Cointreau Pound Cake

Another year gone by. Another broken promise. I attempted to post 40 recipes in 2014. I ended up posting 9. It was a lot more than I'd managed the year before, but nowhere close to what I'd have liked. It wasn't for want of time. The blog was more a victim of circumstances. When I had the time, my computer didn't work. By the time I replaced my computer, I'd also changed jobs. A new job means new teams, new flight schedules and everything else that comes with the territory. And then suddenly, it was the end of the year.

I don't want to sum up 2014 or what it meant to me. As with every year, it had its ups and downs. However, 2014 gave me more than just a fair share of bad news. But I don't wish to dwell on that. I wish to acknowledge the not so good, but focus on the good. I was able to spend time with family and friends. I was able to embrace many good things that this city has to offer. And that is my plan for 2015 as well. To spend my time with family, friends and work. To do as many things as possible that make me happier and healthier.

Baking always makes me happy. Blogging makes me happy too. And blogging about baking should be bang on target. So here's a simple recipe to usher in 2015.

1 1/2 cups Cake Flour/Plain Flour
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups Ricotta Cheese
1 1/2 cups Sugar
3 Eggs
1 teaspoon Orange Essence
2-3 tbsp Cointreau
Butter and Flour for preparing the cake tin  

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Prepare a 10" round tin. (I used a spring form ring mould.) 

Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt. Cream the butter with the sugar and ricotta until the mixture is fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the orange essence and Cointreau and beat well. 

Incorporate the dry ingredients into the batter, adding a little at a time. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool a little and cut into pieces.

Enjoy and have a Happy New Year!

Orange Buttermilk Pound Cake

It looks like it is raining cakes at The Singing Chef. Quite like the monsoons! Last year, at about this time, it felt like I was serving cakes for breakfast lunch and dinner. Right now, once again, I have plenty of cake recipes sitting in my drafts. They shall be all be out very soon. I even have a couple of eggless cakes coming your way.

I made this cake at S's request. He had a team meeting at work and wanted to take something for everyone. I had wanted to make the Orange Ricotta Pound Cake, but I was all out of Ricotta Cheese. I did have buttermilk and so I decided to tweak Deeba's recipe. I am left with a winner recipe. The cake was soft and moist, with a crust on top. The flavour of the oranges came through with every bite.

 

1 1/2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
100ml Buttermilk

1 tsp pure Vanilla extract
Juice of 1/2 an Orange
Zest of 1 Orange

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F. Prepare a 10" ring tin.

Cream the butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the buttermilk and vanilla extract and beat again. Add the orange juice  and the zest. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the batter, adding a little at a time.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool a little and cut into slices when warm using a bread knife.

I made this on a busy weekday morning and forgot to take pictures. It was only after I had cut and packed the cake that I remembered. So, the picture is one that I took using my phone.

Orange Ricotta Pound Cake to say Happy Birthday!

It is still raining cakes here. It is not as though I have not been cooking. I have been cooking a great deal. We've been eating new versions of old food as well as a lot of new foods. However, I'm also very hardpressed for time. My almost 6 month old is a handful, but I have also taken up studying for another master's degree. So, even if I do remember to take pictures of the food I make, they don't reach the blog very soon. I hope to change that soon.

One of my discoveries of this year was the Ricotta Pound Cake. I knew I had to bake it again (and again). I decided to stick to the very same original Giada recipe. So, this time it was an Orange cake. My favourite variety of oranges, Honey Murcott, is back in season, so the choice was but obvious. Since there were no modifications to my Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake, I knew this was going to smooth sailing. And it was.

1 1/2 cups Cake Flour/Plain Flour

2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Salt

3/4 cup Butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups Ricotta Cheese

1 1/2 cups Sugar

3 Eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla

2 Oranges, zested

A few drops Orange Colour (optional)

Icing sugar, for dusting

Butter and Flour/Spray for preparing the cake tin

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Prepare a 10" round tin. (I used a springform ring mould.)

Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt.

Cream the butter with the sugar and ricotta until the mixture is fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and orange zest and beat well. Add the food colour, if using. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the batter, adding a little at a time.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool a little and sieve the icing sugar over it.

 

Ricotta in cakes has to be my discovery of the year! Probably my baking discovery of a lifetime. Afterall, when the spouse who has eaten every kind of cake baked in the last 5 years says, "This is the best cake you've ever made." it must mean something! There couldn't have been a better cake to celebrate today. (However, the real birthday cake is the Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake.)

