A lovely party cake for the Daring Bakers!

The host for this month of the Daring Baker's Challenge is Morven and the challenge for the month of March was to bake a Perfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan .


It is a white cake flavoured with lemon, and I love anything lemony and followed the recipe..though there was a choice to experiment.

The filling was a lemon-buttercream filling that was spread on top of the raspberry preserves layer.

The frosting was buttercream to which blueberry preserves were added. These were then sprinkled with Chocolate strands by my toddler of course who wanted to help.




She was specific that it stay the way she decorated and even wanted a slice of it ...she got her share of the cake...



Since this was picked by the host specifically for its potential of bearing a personal stamp, My stamp was a topping of caramelized whole walnuts.



What you need for the lovely cake

For the Cake

2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream

1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing

2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
1/2 cup blueberry preserves

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool.

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

Assembling
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream mixed with bluberry preserves here to frost the sides and top.

Decorate as per your will.




The cake was different from the normal white cakes and the chocolate ones...It was neither too sweet nor tart for the amount of lemon used...It was a blend of blueberry, raspberry and lemon and a bit of caramel,chocolates and walnuts and each complimented the other well...My cake may have too many flavours... but none dominated any other .....

Here is a chunk for my lovely readers.and while you replenish with this do check out what the other DB's have been up to as well




My earlier challenges

French Bread
Lemon Meringue Pie
Yule Log
Tender Potato Bread

Home B A R Tools! (Click)

My entry for Click this month shows three of my basic bar tools.

The tool on the extreme left is the strainer. The coiled wire that you see on the perpiphery of the tool is to keep the strainer in place.

The mid-center region shows the Opener.

The right side contains the knife, Basically a paring knife to cut fruits for garnishes.

A refreshing drink!

The Cooler goes to MBP hosted by Sig this month. The orginal brainchild behind the event being Coffee.




For on how to make this refreshing cooler, go to this wonderful space .

Loved all the featured drinks and narrowed down to this....Thanks Archana for the lovely refresher! Different from the mundane!

A fried rice!

Microwave cooking has its benefits…some of them being the use of fat to a minimal extent, lesser loss of nutritional values and faster cooking time.

In the intial stages, though following the instruction for microwave cooking to the “T”, the result was not up to the mark. But practice has made me perfect in cooking the below fried rice. I wouldn’t call it perfect…but near perfect would be the fact.


This is adapted from the book of Indian microwave cooking by Rohini Singh.




The recipe requires

Chicken-bite size pieces
Cinnamonn- 2”
Cloves-15
Whole peppercorns-25
Cardamoms-black or green-6
Water-3 cups
Salt to taste
Stock Cubes-2
Oil-5 tbsp
Onion-4 sliced
Ginger-garlic-4 tbsp crushed
Carrots-1 cubed into small pieces (boiled)
Beans- cut into small pieces (boiled)
Green chillies-according to one’s taste
Rice-2 cups
Egg- 2 scrambled

Put the chicken, whole spices, water, salt and the stock cubes in a large microwave dish. Cover the dish and microwave at 100% for 10 minutes. Let this stand for another 5 minutes. After this, remove the chicken pieces and if needed the spices as well. Discard the spices if removing.

On the stove, to the oil, add the onions and fry until a light brown and follow this by adding half the amount of ginger and garlic and fry until they turn a light brown. Now add the chicken pieces and fry until it turns light brown. Add the remaining ginger-garlic and fry for 5 mins.

Into the stock, add the chicken and the washed and drained rice, chillies and microwave uncovered at 100% for 15 mins. Reduce the power to 50% and cover and microwave for a further 5 mins.. Stir in the boiled carrots, beans and the scrambled eggs.

Serve warm.

This fried rice goes over to Srivalli's MEC Event which is Rice for this month.

A simple stir-fry!

