Dulce de Leche

This has to be by far the easiest recipe ever!! Dulce de leche is basically really thickened toffee like caramelized sweetened milk. If you like caramel, you will absolutely love this! The first time I had Dulce de Leche , it was in the form of an ice cream flavor, the Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche, and it is one of my favorites. The consistency can be variable depending on how dense or runny you want. Since it stores so well, I love to just have some at hand in my fridge for ice cream topping or to bake goodies with it.

400g of condensed sweetened milk and a few flakes of sea salt.
well that’s all you need really!

Pour the condensed milk into an oven proof shallow dish and stir in the sea salt, cover it tightly with foil. Put the dish into a roasting tin, pour boiling water in the tin such that the water reaches half way up the oven proof dish. Bake in a 200 ˚C pre-heated oven for 1 -1 ¼ hour. Keep topping up water in the roasting tin every 20-30 minutes.

Take it out of the oven and whisk it so that it becomes smooth. When cool, store it in a jar in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.

Direction to use: Open fridge-open Dulce de Leche jar- eat spoonfuls, smile out of the utter happiness you feel from its decadent taste ! If you really want to use it for something else then go on and pour it over your ice cream, on your cake, in your pies, on your toast!

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding served with pistachio ice cream

In my last blog I had said that I would try and make one thing from the Great British Bake off challenge every week. I have been doing that, just not had the time to update it on the blog. For the pudding test, I made the classic sticky toffee pudding. What I wanted to add to it was molasses made of dates but i could not find it in any store nearby. The closest I could find was palm sugar so I gave it a try. The pudding came out really moist and quite gooey. To serve on its side I had made a pistachio flavored creamy sauce, more like an Indian sweet dish called ‘rabri’ and pistachio ice cream, a version of an Indian ice cream called kulfi.

For the pudding you will need:

200 g dates
250 ml boiling water with a tsp of instant coffee
½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda
85 g butter
75 g soft brown sugar
75 g palm sugar/ jaggery ( I used a block of palm sugar and scraped it but you can also use soft brown sugar or caster sugar as well)
175 g self-raising flour
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 tsp cinnamon powder
½ of ¼ tsp nutmeg powder
¼ tsp cardamom powder

1. Preheat the oven to 160 ˚C fan.
2. Chop the dates to small pieces and soak them in boiling water with coffee pre-dissolved. Add the bicarbonate of soda to the water and keep this aside.

Grated palm sugar

3. Combine the flour with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom powder.
4. Then combine the softened butter with brown sugar and palm sugar and beat the mixture with a hand mixer till it becomes light and fluffy.
5. Then gradually add the lightly beaten eggs.
6. Fold in the flour mixture. When combined, fold in the date mixture.
7. Bake in a greased cake tin for 30-35 minutes till it is firm to touch.

Out of the tin upside down

I served it warm with pistachio toffee sauce and pistachio ice cream.

Thanks for stopping by.

Chocolate Birthday Cake

This is one the best chocolate cake recipes ever! I have used several chocolate cake recipes before but this is definitely the keeper. This cake is very moist, still quite light and very chocolatey. I got the recipe from sweetapolita.com- she does the most amazing cakes!

The measurements here will make you 3 x 6″ cakes or can try making one big cake as well. I used one and a half times to make 4 x 7″ cakes. What you will need is:

180 gm plain flour
275 gm caster sugar
60 gm cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
75 ml vegetable oil
140 ml buttermilk
130 ml hot coffee ( I used about 2 tbsp of instant coffee in hot water, you can always used brewed coffee as well)
2 eggs at room temperature
1 tbsp vanilla essence

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C (fan). Adjust temperature according to your oven.
2. Grease and line the baking tins.
3. Sift all the ingredients together.
4. I used the food processor- put all the ingredients (sifted and the rest) together and mix till the batter comes to a semi-liquid state without lumps.
5. Pour the mixture into the baking tins and bake in the preheated oven. After about 20 mins rotate the tins so there is an even bake. Bake for a total of about 35 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool the cakes on wire rack.

Frosting: 187 gm unsalted butter at room temperature
200 gm sifted icing sugar
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Whip the butter till it is pale and creamy for about 8 minutes. Add rest of the ingredients and whip for another minutes at low speed and then at medium speed for 5-6 minutes.
I divided this frosting in three bowls. I wanted to use pastel colours so I added the gel food colours till I got the required shades.

