Plum cake

Here is a recipe for summer plum cake. A good twist to simple cake with  juicy plums.  The post has been sitting in the draft for a year but its never late to post it right !

Cardamom, Pistachio and Saffron Pound Cake

Preparing brunch is one of my favorite things as there are no set rules. I usually try pound cakes of different types. While browsing through recipes, I stumbled upon a pound cake by Suvir Saran. Originally this was a pistachio pound cake with Lebanese origin which he tweaked a little by adding cardamom.  While reading the recipe, I was convinced that adding saffron might also add to the taste. Soon, I tried this on a Saturday morning and it was delicious. You have to try this flavorful cake!

Recipe:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cardamom powder (freshly ground for best results)
1/4 teaspoon salt

One and half sticks unsalted butter at room temperature (12 tablespoon butter)
1 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs (room temperature)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed saffron

1 cup roasted pistachios

- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Grind one cup of roasted (unsalted) pistachios ( I usually get mine from Trader Joe's). Make sure you do not over grind them.
- In a stand mixer or in a big bowl, cream butter and sugar together
- In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla extract
- Slowly mix butter mixture and the egg mixture
- Slightly warm 1/4 cup of milk and add crushed saffron and let it sit for 2-3 minutes and then add this to the remaining 1/4 cup milk.
- In a separate bowl mix all purpose flour, baking powder, ground cardamom and salt
- Add half of the flour mixture to the butter/egg mixture and then add half of the milk and mix together
- Add remaining flour mixture and milk and mix everything to make sure that the batter is free of  lumps
- Add pistachios into the mixture and mix very gently
- Now grease a 8x4 pan and transfer the batter to the pan
- Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean
- Let is cool in the pan for ten minutes and then on a cooking rack for another 20 minutes
- Enjoy this flavorful Lebanese pound cake with an Indian and Persian touch!

Molten Lava Chocolate Cake

 S loves chocolate more than I do and he picks chocolate based desserts or pure chocolate over any other dessert! He enjoyed drinking a glass full of molten chocolate (so called hot chocolate) from Bent spoon in Princeton and finished a pack of twenty baking chocolate, Scharffen Berger, without me even getting a chance to bake something from it.

So I always had some motivation to make desserts out of chocolate which do not take too much effort like chocolate coated strawberries. To increase this simplistic list, I started sharpening my baking weapons (oven, pans, chocolates) specifically to make molten lava cake.

Serving size: 8 small ramekin cups

Ingredients:
13 tablespoon unsalted butter
6.4 oz chocolate Scharffen Berger (65% dark)
4 large eggs
6.5 tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt
3 teaspoon all purpose flour

Garnish
18-20 pieces of raspberry (or small pieces of tangerines/oranges)
1/4-1/2 cup confectioner sugar or cocoa powder

Sauce
1/2 cup raspberry jam (or orange jam if using oranges for garnish)

Procedure
- Preheat oven to 425 F
- Melt butter and chocolate pieces into a cup in microwave for 30 to 60 seconds
- Mix together to get a liquid mixture and let is cool slightly
- Beat eggs, sugar and salt until sugar dissolves in the egg mixture
- Combine egg mixture with chocolate mixture
- Add flour to the mixture and stir gently
- Grease small ramekins and divide the mixture equally into eight ramekins
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes until sides are firm and center is soft and when top part starts to crack
- Invert onto a plate.
- Combine sugar (or cocoa powder) and raspberry/orange and decorate the inverted cake with few pieces
- Melt raspberry/orange jam in a small pan and serve on side to be poured on the cake

Enjoy!

Surprise breakfast: Dukkah, honey glazed onion polenta and chocolate cake

Somehow weekends have been pretty hectic for the last couple of months and I didn't get much time to have a relaxing breakfast. Either we had to rush somewhere or high carb breakfast choice was on the plate!! To surprise Sid (or perhaps treat myself!), I woke up much earlier than my usual Sunday mornings to have the following on the table:

(1) Griddled polenta with caramalized onions, honey and goat cheese [winner of Food 52 contest for category " Polenta"]
(2) Dukkah (Egyptian mix of nuts and spices) with boiled eggs! Recently I learnt about it at the amazing blog Chocolate and Zucchini. I replaced chestnuts with walnuts in the recipe. Later on we also enjoyed dukkah in a more traditional way with olive oil and bread)
(3) Simple chocolate cake! [winner of Food 52 contest for the category "Best Chocolate Cake"]. I used instant coffee in this recipe.

All are easy to make and taste really good. Highly recommended!!!

Daring Baker's August Challenge - Petit Fours with Brown Butter Pound Cake

The Daring Baker's Challenge for the month of August was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. We were required to make a brown butter pound cake, an icecream and then use them to make either Ice Cream Petit Fours or Baked Alaska. Due to shortage of time, I decided to make brown butter pound cake and then Petit fours from only the cake while having store bought icecreams on the side:)

Swiss swirl ice cream cake - July Daring Baker's Challenge

The daring Baker's Challenge "Swiss swirl ice cream cake" for July 2010 was rolled out by Sunita of Sunita's world life and food. Not only did we have to make swiss roll, two different flavors of ice creams and a chocolate fudge sauce were experimented in my little kitchen for the first time. Without doubt, this was the most time consuming challenge that I have done so far. Perhaps as I didn't have an ice cream maker but it was well worth the effort.

Italian Love Cake

This was my first baking exploration and I always associate this with hunting the grocery store for cool whip cream, instant pudding mix, ricotta cheese and measuring cups. The path was quite irresistible especially after tasting a piece of it at an annual senior graduation party and an interesting name!

Traditional English Pudding (Steamed Resin) - Daring Baker's April Challenge

The Daring Baker's Challenge for April was hosted by Esther from The Lilac Kitchen. The idea was to make a British pudding using suet. Before this challenge, I used to think that puddings are like custards but England seem to own a world of puddings which are very different from custards and are more in-line with cakes.

Apple Cake

I own a dozen or so books on cooking/baking. Some are gifted, some I bought, and others have interesting stories behind them. One such book in the later category is Walter C. Black School cookbook. People used to donate books at our Princeton apartment common room to share with other people for various reasons. Once I found this cooking/baking (spiral binding form) book which had a collection of very simple recipes by a community. I just loved the simplicity of recipes in this book which has about three recipes on a A8 (1/2 of A4) size page with 12pt font. Isn't it amazing ?

Banana Walnut Loaf - Cake or Bread ?

One can find banana-walnut loaf at almost every cafe. This along with marble loaf cake are my favorite. Usually, I don't miss a chance to eat these calorie-devil's while pondering- Is this a cake or a bread? Regardless, a slice is perfect for breakfast with a fresh cup of coffee!

Eggless Prune Cake

To diversify my baking portfolio, I wanted to learn how to bake an eggless cake :) I read about the "cake fever" which was spread by the eggless date cake in aayi's recipe. I looked into my refrigerator and found prunes instead of dates, so decided to try eggless prune cake with little modifications. Overall, it is an easy, tasty, and refreshing cake which I make quite frequently especially because of the 15 min preparation time.

Fruit Cake -Spicy Loaf

Spicy loaf cake! Can't believe that coriander is among ingredients. Enjoy this recipe by a 4th generation French Pastry Chef.