Alton Brown's Free Range Fruit Cake

This is an adaptation of Alton Brown’s Free Range Fruit Cake for the Christmas and New Year. I came to know about this brilliant recipe from Bong Mom’s CookBook and instantly fell in love with it. Couldn’t wait much further and baked this new year rum fruit cake for my family straight away after acquiring the ingredients and it turned out as awesome as the recipe promised it to be. Thank you Sandeepa and those of you who haven’t tried it yet make it today…..

Fruit Cake

Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

My next experiment with baking is a double layered carrot cake. Make this delicious, super moist, melt-in-mouth, spicy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting this Christmas and surprise your near and dear ones. This cake is rich and flavourful and the cream cheese frosting gives another dimension to the cake, a must try for all the cake and bake lovers. Got this recipe from the net and with all those red juicy sweet carrots of the winter the recipe was simply irresistible….so off I went with it.

Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Pound cake

Christmas is nearing and getting inspired by all the awesome bakes being posted on various food groups couldn’t resist myself. This is a simple bake, nothing too rich and heavy. A pound cake is something you enjoy at anytime, delicious, moist and fluffy, a good accompaniment with tea or coffee which often becomes the saviour in this cold season.

Pound Cake

Though maa n grandma’s pound cakes were typically old school, I baked this using my imagination, added some cashews, dark raisins n tootty truity to make it more appealing to my son. I’m not a baker by any means but this tasted superb. So those of you looking for an easy bake before the real Christmas stuff, this is the recipe for you.

Pound Cake

What you’ll need:

• 11/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 11/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 3 eggs at room temperature
• ¾ cups of granulated sugar
• 15 tablespoons of salted butter melted
• 1/3 cup of whole milk at room temperature
• A fistful of tootty fruity
• A fistful of dark raisins
• A fistful of cashews

 

Pound Cake

Process:

Step1:
 

First soak the cashew and raisins in warm water for  5-7 minutes and strain the water.

Step 2:

Sift flour and baking powder together 2 times.

Step 3:

Now in an electric mixer, mix these along with the sugar on low speed until nicely blended.

Step 4:

Beat the eggs, and add to it the milk and the vanilla essence and mix well.

Step 5:
 

Now mix the dry ingredients in the mixer with melted butter and half the egg mix on low speed for 10 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the container and mix again on low speed for 20 seconds. By now the dry ingredients will be moistened. Pour in the remaining egg mix and again blend on low speed for 30 seconds twice at an interval. Your batter is ready by now.

Step 6:
 

Gently mix the cashew, raisins and tootty fruity with a ladle and pour the batter in a well greased and powdered baking dish.

Step 7:

Preheat the oven to 180 degree centigrade and bake for 55 minutes-1 hour. Do the toothpick test, before removing. The toothpick should come out clean when inserted at the centre.

Pound cake

Step 8:

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack before removing from the baking dish.

Oreo Cookie Cake

Oreo Cookie Cake
 

Yesterday being the Children’s Day wanted to bake something for my son because he just loves home made cakes. Though I’m not much into baking but enjoy producing goodies occasionally, specially during winters. I was introduced to this super easy, moist, melt-in-mouth chocolate cake by a friend Shyama Amrita Choudhari. Thank you Shyama for this wonderful recipe. No one can go wrong with this one. It’s a microwave cake and needs only 6 minutes!!! Yes, this one is a real quickie and so yummilicious too. Made my kid a happy soul. This is how I made it….

 

Oreo Cookie Cake

Ingredients:
 

• Oreo chocolate biscuits 19 (that makes total 38 biscuits for the cake because they come in pairs with chocolate cream in between)
• 1 large cup full cream milk
• A fistful of tutti fruiti (optional)
• 4 tablespoons of castor sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder

Oreo Cookie Cake

Oreo Cookie Cake

Process:

Step:1

Roughly break the biscuits (with the cream) into smaller pieces in a bowl.

Step:2

Now put them in a blender. Add all the other ingredients except the tutti fruiti. Give them a spin. The cake batter is ready. Add the tutti fruit now and remove it to a well greased glass baking bowl. You can line the bowl with parchment paper too if you want a clean top after inverting the cake.

Step:3

Microwave at full powder for 6 minutes exactly. Your cake is ready. Don’t worry if you see some moist portions in the cake. Give it a standing time of 10-15 minutes to let the cake cook in it’s own heat before taking out.

Step:4

Top the cake with powdered sugar. Take some castor sugar in a strainer and sprinkle all over the cake.  Now place an Oreo cookie in the middle.

Banana Walnut Cake

A soft moist super delicious cake, can be enjoyed anytime throughout the year, very easy to make and a hit among kids. These pictures were taken when the cake was fresh out of the oven.

Recipe:

 

Banana Walnut Cake

Banana Walnut Cake

Ingredients:
 

• 2 medium sized ripe bananas mashed
• 1cup melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup walnuts
• 11/2 cups of all purpose flour (maida)
• ¼ cup full cream milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup of tutti frutti (optional)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Procedure:

Sieve flour and baking powder together and keep aside. Now beat sugar with butter till creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat the mixture. When it becomes foamy add vanilla essence, mashed bananas, milk and mix well. Now add the dry ingredients (flour and baking powder) and fold slowly. Add the walnuts and tutti frutti. Grease a baking tray and pour the mixture. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 45-50 minutes. Do the toothpick test at the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean your cake is done. Enjoy with tea/coffee or just like that....

Good old Bread n Butter Pudding

Good old Bread n Butter Pudding in today’s dessert after quite a long time…just love this simple pudding….kinda soul food…Though most of you know how to make it…sharing the recipe nevertheless….

Recipe

                 

Bread n Butter Pudding

                 

Ingredients: 

• Bread 6 pcs
• Butter as per need
• Eggs 3
• Full cream milk 2 cups
• Milkmaid ½ tin (200gms)
• Powdered sugar 3-4 tbsps
• Vanilla essence 1-2 tsp
• Raisins n almonds
• Tutti frutti for garnishing
  
  

Process: 

Cut the edges of the bread pcs n knife them diagonally. Smear butter on both the sides of the pcs n arrange them taking two together on a square baking dish. Now mix milk, milkmaid, sugar, eggs n vanilla essence whisking lightly. Put raisins n almonds in between the bread pcs n pour the mixture over the breads. Preheat oven n bake at 160 deg. For 35-40 mins…take out once it starts turning golden brown…refrigerate for 3-4 hrs serve chilled garnished with tutti frutti/cherries or anything you want…divine!!!