Saturday, April 16, 2011

Decadent Chocolate Cake



Decadent Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cakes are our all time favourite dessert. I love trying out various recipes of the same, be it with or without eggs. What fascinates me is that each recipe has its own unique result. Recently came across a recipe of a gorgeous looking chocolate cake in Good House Keeping Magazine. I fell for the photographs of the cake that accompanied the recipe, so baked it yesterday. Though it didnt turn out as good as I expected it to be, it was good. mmmm... may be because I was a little too anxious to be done with it and also the power was off twice while the baking was in process :(

For the cake:

2 cups flour

1 cup cocoa

1&1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar, (I omitted brown sugar)

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 &1/2 cup buttermilk

For Frosting:

1/3 cup cocoa

1/2 cup boiling water

1 cup butter, softened

2 tbsp icing sugar

350 gms dark chocolate, melted and cooled

To Garnish:

1/2 cup crushed almonds, cashewnuts, almonds


Method:

1. For the cake ; preheat the oven to 170*C. Grease 2 round cake pans. line the bottom of the pan with butter paper;grease and lightly dust the pans with flour.

2. Sieve the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Keep aside.

3. In a large bowl, with a hand beater at low speed, beat the butter and both sugars until well blended.

4. Increase the speed to high; beat for 5 minutes or until pale and fluffy, scraping the bowl with spatula occasionally.

5. Reduce the speed to medium-low;add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

6. Add vanilla essence and beat well until well blended.

7. Add a little flourmixture alternately with a little buttermilk, begining and ending with flour. Beat until the batter is smooth, occasionally, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Spoon the batterevenly among the two prepared pans. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

8. Cool the cakes in their pans atleast for 10 minutes.

9. With a small knife loosen the cakes from the sides of the pans, invert it and remove it on a wire rack, peel off the butter paper and cool the cakes for about 45 minutes.

To Prepare the Frosting:

1. In a bowl, combine the cocoa and boiling water, stirring until smooth. Keep aside.

2. In a bowl, with a mixer at medium-high speed, beat the butter and icing sugar for five minutes or until fluffy.

3. Reduce the speed to medium-low add the melted chocolate. Mix well.

4. Then add the cocoa mixture ,beat until the batter is smooth, ocassionally scraping the bowl with a spatula.


To assemble the cake:

1. Place one cake layer, bottom side up, on a cake plate and spread some of the frosting over evenly.

2. Sprinkle some of the crushed nuts over the icing.

3. Top with the second cake, bottom side up. Spread the remaining frosting over the sides and the top of the cake. Carefully cover the sides of the cake with the remaining nuts.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Back with Bisibele Bhath!



Hi all,

Sorry for such long absence. I must admit I've been having a sneek peep at most of the blogs every now and then :) Now on, I shall try and be as regular as possible in updating my recipes and also visiting your blogs. Happy Ramanavami and God bless!



Today's recipe is a treasured one. I've been preparing bisibele bhath with MTR ready mix for the past 3 years. My land lady Mrs. M is an excellent cook. She had invited S and me for lunch one day, the menu was a great spread with a traditional vermicelli payasam for dessert. The show stealer in the menu was Bisibele bhath for me without doubt. I took down the recipe for the powder and made it at home. Undoubtedly, it was awesome. Since then it's been one of my favourite recipes. Read on....


Ingredients:

For the powder:

Oil- 2 tsp

Red chillies (byadgi)- 5-6

Chana dal- 3 tsp

Udad dal- 1tsp

Coriander seeds- 1/2 tsp

Cloves- 2

Cinnamon-1" piece

Green cardamom- 1-2

Methi seeds- 4-5 seeds

Maratha Moggu- 1

Dagda phool- little

Copra (grated)- 1/4 cup

Khus khus (poppy seeds)- 1 tsp

Curry leaves- 1 sprig


Method:

In a Kadhai / Tawa heat the oil and dry fry each ingredients on a medium flame, till it gives out aroma. Cool it and powder it. Store it in an air tight container.


To prepare Bisibele Bhath:

Ingredients:

Rice- 2 cups

Toor dal- 1 cup or (Toordal 1 cup and rice 1/2 cup)

Mixed vegetables- beans, potato, peas, cauliflower, carrot, onion ( cut the veggies into bite size pieces, onion quartered)

Bisibele bhath powder- 2-3 tbsp ( according to your taste)

Coconut grated-1/2 cup (optional)

Tamarind paste- 1-2 tbsp

Jaggery crushed- 1 tbsp

Ghee- 1-2 tbsp

Salt- as per taste


Tempering:

Ghee/oil- 2 tsp

Mustard seeds- 1 tsp

Urad dal- 1 tsp

Chana dal- 1 tsp

Red chillie- 1-2, broken into halves

Note: You can temper it with fried cashews in ghee, after the above mentioned basic tempering


Method:

Cook the dal and rice with enough water and 1/4th tsp turmeric powder. Once cooked mix it well with a ladel so that both dal and rice combine well.

Cook the vegetables seperately.

Take a kadhai/wok place it on medium flame and put tamarind paste and boil for about a minute.

Add cooked vegetables, dal and rice mix, bisibelebhath powder, salt, jaggery. Add some water if necessary.Mix the contents well.

Boil for 5 minutes

Tempering:

In a Tempering utensil, heat oil/ghee and add chana dal, udad dal fry till it browns a bit.

Throw in the red chillies, mustard seeds and curry leaves let it splutter for a couple of seconds.

Pour the tempering ingredients over the simmering bisibele bhath. Mix well.

Sprinkle the grated coconut over the bisibele bhath and it's ready to serve.

Best accompaniment : salted/ spiced potato chips (waffers) or onion raita.