VEGAN / EGGLESS CHOCOLATE & VANILLA MARBLE CAKE

Things are all good here. How about you,all? We are very busy planning our Someone Little's Big Day,which is this month.The menu is fixed and now we have to get other things done. As the days are approaching  our Baby's Big Day,I am kind of feeling sad thinking he is no more a tiny fellow! He will be a year old ! How fast the time flies, right?
Sigh!!

I baked this cake well over 2 months ago and the photographs were still in my camera until last week. It's not that I don't get the time to write here, it's just that I chose to spend more time with Ian Vaava. He needs me much more than my blog baby!
Oh well! I changed something on the blog today. Did you see it yet? No? It's something on the right hand side bar. Okay, now that you just saw it, let me tell you... Jobin did it :-)

This cake is quite good for the fact that it doesn't use butter,milk or eggs! It's not that we prefer eggless bakes, its just that I like to try different recipes to compare with the ones I've made in the past. When I saw Hetal & Anuja bake this up, I made a note in my mind to try it out because it looked very simple and delicious!

The texture and taste for this cake is spot on. It is intensely chocolate-y and at the same time vanilla-y! The batter for both the flavours are almost the same. Look at the recipe closely and you will see what I am talking about. So it's just the mixing part that's left! I prefered making a bundt cake and topped it with some Chocolate Ganache. You can frost it or eat it plain. It is delectable, either way!

CHOCOLATE & VANILLA MARBLE CAKE
Ingredients:
Chocolate cake batter
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon coffee granules
1 cup hot water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoon oil

Vanilla cake batter
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoon oil

Method: Preheat the oven to 350/180C. Prepare a 10-12 cup capacity bundt tin.
For both the batters, the method remains the same. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, mix together the wet ingredients.Now, combine the wet and dry together until you get a smooth batter. Once both the chocolate and vanilla batter is made,pour them alternately into the pan and swirl the cake batter with a butter knife gently, for the marbled effect. Bake for 35-40 mins or until done. Cool completely.Frost as desired.

I made this for a friend of ours when they came home for dinner,on a Friday night. They loved the cake and she asked me if it's okay if she could take some home with her! I was more than pleased to do so. Ian Vaava as always, enjoyed each crumb of this cake. I baked the same cake, again in a weeks time for Jobin's  niece's First Holy Communion. Everyone seemed to have liked it! :-)

I am hoping to be in full swing action,on the blog, very soon!
 

DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE...for me, from him(them)!

Phew! Where did our month, May go by? It was one of the busiest month's in our lives. We were travelling back and forth the whole month starting from May 3. We got home only by the last week of May and by the time we settled in and got back to our usual routine,May got over. Which also means there was a Birthday cake baked for me by my wonderful husband of 3 years and 3 months :-)

Jobin, as always reminded me that I should let him know what I wanted him to bake as my Birthday cake. This year, the reminders popped in every now and then because I am so engrossed in raising a Little Boy in our house now. I am totally in love with him . I just sit and gaze at him ...whether he is sleeping or playing . And if he happens to blabber something to me...oh! then I just go weak in my knees !

Well, I've been falling weak in my knees a little too much actually. This blog was abandoned. I never even bothered to check my page for the whole of last month,unless of course when somebody wrote to me asking for tips of certain recipes or for links to certain recipes. I don't recollect the last time I drafted a post. I don't recollect anything for that matter! I think that's the power of having a Little Man in the house!

Getting back to the cake before I forget why I am here. Since Jobin asked me again and again, I knew I better give him my list of 'wants' so that he can plan his time for baking and frosting the cake. So I chose a cake which was on my mind for a while and texted the name to him. See, we are those couples who just cannot stop texting each other even when he works just a block away from our home!

So Devil's Food Cake it was,by Nigella. It was fun watching him bake along with the baby. Of course, I was right there in the midst of all the measuring,spoons dropping down etc with my trusted camera to capture all those fun moments which we will cherish life long...and maybe encourage our Little Man to do the same,for his beloved someday!

DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup boiling water
9 tablespoon soft unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs

Frosting:
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed
11 oz dark chocolate

Method: Preheat the oven to 350F/180C and prepare 2 8inch cake tins.
In a small bowl, combine cocoa powder and brown sugar together. Add the boiling water to it and stir to combine. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy on high speed. Dribble in the vanilla and beat well to mix. Add one egg followed by a scoop of the flour mixture.Add the other egg and beat it in. Keep mixing and incorporate the remaining flour mixture. Finally, stir in the cocoa mixture. Divide the batter between the tins and bake for 30 minutes or until done.Let the cake cool completely, on a wire rack.

