In chocolate heaven

That's where a bite into this cake will take you. Bitter-sweet, intense, scrumptious - all that a chocoholic wants. Plus added nuttiness of almonds. Need I say more?

I baked this cake on a recent trip to Mumbai. My cousin there told me she wanted to learn to bake a cake. "Easy or complicated?" I asked, "Tasty" she replied. I chose to bake this chocolate cake by Donna Hay that she shared in her 50th Issue magazine. I have tried this recipe thrice before, each time with some twist, each time devoured by happy content faces.

Early morning visit to Juhu Beach

Since baking is not a very common hobby in India, it is difficult to find shops which sell the tools and raw materials. Bakers, especially home-bakers, are always on a hunt for these. Arrife at Bandra West is one such store. It is a familiar name among the baking community and it was on my agenda while I was in Mumbai. A tiny shop selling pans, moulds, liners, fondant-plungers, exotic ingredients for far-away lands… and I almost started dreaming there!

I baked this cake in a microwave oven in convection mode and the cake turned out just fine. This blog post by Suma Rowjee of Cakes and More was very helpful. In the post she has given loads of gyaan and useful tips for microwave convection-mode baking.

I haven't tried baking in microwave mode. You can try, only that the cake will be cooked instead of being baked and you'll not get the trademark crust that a regular oven gives.

The cake has an intense chocolate flavour. I suggest using the best cocoa powder you can find. I used Nilgiri's cocoa powder. I find it better than Cadbury's cocoa powder. Nilgiri's is a bakery-grocery-dairy superstore chain located in southern India. 
The original recipe includes glaze which I omitted, the intended audience wasn't ready to wait. I increased the sugar in the cake batter by 2 tablespoons instead. Since butter wasn't available I used ghee and increased the sour cream. The original recipe uses 2/3 cup butter and 3/4 cup sour cream. The granularity of the almonds can also be changed from fine meal to coarsely chopped, the cake would still be yum. Also sour cream can be replaced with yogurt, not very sour one. My cake top developed some thin cracks all around, maybe a sign of overshooting bake time by 2-3 minutes, but the taste was awesome.  Here’s the recipe:

Chocolate Almond Sourcream cake

Ingredients:

1/3 Cup ghee, thick n grainy

2/3 Cup + 2 Tbsps demerara/brown sugar

1 Cup sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 Cup almond meal

1 Cup All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Steps:

Preheat oven to 180° C. Grease and dust an 8” round pan.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder. Add almond meal and mix using a wire whisk. Set aside.

Beat the ghee and damerera sugar for 2 minutes.

In a different medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla.

Add egg mixture to the ghee mixture. Mix slightly. Add dry ingredients and mix till combined (do not over mix). Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pan. 

Bake for 35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cool in cake pan for 10 minutes.  Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Cut a big slice, take a bite, close your eyes n savour the intense chocolate flavour. The cake just melts in your mouth. And before you know it disappears in a poof!

Happy Baking!

Shwe

It's about time...

It's about time I log what I bake and what better way to do that than a blog. A little bit of history is called for here. I used to bake, learnt basics from mom, internet and books. My creations were savoured and appreciated by friends and family. They would encourage or suggest me to do 'something' with my 'talent'. So here I am taking a small step, putting into words and pictures the recipe, the final output and what goes behind the scenes in baking.

Here I present a banana almond raisin bundt cake. It is eggless, whole-wheat and yummy. This is an any-time-of-the-day cake, breakfast, snack or munch time.

I have tried banana in cakes earlier but this was my first try without eggs. The inspiration for the recipe is here. It includes cardamom (ilaichi / veldoda). I like cardamom but was a bit skeptical as to how it will work with vanilla and chocolate.  Since I was going to use cardamom, I decided to give it a desi twist. So out went the chocolate chips and the vanilla, and instead entered raisins and almonds. And while I was at it, I replaced some of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I threw in some wheat bran as well. The bran adds to the fiber content and gives the crumb an interesting look as tiny golden specks. The original recipe calls for brown sugar. Since I didn't have any at hand, I used part white sugar and part jaggery.

The combination of banana, jaggery and cardamom was a winner I think. The fruit I used was the small yellakki you get here in southern India. It has a slight tang to it which gave the cake a nice flavour. Plump raisins added moistness.

I baked the cake in a bundt as it is camera, eyes and slicing friendly. And more importantly it was easily reachable in the rack. A warning for the first time bundt users though, a bundt pan needs proper greasing and dusting. Here's the recipe:

Banana almond raisin bundt cake

Ingredients:

1 Cup minus 2 Tbsps All purpose flour

1/2 Cup whole wheat flour / atta

2 Tbsps wheat bran*

1/2 Cup sugar, powdered

1/4 Cup firmly packed jaggery/gud

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 pinch salt

75 gm butter, softened at room temperature

3 yellakki bananas, mashed (about 1/2 cup) or 1 large banana

3 to 4 Tbsps milk

2 cardamom pods, powdered

2 Tbsps soaked raisins

2 Tbsps chopped almonds

*wheat bran is optional. You can use full 1 Cup all-purpose flour instead.

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Sift the flours, bran, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix the ingredients again using a whisk to ensure that all ingredients are distributed evenly.

Put the softened butter, sugar and jaggery in a bowl and beat till the mixture is fluffy and creamy. Then add the mashed banana and beat till smooth.

Add the flour mixture in 3 batches alternating with milk, starting and ending with flour, and mix till combined. You can add a tablespoon or two of milk, adding just a teaspoon at a time, if the batter seems too dry.
Fold in the raisins and almonds.

Scrape the batter out into a greased and floured 6-cup bundt pan and bake at 165°C for 30 minutes. That would be 180°C for 30 mins for a regular square or round pan.

Test using a toothpick or a skewer. Remove pan from oven when done. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then unmould the cake. Cool completely on a rack and serve yourself a thick yummy slice!

All in all the experiment was success. My kid, lets call him T (16 months old), loved it too. He seems to have a very developed sense of taste. Just the other day I tried something with blueberries, was my first attempt with the berries, and he didn't eat a second bite. hmm-mph.

I would suggest you try the original recipe too, banana and chocolate-chips is a great pairing.

Happy Baking!
Shwe