Moist Coconut Cake

3/4 cup flour
55 gms unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup fresh grated Coconut

In a bowl take flour, add baking powder, keep it aside.

Cream the butter & sugar for 3-4 minutes.

Add eggs, add vanilla essence and whisk for another minute.

Add flour mix it slowly.

Add the fresh grated coconut, mix and pour the batter in a greased 5" x 3" pan.





Bake it for 45 minutes in a preheated oven @ 180 deg. C.


Moist yummy coconut cake with some hot coffee.

I made a big one with double quantity in a 6" x 6" pan.

Banana Chiffon Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (280 gms)
1 1/4 cups sugar (225 gms)
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
5 eggs, separated
1 tsp. pure vanilla

Preheat oven to 180°C

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Form a well in the center and add bananas, oil, water, egg yolks and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

In a small mixing bowl, beat egg whites until they hold stiff peaks when the beater is lifted from the bowl. Fold gently into the banana mixture.

Pour into a greased 10-inch pan.



Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove pan from oven and turn upside down immediately. Allow to cool for 20 minutes. Remove cake from pan.

Learn to Bake Cakes with Icing

Caramel Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake

Best way to consume the over ripe bananas, bake a banana cake. The cake by itself is soft & yummy but I always want something different so I gave it a little topping with caramel walnut. The caramelized walnuts taste delicious and so does the caramel which is a little hard and chewy. Do give a try, you will love it. I couldn't wait to click pictures as the cake looked absolutely Yummilicious. Now can't wait till I pop in a piece.


Ingredients :
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
100 gms unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
3 large ripe bananas (mashed)
3 tablespoons Milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla


Topping:
75 gms unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Honey
1 cup walnut pieces

Grease a 5x5x3 inch square cake pan. Bring butter, sugar, and honey to boil in medium saucepan, stirring constantly until butter melts. Boil it for 1 minute. Stir in nuts. Pour the topping in the greased cake pan. Cool it completely.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift dry ingredients in a bowl. Using the beater, beat butter and both sugars in large bowl until its creamy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then mashed bananas, milk and vanilla. Now add the dry ingredients. Pour the batter in the greased pan with the topping.

Bake cake for 1 hour or until the skewer inserted into center comes out clean. Now Cool it for 10 minutes. Turn the cake upside down on a serving tray or plate. Cool it for 10 minutes for the topping to set. If you like the caramel hard & chewy you can serve it plain. If you like it gooey & chewy then just warm up the slice for few seconds in the microwave and serve it.

Rainbow Pound Cake

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
400 gms butter
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
9 eggs



Preparation Method

Cream butter & sugar until light and fluffy.

Lightly beat the eggs one by one. Now add the vanilla essence.

Slowly add little by little the flour & salt to the above mixture and mix till nicely incorporated and there are no lumps.

Now divide the batter into 4 parts. add your choice of colours.

Grease a 5x9 2 loaf pans . Add the batter to the greased pans layer by layer with each colours.

Bake it in a preheated oven (180 Deg. C)for 1 hour or the wooden skewer inserted in the center of each pans comes out clean.

Remove from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

Fish Cakes

Ingredients :

3/4 Kg fish fillet (I used shark fish fillet)
1 onion (finely chopped)
3/4 tsp black pepper powder
8 tsp Mayonnaise
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp spring onions (only greens finely chopped)
2 eggs - divided
8-10 tbsp oil
1 cup of breadcrumbs

Preparation :

Wash and boil the fish with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup of water for 6-7 minutes. Once cooked & cooled mash it, keep it in a bowl.




In the same bowl add finely chopped onion, pepper powder, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, oyster sauce, spring onion, 1 egg. Mix it well.

Take little mixture into your hands and shape it into small or big patties.



Take one egg, beat it. Roll the fish cakes in the beaten egg, now dust it with breadcrumbs.



Shallow fry it putting 2-3 tbsp of oil in a frying pan. Lightly brown it for 2-3 minutes each sides on slow flame.

Serve it with tartar sauce/ketchup or make a sandwich with some lettuce & tomatoes.

Yoghurt Lemon Ribbon Cake

I wanted to bake a colourful cake from many days. So thought of baking this yoghurt lemon cake with a little twist. Divided the batter into four equal parts, added the desired colours to the prepared batter and poured it into a cake tin & baked. Love the colours....:)


1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup yogurt
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 8x8 inch cake pan with oil.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk yogurt, 1 cup sugar, eggs, lemon zest, oil, lemon juice and vanilla. Now mix slowly the dry & wet ingredients. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until the skewer placed in the center comes out clean.

