Wacky / Crazy Chocolate Cake - Egg-free, Dairy-free, Mess-free!

You will be having a bunch of guests in the next hour and after cooking a meal for them you realize you have not made a dessert! You can fix it by serving the vanilla ice cream stocked up in the freezer, but is that enough? How you curse yourself for not having baked a chocolate cake for the dessert! But the thought of measuring, creaming, mixing, baking just before the guests arrive dreads you. Especially the washing of the numerous measuring, mixing bowls that end up in the sink after a bake. Honestly that is what scares most of us!

For such a situation, who doesn't need some easy breezy, quick and dirty, mess free recipes in one's repository? How much ever you love to bake those elaborate, hi-fi recipes, which require accurate measurements, lengthy instructions on the method, which should be followed very carefully and exactly, I bet you sometimes long for a carefree and easy recipe to bake, something that does not require weighing the ingredients carefully, not needing a mixer to mix with, something that you can dump the ingredients and mix it with a spatula and bake. And what if it is an egg-free, dairy free recipe, making it suitable with almost any kind of crowd? And wait, here comes the ultimate catch - you will not end up washing the dozen utensils after pushing the baking pan into the oven!! All you'll have is a spatula, and may be a measuring cup. Yes, you read that right!!

I came across this recipe somewhere on the net while browsing and it caught my attention for two reasons. One, the simplicity and strange uniqueness of the recipe and two and most importantly, it is egg free and dairy free, making it suitable for my little kiddo to try, as he is allergic to dairy. Wow! Of course he is too small yet to have the cake for himself, and all he got was a taste of it, and the rest of it was polished by you know who :D And of course some taste testers in the hubby's office ;)

So, as i said earlier, the procedure is very simple, and kind of weird, if you ask me! You mix the dry ingredients straight away in the baking pan - yes, baking pan, and make three indentations to pour each wet ingredient in, and pour water all over and mix with a spatula! And bake, voila! Does this not sound weird? Of course it did to me, when I read it, but many sites I looked for said the same, which managed to give me the courage to try it. But I didn't want to risk baking it half an hour before guests arrive, before testing it. So this was a test bake, and quite satisfactory. So the next time, if you come home in a short notice, you know what to expect for the dessert ;)

As for the taste, it is not bad at all. Be sure not to over-bake as it dries out pretty fast. And serve it preferably warm, with a sprinkle of vanilla sugar or a topping and some vanilla ice cream. Trust me, you will not regret for having tried it, and the recipe will get into your repository of quick fix, emergency recipes.

Since I have already tested it for you, you can straight away try this for your guests, without having to test bake it :) here you go.....

Wacky / Crazy Chocolate cake

The sources say this cake came to being during war times when there was a scarcity for ingredients and so on... whatever it is, it is a handy recipe for sure!

Preparation time: 10-15 min
Baking time: 30-35 min
Source: Sweet little bluebird

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour - 1 ½ cup
Unsweetened Cocoa powder - 3 Tbsp
White granulated sugar - 1 cup
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
White vinegar - 1 tsp
Vegetable oil - 5 Tbsp
Water - 1 cup
Pure Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C (350 degrees F).
• Mix first 5 dry ingredients in a greased 8" square baking pan. I used an oval tray.
• Make 3 depressions in dry ingredients - two small, one larger (see the collage pic below).
• Pour vinegar in one depression, vanilla in the other and the vegetable oil in third larger depression.   
• Pour water over all.
• Mix well until smooth.
• Bake on middle rack of oven for 35 minutes.
• Check with toothpick to make sure it comes out clean. Cool.
• Top with a frosting or just sprinkle some vanilla sugar and serve with an ice cream like I did and enjoy!

Notes:

• Make sure not to over bake this cake as it turns out drier.
• Once cool, cover the cake in an airtight container and it stays good for 3-4 days

Date and Almonds Muffins

Dates are packed with an impressive list of essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Dates are an excellent source of iron, contains 0.90 mg/100 g of fruits. Iron, being a component of hemoglobin inside the red blood cells, determines the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. It is highly recommended for vegetarians to counter anemia. 

