Chocolate and Orange Marble Cake

This beautiful cake was a small presentation to my Mom when I visited my home town last weekend.

 Mother’s day is everyday, but today being the “Official” Mother’s day , I thought its a great occasion to share this recipe.

She stores it in her favourite Tupperware container in fridge. When she feels like having, she would microwave a piece for few seconds and then have it at tea time or pair it with custard in the night.

Mom wouldn’t stop “wowing” with each bite she has. That cute expression on her face makes my little effort worth its while. I love you Mom. 

Here is the secret recipe to win your Mom’s heart time and again 🙂

 Ingredients

1 heaped cup plain flour (Maida)

1 tsp Baking soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

3 Eggs (At room temperature)

1/2 cup mawa (khoya)

[Don’t use the stiff chunk of mawa that you bought from store directly. Use your fingers and make it a little powdery. Take 1/2 cup of this powdery mawa, do not over stuff the cup.]

1/4 cup Orange pulp (No water)

1/2 cup Unsalted butter (At room temperature)

1/4 cup Cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract or 5-6 drops of vanilla essence

1 cup powdered sugar

Pinch of Salt

Take a clean dry bowl and sift maida,baking powder and baking soda. Mix thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, combine eggs, butter,sugar,vanilla extract (or essence), mawa. Beat and mix well.

If using oven, preheat the oven at 150 degrees.
If using cooker, preheat the cooker on low flame for 5 minutes. Lid closed, without whistle.

Combine maida with liquid mixture. Use a wooden spatula and mix well. Beat well for 2 minutes, not more.

Transfer half of the content to a separate bowl, add cocoa powder and mix well.
Add orange pulp to contents of first bowl and mix well.

If using oven, grease baking tin with butter and dust with maida. Pour the mixture with cocoa powder into the tin, now pour the mixture with orange pulp on top. Bake at 150 degrees for 45 minutes. Insert a toothpick and check if its ready(toothpick will come out clean if ready). If not, bake for another 10 minutes.

If using cooker, place an empty vessel and on top of it, place the baking tin. Make sure that baking tin is not  in direct contact with bottom of the cooker. Cover the lid and do not put the whistle. Leave it on low flame for 30 minutes. Afterwards, check if the cake has baked completely by inserting a toothpick(it should come out clean). If the cake is not done completely, allow it to bake for another 10 minutes and check again.

**Baking time in cooker varies based on size, thickness, make of the cooker.

After it is done, allow it to cool for 5 minutes. (Not under the fan, let it cool naturally.)
Invert it on to a wire rack as it provides free flow of air.

Cake is ready!! 🙂

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Eggless chocolate sponge cake using mawa

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This sponge cake is in continuation to plain eggless sponge cake

This is chocolate eggless cake with chocolate icing on top. 

I have fond memories of this cake when I baked it first time for a friend’s birthday. It was appreciated by one and all, moreover a pleasant surprise for my friend.

A very simple and easy recipe. Here it goes,

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1 cup mawa
[Don’t use the stiff chunk of mawa that you bought from store directly. Use your fingers and make it a little powdery. Take 3/4th cup of this powdery mawa, do not over stuff the cup.]

2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 cup vegetable oil
[Use fresh oil]
1 cup castor sugar/Regular powdered sugar
4 Tbsp curd
[Very important : should be homemade. Curd available outside contain excessive amounts of curdling ingredients(ex : yeast etc in large amounts) can spoil the texture of cake]
1/4th cup melted dark chocolate
[Should be just enough hot to keep it from solidifying]
1/2 cup orange juice (no water)
1 tsp vanilla extract or 5-6 drops of vanilla essence

Icing
1/4th cup melted dark chocolate
1/4th cup fresh cream(I used Amul fresh cream)
1/2 cup icing sugar

Take a clean dry bowl and sift maida,baking powder and baking soda. Mix thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, combine oil,sugar,orange juice, vanilla syrup (or essence), curd, mawa. Beat and mix well.

If using oven, preheat the oven at 150 degrees.
If using cooker, preheat the cooker on low flame for 5 minutes. Lid closed, without whistle.

Combine maida with liquid mixture. Use a wooden spatula and mix well. Beat well for 2 minutes, not more.

