RUM & VANILLA CHERRY GATEAU a.k.a CLASSIC BLACK FOREST CAKE

Things have been super exciting at our end for the last 32 days, since our Ian vaava was born.Yes, he turned a month old today. He is a very good baby and doesn't give his Amma a tough time. Touchwood, the term 'sleepless nights' don't seem to work in our household. So Jobin is 'Appan' and I am 'Amma'. My Appan and Amma are 'Appu' & 'Ammu', short form of Appoppan & Ammooma.Jobin's mom will be called 'Velliammachi',like how Ian vaava's cousin's call her.Ritchie is yet to be named :-)

Ian vaava was baptised on 12 August, at the Basilica here. It's the first Basilica in America and it's beautiful! I will share some photographs once we receive it. This cake was baked 2 days before his baptismal day as we were having guests over. It's been on Amma's list for a long time, so we thought of going ahead with it...a Black Forest Cake. The fruit that Appan & Amma has been munching ever since they landed in the US are Bing Cherries. To be honest, I keep buying pounds of it in their name...I love it too! So making a Black Forest Cake was another excuse to eat up those maroon Cherries.

The cake was a simple yet super spongy chocolate sponge cake which rose beautifully and gave us 4 layers. The cherry filling was made with basic ingredients and tasted just perfect.It was my first attempt at making the filling from scratch so the ingredients were thrown in at random measurements which worked perfectly well.

The cake was very well recieved but I wasn't awake to see it. I heard it from Amma, the next day that it was a success and I knew it the minute I opened the fridge as it had almost vanished! Amma also said that Appan usually says 'Eval enthu cake ondakkiyalum nallatha nallatha ennu parayum' . I don't think he would say that again :-) The gateau was loved by all.

RUM & VANILLA CHERRY GATEAU
My own recipe
Ingredients:
Fatless Chocolate Sponge:
6 eggs
1 c sugar
1/2 c flour
1/4 c cocoa powder
1/4 c cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla

Method: Preheat the oven to 350F/180C and line 2 x 8 inch round cake tins.
In a large spotlessly clean bowl , beat the eggs and sugar for 15 mins on high.It should be super foamy and mousse like.Add vanilla and beat for another 1 minute. Sift the flour, cocoa powder & cornstarch over it and fold it in gently.Divide the batter between the two tins and bake for 25-30 mins or until springy to touch. Let it cool completely. Split each cake into 2.Dust off the cake crumbs and reserve till needed.

Rum & Vanilla Cherry filling
2 c pitted fresh cherries
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp dark rum
2 tsp vanilla
1 c sugar
1 c water

Method: In a medium sized bowl, mix together cherries, 2 tbsp sugar, rum & vanilla. Mix well and leave it covered in the fridge overnight.
In a medium saucepan, add the macerated cherries (along with it's juices), 1 c sugar, 1 c water and bring it to a boil. Switch off the heat and let it cool completely. The syrup would have thickened by now.(You will need almost all of the syrup to soak the 4 layers to get a real moist gateau.)

For filling, frosting & decorating
2 c heavy cream, whipped with sugar to taste
8 whole cherries
150g dark chocolate,shaved

Assembly: Place a layer of the cake on a cake stand,drizzle with the cherry syrup uniformly,spread a thick layer of whipped cream and then scatter some of the rum-vanilla cherries over it. Repeat. The topmost layer should be the 4th layer of cake. Cover the top and sides with whipped cream . Decorate with grated/shaved chocolate & whole cherries. Refrigerate the assembled cake overnight for the flavours to blend . Serve chilled.

So the other day, we went to our favourite Italian restaurant for dinner & dessert, which of course had to be Tiramisu. After having a piece of it, we asked Appan about how he liked it. He said ,'Ethum nallatha pakshe aval ondakkiya aa cake thanneya ethinekkalum nallathu!' Wow! Now that Tiramisu has a competitor, I must say ;-)

Jokes apart, this is seriously good! The cake layers soaked in the syrup very well lending a melt in the mouth texture. The rum-vanilla cherries were mild yet flavourful. This gateau was so good that I really don't think I would even give another Black Forest Cake recipe a try.