And as I have in the years that have gone by, regardless of how busy I may be, I come back to the blog to say:

Happy Birthday, Dearest Sachin!

Celebrating with a Cake

It is taking me longer than I expected to get back to blogging, especially this blog. After almost three months, I updated my first blog. The break at The Singing Chef seems longer even though I have been away for just a month. I think it has to do with the regularity with which I have been posting here. So many of you have left messages and sent me mails asking if I’m fine. I am, thank you very much. And I was truly overwhelmed by your messages. It is not like me to abandon my blog and I really haven’t. I was away on a much needed two week vacation. At one point, I thought I could use my time to schedule posts, but we had no time for anything really.

We rested (that was one of the essentials) and we met friends and family (which was the main reason we traveled). We did, though, eat an awful lot. I didn’t take pictures of food on this trip, and God alone knows how much restraint I exercised. In Hyderabad, we had some home cooked meals. I did a little bit of cooking and shall remember not to attempt any such thing in the future. More heartburn, not worth it. I did meet Arundati who gave me free chocolate making lessons. I will attempt making chocolates very soon. We ate at Persis, Little Italy, and Minerva. Persis is just the same. The same biryani that the world somehow thinks is the best. Little Italy is just down the road from where I lived. Nice food, great ambience. Thank heavens it wasn’t there during my time. I’d probably have eaten there everyday. In Bangalore, we ate at home a lot. We ate stuff from the should-be-world-famous-soon Ganesh Upahar in Anand Nagar, and at TGI Fridays and Little Italy (again). I so wanted to have Chhole Bhature at Shiv Sagar. ( I believe in next times.) We were 10 minutes late at Shanthi Sagar and were denied idlis at dinner time. Madras rocks when it comes to food. More so on this trip of ours. We had some home made food again (I cooked a little bit again) and ate out a little. Ratna café, Minar at Savera, etc. But I had proper amchi banana leaf meals at the SGS Sabha as I was there for the Gowri-Ganpati festival. I celebrated my second Gowri Puja with Amma in Madras.

It’s been about 10 days since we got back. I’ve become more organized since then. All the vegetables for the week are now neatly processed during the weekend so dishing out breakfast and lunch together only takes me 30 minutes. Dinner is also a 20 minute affair, in terms of cooking that is. All this leaves us with more time to do all the things that we’d like to. Hit the gym, take a walk, watch more eposides of Three’s Company, cook more wholesome meals… even cut fruit and eat it as an after dinner snack. Something we’d never thought of doing before. I haven’t gotten around to doing any baking yet. We’re planning a small dinner party on Saturday and I hope to do some baking then. But until then, let me leave you with this small cake that I’d baked for a friend when she asked for an encore. The chocolate orange marble cake with a chocolate glaze icing and sprinkles. Simple and sweet. Perfect for that little celebration. Coming back to my beloved blog after a break does call for a celebration.

Doing that on my second wedding anniversary calls for a bigger celebration. S and I complete two years in wedlock today. I am not cooking anything special. We’re planning a small dinner at a local restaurant that’s supposed to be a perfect candle-light romantic dinner place. See you all very soon.

Mixed Fruit Smoothie

Everyday, we carry a huge lunch bag. My mother would be surprised to see me do this. As a child, I hated carrying a lunch bag. I always wanted to carry one bag that could house just about everything I needed to take to school. All my classmates seemed to be doing that. There was just this small, teeny weeny problem. They carried dry lunch. Upma, mixed rice, parathas etc. I had a 4-box tiffin carrier. And a water bottle. To add to my woes, my lunch always included a serving of curd rice. I’ve done crazy things like pack that huge stainless steel monster into my bag (and have curd leak into the bag’s fabric!!). I figured how my classmates brought those light lunches to school. Their mothers made them eat a three course meal (the one I had for lunch) before they left for school. In an attempt to switch my breakfast and lunch, I even tried that. But there was (and is) no way that I can actually eat a three course meal at that hour!


Now, I know better. And I carry a big (but very smart) lunch bag to work everyday. This has, on all days, my lunch, a small container with curd, and a fruit box. On some days, I even carry a small snack like a salad, a granola bar, or some crackers. The idea is to always have something in my bag should hunger pangs strike so I can reach in instead of reaching out (to crisps, corn grits, chips, etc).

Our fruit box has a combination of whatever fruits are in season here. One day S brought his fruit box home as he didn’t have an opportunity to even open it during the day. It just so happened that I didn’t get a chance to touch my box either. So, I emptied the contents of the boxes into the liquidizer and ended up with this lovely smoothie.