If you are someone like me, you find dates are a tad too sweet to eat as is. It is with great difficulty that i manage to eat a couple of them, and then get really saturated with it! So, I'd rather like to add them as sweeteners to my milkshakes, smoothies and so on, which will have an added benefit of reducing sugar! And then another nice way to use up these fruits are in bakes... as there would be less guilt for using much less of the bad-sugar and sneaking a good-fruit! 

In this case, it is paired with another ingredient filled with nutrients - almonds. And the almonds, along with giving a nice nutty taste and texture, helps in reducing the amount of fat that goes in. It was a perfect recipe for my baking itch.

It can be baked as a cake, as in the original recipe, but i chose to bake them as muffins/cup cakes. I'd rather call these as muffins than cup cakes owing to the oil used, the mix-n-bake preparation and the final texture. They make a nice snack or breakfast item. 

Date and Almonds Muffins

Preparation time : 15 min

Baking time : 5 min

Adapted from  : Versatile Kitchen

Ingredients:

Almonds - 1 cup (Remove the skin if you want a lighter color, I didn't)

Dates - pitted 15

All purpose flour - 3 cups

Salt - 1 tsp

Baking powder - 2 tsp

Baking Soda - 1 tsp

Cardamom powder - 1 1/2 tsp OR Vanilla - 1 1/2 tsp

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups (I reduced the sugar by a couple of tablespoons)

Vegetable or Canola Oil - 2/3 cup

Method:

• Soak almond and dates in warm water to cover them for about 4 hours. 
• Grind into a smooth paste in a mixie/blender. Use enough water so that the resultant liquid/puree is 2 1/4 cups.
• Preheat the oven to 180 dec C or 350 F. 
• Grease and line the muffin tray with paper liner cups and set aside. I used silicon cups.
• In a bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom powder. 
• In another bowl whisk together the date and almond puree with oil and vanilla if using. 
• Dump the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine. Do not over mix. 
• Pour into the prepared cups. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Cool on the wire rack in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning it on to the wire rack to cool completely. 
• When completely cool, glaze or just sprinkle with powdered sugar. It tastes good as is, without the additional sugar or glaze.

Notes:

• I halved the recipe and made 8 cup muffins.
• If baking in a cake pan, bake for 50-60min.
• I increased dates by 3-4 and reduced the sugar and it was just fine.

Cream cheese Pound cake (cold oven)

Hello folks! The chances are you have forgotten me completely, owing to my absence in the past few months.... The thing is, I was too busy with my sweet creation, that I didn't want to miss out a single moment of his growing up... I did miss blogging though, but then the baby came first!

Well, now he is over 6 months and giving us a wonderful time. He is a co operative baby, touch wood, lets us do our work provided we are around, talking out to him every few minutes. More updates on him here. Let me now get on to today's recipe!

Here's Cream cheese Pound cake, one of the best cakes I've ever baked! it was baked sometime during my pregnancy, in the second trimester, to carry along for a trip we were going. With my pregnancy hormones in full action, throwing up at its peak, food aversion at its maximum, there were very few foods that I craved for, and that I felt like cooking or baking. One of them was this cake and boy, was I glad I baked it! I just loooooved it! I've had it for breakfast, and lunch and as snack on a couple of days during that trip!

Well, it makes a pretty big cake and keeps well, fresh for at least 3 days. It has such a wonderful taste and a good crumb texture.It is a cold oven cake, meaning the oven is not preheated before placing the batter. We both loved loved having it and finishing off the huge cake in just a couple of days! The calories, you say? Of course, I was pregnant with just a handful of cravings, and we were on a trip to a nature reserve, which involved a LOT of walking and walking!

Now, here's the recipe...

