Oats for breakfast, Honey!

Breakfast is one meal that we never skip, but we don't have time to fuss about preparing it either. So we eat cold breakfast, mostly cereals, mostly locally grown like raagi (finger millet), popped raajgira (amaranth), popped jwari (jowar) flakes, sattu. Oats somehow never found a place in the breakfast menu. Mainly because it needs to be cooked which means hot milk and hot milk is a big no-no. 
So, this is the first time I have ever used oats in my kitchen, ever, yes that's surprising. And it's happy I am that I baked these muffins!

In India almost every lady of our previous generation cooks well and has couple of aces up her sleeves. But there are very few I know who bake. One among them is my aunt. She is an inspiration as a cook, as a baker and above all as a person. It is she who suggested me to try out oats as an ingredient in baking, that had me promptly buying a packet of instant oats. 

Now all I wanted was a recipe! I stumbled upon it when my sister-in-law pointed me towards this food industry event which was to happen in Bangalore. And one link led to another, and a lot of clicks later I found this recipe. These are filling, breakfast or snack-time muffins.

The recipe calls for very little bit of mixing. The batter comes together very quickly, once you have all the ingredients ready. I have used vanilla sugar, you can use plain granulated sugar. Adjust the quantity of vanilla extract accordingly.

Buttermilk can be substituted with 1/2 cup of milk plus 2 teaspoons of curd, set aside for 15 minutes. Since I make butter/ghee at home, there's always some frozen buttermilk around. 

As the name suggests, these are breakfast muffins, so I wanted to add some dry fruits or nuts. My li'l one fancies raisins so I added soaked raisins. When given a choice between chocolate chips and raisins as an ingredient of these muffins, he chose raisins without any qualms.

But the one ingredient you don't want to skip is cinnamon. Don't skimp. I would go so far as to suggest to increase it to 1/2 teaspoon while you are at it. While the muffins bake the aroma of cinnamon fills your home. Heaven!

When making cupcakes or muffins, if presentation is not a big concern, I prefer silicone moulds over paper liners. Mainly because they don't need any prep but more because I am a bit reluctant to loose even tiny of those scrumptious crumbs sticking to the liners.

These muffins are best served warm with a glass of milk or a hot cup of tea. The stress is on warm! Here's the recipe:

Whole wheat oat and banana muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup instant oats, measured then coarsely ground
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsbs vanilla sugar
3-4 small bananas, mashed (about 1/2 cup heaping)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsbs vegetable oil, sunflower/canola/olive
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (use 1/2 tsp if using plain sugar)
1/4 cup raisins, soaked

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, ground oats, baking soda, cinnamon and vanilla sugar using a whisk. Set aside.

Mash the banana in a small bowl. Beat in the egg. Add remaining wet ingredients to the banana mixture.

Add wet mixture to dry one in 2 batches. Mix till just combined or till no dry streaks of flour remained. 

Add in the soaked raisins and mix. The batter will be thick. 

Spoon the batter in muffin moulds/pan. Smooth the tops.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. The top of the muffins may crack. Check if done, using a toothpick. Be careful not to over bake else they muffins will turn dry.

Once done, set them to cool. Store in an airtight container once completely cooled.

Tweaks:

- You can replace 2 tablespoons of oats with same quantity of rava (semolina) for added crunch.
- You can add chopped, roasted nuts.
- You can use brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar. Gud/jaggery can be used too, increase the quantity as gud is less sweet than same quantity of sugar.
- You can sprinkle granulated sugar on top of the muffins, before baking.
The options are many!

Happy Baking!
Shwe

One-year blogiversary and some food thoughts...

This blog has turned one and we are celebrating our first blogiversary! I never thought I would use that word, not that I didn't intend the blog to turn an year old. There are still tons of recipes I want to try, hundreds of them I want to share with you. Here's a slice of the one I will be sharing in this post:

It's fun, the whole process of writing a post. Starting with baking and tasting a recipe, then taking pics and then finally wrapping it all up in a fun-photo-recipe package. 

The last I counted, there were seven recipes that I have posted. But I will take this opportunity to mention that I bake way more than what I post and my notebook is full with lots of scraps of papers, chocolate wrappings, paper cuttings stuffed inside it. All containing recipes I am yet to try, notes I am yet to share.

Over the last couple of years, I have learnt baking from books, people's experiences, food shows even. But my largest source is the Internet, more specifically the "blogoshpere". And you will find a varied variety of people in that space. Some are bonkers awesome! Some are total geeks! Some are passionate and elegant! Some are humble and helpful! Some are legends! (View the links and you will know) I can go on and on.

