Tres Leche Cake

Say what?! A Tres Leche cake  (Spanish for three milk cake) is a sponge cake soaked in three kinds of milk; namely evaporated milk, condensed milk and cream. What sets this cake apart (besides its awesomeness) is its unique texture that prevents it from being a soggy mush despite being soaked in so much milk. And its absolutely to die to for. What a cake this is!



I first tried this cake in a Mexican bakery in LA, and it blew my mind! And ever since then, its been on my cooklist. So when we decided to throw a birthday party for my mother-in-law, this was the only cake I could think of. This is my first attempt at making it, so I obviously needed the recipe from someone whose cooking sense I could trust i.e: Martha Stewart

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook



For the cake:

1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1tsp vanilla essence

For the soaking liquid:

1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk*
1 cup whole milk



*Evaporated milk is milk that has been cooked down to allow more than 50% of its water content to evaporate. Since its not easily available in India you can make your own or use a substitute:

Make your own: Simmer 2 cups of regular milk down to 1 cup to give you one cup of evaporated milk
Substitute: Take some milk powder and reconstitute it using only 40% of the recommended water. You should get a thick cream-like milk consistency.



Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients i.e. flour and baking powder. In a larger bowl, beat eggs and sugar until well combined. The eggs would turn a pale yellow colour. Add vanilla and mix. Now gradually add the flour mix and fold to combine. Its always a good practise to add the flour in batches, wait for it to mix completely before proceeding to add another batch. Fold in the melted butter until incorporated. Butter a baking dish and transfer the batter to this dish. Bake for 30-40 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.



Whisk together the milks. With a fork or skewer, poke the warm cake all over. Make sure you make sufficient holes and the luscious milk mixture will seep into the cake through this. Now pour the milk mixture over the top of the cake. Don't panic if the cake is submerged in the milk. It will absorb all that liquid eventually. Set aside and let it cool.



You can serve as it or whip 250ml cream and 1/4cup sugar together. Spread it over the cooled cake. Sprinkle cinnamon or cocoa powder or top with fruits.

P.S: This cake was so good that I could barely save a slice for pictures. Apologies for the terrible pictures. It was a birthday party hence too much clutter in the background

Red Velvet Cake with a Raspberry Buttercream & Fondant icing

 

I love love love red velvet cakes. After cheesecakes, it is my all time favourite kind of cake. A bit of trivia for you...red velvet cakes are actually really rich chocolate cakes. Yep! If I don't add the red colour, you'd never know your eating one! In olden days the reaction of unprocessed cocoa powder with the buttermilk acids would give the cake a reddish tinge. Ofcourse nowadays we use food colouring for the desired effect.



It was mum's 50th birthday & I wanted to bake something really special. So I decided I'd make a red velvet cake and go further & ice it with fondant. I have never used fondant in my life so I did a lot of research before attempting it. The results were beautiful ofcourse, and I would definitely encourage you to try. But before you do, please read my two cents on using fondant. You will thank your stars later.

Adapted from bestcupcakerecipes.blogspot.in

2 1/2 cups flour
1tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp red food colouring
A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and grease cake tin.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa podwer and salt. In a small cup mix food colouring with 1tsp water to form a paste.

In a large bowl beat butter and sugar together till creamy and incorporated. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla essence. Add one third of the flour mixture, beat well, then add one third of the buttermilk. Repeat this step till the last of the flour and buttermilk are incorporated.

Now add the red colour paste. In a small bowl add the baking soda. Now hold this bowl on top of your main cake batter and then pour the vinegar. The mixture will fizz and may overflow, which is fine as it will fall in your cake mix. Now pour this vinegar mix to the cake batter and stir well to combine.

Pour in cake tin, and bake for approx. 20mins. Insert a toothpick to the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, its done. Cool the cake completely before frosting. Traditionally this cake is iced with a cream cheese frosting, but since I'm also using fondant, I'm going to stick to a buttercream frosting which forms the perfect crumb coat.

For the frosting:

100gms white chocolate
100 gms unsalted butter
50gms icing sugar
1 tbsp Raspberry essence (optional)

Mix butter and sugar till smooth and creamy. Add in melted white chocolate and raspberry essence, till spreadable consistency.

Now comes the tricky bit.



Spread this icing on the cake and make it as smooth as possible. This icing forms the crumb coat or the glue between your cake and fondant. Take a flat knife and scrape of any excess. You should aim for a thin, even coat.

Chill the cake, and let the icing set and harden. Remove the cake from the fridge 15mins before you plan to use the fondant, just to get the cake to room temperature.



Now to the fondant. Just knead, roll & coat.