1 Apple, cored and chopped
1 Pear, cored and chopped
1 Orange, deseeded
1 cup Guava Nectar

Blend all of the above in a liquidizer and pour into glasses. Add ice if you like and some honey if you want it a little sweeter.

This super simple smoothie is off to Abby who is hosting this month’s Monthly Mingle. It is also off to me as my second entry to this month's AFAM.

Please send in your entries to me on or before the 1st of April. You have a week left before the fruit changes to something else altogether. So, act now!

Chocolate Orange Marble Cake

It was a busy Sunday. I hadn't baked a cake in ages and although I have a box of raisins and figs soaking up some rum, I haven't gotten around to baking my fruit cake. But it was the birthday of my dear friend, P, and I couldn't think of anything better than a home made cake. I found the idea for this lovely cake in a cook called "Everyday Chocolate" by Parragon Publishing. I modified my existing cake recipe to suit this cake. I haven't become very comfortable with the grams and ounces measurements yet and prefer using the standard cup measure.

For the Orange Portion:

1 cup Flour
2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4cup Oil
1egg
1/4 cup Milk

1/4 cup Orange Juice
1/2 tsp Orange Essence
1 tsp Grated Orange Rind



For the Chocolate Portion:

3/4 cup Flour
1/6 cup Cocoa
2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 cup Oil
1 egg
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla



Butter and flour for dusting



For the decoration:

300g Icing Sugar

12 tsp Orange Juice, filtered

2 drops Orange Food Colouring

Chocolate Sprinkles

Sift all the dry ingredients for the each cake separately into a food processor jar with the dough blade. Pour in all the liquid ingredients and run the processor for 2 minutes. Prepare two 8 inch round cake tins by first smearing a little butter all over the tin and then dusting it with flour.

Place spoonfuls of each batter alternately in the pans. Swirl the batter using a knife or skewer to create a marble effect.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. The cakes are done when a knife or skewer inserted into them comes out clean. Remove the cakes to a cake rack and cool completely.

Prepare the icing by whisking the icing sugar along with the orange juice and the food colouring to a running consistency. Pour over the cooled cakes and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles.

I am not a big fan of orange flavoured chocolates, but these two flavours gelled pretty well in this cake and I was rather surprised. We enjoyed small pieces of the cake and P took the rest of it to a family get together where, according to her, it was relished and gone in no time. My cousin P and her husband S completed 6 years of married life yesterday as well. This is a small cake for them too.

I am sending this to the JFI - Chocolate hosted by Deepz.

I hope that during this time of the year when it is not at all bad to spend time in the kitchen (the temperature being 4 degrees C and our houses having no central heating), I will be baking more and trying out newer stuff. I need your continued support.

I am still unable to view many blogs on blogger. I have two blogs. I am able to view one but not this one. I am able to read several blogs through Google Reader, but am unable to comment. So, do bear with me.

Orange Mosaic Pie

I thought and thought about this one. And in the end it didn't turn out the way I expected it would (thanks to me being impatient old me), but it looked very cute and tasted very nice.

And thanks to my impatience, instead of a layered pie, this pie turned out to be a mosaic pie. But orange is the main flavour and hence this is my entry to the AFAM event hosted by Sharmi of Neivedyam.

I heavily modified a recipe I found in the Milkmaid Gold Dessert collection and made this zero fuss mosaic pie.

Ingredients:

200 g Digestive biscuits

70- 80 g Butter

4 tbsp Orange Custard Powder

400 ml Milk

2-3 tbsp Sugar

1 Packet Orange Jelly

2-3 tbsp Orange Juice

Crush the digestive biscuits. Melt butter in the microwave and mix the crushed biscuits. Press this mixture into a pan and put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes until it sets.

Dissolve the custard powder in a little milk and boil the rest of the milk along with the sugar. When the milk boils, add the custard powder milk mixture and stir as it thickens. Cool this for a few minutes and then pour on to the biscuit butter mixture. Refrigerate this till it sets partially.

Prepare the jelly as per the instructions on the pack, but with about 2/3 of the water specified in the recipe, and mix the orange juice. Pour this over the semi set custard and mix gently. The custard will break as the hot jelly is poured over it. And when you quickly whisk the two, it will end in a mosaic of sorts.

Set this entire mixture in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Cut into slices and enjoy.

This pie has the look and feel of a cheesecake but has far less fat. And it is a novel way to eat jelly and custard. S and I ate a slice each this morning and it was yummy. Not too heavy, not too sweet: just right.