Saturday, February 21, 2015

Fruitcake


Fruitcakes are my favourite among cakes and my whole purpose of learning to bake is to make fruitcakes and savour them.
I modified my previous cake recipe for banana cake a little and ended up with this delicacy that can be a great tea-time snack.


Ingredients:

  1. Maida - 1 cup (125 ml)
  2. Oil - 3/4 cup (around 90 ml)
  3. Sugar - 1 cup (125 ml or 125 grams)
  4. Eggs - 3
  5. Pineapple essence - 1 tsp.
  6. Baking powder - 1/2 to 3/4 tsp.
  7. Tutti Fruiti (Red and green)- 50-75 grams
  8. Extra flour and oil for greasing and dusting.
Procedure:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
  2. Grease and dust a cake mould (I used olive oil and maida)
  3. Sieve the flour and sift it together with baking powder.
  4. Take the tutti fruiti in a small bowl, add a little extra flour and toss it to dust the tutti fruiti completely. This is to make sure that the tutti fruiti pieces don't sink to the bottom of the cake while baking.
  5. In a mixie, powder the sugar, then add oil to this powdered sugar in the mixie and cream them together to form a runny paste.
  6. Add the eggs, one at a time and quickly whisk each time for a few seconds to make sure he eggs are beaten well.
  7. Add the pineapple essence and blend it again.
  8. Now add the flour to this mixture little by little and fold in using a ladle. You can blend it in the mixie too, but the air trapped into the batter that way will be less.
  9. Add the tutti fruiti to this mixture and fold in gently.
  10. Pour this batter into the cake mould and bake for around 35-45 minutes, till a knife inserted comes out clean and the crust is slightly browned. (I baked for 45 minutes)
  11. Cool it for around half an hour, cut it into slices and store in a container.

Top view
Bottom view

Cross section


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Banana Cake

This is the quickest and simplest cake recipe ever. Just blend and bake.

Ingredients:
  1. Sugar - 1 cup ( 125 ml )
  2. Maida - 1 cup (125 ml)
  3. Cooking Oil - 1 cup (125 ml)
  4. Baking powder - 3/4 - 1 tsp.
  5. Eggs - 2
  6. Vanilla essence - 1/2 - 3/4 tsp.
  7. Banana - 1 large ripe
Procedure:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
  2. Sift together the flour and baking powder.
  3. In a mixie, grind the sugar to a powder.
  4. Add oil to the powdered sugar in the mixie and blend it till a creamy paste is formed.
  5. To the mixie, add the eggs one at a time and whisk. Run the mixie in pulse mode for a few seconds at a time.
  6. Add the vanilla essence and banana chunks and blend till a smooth paste is formed.
  7. Now, either add the flour little by little to the mixie and quickly blend it by running the mixie or by folding the flour with a ladle.
  8. Only if the batter is too thick and does not flow when you ladle it, add very minimal warm milk and whisk again. I didn't have to do this step.
  9. Grease and dust a cake tin and pour out the batter into the tin to form a layer of one inch or slightly more. Leave space for the cake to double in size.
  10. Bake at 180 degrees C for 25 mins. Check if the cake is done using a knife or fork. Bake for an additional 10 minutes if not done. I baked for 35 minutes.
The cake would be dense, yet soft, not very spongy. The colour would be light brown, like whole wheat bread. This was a Valentine's Day special cake. Hence the heart shape.
Recipe courtesy: Yogita Pimpalkar. The original recipe had 3 eggs, but I didn't want an eggy flavour, so cut down an egg.

I felt that the cake had a little more oil than required. I am going to try this with slightly less oil next time. Also this had a milder flavor of banana. I would like to add another banana to this and try it out.
Please try this out and let me know any variations that worked better for you.