Rainbow cake

 

"Where does the rainbow end, in your soul or on the horizon?”    Pablo Neruda

Thought of baking a rainbow cake today and baked I did  💪!

I searched the entire pantry for natural colours and though I had blue pea flower, dried raspberries for red, saffron for yellow, I didn’t have any matcha powder left for green. In the end, I decided to use Wilton colours.

I used six inch silicone moulds for baking individual layers. The recipe is for three sets so you need to repeat it twice to get six layers. If you double the quantity and make it all once, you won’t have enough room in your o en to bake everything together.

Ingredients 

Eggs 4

Butter - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1/3 Cup

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon 

Sugar - 1/4 cup For yolk and 1/4 cup for whites

Flour - 3/4 cup

Corn flour - 1/4 cup

Baking powder- half a teaspoon 

Vanilla - half a teaspoon 

Sugar syrup - boil quarter cup sugar in a cup of water with a piece of cinnamon, two cloves and a teaspoon ground ginger 

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Separate the eggs . 

Find the weight of your mixing bowl first. Then Beat the yolks with sugar , until creamy. Add butter, milk ,vanilla and salt one by one and mix well and each addition.

Sieve the flours and baking powder together. Fold into the yolk.

Whip the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form.

Gently fold the whites into the yolk cream. 

Find the mass of the mixture and divide equally into three bowls. Remember to subtract the mass of the bowl. Add three different colours to each bowl, mix well, pour into a greased tin and bake for 15 minutes.

Repeat the entire process one more time to get six colours.

Buttercream frosting.

Butter 250 gm

Icing sugar 150 to 200 gm 

Milk about two tablespoons 

Beat softened butter till creamy. Add sifted icing sugar, a little at a time and beat till light and fluffy. Add a few drops of milk in between. Beat till the frosting is light, fluffy and shiny.

To assemble, take the purple layer and brush with syrup. Spread a thin layer of frosting and add layers in the order Purple- Blue- Green- Yellow- Orange and Red. Cover the cake thinly with frosting.

Divide the rest of the frosting into three or four small bowls. Add the colours you wish. Fill various piping bags with coloured frosting and pipe  rosettes or swirls on the top.

Keep refrigerated to firm the icing.

Raspberry Jelly cakes aka Raspberry lamingtons

Raspberry Jelly cake

I have always always trusted Australian Women`s weekly recipe.

I have many of their cookbooks and it is always a delight to bake one of their original recipes.

This Raspberry jelly cake is from their cookbook, instead of strawberry jelly, I used raspberry jelly for that bright pink lamingtons.

Lamingtons are easy to bake . They are so nice to look at. For me it embodies, everything nice and frilly and girly.

The recipe is from the book `Cakes`from Australian Womens Weekly cook books.

Whatcha need are :

150 gm sugar

6 eggs

125 g cake flour

50 g cornflour

one and a half teaspoon baking powder

 1 packet raspberry jelly crystals

2 cups dessicated coconut

Preheat to 180 degrees Celsius.

Beat eggs and sugar till light and thick.

Sift the flours and baking powder. Fold into the egg.

Grease and line a lamington pan.

Pour batter into the pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Invert into a lined wire rack and trim all sides.
Ciit into cubes.

Prepare Jelly as per packet instructions.
Dip the cubes in Jelly and roll on Dessicated coconut.  Chill and serve.

This quantity makes about 20 lamingtons.

Coconut cookies

Coconut Cookies

The buttery crumbs that melt in the mouth.

That nutty flavour of Coconut bringing memories of my home town.

This is what the Coconut cookies evoke in me.

Though everyone in the family loves cookies, I don't make them often. Because it needs some time to make cookies. I dont mean the preparation time, but the baking time is a bit long since I need to bake the cookies in batches. So after a couple of batches, I tend to get bored.

 
To make 30 to 35 cookies, we need,

cake flour  450 ml
cornflour  75 ml
powdered sugar 125 ml
softened butter  250 g
dessicated coconut  250 ml
jam and almond slivers- optional

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
Sift cake flour and corn flour together. Combine with the sugar. Add softened butter and knead gently to form a soft dough. Gather to a ball and refrigerate for one hour.
After an hour, form small balls and roll them on the dessicated coconut. If using jam, make a small thumb impression on the top and drop jam. or place an almond sliver on the top.
Keep on a tray allowing space for expansion. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until lightly browned.
Store in airtight containers when completely cooled.

Mosaic sponge cake

Mosaic cake which looks like a million dollar baby

I have moved into a new house and brought in my Murphy Richards oven too. Though I miss my own larger oven in my home in Trivandrum, I am quite happy with this oven,

It was raining in the evening and there was a storm too. Many trees lost the weaker branches in the garden in front of my house. I though a cake would be the best thing to have on a rainy day but my pantry cupboard had nothing much other than flour and cocoa powder. So I decided to bake a mosaic cake.
But instead of baking the usual marble cake, I modified the technique and when I turned the cake from the pan, surprise surprise, what a beauty it was.

As I said earlier this cake can be made with the simplest of ingredients.

