

2.5 Spoon Vanilla Essence

2.75 Cup Pecans

12Oz Cream Cheese

2 Pears

1/2 Spoon Cinnamon Powder

Method

• Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
• Using handheld mixer cream the butter till very fluffy and light.
• Add in 2/3 cup of sugar and cream further.
• Add in 1 spoon of vanilla essence, sieved Maida and cream further.
• Mix in the coarsely chopped nuts.
• Grease two baking pans of 6inch in size and spread half of mixture evenly in each pan.
• Bake in oven at 350F/175C for 22 minutes.
• Let the base layer cool down in the pan itself for about 30 minutes
• After 30 minutes, with the handheld electric mixer cream the cream cheese till soft and even.
• Add in 1.5 cup sugar, egg and remaining 1.5 spoon of vanilla essence in the cream cheese and cream till soft and even.
• Cut the pears such that their center is removed and then slice them. Add in 1 Spoon of sugar and mix well. Keep aside.
• Preheat oven to 375F/190C.
• Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly in both the baking pans half in each.
• Spread the pear slices on top of this mixture.
• Sprinkle cinnamon and remaining (around 1 spoon of) sugar evenly on top of pears.
• Bake in the oven over 370F/190C for about 35 minutes.
• Take out of the oven. Let it cool for 30 minutes and then transfer it to fridge for at least another hour and then serve by making square pieces.

Notes

I know 1.5 egg is hard to measure :) but I tried using the mixture with 1 egg and 1 cheese packet but it wasn't enough to cover both pans. For the next egg, I beat the egg and took half the quantity. But in case you are baking this in single pan you could use 8-9 inch pan and use 1 egg with 1 packet of cream cheese. Note you would need to use 1 cup of sugar in that case.

I used pecan nuts because I had them available at home, but you can theoretically use any nuts, they give nice crunch and crisp taste.

I used little overripe pears so they turned out nice tender and I didn't have trouble while making pieces of the dessert.

When you take out the final bar out of the oven, there might be liquid on top, don't worry about it, it sets after the bars cool down.

Cake of Lemon Chiffon

Lemon Chiffon Cake

I don't even remember now how I came up with this, may be it was when I was trying to come up with lighter cake, but it was instant success. I have made this so many times and recently almonds with white chocolate with lemon cream I got from Costco reminded me of this taste. Cant wait to make this one again. One of the lightest and fluffiest cake I have made.


Ingredients
1.5 Cup - 1.5 tbsp. maida
1.5 tbsp Corn Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1.5 Cup + 1 tbsp Sugar
2 Lemons
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup Oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar

Method

• Preheat oven to 325F/165C
• Sieve through maida, corn flour, baking soda, salt and 1.5 cup of sugar together
• Separate egg whites from yolk.
• Beat egg whites till they are foamy
• Add in cream of tartar and beat till soft peaks are formed
• Add in remaining 1 tbsp. of sugar and beat till hard peaks are formed. Keep aside
• In a bowl beat egg yolk, zest of both the lemons, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, oil, vanilla essence and 2/3 cup of water together.
• Add in the sieved flour mixture and beat till smooth
• Fold in egg whites 1/3 at a time very gently till all the mixture is incorporated.
• Grease 8.5inch loaf pan and pour the cake batter in it.
• Bake in oven at 325F/165C for 45 minutes. Take out of oven and let it cool.

Notes
To measure maida and corn starch, first measure 1.5 tbps of corn flour and add it to the bottom of the cup and then add in more maida till it is 1.5 cup. You can instead use cake flour 1.5 cup instead of these two ingredients but maida and corn starch mixture is replacement for the same.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

This was one of my impromptu attempt to bake something that turned out quite great. It had been long time since I had the frosting in the fridge so thought about baking something to use that one and these cupcakes worked perfectly well with the frosting.

