Citrus Burst

I like citrus fruits in cakes. Have I mentioned that earlier? I made this Orange Sourcream cake to make use of the last of desi oranges of this season. This is a simple looking cake, till you take a bite....mmm and then you are lost in the flavour.

Talking of simple, there is this small, humble shop I visited few years back in Pune, Aadinath Stainless Steel Center. It is located in Narayan Peth, near Kanya Shala. It stores racks n racks of cake pans, cookie sheets, pudding moulds etc. And if you bug the shopkeeper a little he just might show you hidden treasures like cream-roll moulds, icing tips and bags, rose pins, scrapers; just the kind of shop a baker would be interested in. 

And about half a kilometer ahead is the 'Pune Bakery', famous for its patties or puffs. We chose to try these 'naans', they were yum.

While in Pune, I also came across an innovative concept called 'Toy-brary'. It is a library of toys, games, CDs and children books where kids can go and borrow toys etc and return it in a week. Sounds fun doesn't it, to be able to play with new toys, read new books every week!

But, I digress. The cake recipe is adapted from here. This cake is tender and moist and the glaze adds to the moisture. Since I ran out of orange juice for the glaze, I went for a simple syrup and added some cardamom for flavour. You can skip the glaze and instead sprinkle powdered sugar on the top. I baked the cake in an 8" round pan, the cake was taller than shown in the original recipe.

A fine, sharp grater is the best tool to get the zest of any citrus fruit. If neither is available, you can, with a very sharp knife, take out the outermost skin of the peel. Carefully avoid the white pith beneath, it is bitter. To get the best flavour out of the zest rub it in some sugar with your finger tips. If you get zest using a knife, pulse it with sugar in a mixer/food processor.

While I was preparing the ingredients, my mother suggested to use the entire pulp of orange instead of just the juice. So I removed the skin and seeds of the orange slices and ran them in a mixer. It increased the fiber content and made the cake more moist, more flavourful. Here's the recipe:

Orange Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients:

Cake
3/4 Cups + 2 Tbsps All purpose flour
1/2 Cups whole wheat flour
2 Tbsps cornflour or custard powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup ghee, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp orange zest
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup orange juice + pulp

Glaze/Syrup
3 Tbsps sugar
3 Tbsps water
1 pod cardamom, powdered

Steps:

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

In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, cornflour, baking powder and salt.

Pulse the sugar and zest in mixer/food processor. In a large bowl, beat together ghee, sugar-zest mixture for 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, and beat mixture until smooth and well-combined.  Add vanilla extract and mix.

Mix in one third of the flour mixture, followed by the sour cream. Mix in another third of the flour mixture, followed by the orange juice. Stir in all remaining flour, mixing until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.Cool the cake in cake pan for 10 minutes. Turn it out onto a wire rack.

To prepare the syrup, mix sugar and water in a pan. Put the pan on medium heat and keep stirring till sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the cardamom powder. Let the syrup cool.

While the cake is slightly warm, drizzle the syrup evenly over the cake. Allow syrup to soak in while the cake cools. Allow cake to cool completely before slicing.

Happy Baking!
Shwe

When life gives you lemons...

But if you happen to have blueberries too, I suggest you take out your whisk n bowls and bake a lemon blueberry buttermilk cake. For those who haven't tasted lemon in bakes it is a tangy, sweet and refreshing experience. Berries and citrus fruits are a very classic combination; a must try.

I love fruits and I prefer fresh fruits over tinned. But tinned is the only way blueberries are available in India. I had saved a small batch of these from one of my previous bakes. This time I wanted a more pronounced lemon flavour.

The recipe is adapted from here and it sure is a moist cake as the author mentions in her post. I made some changes based on the ingredients I had on hand and the comments to the original recipe. I reduced the fat and the sugar. I added some scraped vanilla beans. I loved the tiny specks of vanilla scattered in the slice. I would have been happier if I had more berries to add.

Every cake requires some form of fat, usually butter. But here, we use oil which makes the cake moist. From my past experience, oil based cakes tastes like... well oil, which is not a very pleasant experience. But this cake changed my opinion.

I baked this cake in two mini loaf pans and about 10 cupcake moulds. I soaked in lemon juice one loaf and a couple of cupcakes while left the other loaf as-is. The soaked loaf was devoured as light pre-lunch dessert while my sister-in-law prepared this yummy brinjal/eggplant curry for lunch. The non-soaked loaf was a tea/snack time bite. Though you can reduce the sugar in the cake, I suggest not to skimp on the lemon syrup. The syrup gives the cake its tang.

This cake batter is prepared using the muffin method. In that you measure your dry and wet ingredients in two separate bowls and combine the two by stirring them together very briefly. Here's the recipe:

Lemon Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
2 pinches of salt
1 Cup buttermilk
3/4 Cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsps grated lemon zest
1 vanilla bean, scrapped or 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 Cup vegetable oil
1/3 Cup blueberries, washed and dried

Lemon Syrup
2 Tbsps freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbsps powdered sugar

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease-line-dust the mini-loaf pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Mix the blueberries with a tablespoon of flour and sprinkle them on top of the batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the lemon juice and powdered sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. Place the cooling rack above a plate to contain the dripping syrup. While the cake is still warm make tiny holes in the loaf and pour the lemon-sugar syrup over the cake and allow it to soak in. Let cool.

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