Marble cake with Chocolate fudge icing

Marble cake and me never got along very well all these years. I tried to bake it several times and was never happy with the marble pattern I got. It tasted good but none of them looked good enough to photograph. Having said that the truth is, I never gave up making them as I really like the taste of vanilla and cocoa combination. Sometime back I  picked up a bundt cake pan and have been waiting for a good time to bake in it, but since the pan was quite big I didn’t want to bake something in it just for ourselves. Last week when we went to meet our friends who were going back to India I decided to bake this cake and share it with them. By the time I finished baking it,  it was little late in the evening and I had no energy to photograph it. I decided to leave it uncut and photograph it next day until my lil boy came to kitchen and said “ amma, I can smell a cake”. It’s not fair to ask a 5 yr old to wait till next day to cut the cake right? So we cut the cake and I enjoyed it with my cup of tea… So this time I dont have the  picture whole beautiful bundt cake, hopefully next time if I make one I will update the pictures.

Ingredients

Flour/ Maida – 225 gm ( approx 1 ¾ cup)

Butter – 225 gm( 1 cup)

Sugar – 225 gm ( 1 ¼ cup)

Eggs – 4 large

Cocoa powder - 1 1 /2 tbs

Hot water – 5 tbs(  3+ 2 tbs)

Vanilla extract – 2 tsp

Baking powder – 2 tsp

Salt – a pinch

Method

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and keep it aside.

Cream butter and sugar with a beater or electric mixer until creamy.

Break eggs in a separate bowl and beat lightly with a spoon.

Add the beaten egg to the creamed butter sugar mixture and beat until mixed.

Add vanilla extract and beat until mixed.

Add the sifted flour mixture slowly and fold in until well incorporated.

Divide the batter into two halves.

Add cocoa powder in a glass and add 3 tbs of boiling water to it and mix well and add this to one half of the batter and fold in.

Loosen the vanilla batter with 2 tbs of boling water and fold in.

In a greased cake tin add 2 tbs of vanilla batter followed by cocoa batter. After doing each layer lighly swirl the batter with your finger to get a marble pattern. Repeat it until all the batter is used up.This youtube video might be helpful.

Bake it an preheated oven at 180 degree C for 40-55 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. 

 For chocolate fudge icing  

Butter - 55 gm (1/4 cup)

Brown sugar - 50 gm (1/4 cup)

Icing sugar - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 2 tbs

Method

In a saucepan add butter and brown sugar and place it on a low flame until sugar melts and its bubbly.

In a heatproof bowl take icing sugar, cocoa powder and mix.

Add melted butter sugar solution  to it and mix well. Icing is ready.

Spread the icing onto the cool cake and enjoy !!

Carrot ada payasam

Wishing all the Malayalees around the globe a very Happy Vishu !  

This is my Amma’s signature  recipe and she has been  serving this to our guests since a long time.The only modification I have done to this recipe is  replacing one cup of milk with a tin of evaporated  milk, that's just because I had a  tin of evaporated milk which my hubby picked up accidentally long time back when I asked him to  get condensed milk. Anyway it was him who remided me to use it in this payasam. Evaporated milk gave a nice flavour of reduced milk to the payasam and I will definitely be using it for again for this payasam.

Ingredients

Carrots – 3 large or 4 medium

Rice Ada – 100 gm

Boiling water – As required

Milk – 5 cups

Evaporated milk – 1 tin (optional)  Use  one  cup of milk if not using it

Sugar – 1 1/2 cups ( as per your sweetness)

Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

Cashew nuts – 2 tbs

Golden Sultanans – 2 tbs

Ghee – 2 tbs

Method

• Grate carrot and pressure cook it for 2 whistles adding 2 cups of milk
• Place 100 gms of Ada in a saucepan and add boiling water to it and cover it for ½ an hour.
• After 30 minute Ada should be soft, drain the water and keep the ada aside.
• Meanwhile puree the cooked carrot in a blender and keep it aside.
• Place evaporated milk, rest of milk( 3 cups)and bring it to boil, add cooked Ada to it and cook for 10 minutes.
• Add Pureed carrot to the Ada and cook for another 10 minutes.
• Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Cook for another 5 minutes and finally add cardamom powder and remove from fire.
• Now in a small pan add ghee and roast cashew nuts until lightly brown and sultana until they plump up
• Add Cashewnuts and sultanas to payasam and stir in.
• Serve the Payasam warm or chill in fridge and serve cold!!