Creamcheese Pound cake (Cold oven)

Preparation time: 15 min 

Baking time: 60 - 65 minutes 

Source: Versatile Kitchen

Ingredients:

Cake flour - 1 1/2 cups (See notes)

Baking Powder - 3/4 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 1 1/4 cups
Cream cheese - 4 oz (at room temperature)
Butter - 1/2 cup softened
Vanilla - 1 Tbsp
Eggs - 3 large (at room temperature)

Method: 

• Grease and flour a large loaf pan. I used a ring mould that I had recently bought
• In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder. Set aside. 
• Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar till fluffy about 3 minutes scraping the bottom couple of times. 
• Add eggs one at a time and continue beating. 
• Add vanilla and beat. 
• Running the mixer on low speed, add half of the dry ingredients. 
• When it has incorporated, add the remaining and mix it all well. 
• Pour into the prepared pan. 
• Place it in the middle rack of the oven and turn it on to 170 C or 325 F. 
• Bake for 60 - 65 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine was done in 60 min.
• Cool on the rack in the pan for 15 minutes and then turn it on to the wire rack to cool completely. 
• Slice after it has completely cooled and you get awesomely neat slices!

Notes:

• To make 1 1/2 cups cake flour, take 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour in a big bowl. Remove 3 Tbsp of the flour from the bowl and add 3 Tbsp of corn starch. Sift very well, 3-4 times.
• The cake can be doubled and baked in a 12 cup bundt pan, says Champa. In that case, the baking time would be about 80 min. 

Vanilla Cupcakes

Dear readers, Here's wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year... May all your wishes for 2013 come true.... And Happy Baking too!!

The urge to have a quick and easy cake made me try this one. I have started baking with eggs only recently and all the earlier ones were mostly eggless. A few eggs had remained from the batch I had bought for another cake or so, and so made these cupcakes using them.

A very simple recipe, from Champa’s blog. I have however not frosted them for obvious reason of not adding in more calories to an already high-calorie diet I have :D They tasted awesome especially warm out of the oven! Couldn’t resist popping a couple of them into my mouth, while photographing them :)

Here’s the recipe…

Vanilla cup cakes

Preparation time: 10 min

Baking time: 20-25 min

Makes - 24 regular sized cupcakes

Adapted from: Champa’s Versatile Kitchen

Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 3 cups
Baking Soda - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 2 cups
Canola Oil - 1 cup
Eggs - 3 large
Buttermilk - 1 1/4 cups
Vanilla - 1 Tbsp

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line muffin cups with cupcake liners.
• In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.
• In another bowl, beat oil with sugar. Add eggs one at a time beating till incorporated.
• Now, add flour mixture in thirds followed by buttermilk added in half. That is 1/3rd of flour mixture, 1/2 of buttermilk, 1/3rd of flour mixture, remaining buttermilk followed by remaining 1/3rd of flour mixture.
• Stir in vanilla. There should be no lumps in the batter.
• Divide the batter among 24 cups. Bake for 22 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• And pop them into your mouth when still warm, to fulfil your sweet-craving :)

Notes:

• Can easily convert this to eggless version by replacing eggs with Yogurt.

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar, Preeti Deo and Jayasri.

Published - 3rd One!

Here's the third article by me in Vijaya Karnataka 23rd Dec 2012 - Gateau or pastries as we call in Namma Bengaluru :) Thank you again, VK!!

Eggless Cocoa Brownies

Sometimes I have these sudden chocolate cravings - craving that cannot be subsided with just chocolate - I need more of it. Like some chocolate cake or brownies? On one such day, I made these easy breezy brownies - took less than an hour from start to finish. And at the end of it, I could have warm brownies with vanilla ice cream topped with some walnuts! Ahhhh… bliss!

And it lasted us for about 4-5 days, satisfying our chocolate cravings every time :) it is one easy recipe, you must try it…. And you’ll be happy that you did!