Ingredients

2 Cup Sugar

2 Spoon Vanilla Essence

1 Egg

1/2 Cup Oil

1 Cup Milk

1.75 Cup Maida

1 Cup Coco Powder

1 Spoon Baking Powder

1 Spoon Baking Soda

1/2 Spoon Salt

2 Spoon Instant Coffee

Method

• Preheat oven at 325F/160C
• Mix together egg, sugar and vanilla essence.
• Add in oil and milk and whisk the mixture over medium speed.
• Sieve maida, coco powder, baking powder and baking soda couple of times to form homogeneous mixture.
• Add the sieved contents and salt in the egg-oil-milk mixture and whisk on low speed till well combined about 2 minutes
• Warm 1 cup of water with coffee in microwave for about a minute.
• Add the coffee to the cake mixture and whisk on low speed for another 2 minutes.
• Line around the cupcake pan with around 14 cup cake liners and fill them with the cake mixture about 3/4th level in each.
• Bake in the oven for 18 minutes.
• Allow the cakes to cool off for at least an hour and then serve with frosting and optionally filling

Notes

I didn't use the filling but chocolate ganache would be great option.

I used chocolate butter cream that I have made previously to frost another cake as the frosting and it went well.

Pumpkin Almond Cup Cakes

Few days back I made 'Khatakhata' - a special mixed vegetable dish from konkani cuisine. It needs pumpkin and I looked for it through all grocery stores, super markets, indian stores but every one said its out of season. But Wholes food had canned pumpkin and I thought of giving it a try. But when I opened the can I found that it was mashed one and not cubed ones. So I couldnt use that in the khatkhata. (Yes recipe will come for it when I cook it next time as this time I forgot to take pics). Then I was looking for all pumpkin recipes that can use puree of Pumpkin and found that cupcakes use them. So finally after reading lot I came up with this my version. Once it started baking it spread so much of aroma that I just couldnt wait for them to get ready. What a nice way to eat Pumpkin :)


Ingredients
2 cup Pumpkin Puree
3 Cup Maida
1 Cup Butter
1.5 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Castor Sugar
2 Spoon Baking Powder
1/2 Spoon Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Spoon Cinnamon Powder
1/2 Spoon Cloves Powder
1/2 Spoon Nutmeg Powder
1/4 Cup Almond Sliced
1/2 Spoon Pistachio Essence
2 Eggs

Method

• Sieve through Maida, baking powder, baking soda few times.
• Mix Nutmeg powder, cinnamon powder and cloves powder. Keep aside
• In a bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and castor sugar together untill mixture is fluffy and sugar is completely mixed
• Add in each egg at a time and beat them into the mixture.
• Now add the sieved maida-bakingpowder mixture little at a time till completely accomodated. Stir with a spatula and dont use blender here.
• Add milk and mix well. Mixture will thin down a little
• Add pumkin puree and pistacheo essence and mix gently using the spatula
• Mix in the almonds except few to decorate in the batter.
• Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the cup cake trays and fill in the mixture upto 3/4th level in each cup
• Garnish with remaining almonds
• Bake in the oven on 350F/180C for 20 minutes. Knife inserted should come out clean.

Notes
If you are using fresh pumkin, just steam the pumkin and then mash it in mixie. I guess that should work too.
Made around 16 medium sized cup cakes

Very Berry Cake

Right now we get so many variety of berries out here that I thought it would be a good idea to try out this cake.


Ingredients
3 Cups Maida
4 Spoon Baking Powder
2 Eggs
1 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Milk
2 Cup Rasberry
2 Cup Blue Berry
3/4 Cup Black Berry
6-8 Strawberries
Salt to taste

Method

• Mix the butter and sugar with the handheld mixer.
• Add Egg and mix again till thick and smooth paste
• Sieve the maida, baking powder and salt together.
• Preheat oven to 350F/180C
• Add the maida-baking powder mixture in to the egg-butter-sugar mixture with constant mixing using handheld mixer
• When the complete maida and baking powder mixture is mixed it would be quite thick. Add milk and mix well
• Add all the berries (used whole berries except for stawberries which i chopped in to four pieces as they were big ones) and mix with a spatula
• Grease the baking pan and pour in the mixture.
• Bake for 35 minutes at 350F/180C

Notes
I used powdered sugar so that it can dissolve in quickly.
Also I used the fresh fruits directly from fridge so that they dont over cook.
You can also use frozen berries available in the market. I might try freezing the fresh berries and using them unthawed next time.
Also I used salted butter and added salt to so it tasted little extra salt. So if you are using salted butter dont use salt or vice-a-versa.