Transfer half of the content to a separate bowl, add 1/4th cup chocolate sauce and mix well. Transfer it back to rest of the content and stir just twice. The two mixtures need not be blend completely.

If using oven, grease baking tin with butter and dust with maida. Pour the mixture. Bake at 150 degrees for 45 minutes. Insert a toothpick and check if its ready(toothpick will come out clean if ready). If not, bake for another 10 minutes.

If using cooker, place an empty vessel and on top of it, place the baking tin. Make sure that baking tin is not  in direct contact with bottom of the cooker. Cover the lid and do not put the whistle. Leave it on low flame for 30 minutes. Afterwards, check if the cake has baked completely by inserting a toothpick(it should come out clean). If the cake is not done completely, allow it to bake for another 10 minutes and check again.

**Baking time in cooker varies based on size, thickness, make of the cooker.

After it is done, allow it to cool for 5 minutes. (Not under the fan, let it cool naturally.)
Invert it on to a wire rack as it provides free flow of air.

Cake is ready!! 🙂

Icing
Icing should be done only after cake has cooled down to room temperature.
Mix ingredients of icing, pour it into an icing tube and apply it on the cake in a pattern of your liking 🙂
If you do not have icing tube, you may simply spread it on the cake just like butter on bread.
[Icing tube alternative, pour the cream into a small plastic bag, tie the open end tightly. Make a small cut on one corner using scissors. Use it like icing tube by pressing gently.]

Eggless sponge cake using mawa

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Cant tell you, how excited I am about this particular recipe.I started off on a very sceptical note, but 2013 had something nice in store for me 😉 2 recipes I tried and both turned out to be awesome on new year’s eve! They are superbly  innovative, drawing inspiration from various sites and a restaurant, Sankalp, chain of south indian veg restaurant, do visit, if you haven’t already been there.

Why I am so excited about this recipe is because following combination is difficult to achieve, that is, fluffy and eggless cake.After several attempts, I think I almost nailed it this time! However, I will continue to do some more experiments with eggless cakes..

Having said all this, there will always be difference in fluffiness of an egg less and egg cake. Egg less cakes tend be more moist and less porous than egg cakes. Same amount of cake mixture will result in smaller egg less cake. This is my learning as a result of repeated attempts on eggless cakes.I am yet to try a variation (using yeast), will soon post on that. Do come back for that recipe!

Enjoy this yummy recipe. I bet you wont be disappointed! take a bite and the awesome taste will linger on your tongue for a long time….

[Update on 4th May 2014 :The first two photos are very recent, sprinkled hazelnuts on top. There is slight variation from original recipe, used Mirinda instead of plain orange juice. They say it helps in making the cake fluffy. Although I must admit, the fluffiness was same as with orange juice. There were no side effects too, so it is safe to use. 

While using any dry fruit on cake, dust the pieces with plain flour. ]

Ingredients

1 cup maida
3/4th cup mawa
[Don’t use the stiff chunk of mawa that you bought from store directly. Use your fingers and make it a little powdery. Take 3/4th cup of this powdery mawa, do not over stuff the cup.]
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4th cup oil
[I used fresh vegetable oil. Do not use oil that you had previously used for frying.]
2 tbsp curd
1 tbsp orange juice (no water)
1 tbsp Vanilla syrup or 5 drops of vanilla essence
[I used Monin’s vanilla syrup]

Take a clean dry bowl and sift maida,baking powder and baking soda in it. Mix thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, combine oil,sugar,orange juice, vanilla syrup (or essence), curd, mawa. Beat and mix well.

If using oven, preheat the oven at 150 degrees.
If using cooker, preheat the cooker on low flame for 5 minutes. Lid closed, without whistle.

Combine maida with liquid mixture. Use a wooden spatula and mix well. Beat well for 2 minutes, not more.

If using oven, grease baking tin with butter and pour the mixture. Bake at 150 degrees for 30 minutes.

If using cooker, place an empty vessel and on top of it, place the baking tin. Make sure that baking tin is not  in direct contact with bottom of the cooker. Cover the lid and do not put the whistle. Leave it on low flame for 30 minutes. Afterwards, check if the cake has baked completely by inserting a tooth pick(it should come out clean). If the cake is not done completely, allow it to bake for another 10 minutes and check again.

**Baking time in cooker varies based on size, thickness, make of the cooker.

After it is done, allow it to cool for 5 minutes. (Not under the fan, let it cool naturally.)
Invert it on to a wire rack as it provides free flow of air.

Cake is ready!! 🙂

You may use icing of your choice or even better, have it as it is 🙂

Orange plump cake

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Everybody’s favourite! Plump Cake!! This one is Orange flavour, you can choose flavour of your choice

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour(maida)

1/2 cup margarine (cooking butter)

2 tbsp condensed milk

3/4th cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda(mitha soda)
Vanilla essence or vanilla extract

1/2 cup orange pulp (or any fruit pulp of your choice)

pinch of salt

Take a clean dry bowl and add the flour (by sieving), baking powder and baking soda along with a pinch of salt. Use a wooden spatula to mix all the ingredients well.

[About the bowl and spatula..  I have a separate bowl and spatula that I use for baking and nothing else, it keeps them free from any form of smell and always ready to use when you think of baking. Its very important that your baking utensils are absolutely smell free (of other foods) and dry. No matter how much Indian dish washer detergents claim to remove food smell, I somehow never feel 100% sure of it…]

Powder the sugar. In a separate bowl mix butter, sugar,eggs,orange juice and milkmaid and whisk well. Whisk until the mixture looks well blended and shiny.

[Some people whisk manually by using a spatula, but I prefer using an egg beater as it whisks to perfection. ]

Add the liquid mixture to the bowl with flour, add 4 drops of vanilla essence and gently mix with spatula. Now, whisk the whole mixture again.

[Vanilla extract – Made out of vanilla fruit.Pure form of vanilla. Vanilla essence – Chemical equivalent of extract.. Its hard to find extract even in cities like Mumbai. You can find it in Godrej Nature’s Basket outlets. Essence is easy to find and pretty good replacement for extract. If you are lucky to get extract, add 1 tbsp extract instead of essence in this recipe ]

Do not whisk it for more than 5 mins as it will produce heat and your baking agents will become active even before you microwave your mixture. This will lead to half baked or lump cake.

Ok, now you are ready to microwave it. Take your baking tin and greese it just enough, not pouring. Now take a spoon full of maida and sprinkle it on the greesed tin and shake your tin in all directions to spread maida evenly.  Pour the mixture into the tin. While you start preparing your baking tin, preheat microwave at 180 c. Once it is done, put the baking tin in microwave and bake at 180 degrees for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, poke the cake in the center with a knife till the bottom. If the knife comes out clean, your cake is done, otherwise reset at 180 degrees for another 5 mins. Leave it to cool in the microwave itself.

[Do NOT keep the cake directly under the fan for cooling, it will make the cake moist. Transfer the cake on to a wire rack and let it cool on its own. By cool, I mean bringing it to room temparature.]

Chocolate marble cake

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This cake, as you can see the picture, has layers of chocolate and vanilla cake.
Cake in the picture has more of chocolate, you can make the layers more prominent by reducing the amount of chocolate. More on this below…

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour(maida)
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 eggs
1/4th cup dark chocolate melted
2 tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract or 5 drops of vanilla essence
pinch of salt

[Vanilla extract – Made out of vanilla fruit.Pure form of vanilla. Vanilla essence – Chemical equivalent of extract.. Its hard to find extract even in cities like Mumbai. You can find it in Godrej Nature’s Basket outlets. Essence is easy to find and pretty good replacement for extract. If you are lucky to get extract, add 1 tbsp extract instead of essence in this recipe ]

Take a clean dry bowl and add the flour, baking powder and baking soda along with just a pinch of salt to it (by sieving). Use a wooden spatula to mix all the ingredients well.

[About the bowl and spatula..  I have a separate bowl and spatula that I use for baking and nothing else, it keeps them free from any form of smell and always ready to use when you think of baking. Its very important that your baking utensils are absolutely smell free (of other foods) and dry. No matter how much Indian dish washer detergents claim to remove food smell, I somehow never feel 100% sure of it…]

In a separate bowl whisk eggs, mix butter, sugar, vanilla extract,orange juice and 1 tbsp milkmaid and whisk well. Do whisk until the mixture looks well blended and shiny.

[Some people whisk manually by using a spatula, but I prefer using an egg beater as it whisks to perfection. ]

Add the liquid mixture to the bowl with flour and gently mix with spatula. Now, whisk the whole mixture again.Do not whisk it for more than 5 mins as it will produce heat and your baking agents will become active even before you microwave your mixture. This will lead to half baked or lump cake.

Now comes the most interesting part 😉
Take another clean dry bowl, add dark chocolate sauce and 1 tbsp milkmaid and mix well! Try to resist the temptation to savour the mixture even before the cake is ready. 😀
Transfer half the cake mixture to this bowl and mix well.

Ok, now you are ready to microwave it. Take your baking tin and greese it just enough, not pouring. Now take a spoon full of maida and sprinkle it on the greased tin and move your tin in all directions to spread maida evenly.  

Start by first pouring half of the plain cake mixture, now pour all of the chocolate cake mixture. Pour rest of the plain cake mixture on top.

Preheat microwave at 180 degrees. Once it is done, put the baking tin in microwave (convection mode)  and bake at 180 degrees for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, poke the cake in the center with a knife till the bottom. If the knife comes out clean when you pull it out, your cake is done, otherwise reset at 180 degrees for another 5 mins. Leave it to cool in the microwave itself before you cut it.

[Do NOT keep the cake directly under the fan for cooling, it will make the cake moist. Transfer the cake on to a wire rack and let it cool on its own. By cool, I mean bringing it to room temparature.]

Happy baking! Try and let me know how it came 🙂

Chocolate Blueberry Cake With Egg

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Hello 🙂

Today am going to share the recipe of one of the cakes I made on my husband’s B’day Chocolate Blueberry Cake.

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour(maida)

3/4 cup margarine

1 tbsp milkmaid

3/4th cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda(mitha soda)

Vanilla essence or vanilla extract

2 tbsps blueberry pulp

pinch of salt

For the icing

2 tbsps dark chocolate(melted)

1/2 cup Icing sugar(add more if you like)

1/2 cup whipped cream

Take a clean dry bowl and add the flour (by sieving), baking powder and baking soda along with a pinch of salt. Use a wooden spatula to mix all the ingredients well.

[About the bowl and spatula..  I have a separate bowl and spatula that I use for baking and nothing else, it keeps them free from any form of smell and always ready to use when you think of baking. Its very important that your baking utensils are absolutely smell free (of other foods) and dry. No matter how much Indian dish washer detergents claim to remove food smell, I somehow never feel 100% sure of it…]

Powder the sugar. In a separate bowl mix butter, sugar,eggs,blueberry pulp and milkmaid and whisk well. Do whisk until the mixture looks well blended and shiny.

[Some people whisk manually by using a spatula, but I prefer using an egg beater as it whisks to perfection. ]

Add the liquid mixture to the bowl with flour, add 4 drops of vanilla essence and gently mix with spatula. Now, whisk the whole mixture again.

[Vanilla extract – Made out of vanilla fruit.Pure form of vanilla. Vanilla essence – Chemical equivalent of extract.. Its hard to find extract even in cities like Mumbai. You can find it in Godrej Nature’s Basket outlets. Essence is easy to find and pretty good replacement for extract. If you are lucky to get extract, add 1 tbsp extract instead of essence in this recipe ]

Do not whisk it for more than 5 mins as it will produce heat and your baking agents will become active even before you microwave your mixture. This will lead to half baked or lump cake.

Ok, now you are ready to microwave it. Take your baking tin and greese it just enough, not pouring. Now take a spoon full of maida and sprinkle it on the greesed tin and shake your tin in all directions to spread maida evenly.  Pour the mixture into the tin. While you start preparing your baking tin, preheat microwave at 180 c. Once it is done, put the baking tin in microwave and bake at 180 degrees for 20 mins.

After 20 mins, poke the cake in the center with a knife till the bottom. If the knife comes out clean, your cake is done, otherwise reset at 180 degrees for another 5 mins. Leave it to cool in the microwave itself.

[Do NOT keep the cake directly under the fan for cooling, it will make the cake moist. Transfer the cake on to a wire rack and let it cool on its own. By cool, I mean bringing it to room temparature.]

For the icing..mix all the ingredients of icing. Taste it!! you may add more of any of the ingredients to suit your taste. Apply the icing to the cake and your cake is ready!!