Here’s the recipe…

Eggless Cocoa Brownies

Preparation Time: 10 min

Baking time: ~30 min

Source: Multiple blogs

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour - 1 Cup
Cocoa Powder - 1/2 Cup
Icing Sugar + 1 Tbsp Icing Sugar(For Dusting) - 3/4 Cup
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
A Generous Pinch Of Salt
Vegetable Oil / melted butter - 5 Tbsp
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Buttermilk - 1 Cup
Instant Coffee - 2 tsp
Dark Chocolate Pieces Or Chocolate Chips - 1/4 Cup Chopped

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 C
• Grease an 8" square tin and line up a parchment paper or aluminum foil with the edges hanging over the pan slightly
• Sift all purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder together a couple of times until they are mixed well.
• Melt instant coffee powder in a tbsp of hot water and let it cool.
• Whisk in the melted butter/oil into the butter milk and add vanilla essence and coffee solution and whisk again until you get a uniform mixture.
• Fold in the dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix very gently with a spatula or spoon.
• Dust the choco chips/dark chocolate pieces with a tsp of flour and fold into the batter.
• Transfer the batter mixture in it to get 1" thick layer of the mixture.
• Bake for 25-30 mins at 180 degrees or till done.
• Cool completely and remove from pan and cut into squares.
• Serve with a scoop of vanilla Ice cream and chopped and toasted walnuts. You can add some chocolate sauce as well to elevate the dessert to the next level!

Notes:

• Chopped walnuts can also be folded into the mixture
• Bake for a few minutes more than you would with a cake to get a brownie like top

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.

Apple Streusel Cake

This was the first fall for me. Being from a tropical Indian climate, it was delight to watch the trees turn to golden hues here in Sweden. And just before that, the delight of watching Apple trees filled with Apples, in almost every house around! It was practically raining apples, of every kind.

Whenever I sow those beautiful apple trees, I felt like having a bite of those juicy apples plucked right from the tree. We did pluck a few from wild apple trees and they weren’t as tasty as I had expected. And unlike what I’ve heard about the US, we didn’t find apple farms around to go apple-plucking. I’d silently envy those trees, whenever I walked past one of those trees in someone’s compound!

And as if they heard me, one fine evening, one of our neighbors gave big bag full of apples! A few kilos of freshly plucked apples! I was delighted. Along with it, they had a note as well, with a description of the variety of apples and the taste of it! It was apparently a little sour and juicy of course, and more apt for baking. What a nice gesture - to write a note along with the goodies!!

Ok, with so many apples, I started searching for some good recipes - wasn’t sure if we’d actually like apple in baked goodies, I first tried out an Apple Streusel Cake from Joy of Baking but with quite a bit of modifications. And lo and behold, did we love it! Loved the taste, texture, aroma of cinnamon with apple, the crunchy streusel topping, and all of it! I was glad that we loved it - I could try more and more stuff with apples now!

  

Streusel is a crumb topping of butter, flour, and sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, pies, and cakes. Some recipes add spices and chopped nuts as well. Although the topping is of German origin, it is sometimes erroneously referred to as Danish or Swedish. [Source Wiki]

I made the cake eggless and butter-less with some modifications. Here’s the recipe…

Apple Streusel Cake

Preparation time: 30 min

Cooking time: 45-50 minutes

Makes: An 8” round cake

Adapted from: Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

For Streusel Topping:

All Purpose Flour / Maida - 1/2 cup (65 grams)

Ground Cinnamon - 1/2 teaspoon

Unsalted butter - 3 tablespoons (40 grams) cold, cut into pieces

Brown Sugar - 1/4 cup (70 grams)

Hazelnuts (or walnuts or pecans) - 1/4 cup (20 grams) toasted and coarsely chopped - I used walnuts

Cake Batter:

All Purpose Flour - 1 cup (130 grams)

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Salt - 1/8 tsp

Oil - 1/4 cup (In place of butter)

White Sugar - 1/2 cup (100 grams)

Yogurt - 1/4 cup (In place of 1 large egg)

Vanilla Extract - 1/2 tsp

Milk - 1/3 cup (80 ml)

Apples, peeled, cored, and cut into thin (1/8 inch) slices - 2 large or 3 medium sized - about 1 cup slices

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Butter an 8 inch (20 cm) spring form pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper

Streusel Topping:

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour and ground cinnamon.
• Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.
• Stir in the brown sugar and chopped nuts. Set aside while you make the cake batter.