To assemble the cake, I layered all the cakes with the frosting, then put a thin layer of frosting on the cake to bind in all the crumbs and then frost with the different colours. I tried to do pastel swirls as explained here http://sweetapolita.com/2012/06/pastel-swirl-cake-video-tutorial/ . Well my swirls were not as pretty and colours not as bright but it was not too far off either! I was happy with the cake!

I got these awesome stencils from a friend for my birthday! There are such fun designs, I can’t wait to use them!

Coffee Caramel Cake

Hi all,

I have shamelessly neglected to update my very new blog!!A combination of a long holiday during December, moving home and general life came in the way of making time for blogging.

So, I went to India for a month-long holiday with an added celebration of a family wedding during the visit. Of course, the agenda of each day was ‘ what are we going to eat today!!!’ :D. Had loads of awesome food to eat, tried out quite a few new stuff as well. But that will be in another section of my travel food notes (which will be coming soon).

I tried out this cake for a friend’s birthday and it came out pretty good. Nice and moist and a great caramel icing on it. I am sorry not very many pictures since there was not much day light to click a nice picture and well, the cake was gone next day.

Ingredients

2 tsp instant coffee granules
2 tsp hot water
175 g softened unsalted butter (I used Stork)
2 eggs
2 tbsp golden syrup
200 g self-raising flour
4 tbsp milk

To make the cake a little chocolatey, substitute 2 tbsp of flour with 2 tbsp of cocoa powder.

For the Icing:

50 gm unsalted butter
1/3 cup soft brown sugar (can also use dark brown sugar)
¼ cup double cream
200 g icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp instant coffee powder dissolved in a little cream.

• Pre-heat the oven to 160 ˚ C. I use fan oven so adjust the temperature according to your oven. Line 8 inch cake tin with baking sheet.
• Dissolve the coffee into hot water and keep aside.
• Mix all the ingredients except the coffee in a food processor and mix it for 2-3 minutes till it was a smooth mixture. Add the coffee mixture to it and mix again. If the mixture seems too thick, add another tablespoon of milk.
• Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake in the middle of oven for 30-40 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.
• Let it cool on a wire rack and turn it out on a plate.

To make the icing:

• In a heavy base saucepan, on a low heat, melt the butter.
• Once it has melted add the brown sugar and stir with wooden spoon. Keep stirring till it all of it dissolves and stir for another 2 minutes till it starts bubbling. Take care that the sugar does not burn else take it off heat.
• Add the double cream and keep stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes till the mixture is smooth and glossy. It will thicken a little.
• Let it cool for 5-7 minutes.
• At this point you can use the food processor to beat in the icing; you can beat in the icing sugar by hand as well.
• Sieve the icing sugar to get ready of any lumps. Now add the icing sugar to the mixture and process for 2 minutes or till it is incorporated into smooth icing. If it is runny add more icing sugar, if it seems too thick add some more cream.
• Add the coffee mixture and mix well.
• Cut the cake through the middle and use 1/3 rd of the icing to do the filling. Use the rest to spread on top of the cake.

Carrot cake

Hello world !

So for my first blog post ever, I thought I would start with what I baked last weekend. A spicy carrot cake. A combination of recipes explored and thought of made to my final recipe. And it did come out quite well:) As confirmed by my husband ( no no not because if badly reviewed, it would devoid him of the sweet Sunday baking but honest opinion, i swear!) plus vouched for by his colleagues.

200 gm plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp clove powder
½ tsp ginger powder
1 orange zest
3 eggs
150 ml sunflower oil
150 gm brown sugar
50 gm caster sugar
50 gm raisins, dried fruits or walnuts (optional)
150 gm grated carrot

I used a hand blender to mix the ingredients. First, beat the sugar and oil till mixed, about 2-3 minutes. Then add the eggs one at a time. Now stir in the grated carrots and the orange zest. Mix the dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl. Add it to the wet mixture and beat till mixed together. Do not over beat. Grease and line a baking tin, and pour in the mixture. Bake at 170 ˚C till for about 45 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean. Cool over a wire rack.

For the icing, I used 150 gm of mascerpone cheese. Beat it till fluffy, 50 gm of softened butter and 150 gms of icing sugar, already sifted, a little at a time.I also added some lime zet for that extra tang. When the icing is smooth and fluffy, layer it on the completely cooled cake.

To decorate , I mixed some icing sugar with lemon juice to just the piping consistency and added red and yellow colour (to get the orange) for carrots and green for the carrot tops.

The final product: