Pumpkin Cake

Obviously, I had to make something special and write about it here. It has been so long. I am sorry for being away for so long.

I have been cooking a lot but somehow I never got a chance to click pictures and write about it. I feel that I am missing out on something but I can not get back to it. I have been shifting cities and have taken up a job which keeps me engaged.

Enough of excuses though! Let me first take you straight away to the food.

I made pumpkin cake. Actually, the plan was to make pumpkin muffins but my muffin plans have never succeeded. I have baked muffins twice and they have kind of over flown and flattened out on me. I know, I know, it is hard to imagine a person having a blog and trying to preach cooking having difficulty baking muffins. So, I made 6 muffins out of the batter and when I saw their beautiful faces, I decided I would bake cake with the rest of the batter. The cake came out really well. I am a bit proud as I made changes to a Dorie Greenspan recipe successfully. We all know that she is amazing and so are her books and her recipes. I bought her book "From my home to yours" just 2-3 months back and now, whenever I have to bake something, it is the first place I peep into.

I changed the recipe to make it healthier. My boy friend is on a strict and healthy diet these days and I did adjustments so that I could provoke him to eat it. I succeeded. I know I am putting all the blame on him but I myself keep searching ways to replace all purpose flour and butter in all these recipes. So far, I have been quite successful. I replace all purpose flour with whole wheat flour and butter with olive oil. It is not that simple as it sounds though. First of all, do not use these replacements when you are baking breads. Breads work with very specific ratios. Secondly, go step by step. Do not replace the complete two cups of flour with whole wheat flour, as both have different densities and different characteristic aroma and you might need to adjust the other ingredients accordingly. I replace half of the flour with whole wheat flour and same goes for butter.

Here is the recipe.

Pumpkin Muffin
Recipe Adapted from : Dorie Greenspan
Ingredients:
1. 3/4 cup (170 g) unsweetened pumpkin puree
2. 110 g (1 cup) all purpose flour
3. 120 g (1 cup) whole wheat flour (Original recipe adds two cups of all purpose flour)
4. 1 stick (110 g) unsalted butter (I used 55 g of butter and added olive oil to compensate for it)
5. 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
6. 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
7. 1/2 tsp ground ginger
8. 2 tsp baking powder
9. 1/4 tsp baking soda
10. 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
11. 3/4 cup (170 g) sugar (original recipe adds 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar)
12. 1/4 cup (60 ml) buttermilk
13. 2 eggs
14. 130 ml milk
15. 1/2 cup (50 g) soaked raisins
16. 1/2 cup (50 g) cashew

Steps:
1. Beat the butter and sugar together. The original recipe mentions doing this using an electric beater. I have always been using a hand beater though. I heat the sugar and butter a bit before hand to get a head start.
2. Add the eggs one by one and beat well. Add olive oil, vanilla extract and pumpkin puree.
3. Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and baking soda together.
4. Slowly add the flour to the butter and sugar mixture. Add some amount and mix well. While mixing the flour, add buttermilk and milk to keep a good consistency of the batter. The batter should neither be too thick nor too runny. You can adjust the amount of milk accordingly.
5. Add the raisins and cashews and mix well.
6. Preheat the oven to 205 degree C or 400 degree F.
7. Grease a regular size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffins cup. Bake for about 25 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes clean.
8. Cool the muffin pan for 5-10 minutes before taking out the muffins.

It is a delicious cake. The pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and the whole wheat flour worked out so well together.

Go bake :)

Wholewheat Pumpkin Walnut Almond Streusel Cake

Omg! It has been a long time since I have penned down here.

First of all a very happy new year to everyone. May this post and many more to come
find you all in good health and peace. Have a glorious year ahead filled with full of fun :)

As the name already speak out, I made a wholewheat pumpkin walnut almond streusel cake. I wanted to make something sweet and special.

I had my eyes upon this cake for sometime now. I had to start travelling the next day and I thought this would be a good treat for me on the train. Oh I just love the train journeys. They are so much fun. You are on the go, no one disturbs you, you witness marvelous views along the journey, meet new people and see different things happening around. I just love the whole experience. And you know what! This post has been written during the train journey.

Newer things are happening in life and new decisions are being taken. Maybe this cake is celebrating those or who knows maybe this cake is celebrating  just good food and good life around me. Believe me, this cake needs no reason. I am not happy with myself as I have not done justice with the photo. The photo does not do justice to the absolutely delicious cake.

But I promise I will do better next time.

Does it happen with you guys that you can't eat right after you cook. I mean I can, but I can't eat as much as I normally do. Or I can't eat the normal portions me and my sister usually eat. I enjoy it a bit later. Like I did in the train. I also offered it to the gentleman nearby and he was about to take it. But I suddenly remembered that he ordered vegetarian for dinner and I was not sure if he would eat egg. I asked him to have and as he was about to take some, I asked him if he would eat egg. He said no and I apologetically pulled back my hand. Then while watching a movie I had the whole big piece.