I wish it were that simple. There are so many aspects to keep in mind that it deserves another blog entry. Please read my post on what to do with fondant. I also referred to this & this video to help me out. You can also add colour to a portion of your fondant (like I did) to add some colour & design to the cake.

And sprinkles always makes the world good :)

Decadent Chocolate Mug Cake Sundae

This is the perfect dessert for lazy Sundays. For those days when you must have something sweet, but baking a whole cake is just too much effort. Strip it off the ice cream, and you get decadent chocolate cake, which has satisfied my sweet tooth on many a nights while living on my own.

There are many mug cake recipes out there. I'd like to believe that I have tried every one of the first 10 results Google throws up...and none of them turned out well. To be honest, it took me many a mug cakes to perfect the recipe. It took a lot of trial and testing, but I think I have finally found THE ONE!
So grab your favourite coffee mug & treat yourself to one of these.

2tbsp flour
2tbsp sugar (preferably castor)
1tbsp cocoa powder
2tbsp beaten egg
1tbsp butter
3tbsp chocolate
2tbsp fresh cream
1tsp instant coffee powder

In your mug, place butter and chocolate and microwave for 30sec intervals till chocolate is melted. Add in the cream, cocoa powder and coffee powder and mix together. Now add in the sugar and stir till combined. Add in the flour one spoon at a time to avoid lumps. Mix well till combined and then finally add the egg. Mix well and microwave for 2mins or until cake 'rises' i.e all the batter is 'cooked' to become the cake.

Note: Your ingredient quantity should be proportionate to the cup you use. My cup is the same as a large starbucks coffee mug. Allow for some width and some height in your choice of mug as the batter rises significantly.
1 whole egg is too much, 1 egg white is too eggy, 1 yolk too dense, but 2 tbsp is just right

Serve with ice cream and drizzle with my homemade caramel sauce. Add in some nuts for crunch or drizzle with your favourite liqueur. 

Two Ingredient Nutella Cake

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

As a prequel to my Nigella Lawson Project, I thought I'd keep it simple. I was invited to a friend's party and wanted something easy and quick to whip up. I had a jar of Nutella and this recipe at the back of my mind that I've been wanting to try out forever. I've been toying with the idea of a flourless cake for a while, and I think Nutella is the perfect ingredient.

Note: This was an experiment on my part with just a mix and match of ingredients in my head. I knew the basics about flourless cakes, but this recipe was a shot in the dark. But it did have amazing results. How can one ever go wrong with Nutella?

My tips on making this recipe:

• DONT CHEAT. There are only two ingredients and it is easy to make. It takes 10 minutes to make the batter, but if you try to simplify it or lose patience with the eggs you will end up will poor results.
• The key to the cake is the whipping of the eggs. The egg whites must be whipped to death. This is what creates the texture of the cake and prevents it from being 'eggy'.
• Warm up the nutella to make it a little runny, but not too hot or your eggs will cook up
• When you fold in the eggs and Nutella, it needs to be done in batches to avoid deflating the egg mix

Ingredients:

4eggs (separated)

Half a jar of Nutella

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celsius.  In a big bowl, whisk the egg whites till extremely fluffy. I'd suggest you use a stand mixer or a hand mixer, just plain elbow grease won't do the trick. You are looking at a nice thick, silky smooth consistency that is atleast three times the volume.

Microwave the nutella to make it a little softer. Beat the egg yolks and add that to the nutella. Whisk together to form a smooth paste. Add 1/4 of the egg whites and gently fold into the chocolate mix. Repeat till the mix is fully incorporated.

Pour batter into tin and bake for 30 mins or until a toothpick inserted at the centre comes out clean. Let cake cool, dust with icing sugar and serve.

Note: since no flour is use, the texture of this 'cake' is more marshmallowy

Traditional Christmas Cake

Christmas is here!!! Well almost. And how can there be Christmas without cake. Baking the Christmas cake has always been a family tradition...after all the recipe has been passed on for generations. We all have our bits to play while making this cake. My job was to beat the egg whites till peaks form. Unfortunately I won't be sharing my family recipe this time. My family is in moaning, and there are no jingling bells at home this Xmas. I still however, insist on cake. So I'm adapting the recipe for Christmas cake from Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic Goddess. And since it was a Christmas present from my fiancee, this post is dedicated to you Shrey.

You may remember my post on prepping for the Xmas cake. I promised a little short cut to all latecomers like me. The trick is to boil the fruits in your alcohol the night before. Let it cool sit for atleast 6hrs before you use it in your cake. I would ideally like to soak my fruits for atleast a month, some people soak it for months before christmas. I'd say that 6 months should be the ceiling limit, post which the fruits get so laden with alcohol that they come apart and kinda blend into the cake. So you lose the integrity of the fruit.