Tender Coconut pudding/ Elaneer pudding

Back home during summers Amma used to ask our coconut picker to drop few tender coconuts every time he comes for his monthly picking, after slurping the fresh juice me and my sisters used to fight for scooping out the thin tender coconut shavings. During those school/college days I was not fond of usual cooking and never cooked but when it comes to desserts, my eyes always used to lit up. I still remember making a bread pudding during my 17’s or 18’s and serving my family with pride. I am sure if I had known about this pudding then I would have definitely tried making it with plentiful tender coconut available.

Ever since I learnt about this dessert I was so desperate to make to this. I used to gaze at the tender coconuts in Indian shops here which makes  special appearance during festive occasions but without the vettu kathi/ chopper there was no point in buying them. Hammer works well for me to crack the coconut shell so I never had the need of vettu kathi to crack my coconuts, so last year when I went to India I decided to pack one chopper in check in luggage just for chopping my tender coconut, but at the last moment I dropped the plan as I was worried about security checking. After that, I never thought I would be able to make tender coconut pudding in my kitchen here until I saw this frozen young coconut shavings in a Korean shop here. They had cans of young coconut water too, so picked up both and tried making it. Finally I can cross of my desire to make tender coconut pudding for the time being. It was a delicious dessert but I think   the frozen tender coconut didn’t do compete justice to my pudding so I will be trying it again during my next vacation with fresh tender coconut J

Ingredients ( serves 6)

Tender Coconuts shavings – 1cup ( from 2 tender coconuts)

Tender coconut water – 1 cup

Milk – 2 cup

Water – ½ cup

Gelatin – 15g/ 5 tsp

Condensed milk/Milk maid – 200 ml / ½ tin

Sugar – ½ cup or as per your sweetness

Method

• In a blender puree the tender coconut shavings with coconut water.
• In a heatproof bowl add boiling water and add gelatin and dissolve, keep it aside.
• Place milk, condensed milk and sugar  in saucepan and warm till sugar dissolves. Let it cool down a bit.
• Add tender coconut puree to it and mix well.
• Finally add the gelatin mixture and mix.
• Pour the mixture into serving bowl and chill for 3-4 hours or until set.

Apple cinnamon whole wheat Waffle

After a busy term, finally our Easter holidays are beginning. Today is the last term day for my lil boy and for me it’s tomorrow. We are really looking forward to all the festivities coming up and more than that I am thrilled about my baking workshop next week. Yes ..for the first time I am doing a baking workshop for a small group of ladies at my home showing them some basic baking. My blogger friend MK who lives around the corner is joining with me and we are doing a combined workshop. I really hope we can inspire those ladies to get into bakingJ. We will try and take some pictures of the workshop and share it with you all.

 I love waffles and I have been eyeing on buying one since a long time. 40-50 quid for a waffle maker seemed too much for me and decided to keep my desire on bay. One day during a casual chat with my friend T, she told me that she owns a waffle maker which I can borrow any time. Oh boy I was happy; I borrowed it from her the same day and made the waffle the very next day. It has been few weeks since that and it’s still with meJ.. I know I know when we borrow something we shouldn’t keep it this long right? So before returning it back I wanted to make it one more time and take a picture and midst of all the morning chores that too on a weekday I clicked my waffles before we gobbled it up. I think it’s time for to invest some money on waffle maker as my lil boy loves waffles more than anything else for his breakfast!

Ingredients (makes 4 waffles)

Whole wheat flour / Atta – 1 cup

Egg – 1

Milk – 1 cup

Apple( grated) – 1

Cinnamon powder- 1/8 tsp     

Melted butter – 2 tbsp

Sugar – 2 tbs

Baking powder – ½ tsp

Salt – a pinch

Method

1. In a mixing bowl combine all the ingredients together and make a batter.
2. Preheat the waffle maker and with a ladle, pour the batter to the waffle maker and cover it.
3. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Take the waffles out and serve hot just own its own or with dusted sugar, honey, maple syrup or whipped  fresh cream and strawberries !!