Oh my my! It was a beauty. The taste of the streusel made my taste buds dance. I am telling you, the photos are not doing justice. But I could not resist myself from posting this recipe. I wanted  everyone to have access to this beautiful cake.

I have blabbered a lot. Go and make this cake. You won't regret. One specific note: As mentioned do use the spring form cake pan and not the normal one. Or else the cake may break. Its a soft cake. I didn't had my spring form pan and used the normal one. Which explains why this post does not have a full picture of the cake ;)

And also one learning from all the baking I have done. Brown sugar works wonders with desserts. I love it. It brings out a strong molassey flavor. I can never forget the feel of the streusel in my mouth and neither will you.

Now enough of talking. Let me go straight away to the cake recipe.

Absolute bliss!

Almond Walnut Streusel Cake
Bake in a 9 inch springform cake pan
Recipe Adapted from : The White Ramekins

Ingredients:

For the streusel:
1. 40 grams (1/3 cup) Whole wheat flour
2. 100 grams (1/2 cup) dark brown sugar
3. 1 tsp cinnamon powder
4. 20 g Walnuts (original recipe uses just walnuts. I put in almonds too. I had whole walnuts and breaking them was a long and painful process. )
5. 50 grams almonds
6. 50 grams cold butter, cut in chunks
7. pinch of salt

For the cake:
1. 130 grams (1 cup) whole wheat flour
2. 55 grams (1/2 cup) all purpose flour
3. 1 tsp ground ginger
4. 2 tsp cinnamon powder
5. 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
6. 2 tsp baking powder
7. 1/2 tsp baking soda
8. 100 grams butter
9. 2 eggs
10. 200 grams (1 cup) brown sugar
11. 60 grams (1/2 cup) pumpkin puree
12. 80 grams (slightly less than 1/2 cup) yogurt
13. pinch of salt

For the dripping:
1. 55 grams (1/2 cup) confectioner's sugar
2. 1 tsp vanilla extract
3. 1 tbsp milk


Steps for the streusel:
1. Warm up a non stick pan and lightly toss the chopped walnuts and chopped almonds.
2. While the nuts are being toasted, sift the flour, salt, cinnamon and brown sugar together.
3. Put in the chunks of butter in this mixture.
4. You have to make a crumby mixture now of the butter and the flour mix. You can do it by hand or by giving it a go in the mixture for a minute or two.
5. Now add the toasted walnuts and almonds into it.

Steps for the cake batter:
1. Mix the dry ingredients (whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, baking soda) together.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together till it forms a nice mix (alternatively melt the butter and mix in the sugar in it well enough)
3. Now add the eggs one by one while whisking the mixture properly.
4. Now add in the yogurt and the pumpkin puree and mix well.
5. Add this mix to the dry mixture.

Steps to make the drizzle:
1. Whisk the vanilla extract, milk and sugar together. Add milk to adjust the consistency
so that it is easy to drizzle.

To assemble:
1. Pre heat an oven at 175 degree celsius
2. Prepare a spring form pan by buttering it with butter
3. Pour in half of the batter, then place half of the streusel on it. Now pour over the rest of the batter and then layer the rest of the streusel on it.
4. Bake for around 25 minutes or till a tooth pick comes out clean.

After the cake cools down take it out of the spring form pan.

Pour over the drizzle and serve.

It is an amazing cake. Uses such a variety of ingredients and the flavor comes out together so well.
It is definitely a treat. :)

Utterly Butterly Delicious Chocolate Cake

Hope you all had a great Diwali. It was my sister's birthday yesterday and we all know what comes with a birthday, a wonderful delicious birthday cake. I wanted this birthday to be very special for her as I was with her on this day after a long time. I wanted to make the best cake for her. She had mentioned very clearly that she wanted a chocolate cake. My search for a delicious chocolate cake began days ago and then my eyes rested on this one. It is an amazing chocolate cake. One of the kinds that you want to make over and over again and can't get enough of it. Everybody loved it at home. My sister specially thanked me for making it. All of us were going in for second, third and fourth helpings. It is an easy recipe and produces such mouth watering results.

The cake has two components, one obviously is the cake and the other is the chocolate ganache. The cake was moist to perfection. The silkiness of the ganache worked amazing with the cake. I had a thick layer of the ganache in the middle and around the cake. If you just want a thin layer (which I don't think you will) then pour over the ganache just before serving the cake.

Let me pour out the recipe before I start drooling over for the cake again.