MY LEMON YOGURT CAKE

Ibaked my very own cake,for the first time! When I say that, I mean, I didn't use anybody's recipe but my own proportions to bring it all together.Don't ask me how I got till there...it was a long bumpy ride on a very dull Thursday. Fortunately the end result was mind blowing that being sad the whole day didn't matter after all! All the thoughts, worries and confusions yielded in an awesome sauce lemony cake!
OK. I have to tell you that long story and I am not going to cut it short :-)

Last Thursday was quite eventful at home, on the lines of baking. I tried my hand at baking a piped cookie whose dough was just not pipe-able so I rolled them into small balls and baked it. It came out just OK and not so good as the recipe stated. It was a butter cookie and there was a lot of butter in it. I cannot waste butter even if I have to waste the rest of the ingredients. Yeah! I'm like that.

So after a so-so butter cookie, I thought I'll do something to get me going.It's been days since I've been longing to eat a lemon flavoured cake. The hunt was on for a good recipe but seriously, I couldn't get one. During our many e-mails throughout the day, Jobin mentioned he was going for out with his colleagues after work and will be late to get back home. I got that email right after that stupid cookie and when all my search for the perfect lemon cake came to a full stop.

I whined. I wrote back saying 'I'm sad.I want to eat a nice plain lemon cake.I cannot find any recipe.Tried baking a cookie. Flop aayi. Sad.' I mean, seriously...when there are so many food blogs and recipe websites, how is it that I cannot find one recipe which sounded good to me??? Most of them had some sort of a topping going over the hot cake and I didn't want that extra sugar going into our bodies, if I could help it. So I thought I'll compromise and start on with Amma's recipe for her famous cake. That was the beginning...just the beginning of everything!

I took out my brand new digital weighing scale that I was sent for a review and started off measuring butter and sugar. I dumped them into my Reddie to do it's work. Then I moved onto measuring the flour and I painstakingly realised that I was short on it! The butter and sugar was busy creaming up and I don't have enough flour! Ok, let's move onto Plan B...I shall make do with some wheat flour then. Hmph! Ok, now grab the eggs...and for some strange reason, I knew there were not  many eggs left in the fridge. Sadly,it was true.I looked back at my Reddie and couldn't even think of dumping that butter!

Seriously, that was not my day! I am usually very careful and pull out all the ingredients before I start baking and I have no clue what was going on with me that day! I was so let down that I couldn't get a simple cookie right and finally this cake too? Like I said before, the end result changed everything! :-)

RIA'S LEMON YOGURT CAKE
My own recipe

Ingredients:
180g unsalted butter, softened
240g sugar
3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
Zest & ( 3 tbsp ) juice of  1 lime or lemon
200g maida/all purpose flour
40g whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp yogurt

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Line a 9 inch baking tin.
In a bowl, whisk together flours, salt, baking powder & baking soda.In another large bowl, beat together butter and sugar till creamy,for 2 mins. Add the eggs one by one and beat for 30 secs after each addition. Add the lime juice and zest and beat for 30 secs. The mixture will curdle but it doesn't matter. Add the flour mix and beat to incorporate. Add the yogurt and beat on high for a minute or two. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 1 hour 10 mins. Your oven timings maybe different, so keep checking from 45 mins.

*Updated on 26/4/2020 - Over the years I revised the method for making the cake batter. Add all the ingredients into a bowl and beat it on high speed using a hand mixer for 2 minutes.

• My current oven bakes the cake in 45 minutes.
• You can use 4 whole eggs instead.
• You can use 240 grams of maida/ all purpose flour instead.
• My 1 cup flour measures 120 grams and 1 cup sugar 200 grams. 

I always dreamt about creating my own cake recipes and never did I even dream that it would be through an accident, a very careless accident! I've actually had a successful accident a while ago and it grabbed me 1st place at a competition too! So, no complaints with accidents! ;-) Don't worry, this cake wouldn't stick to the bottom of your pan as you saw in a photograph above, I was just piling up the crumbs into the tin after I got the cake out of it.

This cake was so so soft that I feared it would crumble in my hands when I unmoulded it. The lemon taste was spot on and the cake was so buttery & incredibly moist! I am so proud of myself ! :-) It really is a wonderful delicious lemon yogurt cake!