Also a couple of years back I came across this group on facebook called the Home Bakers Guild or HBG as they call it. It is a very active group comprising of professionals, bakers running business from home, hobby bakers and newbies. A bunch of enthusiastic, crazy and helpful people baking their hearts away. It is awesome and inspiring!

In this post, I present to you this flavourful and moist pineapple upside-down cake. I have baked this cake thrice, each time with a different recipe. I will be sharing the one I liked most.

It is called upside down because it is baked with the pineapple at the bottom and once done baked, it is turned upside down and we get to see it in its full glory. The brown sugar gets cooked into caramel, pineapple absorb its slightly burnt flavour and cinnamon adds a beautiful note to the overall taste.

Caramel, juicy-sweet-tangy pineapples and a super moist cake which absorbs the flavours of caramel and pineapples. It cannot get any better!

Here's the recipe:

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

Topping

1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
8 slices of pineapple, cored

Cake

1 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsps baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

Steps:

Preheat the oven at 175°C . Grease a 8" or 9" round pan heavily. 

Pour the melted butter in the pan. Spread the brown sugar evenly on top the the butter.
Cut pineapple in thick slices. Remove the core. If using canned pineapples, drain the juice and pat the slices dry using paper towels.
Place the pineapple slices on top of the sugar. Pack them as close as possible because they shrink while baking.

Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar. Set aside.

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugar, for 3-4 minutes, till light and fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beat well after each addition. 
Add vanilla and pineapple essence, if using. Mix.

Add milk and dry ingredients alternately in three batches, starting and ending with flour. Mix just till combined.

Spread batter on top of the pineapples. Tap the pan on the counter once to release any trapped air pockets.
Place the pan on a baking tray or cookie sheet. Bake for 45-50 mins or till a toothpick or knife inserted in cake comes out clean. Be careful not to dip the toothpick too deep else you will hit the caramel.

Once done, take the cake out of oven and let it cool in pan for 10 mins.
Turn it out onto a plate. Serve warm.
It there are any pineapple pieces sticking to the bottom of the pan, just lift them and place back on the cake.

This cake was worth every anxious moment spent while unmoulding and flipping the cake upside-down. I hope you will give it a shot!

Happy Baking!

Shwe

Last but not least, a spiffed up Birthday Cake

Picking up things from where I left last, we were celebrating the 'birthday season' during November. The season ended with Hubby's and Master Ts' falling just days apart. And birthdays mean cake. Not one but two!

Master T turned two in November! He celebrated his birthday with friends at playschool. For the celebrations there, I baked vanilla chocolate marble cakes, yes plural. It was fun to see li'l ones asking for a second serving.

For the party at home I wanted a different flavor for the cake, no more chocolate! Also look wise a spiffed up one. Then there was this vanilla buttermilk cake recipe I wished to share with you. And some strawberry crush with whole strawberries I had been waiting to use. Also T's maushi had gifted me some candy cake decorations from Wilton. I put all these ideas together and that lead to this awesome cake.

It was fun to watch people's reaction on seeing the cake. 'Wow!', 'It's great!' , 'It's a tall cake!' . And tall it was and it awed you. But only till you lifted it. I was deceptively heavy! And it vanished from the plates in a jiffy. 

The cake has four layers of vanilla buttermilk cake. The recipe is inspired from Deb's blog here. This cake is a keeper, light and moist. I have baked it a couple of times and I was pleased with the result each time. I was waiting for an opportunity to use it in a layered cake and this one seemed perfect. The only major change from the original recipe was amount of baking soda used.

Two tips to get this cake perfect: one, cream the butter-sugar mixture for good 3-4 minutes. And second, refrain from stirring too much while mixing flour and buttermilk. Take the sentence 'Mix just till combined.' literally. You have to mix the batter just till you stop seeing dry flour in it. Any more mixing you do helps in creating gluten which leads to a hard chewy cake. Trust me that is not something you want.

For filling the cake I used strawberry puree and strawberry buttercream. For frosting the cake I followed a simple buttercream recipe. I think I will go for Swiss meringue buttercream next time. I tinted the outer frosting slightly with blue gel color. Use a toothpick to pick the color from the bottle. The amount of color will seem teeny-weeny, but that's as much as you want. A bit goes a long way. The butter I used was yellow in color and hence the buttercream turned sea-green instead of blue. 