If you are in a colourful mood then go ahead divide the batter into 3 or 4 equal parts. Add the desired colours & pour it in a greased cake tin & bake.

Mini Cheesecake

1 Pkg gingersnap cookies(You can use chocolate chip cookies or oreos)
260 gms cream cheese-softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla essence
2 large eggs
15 muffin paper cups


Preheat oven to 160 C.

Place paper muffin cups in a muffin pan.


Place single cookies in each muffin cups as the base for the cheesecake.



Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Pour the mixture equally into the muffin cups about 3/4 level.



Bake it in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Cool it.



Top it with melted chocolate or whipped cream.

To make it more colourful sprinkle some hundreds & thousands. ENJOY ;)




Ain't they looking beautiful !!!!

Moist Zuchinni Bread

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup raisins (optional)
about 1 cup zucchini grated

Mix sugar and oil in large bowl. Add eggs and beat well. Add all dry ingredients and mix with water adding slowly. Mix until just combined and there are no lumps. Add the zucchini. Pour in a greased loaf pan and bake it for 1 hr 10 minutes in a preheated oven (180˚C). Check if done by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean its done.

If still soft in the center leave it for another 10 minutes. Cool it and enjoy the delicious moist bread.

Carrot Cornmeal Muffins

1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup raisins or currants
1/2 cup grated carrot, about 1 medium carrot
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¾ cup Cornmeal
¾ cup all-purpose flour, stir before measuring
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Preparation:

Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Heat orange juice in microwave, add raisins or currants. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla until well blended. Combine the dry ingredients and add to first mixture, mixing just until ingredients are moistened. Add raisins and carrot into the batter, fold it lightly.
Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full and sprinkle grated carrot ; bake in preheated 180° C oven for 18 to 2o minutes, or until the muffins bounce back when lightly touched with a finger.

Makes 12 muffins.

Cornmeal Cookies

I just love baking as the aroma of butter & vanilla is so heavenly. Its been long I've baked any goodies so decided to make some cookies. Last week I tried baking Crunchy Oatmeal raisin cookies. Wasn’t very happy with their shapes as they came out flat but were very crunchy and tasty. I had some cornmeal stored so my search for cornmeal cookies begin and i bumped into these Italian Cornmeal cookies, “Crumiri”. Had all the ingredients in my kitchen shelf, so without wasting any time just off to bake them. Sabu was all excited to help me with the baking. She loves to cream the butter and sugar and finally she did the whole dough. Filled the dough in the pastry bag and Sabu was already with the piping bag running down with imagination as what shapes she should make. She happily piped out some ginger man, shirt, heart and various different shapes on the greased baking sheet. Baked the cookies in a preheated oven for 15 minutes and she was right next to the oven waiting impatiently for the cokies to come out of the oven. Side by side I spooned few cookie drops in another baking sheet. Few were sprinkled with pistachio powder and few I put 1 almond in the centre.

Ingredients :

180 gms unsalted butter
140 gms sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
240 gms all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
110 gms cornmeal

Preheat oven @ 180C. Grease the cookie sheet. Cream the butter & sugar until light and pluffy, add one eggs at a time, add vanilla essence now add the dry mixture of flour, cornmeal & salt. Mix well. Put the dough in a piping bag and and pipe out V , S or any shapes you like. I made few shapes and few dropped few with a tsp and sprinkled it with pistachio powder. Bake it for 15-18 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese & Maple Icing

It is my SIL’s (Angela’s) birthday today so thought of surprising her with a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese & Maple Icing.

Devil's Food Cake

It was my friend Carol’s birthday yesterday and she requested me to bake a chocolate cake. I do bake cakes but wanted to make something special for a special friend so decided to try something different so I went to the site http://www.cacaoweb.net and tried the devils’ food cake. It turned out good but not as per my expectations. I baked the cake, made the frosting , assembled it but still there was something missing. It didn’t look that beautiful so Adrian suggested to decorate it with some chocolate shavings and it looke much better. Check out the recipe @ http://www.cacaoweb.net/devilsfoodcake.html , bake it and put in your comments.

Corn Meal Easy Bake Cake

My daughter Sabrina the “Little Chef” is 10 year old who loves to cook and is always ever ready to help me in the kitchen. She was all excited when we decided to make this easy cornmeal cake.







1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour (Maida)
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
½ cup oil
4 eggs (separate the yolks and egg white)
1 tsp baking powder


Pre-heat the oven at 200°C. Mix the egg yolks, sugar and oil. Boil the milk and mix the cornmeal. Mix cornmeal mixture to the eggs mixture. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add to the mixture. In a bowl whisk the eggs white and fold into the mixture. Grease a cake pan. Pour this into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until the knife comes out clean.