For the fruit:

My traditional mix involves raisins, currants and candied fruits and peel. I would however (if time permitted me to get my hands on them) add candied ginger, plums and cherries. But you can add any dry fruit or non citrusy fruit you like. My personal favorite (if they were easily available in my country) would be cranberries and prunes. For measurements and quantities Nigella has an amazing chart which you can use depending on how big or small a cake you want to make. Chop the fruit and put it into a huge Tupperware box. Add 1/2 bottle of dark rum or wine or whiskey or brandy. It may seem too much but over the course of the month, the fruits with soak it up. Cover fruits and store.

Tip: You can tip all the boozy fruits into that cake and save the liquid. You can use the spirit in frosting or drink it as your own special homemade christmas tipple.

For the cake:

I was making a big batch of cake, hence the large quantities. These measurements will make you two large cakes. For one big cake, just halve the measurements.

500gms plain flour

500gms unsalted butter at room temperature

300gms brown sugar

12 eggs

250ml molasses

2tsp ground cinnamon

2tsp ground nutmeg

1 1/2tsp baking powder

250gms walnut (optional)

250gms cashew (optional)

The fruit mix

In a large bowl, cream the butter and then add in the sugar. Once combined, add in the fruit mix and the nuts. Mix till combined and then add in the eggs. Now add the dry ingredients one by one starting with the spices and moving to the flour in the end. Mix till all ingredients are fully incorporated.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Bake for 1hr and then turn down the heat to 150 degrees. bake for another 20 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Will you look at that crust!

This cake will last you for several months. To enhance the boozy flavour, keep feeding the cake some alcohol every week (if it lasts that long!). Just use the same spirit you used in the cake and brush it over the cake. The cake will absorb the flavour.

Too keep the cake moist, wrap it in tin foil as soon as you bring it out of the oven. The foil will trap the steam, and give you a really moist cake. I like my cake fudgey with a nice crust on top as well, so I omitted this step. If you would like a crunchy crust on top, sprinkle the batter with sugar just before your pop it in the oven. The sugar on top caramelizes to give you a lovely golden crunch.

Gingerbread Cake

I have to admit, I have never eaten gingerbread before (yes..gasp!). So I'm not sure if I got this cake spot on, but going by the speed and intensity with which it was polished off, I'd say I did a pretty good job.

Most people make a gingerbread loaf, but I opted to make a 'cake' instead. Whats the difference you ask? Well for starters I used more egg, so my cake was fudgy. If you want to go the loaf way just use one egg.  I also frosted my cake. I read up on someones claim that this frosting is the only other frosting you will ever need. That'd you'd never make any other frosting again. Bold assertion. So I decided to hold her up to it. And it does make one mean icing. More details below:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1tsp ground cinnamon
2tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
500gms unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses or treacle
1/2 cup warm water
A pinch of salt
20ml coffee liqueur (optional)

I've got the basic recipe from here, but as you can see, I've modified the ingredients and proportions quite a bit. Instead of expresso powder I've used coffee liqueur and I've also added cocoa for a bit of colour and flavour. I've used just a small bit as I want it to act more as a spice, I don't want to end up making chocolate cake here. The cake gets its colour from molasses, by adding cocoa you are going to get a really really dark cake. So skip the cocoa if you don't want your cake to be too dark. And speaking of spices, since the frosting is really sweet, I doubled up the spice quantity for a nice hit. 

Preheat the oven to 175 degree celsius. In a bowl, mix your dry ingredients.

In another bigger bowl, cream the butter and add in both sugars. Mix till smooth. Add in the eggs and molasses and mix till combined.
Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix. And 1/2 the water and mix. Repeat till you end with the last batch of dry ingredients. Incase you are using a stand mixer, mix at low speed. You should be looking at a nice luscious batter

Line your cake tin with butter and pour in batter. Bake for 30mins or until toothpick inserted at the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Look how beautiful that is! Leave it to cool, before icing. I also drizzled some Cointreau as soon as I pulled it out of the oven. Hot cakes absorb flavour better.

Tip: If you really want a nice spice hit to your cake, add a bit of ground pepper to the batter. Or add star anise for a liquorice taste.

Note: Traditional gingerbread has some element of lemon and/or orange in it in the form of zest and juice. If you are going for a loaf, I'd recommend you scrap the espresso and add the zest and juice of a lemon/orange.



Please don't mind my clumsy attempt at icing. I actually bought really fancy icing tools that gave up on me while icing this cake. Hence good ol' spatula to the rescue.

• 
  
•