Frosting: In a large saucepan on low heat, bring the water,sugar and butter to a soft boil. Add the chopped chocolate and swirl the pan. Let it sit undisturbed for 1 minute. Stir the frosting so that the chocolate melts from the heat. Let it cool completely. The saucy chocolate frosting will turn super thick and glossy.

*Start with the frosting first. It will take sometime for it to thicken up. I used the refrigerator to chill it.

Frost the cake layers as you wish!

My Husband's Wife of 3 years and 3 months baked his favourite cake for his Birthday,which was in May but never got around to posting it here! I am sure she will be working on it very soon :-)

This cake was very very good. It was soft and moist. The frosting had a fudgy texture to it because of the brown sugar and it never sets hard (well, unless you freeze it!). Ian Vaava got a chunk of this chocolate-y goodness because we were trying to get a good photograph of me sharing it with him. He was very quick with the first bite that we ended up with a photograph which had nothing to do with it! So he got a second share and he had a chocolate mustache after that! He hates having any food on his face, so he promptly wiped it off...on my arms!

The cake stand that you just saw was sent to me by Jina D'cruz, a reader from Houston,Texas. Thank you so much, Jina! It's just beautiful!
 

TARTA MAGICA / MAGIC CAKE

By now,most of you all might know that I love cakes with a twist and I like the twist to be revealed when the cake is cut into. It could be a simple twist like my Checkerboard cake or a slightly crafty twist like my Hearts & Roses Cake. I cannot tell you the fun I have in crafting such cakes and the anticipation I have when I cut into it.My search for such cakes never ends. I need some fun in the kitchen when I play with flour, sugar, eggs and butter!

This time the search time ended at Mabel's blog. Language can never be a barrier for me when it comes to food,baking in particular.Everything can be translated with a click of a button,so why worry?

So what's special with this cake? Did you look closely enough to see the 3 layers? Those 3 layers came from one batter. Yes, the cake is made using a single batter but when baked, it separates itself to create 3 layers. The first layer resembles a good sponge cake, the middle layer is like my favourite firm custard and the bottom layer is a much more firmer custard which lets us slice into the cake beautifully and lift the slices off the serving plate.

Isn't that a smart idea to wow your guests ? Isn't that a smart idea to impress yourself? Isn't that a smart idea to get 3 textures from one cake batter? Isn't this cake MAGICAL? :-) Yes! It clearly justifies it's name. This is a Magic Cake.

TARTA MAGICA
Ingredients:
4 eggs,separated at room temperature
150grams sugar
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 stick unsalted butter,melted
115 g flour
500 milliliters / 2 cups warm milk
Method:Preheat the oven to 325 F and lightly grease an 8 X 8 inch square or an 8inch round tin.
In a large bowl, beat  together the yolks,sugar,water and vanilla.Add the melted butter to it and beat to mix. Add the flour in 3 batches and beat till incorporated. Add the warm milk and stir well.
In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites until firm but not dry. Fold it into the batter in 3 batches. The batter will be very very runny and it will be impossible to fold in the whites without having some lumps floating around. But that's OK. Go ahead and pour the very runny batter into the tin and bake for 60 minutes (My oven took only 45 minutes) or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for 3 hours.Dust with confectioners sugar before serving.
The key here is to look out for the golden brown colour for the cake. It will be soft and lightly giggly in the centre when pressed. That's how it should be. That's what becomes the custard centre.

So now, what are you waiting for? Take a note of the recipe and go bake one! This cake is delicious. I like things with custard in it so I really loved it.Ian Vaava as usual was my kitchen assistant and I really think he pays good attention to what's happening around him. So once the cake was left in the oven to bake, we sat in front of the telly catching up with some shows. The timer was set for 45 minutes just to be sure we don't over bake the cake. When the timer ticked off,Ian Vaava turned around to see what's happening and he looked at me as if to tell me,'Amma, I think it's done!'

So he was promptly rewarded with a small share of this cake. Not to mention how he drooled over it. I gave him only the soft set custard from the centre and he was bending over the cake tin to have more!