Cake:

• In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• In another bowl mix oil and the sugar well.
• Add the yogurt and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
• Add the flour mixture, alternately with the milk, and beat only until combined.
• Spread the batter into the bottom of the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
• Evenly arrange the apple slices on top of the cake batter and then sprinkle with the streusel topping.
• Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly.
• Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or softly whipped cream.

Notes:

• Use slightly toasted nuts. To toast walnuts, place them in microwave for a few seconds and crush them into pieces
• Fresh juicy and crisp apples work the best. If sour, it also adds a nice tang to the cake.

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.

Eggless Dates and Walnut Cake

The sun has started getting quite lazy these days! He hardly shows up in time in the mornings and even if he does, disappears even before I realize he is there! And he’s in deep slumber by late afternoon itself! In this place in Scandinavia, getting to see him over the next few months would be almost a rare treat! Though the weather calls for nice cozy snuggling one the couch, with warm food, the scope for food photography is almost nil. I’m baking and cooking so many varieties every week, but unfortunately with bad pictures that I don’t even want to see myself!

Thanks to my fore-thought over the last few months of sunshine, I have some posts in draft with some decent pictures. And for the rest, I’ll post some great recipes but with bad pics, till the Sun decides to favor me ;)

So this is one easy breezy cake that I baked a couple of months and saved it for the rainy day (not the cake, I meant the pics for the post). It is a nice moist cake, quite a sweet one - have made adjustments to the sugar after that, in the recipe. Less oil, less sugar, iron rich dates and walnuts… not a bad snack to indulge in, more than a single slice :)

Here it is…

Eggless Date and Walnut Cake

Preparation time: 15 min + soaking time for dates

Baking time: 30-35 minutes

Adapted from: Multiple sources over internet

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Dates - 18-20
Milk - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vegetable Oil - 1/2 cup (I reduced it to 1/4 cup and it worked fine)
Chopped walnuts - 1/4 cup

Method:

• Sieve together flour and baking soda a couple of times for even mixing.
• Take nuts in a small cup and sprinkle a tsp of flour and coat the nuts with the flour.
• Warm the milk and soak dates in it for 15 min. If the dates are with seeds, remove the seeds after it is soaked.
• Preheat the oven at 180 deg C/350 F.
• Grease an 8" inch round or a bundt pan with oil and dust with a tsp of flour over it evenly on all sides.
• Once the date-milk mixture comes to room temperature grind it along with sugar to a smooth paste and transfer to a wide mixing bowl.
• Add oil to the mixture and mix using a wire whisk until the oil blends into the batter properly.
• Add the flour in four additions and fold in the mixture slowly using a silicon spatula.
• Add nuts to the cake mixture and mix with a spatula.
• Pour the cake batter into the ready tin.
• Bake it in preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30-35 min until done - do a tooth pick test to determine if it is done. Mine was done in about 30 min.
• Cool the cake in the tin for 15 min and invert it onto a wire rack and let cool.
• Cut into pieces after completely cool.

Notes:

• Many sources for this cake called for 3/4 cup of sugar. I did reduce it to 2/3 cup considering the sweetness of the dates. It was still too sweet for our palette, and hence I recommend using just 1/2 cup of sugar.
• Reducing the oil by half didn't seem to affect the texture much

My Column in Vijay Karnataka!!