I always buy a a cabbage or two during my vegetable shopping simply because all of us are fond of the vegetable. A few weeks back, I picked up purple cabbages because of the colour....(note: my fav colour being mauve and its shades. Read this)

They are nice in coleslaws and the like.Yesterday I made a cabbage stir-fry or thoran using the purple head. With just four ingredients, under 15 mins, this stir-fry was made. I love the crunchiness in my stir-fry and am not very fond of the mushy one. Hence, the lesser amount of cooking time.




What you need are
Cabbage-purple
Onions-2 sliced thinly
Green chillies-6 to 7 chopped

Slice the cabbage and wash them thoroughly and set them aside.

Heat some oil and fry the sliced onion along with the green chillies. When translucent, add in the cabbage and stir well. Do not add water. Cover and cook. Add salt, stir and serve.

Note that this variety of the cabbage has a tendency to turn its accompaniments to the parent colour (onion and the green chillies).




Different from the usual thoran or stir-fry, this is nice for a change.


Another alternative
A cabbage thoran

The irresistible something! (Part 2)

This is the other tartlet that i served....Lemon Curd Tartlet!




After the Db challenge of a Lemon Meringue Pie ,I promised myself that I would make a tartlet the next time...So there I made it!

I am not a fan of the meringue because I find it has too much of an eggy taste ...and since the other tart had an egg filling...that was an other valid reason to forego the meringue.

Note my shell is a different shape now...I made the shell in the microwave...made use of the microwavable moulds that were a christmas gift :)

The filling is a different version from this


The crust was made as per this


For the lemon curd filling

1 tbsp of grated lemon rind
1 cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Lime Juice
225g Butter
2 Eggs (Whipped)

Melt butter ina pan, add the sugar, lime juice and the lemon rind. Add the whipped eggs only after the sugar has melted. On a low flame stir the mixture into a thick consistency. Remove and and serve them into the prepared molds and refrigerate until the curd has set.


These tartlets are tangy yet sweet and is an alternative to a choclate dessert!This filling is less rich than this filling because the egg yolks are replaced by the yolks and whites.




Served with love, this was perfect!

The only hitch was I was supposed to make an appetizer not a dessert!

An irresistible something!

Last fortnight, I got a call quite late in the night for a just-planned get-together of women for the evening….She requested for appetizers…I made tartlets (savoury and sweet) ….the savoury I’ll post now..and the sweeter version for later…

What bothered me was I had no time to google for tart fillings
..so I trusted my judgement and went ahead and made my own version of a filling….

The crust was made as per this..

For the filling

Eggs-3 Boiled and mashed
Mayonnaise-1/2 cup
Capsicum-1/2 (chopped)
Celery (chopped)-a few tsps
Green chillies-3 to 4

Blend the above and chill and spoon into the crust only while serving, otherwise the crust can get soggy!



Loved by all the women.....A little on the spicier side..but an ideal starter!

(the pictures are bad courtesy the mobile phone, because this blogger forgot to take her camera along!)

Roast stuffed chicken !

I always stayed away from roasting chicken….Seen my mother do it for twenty years…but I always stayed away only to make my presence at the table.

I took the plunge a couple of days back..Followed my mom’s recipe to the T.

A roast chicken is a simple meal and the leftovers are stashed away for rolls, shredded salads and the like. All one needs for the simple meal are the basic spices, nuts, vegetables and an oven. The chicken is stuffed with ingredients mentioned below and are browned to one’s taste…The juices are sealed in by the stuffing and the end result is a soft, moist chicken with a crispy outer skin. Mind you, I like mine browned with a lot of butter!





Don’t get weighed down by the elaborate text below…It is easy….