Cake flour  - 2 cups
baking powder - 2 and a half teaspoons
milk - 3/4 cup
butter - 3/4 cup
eggs - 3
sugar - 1 cup
vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon
Rose essence - two or three drops
Cocoa powder - 2 table spoons

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees.
Beat the sugar, butter and eggs till light and fluffy. Add the essences and blend well. Sift the baking powder and the flour. Fold tablespoons of flour into the butter cream, alternating with milk.
Grease and dust a cake tin.
With your finger tips, drop small rounds of batter into the pan. Dust with Cocoa powder using a fine sieve. Repeat dropping the batter and dusting with cocoa powder till all the batter is finished.
Bake at 180 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.

Cheesy Pull apart bread with Olives, Jalapeno, tomatos

Cheesy Pull apart bread with Olives, Jalapeño, tomatoes

Baking bread is a passion. Nothing beats the flavour of freshly baked bread. 

Today I made a pull apart bread with a savoury twist.

What you need to make these soft pull apart bread are flour, yeast and some tinned and canned things.

flour 2 cups

salt to taste

yeast 2 teaspoon

sugar half a teaspoon

warm water half a cup

milk half a cup

tomato 3

jalapèno 3

olives  chopped - 3 tablespoons

grated cheese -  1 cup

Dissolve the yeast in warm water and sugar and leave it to froth. Add this to the flour with salt and mix with a wooden spoon till it comes together. Transfer to a floured surface and knead till soft and elastic . ( I usually beat the hell out of it with a roller )

Keep the dough in a lightly greased dish and leave it to rise for about 2 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

Remove the raised dough, punch down and roll to form a thin sheet. e

Cut the tomato and remove the seeds leaving only the. fleshy skin. Slice it thinly.

Spread with chopped olives, Jalapeños, tomatoes and cheese.

Roll to form a cylinder. Cut the cylinder into pieces and place it on a lightly greased loaf tin with cut side up.

Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes checking at intervals to see it is nicely browned.

Sit around a table with black tea and good conversation and Enjoy the pull apart.

Portuguese egg tarts (Natas)

Portuguese egg tarts (Natas) 

The tall and young woman got out of the car.
The little girl in frilly pink frocks jumped out after her.
The little bakery aptly named `Primavera` held sweet little cases filled with the sweetest burnt custard.
This was the daily routine for me and my daughter every weekday on the way back home from school. I dont know if Primavera still exists at the far end of Avenida 24th Julho, but the memories of sweet natas remains in my mind.

Natas are baked egg tarts or baked custard tarts, a delicacy from Portugal. Its cousin, Hongkong egg tarts are different in that the cases are made of short crust pastry instead of puff pastry and that the custard in not caramelised.
These are pretty easy to make once you have puff pastry. I make my own puff pastry but you can always use ready to use puff pastry rolls.

For the filling: (makes 10 egg tarts )

egg yolks 2
sugar 2 tablespoon
cream 60 ml
full cream milk 260 ml
corn flour 1 teaspoon
vanilla extract 1 teaspoon

Mix everything together and whisk well so that there are no lumps. Place on low heat and keep stirring till the custard thinly coats the sides of the pan. Cool completely.

Roll the puff pastry, cut into ten circles to line a cupcake pan.
Fit the puff pastry rounds into the cup cake pan, Run a knife over to neaten the edges.
Pour just enough custard filling to come up to half a cm lower than the rim.

Bake at 220 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until the top of the custard is slightly burnt.

Below is the photo of tarts being baked in the oven.

Look at the shine on top of the custard. Bake some, you will want to make it every week.

Flaked rice Uppma

Flaked rice Uppma

South Indian breakfasts are  elaborate affairs. That two pieces of silky soft fluffy idlis which vanishes within seconds actually needs overnight workload of soaking the grains, then grinding the grains, then fermenting the grains, then greasing the idli moulds, steaming them so that those fluffy pillows of goodness can be devoured.

I am the laziest bum in my family.
I cant be bothered to do all this work today so that I can have my breakfast tomorrow.
So here is a tasty alternative for a South Indian breakfast,

I learned to make Uppma from my aunt Jayanthi, around the time my grandfather passed away. My aunt , whom I call Jayanthi Mami, volunteered to make breakfast for everyone in the family and I gladly became her assistant.  She is a woman of few words but she is the most efficient woman in my family. This Uppma is a long cry from the traditional one she taught me, but I do remember her in gratitude every time I make Uppma.

This is what you need to make this yummy dish.

Flaked rice  -  2 cups
grated coconut - 3 table spoons
chopped green chillies - 2
chopped carrot - 1
chopped green pepper - 1
chopped onion - 1 large
black gram dhal (Urad dal)- 1 teaspoon
egg - 1
curry leaves
butter , ghee or oil  - 2 tablespoons

Add 2 tablespoons of water to the flaked rice to soften it. Keep it aside while you prepare the vegetables.

Heat the oil, butter or ghee and add curry leaves and black gram dhal. When it browns add the chopped onion and sauté. Add all other chopped vegetables and sauté till soft. Add salt to taste.
Break the egg and pour over the veggies and scramble so that the egg coats the vegetables evenly.

Now add the softened flaked rice, and mix it thoroughly with the vegetables. Add grated coconut, remove from fire and serve hot with banana.