Happy to share my recipes on a Food column in Vijay Karnataka, a Kannada Daily! Here is the first one... A very wonderful moment for a blogger to see her work in print media :))
Thank you VK!
A big Thank you Sheela.

Online version here... http://vijaykarnataka.indiatimes.com/articleshow/16892408.cms

Strawberry Gateau

Here’s a full fledged Strawberry gateau/pastry fro you all. Though I bake many cakes, frosting them and decorating them is something rare. As much as I like to do it and eat it, I am worried about the calories that it’ll add up and eventually the rise in the bathroom scales! So I fill and frost a cake only when there are enough people to share the load, not of the work involved but the after effects of savoring it :D

I was itching to use the strawberry preserve I had made; the so easily available whipping creams also kept calling me to pick them up and make a black forest or strawberry gateau. The time finally came when D invited his team with family for a dinner. With 15 people to share the load, I was too happy to bake a cake… I actually baked two of them, the second one in fear that one would be too small to feed 15 Indians in a foreign land… of course I wanted to save a couple of pieces for myself too, for the days that followed the party ;)

The cake was a huge hit, everyone going for a second serving, some even for third, though I realized I had still skimped on the quantity of cream, mainly because the cake had doubled, which was not expected initially. None the less, it was a fabulous cake, with the cream and strawberry mingling beautifully over a fatless sponge. I did some basic decorating too, to satisfy my cravings for piping out designs, and did a decent job, nothing too exquisite. A couple of friends took the recipe as well and tried at their places.

So here is the recipe… read through the notes as well…

Strawberry Gateau

Ingredients:

Basic Fatless Sponge: (Makes one 8” sponge, 2-3 inches tall; See notes)

Eggs - 3 large
Plain Flour - 80 gms / ¾ cup
Powdered Sugar - 80 to 110 gms / ¾ to 1 cup; See Notes

For the Strawberry Jelly

Strawberries – 15-20 nos, hulled and finely chopped (should make 1 cup of chopped berries)

Sugar – 1/3 cup (you may want to increase this to 1/2 a cup if the berries are a tad too tart)

Or use strawberry preserve, and mix in more sugar if needed

For the Filling & Frosting

Whipping Cream – 2 cups

Powdered Sugar – 3 tbsps

For the Sugar Syrup

Cold Water – 1 cup

Strawberry essence (optional) – 1 tsp

Powdered Sugar – 3 tbsps

Method:

Fatless Sponge

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. 
• Sieve the flour, keep aside.
• Beat the eggs and sugar till very thick and double in quantity. This takes at least 10 minutes with hand mixer. At the end, the mixture should turn into a mousse like consistency.
• Fold in the flour very gently with a metal spoon.
• Pour into a greased and dusted cake tin. Bake for 15 - 20 min till it passes the skewer test. (Mine took about 18 min).
• Remove from the oven. Loosen sides with a sharp knife, invert over a wire rack and cool completely.

Sugar Syrup

• Dissolve the powdered sugar in the cold water and put it in the fridge.

Filling and Frosting:

• Chill the whipping cream for at least 10-12 hours in the refrigerator. Also chill the beater blades and bowl in which you plan to whip the cream, about 2 hours at least. Stainless steel bowls work best for this.
• Once the whipping cream is good to go, start by whipping the cream on high-speed. Whip until thick and starts holding peaks, about 5-7 minutes. Once done, set half aside in the refrigerator (for the frosting).
• Next, get down to assembling the gateau. Use the bottom of the cake (that was in contact with the lining) for the top. So this means, the actual top of the cake goes to the bottom of the gateau. If the cake has risen too much in the centre, gently level it with a long, serrated knife and then turn upside down.
• Using some food color (even turmeric works), dip a toothpick in the food color and draw a vertical line anywhere on the side of the cake, from top to bottom. This line will act as a reference when you have to re-assemble the slices while filling the layers. The cake will sit perfectly in place, and give you a wonderful flat surface on top.
• Gently cut the cake into 2 slices horizontally.
• Place the bottom-most slice on a turn-table if you have one.
• Drizzle the sugar syrup over the bottom most layer of the cake using a wide pastry brush. Ensure you cover the entire surface.
• Now, using a palette knife/offset spatula spread some whipped cream generously over the bottom cake layer (don’t spread the cream too much to the edge since the next layer coming over it will push the cream to sides anyway). Cream layers about 3/4th-inch thick should work just fine.
• Next, spread the strawberry jelly generously over the cream.
• Now place the second slice of cake over it matching the slices by the line you drew with the food color, and repeat with syrup and a thin layer of whipped cream on top. Finish the sides with a thin layer as well.
• Now sit the cake in the refrigerator for atleast 2-3 hours, to allow the flavors to mature.
• Once the cake has sat in the refrigerator for a good amount of time, get it out, finish the top and sides of the cake with more whipped cream. Work with your palette knife/offset spatula and dip the knife/spatula in cold water every 2-3 strokes, to get a smooth finish on top of the cake.
• Finish by decorating the cake the way you fancy. 

Notes:

• This quantity makes an 8” round about 2-3 inches tall. You’ll get two thin slices out of it; can feed about 12 people. However, I have made two such cakes and didn’t tort them and got a tall cake, but with just two layers. In such case you will have to increase the cream, syrup and strawberries as well accordingly.
• Whipping the eggs is the most important part of this recipe. Since there are no other leavening agents, it is whipped eggs that give volume to it.
• Whip the eggs on high for at least 8 minutes, till you get a thick mousse like texture. Do not stop in the foamy state, and continue till the mousse like state. The first time I tried this sponge, I didn’t whip it enough and it was anything but a sponge; perfection comes from experience :)
• The sponge is Tarla Dalal’s recipe; Used the strawberry preserve prepared earlier

Eggless Orange Raspberry Muffins

I’m awed by all the berries I can find here in Sweden! And that too I’ve come in the right season here, end of spring and summer have been very pleasurable in terms of weather and the fresh vegetable and fruit produce. After having loads of strawberries, it was then time for some raspberries! When we had gone for a long nature walk, we came across many of these raspberry plants, filled with shiny bright little  raspberries ! After eating some, I picked some to take back home too. Here, berries can be picked by anyone anytime anywhere, unless it is owned by someone and fenced. Isn’t it a good thing?

So back home with the  raspberries  in the fridge, I wanted to bake something with it. I thought  raspberries and oranges made a good combination. As always Champa’s Versatile Kitchen has something to offer whatever you are searching for! This was an orange muffin there, and I added  raspberries too. I halved the recipe and got about 8 smaller than normal muffins. Since it was a cloudy and rainy day, please excuse my bad pics :)

Here’s the recipe… 

Eggless Orange Raspberry Muffins

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 2 cups

Sugar - ½ cup

Salt - ½ tsp

Baking powder - 3 tsp

Corn starch - 2 Tbsp

Milk - 2 Tbsp

Vegetable or Canola oil - 1/3 cup

Orange Juice - ¾ cup

Apple cider vinegar - ¼ tsp

Orange zest - 1 tsp                                                         

Raspberries - a handful

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 deg C or 375 F. Grease a 12 standard size muffin tin with vegetable oil spray or line with liners.
• In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, corn starch, salt, sugar and zest).
• In another bowl, combine orange juice, vegetable oil, milk, vinegar. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
• Whisk it well and pour into the dry ingredients.
• Mix them but do not over mix them. Batter will be lumpy and thick.
• Throw in the  raspberries reserving a few for sticking on top of each muffin
• Fill the cups 2/3 full and stick in one or two  raspberries at the top
• Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or till a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Mine were done at 20 minutes.
• Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer on to the cooling rack to cool completely.
• Champa makes a glaze on top, but I didn’t as I had  raspberries in and on them.

Notes:

• Do not over mix any muffin batter; it makes the muffins hard.