What you need is
1. Whole chicken with skin-1 ½ kg
2. Salt-1/2 tsp
Pepper powder-1/2 tsp
Juice of 1 lime
Turmeric powder-1 tsp
3. Ginger-1” piece
Garlic-1 clove
Onions-3 (large cut into small pieces)
Green chillies-6 (adjust for spiciness)
Celery-2 ribs (cut into small pieces)
Mushroom-6 (cut into small pieces)
4. Oil-1 Cup
5. Vegetables- 50 g each (I used peas, beans and carrot, cut into small pieces and boiled)
6. Nuts-30g each (I used raisins, almonds and cashewnuts)
Bread-5 slices (cut into small pieces)
Potatoes- 2large (boiled and cut into small pieces)
Salt-1/2 tsp
7. Garam Masala- 1 tsp
Worcestershire sauce-1 tspN
Salt-a little
Pepper Powder- ½ tsp
Chicken stock cubes-2
8. Eggs-2 (boiled and cut into small pieces)
Juice of 1 lime
Coriander/cilantro leaves-a bunch
Mint leaves-5 or 6 sprigs
9. Butter-2 tsp






Clean the inside of the chicken and wash well and dry it well. Poke the entire surface of the chicken with a fork for better absorption. Coat 2. the marinade and rub it in and let it stay at least for an hour.

Heat 2 tbsp of oil and saute 5..add salt and set aside.

Heat ½ cup of oil and fry 6 well and add salt if needed and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil and add 3 and saute well .

Add all the fried set asides to 7. Follow this by adding all this to 8. Stir them in well and allow to cool.


Now comes the fun!

Pull out the pretty-looking marinated chicken and stuff with the rich mixture and sew the opening… Melt some butter (A generous amount in this case because I love butter) and brush the chicken all over and cover with a foil and set aside for an hour.

Remove the foil and bake until done.








I served it with mashed potatoes piped all around and the remaining stuffing along with some vegetable sticks…

One hearty meal it was!

One tip that my mom suggested was to roast the chicken breast down to aid in retaining the moistness.


Though this meal takes a longer time to cook, its simple yet tasty principle is definitely a success when perfectly done.

A happy weekend to all! You could try this over the weekend :)

A drink filled with passion!

Growing up in a hill station was an enchanting experience. Every cottage (that is how a house is referred to there) was surrounded by gardens that housed flowers and fruits..It was a sight to see the flowers in bloom and the fruits in their prime…The only spoil sport were the monkeys who would create a ruckus eating the fruits leaving them halfway still hanging on the branches thereby making them of no use…

I still remember the times the plum was picked as soon as it was ripe to make preserves, juices and the like…the ready-made plum preserves that you get in the market are in no way close to the home-made preserves…The peaches were another fruit that were put to use in a similar manner…I still reminiscence the days we climbed trees to grab the plums, peaches, oranges, mangosteens and custard apples. There was rush to pick the straw berries, goose berries, pears, still unnamed yellow berries and passion fruits…I miss the fruit trees in the city that I live in now…

A week back I got a bunch of passion fruits sent all the way from the hometown…

And yes…One of the ingredient that went into the lovely drink was Passion fruit.

The passion fruit comes in two colours..yellow and purple. It grows on a vine and the fruit is oval in shape. The rind is tough and the colour ranges from a pale yellow to a darkish purple…The interior has a different aroma and contains black and brown seeds. The taste is tart…The purple fruit is less tart and produces more juice content.




And since none guessed it right, the surprise still stays with me!


The other two ingredients were honey and sugarcane juice.


To 2 cups of passion fruit juice, 1/4 cup of sugar cane juice and 2 tsps of honey was added. Stir them well and chill before serving.

An option would be to pour them over icecubes. Either way serve it cold!

Guess?

There are three ingredients that went into making this apart from water! Guess and await a surprise...

The Pomegranate Aftermath!

After the AFAM innovative entry ..I had gone into a frenzied mode of adding pomes into anything and everything I made...most of them unsucessful..this is the only one that got an approval nod from the family! (This was the easiest of all! Afterall hardwork hadn't got me the nod of approval).

And the pome surprise is a Tea and Pomegranate Cooler.



What you need are:
1 cup pomegranate juice
2 cups black tea
1/2 cup of sugar and water syrup

Spoon in some icecubes into a glass. Mix the above ingredients and pour over the ice cubes. Do not stir.Squeeze a half of lime and serve chilled!