As much as I love baking cakes and experimenting with new recipes and ingredients, my skills in terms of frosting and decorating them are very limited. It takes loads of practice they say. And loads of buttercream too, I add. This cake was frosted in three steps, layering+filing, crumb coating and final frosting. For the final touch I decorated using ready-to-use edible cake decorations by Wilton.

I was happily surprised looking at my creation. The delicious cake was worth the hours spent on planning, baking, frosting and keeping master T from licking the frosting.
Here is the recipe:

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Strawberry filling and Vanilla buttercream 

Ingredients:

Cake

4 Cups + 2 Tbsps Cake flour*

2 Cups sugar, powdered

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 Cup butter

2 Cup buttermilk**

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp strawberry essence

Buttercream

1 Cup (227grams) butter

4 Cups (460) icing sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsps cream or milk

4 Tbsps strawberry puree

Strawberry Puree

1 cup store bought strawberry puree

or pulse strawberry crush in a blender

Steps for preparing cake:

Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease, line and dust two 8-inch round baking pans. Set aside.

Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar.  Set aside.

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugar, for 3-4 minutes, till light and fluffy. Add vanilla and strawberry essence, mix well.
Add eggs one by one, beat well after each addition.

Add buttermilk and mix. The mixture may curdle but it will all come together once flour is added.
Add flour mixture in 3 batches. After each addition, mix just till combined.

Spread batter in prepared pans. Tap the pans on the counter once to release any trapped air pockets.
Bake for 30-35 mins or till a toothpick or knife inserted in cake comes out clean.

Once done, take the cake out of oven and let it cool in pan for 10 - 15 mins.
Turn it out onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
Before frosting or decorating this cake, refrigerate it for at least an hour.

*Cake flour is similar to All-purpose flour but it is lighter in weight and has lower protein content. This results in more soft and tender cakes.

Substitute 1 cup of cake flour with 3/4 cup of All-purpose flour and 1/4 cup cornflour/cornstarch.

For this cake, I used 3 cups All-purpose flour + 1/2 cup of cornflour instead of the given amount of cake flour.

**Buttermilk is the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cream.

For substituting 1 cup buttermilk, take about 2 tablespoon plain curd in an 1 cup measuring cup and fill the rest with milk. Let it set for 15-20 minutes and then use it in place of buttermilk in above recipe.

Steps for preparing buttercream:

Frosting:

Cream butter till fluffy. Add sugar in 1/2 cup batches and mix well.

Add vanilla, mix well. Add cream, starting with 1 tablespoon to get desired consistency.

You can make half a batch of this and make more if required.

Filling:

For strawberry flavoured buttercream, add strawberry puree along with vanilla while mixing.

Assembly:

For assembling this cake, I highly recommend using a turn table. But we can also use a tall dabba/round tin to raise the cake to comfortable height.

Have your serving plate or cake board ready.

Cut each cake horizontally in two layers using a long serrated knife or a bread knife.

Put a small amount, about 1/2 teaspoon of buttercream in the center of the cake board or serving plate. This stops the bottom layer from sliding around while we frost the cake.

Place the bottom layer of one of the cakes on the serving plate/cake board.

Spread about 3-4 tablespoons of strawberry puree on this layer.

Place the top layer of the same cake on the puree. Dollop about a third of the strawberry frosting on top. Spread the frosting leaving about one-fourth of an inch margin around the edge. The margin is to avoid frosting from oozing out when the next layer of cake is placed on top.

Place the second top layer of a cake on top of the frosting. Spread some strawberry puree on top of this. Place the last remaining bottom layer of a cake with the bottom side facing up. This is to get a smooth top.

Taking small amounts of buttercream, spread it around the sides and top of cake. This is called crumb coating, to seal-in the crumbs. 

Refrigerate the cake for 30 mins for the frosting to set.

Now frost the sides in back and forth strokes using small amount of frosting at a time. Dollop the remaining icing on the top of the cake and spread it evenly. 

Using my small offset spatula, I drew vertical strokes on the sides while turning the turn-table constantly. On the top of the cake I made kind of spikes, again using the offset spatula.

I hope you will give the recipe a try or at least some parts of it or a scaled down version of it.

Happy Baking!
Shwe

Celebrations Galore and the Best Chocolate Birthday Cake

November is a month of birthdays and celebrations for us. I call it 'the birthday season'. Well, the season actually begins just few days short of the month with my young cousin's birthday. But it so happened that it was celebrated in the month of November. When asked about the choice of flavor, pat came her response 'Chocolate!'.

A cake meant for Birthday needs to be more special and prettier. Since I would rather bake than decorate, I went for simple technique. It was more like spur of the moment or shall I say spin of the moment. The turntable mom gifted me some time back was really handy.

The cake is moist and chocolatey with a hint of coffee. I think it is very similar to a devils' food cake. What I also love about this cake is that it doesn't need a slather of sugar syrup to keep it moist. The inspiration for cake is from here. I omitted the black cocoa. Definitely use it if it is available. Also I used instant pure coffee powder, instead of brewed coffee. If not a coffee fan, you can simply skip the coffee powder and use plain water instead.

Making the cake itself was a breeze. The batter is prepared using the muffin method, a time and effort saver. And the result is a fluffy, moist and chocolatey cake. You measure and mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Measure the wet ingredients in a different bowl, give them a stir. Pour the wet mixture in the dry one, in 2-3 batches and stir just till combined. And the batter is ready to be baked. Just a word of caution here, do not over-mix because that will result in a rubbery textured cake. Also, line the pan bottom with butter-paper to avoid cake-stuck-to-the-bottom scenario.

The cake base can be prepared days ahead. In fact, I suggest making the cake one day prior to frosting/decorating it. It stores well too, just let the baked cake cool to room temperature and wrap it well in cling-wrap and store it in refrigerator. It can also be frozen. Just bring it to almost room temperature before you frost it.

I used a simple chocolate buttercream as the filling. And for frosting the top and sides, I mixed in some whipped cream to the buttercream. Addition of whipped cream made the frosting silkier, though it lightened the color of the frosting a bit.

Simple buttercream tends to be gritty because of the sugar granules not getting dissolved completely. I think if prepared days ahead, the grittiness is gone. Or maybe it was addition of whipped cream that did the trick.

I would refrain from calling this cake the best chocolate cake but for a 'birthday celebration cake', it definitely is a winner. This one won hearts of all; from a two year old to a sixty two year old. 
Hope you will bake it! Here is the recipe:

The Best Chocolate Birthday Cake

Ingredients:

Cake

1 cup (200 grams) sugar, powdered
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (123 grams) All-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (~ 45 grams) cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup strong black coffee (1/2 cup hot water plus 2 tsp of instant pure coffee powder)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Buttercream

1/2 cup (1 stick, 114 grams ) butter, softened
1 3/4 cups (200 grams) confectioners / icing sugar
1/4 (24 grams) cup cocoa powder
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cream/milk

Steps for preparing cake:

Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease, line and dust one 8-inch round baking pan. Set aside.

Measure the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Using a whisk, mix till the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
In a separate bowl, mix together egg, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla.
Add wet mixture to dry one in 2-3 batches. Mix till just combined. The batter will be thin. 

Pour batter into prepared pan. 
Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes for round pans. At 30 minutes mark, insert a wooden toothpick in center to check if it is done. Cool the cake in cake pan for 10 minutes. Turn it out onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.

Buttermilk substitute: for 1/2 cup buttermilk, take about 1 tablespoon plain curd in an 1/2 cup measuring cup and fill the rest with milk. Let it set for 15-20 minutes and then use it in place of buttermilk in above recipe.

Steps for preparing buttercream:

Sift together 3 cups powdered sugar into a bowl. Sift cocoa powder in a different one and set aside.
Cream butter for a few minutes till fluffy, with a handheld mixer. Turn off the mixer.

Add about a third of sugar to the butter. Starting on low speed, mix till the sugar is absorbed. Increase the mixer speed and beat for 2 more minutes. Repeat with remaining sugar.

Turn off the mixer. Scrape the bowl, add sifted cocoa and mix till cocoa is absorbed.
Add vanilla extract and salt and cream and mix some more, about 3 minutes.

You should get an even-colored, smooth buttercream. For stiffer consistency, add a little more sugar. for a thinner one, add additional cream/milk 1 tablespoon at a time.

Assembly:

Cut the cake in two layers using a long serrated knife or a bread knife. Place one layer on a serving plate/cake board.

Dollop about a third of the frosting on the bottom layer. Spread the frosting leaving about one-fourth of an inch margin around the edge. The margin is to avoid frosting from oozing out when the next layer of cake is placed on top.

Place the second layer of cake on top of the frosting. Now frost the sides in back and forth strokes using small amount of frosting at a time. 

Dollop the remaining icing on the top of the cake and spread it evenly. 

You can create different patterns on the sides and top. You can add some sprinkles on top too. Or some chocolate chips the way shown in the picture.


Happy Baking!
Shwe