Utterly Butterly Delicious Chocolate Cake
Serves 7-8
Recipe Source: Purplefoodie

Ingredients:
For the cake:
1. 125 g flour
2. 30g corn flour
3. 40 g cocoa powder
3. 1/4 tsp baking soda
4. 1/2 tsp baking powder
5. 275 g sugar
6. 115 g butter (I used salted butter so I didn't add any extra salt)
7. 125 g yoghurt
8. 30 ml water
9. 2.5 eggs


For Chocolate Ganache:
1. 375 ml full fat cream (I used Amul Cream)
2. 250 g dark chocolate
3. 30 g butter


Sieve the flour, corn flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder together. In a separate bowl mix the yoghurt and water together. You will need these two mixtures to go in the butter sugar mixture that has to be prepared next. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl till they both look well blended. Also the butter will get a little lighter in color. The main concern I have when I am using granulated sugar in desserts is whether I will be able to melt it up completely while I am mixing it. But here when you are beating up the sugar and butter, the sugar won't melt as the proportion of sugar to butter is quite high. Now pour in one egg at a time and beat well. The recipe mentions 2.5 eggs, well to get the .5 part, crack open an egg separately, beat it and pour 25 g of the beaten up egg in the sugar butter mixture. Now put in parts of the flour mixture and parts of the yoghurt alternately into the butter sugar mixture and keep mixing well.

For the cake:
Prepare a 9 inch round cake tin and line it with baking parchment. I just covered the base with the baking parchment as the sides were difficult to cover ( I had a round tin and a rectangular parchment). Baking parchment does not let the cake stick to the tin. Cover the parchment with olive oil so as to avoid sticking of the cake to the baking parchment as well. Pour in the mixture in the cake tin. Preheat the oven to 170 degree celsius and bake the cake for about 35-40 minutes. Use the "toothpick coming out clean method" to check if the cake is well cooked. Once done, take it out and let it cool down. Trying to take out a hot cake from the tin may break the cake.

For the ganache:
Place the chocolate in a bowl. Boil the cream and pour it over the chocolate. Now mix in the chocolate well with the cream. The chocolate will melt slowly and the mixture will start getting a smooth chocolaty milky color. When the chocolate is all well mixed with the cream, put in the butter. Mix the butter well. The ganache is ready and you can cover it and keep it for later use.

Assembling the cake:
Place the cake on a cake board. Cut the risen up part of the cake with a serrated knife. Cut the cake horizontally into two, right from the centre. Now cover the top of the bottom layer of the cake with ganache and leave around one cm around the circumference as the ganache may ooze out when you place the top part of the cake on the bottom layer. Now place the top half of the cake on the bottom half and cover the top with ganache. Keep the cake in the fridge. This will help in setting up the ganache. You have to use the entire ganache over the cake. So after say 30 minutes, take the cake out once again and cover the sides of the cake with ganache. I put another layer of the ganache on top of the cake and kept it in the fridge again to set up perfectly. Here is a tip. To cover the cake beautifully with the ganache and to give it a smooth finish, cover the cake with a thin coating of ganache first and keep it in the fridge. The crumbs will all be locked up with this coating and when you pour over the next layer of ganache it will be smooth and beautiful.

The cake was delicious, completely amazing and so chocolaty. You can enjoy it for days and you do not require to keep it in the fridge. This is a must try recipe and trust me once you bake this cake there is no turning back. I am waiting to bake this cake again though I have strict instructions from my niece for the next cake, it has to be a strawberry one.

Have fun baking.

Eggless Carrot cake

Today I knew I had to make dessert. My sister is so fond of sweets. Carrot cake has been on my list for some time now. It sounds so inviting. When I imagine carrot cake it already starts melting in my mouth and I reach another world. I am not a big dessert lover so you can imagine that carrot cake is really something.

It is the eighth day of Navratri, a nine day festival of Hindus in which each day a form of the Hindu Deity Durga is worshiped and celebrated. Worshipers don't eat non vegetarian food during this festival so I could not use egg. I had to cook egg less carrot cake. I searched around and landed on a beautiful carrot cake recipe. The cake turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. So here you go :)

Recipe:
Serves 6
Recipe Source: Sharmis Passions

Ingredients:
1. 4 medium size carrots (grated carrots measured a little more than a cup)
2. 1 1/2 cup Yoghurt
3. 4 tbsp + 4 tbsp Milk
4. 1 cup sugar
5. 1/2 cup olive oil
6. 1/2 tsp cinnamon
7. 1 tsp vanilla extract
8. 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
9. 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
10. 1 tsp baking soda
11. 1 tsp baking powder
12. 1/2 cup cashew nut and raisins
13. 1 tsp salt

Mix both the flours, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl mix 4 tbsp milk, yoghurt, olive oil and sugar. Keep mixing till the sugar dissolves. Now add cinnamon and vanilla extract to this mixture and mix well. Add in the carrots now. Finally add the flour mixture to this mix. I felt that the batter was thick at this point so I added 4 tbsp milk slowly into the mixture. Now add the raisins and half crushed cashew nuts. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Take a baking tin and grease with olive oil. Pour in the batter and keep inside the oven. Set the timer to 30 minutes. It actually took 25 minutes to cook the cake.
To check whether it is cooked or not put a toothpick/knife inside and if it comes out clean the cake is cooked. You can also garnish with chopped cashew nuts.

It turned out extremely moist and delicious.  I was waiting for the cake to cool down a bit. My niece and her friend was playing and I gave them the side crunch of the cake. They liked it so much and could not stop eating. So when you can't use egg or are out of egg, feel free to replace it with yoghurt.

Bake and enjoy :)