Gingerbread Cake with Orange Mascarpone Cream

Holidays without gingerbread? Never! 

For one of the holiday parties this year, I baked this robust, hardy and gently spiced gingerbread from Piece of Cake. I should probably get something for promoting this book so much ;). I love the range of flavors presented in the book. It's a treat to browse through the recipes and go through the pleasant dilemma of deciding which cake to bake.

For once, I didn't change anything much to the recipe. I used the exact same ingredients and measurements... well, almost. I used room temperature butter, not melted butter. The recipe uses vegetable oil in addition to butter, which I thought was interesting. It also includes boiling water. The other ingredients are pretty much the same as most standard gingerbread cakes - brown sugar, molasses, flour, eggs, baking soda. However, I didn't follow the prescribed one-bowl procedure :).

Here's the general procedure I followed. If it helps, you can use it to tailor your gingerbread recipe. I am specifying the spice measurements alone because that's the best aspect of the cake.

1. Sift the dry ingredients - all-purpose flour, 2.5 teaspoons ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom, baking soda and salt. 
2. Beat butter, add brown sugar and beat until pale and creamy. Adds eggs, beat until incorporated. Add molasses and beat until mixed. Whisk/beat in vegetable oil.
3. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and gently mix. 
4. Finally whisk in boiling water until just mixed. 
5. Bake at 350 F for 55 minutes. 

This cake is very mildly sweet and spicy. And that's what everyone liked about it. It was not heavy or cloying. And the frosting was really really good, and easy. 

Here's how I slightly adapted the frosting: Whip together 3/4 cup whipping cream, 8 ounces mascarpone, the zest of two oranges, 1 tablespoon orange juice and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar until soft peaks form. 

Spread on top of cake and serve.

Carrot Kheer

Carrot kheer/paayasam is one of the easiest desserts to prepare. It's just carrot milkshake spiced with fragrant aromatic spices such as cardamom and saffron. You don't even need to know precise measurements, because you can't go wrong with this! I never measure (for once) while preparing this kheer... I just pour in some milk to diced carrots, cook them, puree them, add sugar - taste and adjust the sugar and milk and cook until everything thickens. I then throw in some saffron, cardamom, nuts and raisins and it's done. Its taste beguiles everyone into thinking you slaved over the dessert!

Ingredients: (serves 3-4)

1. 5-6 medium-large carrots, peeled and diced
2. 4 cups milk (2% works well) + a little more if needed
3. 1/2 cup sugar (or as needed depending on how sweet the carrots are)
4. 1 teaspoon powdered cardamom
5. generous pinch of saffron
6. 1 tablespoon of roasted nuts and raisins

Preparation:

1.  Pressure cook the carrots in milk for 3 to 4 whistles. Please be sure to put a stainless spoon or plate in the pressure cooker so that the milk doesn't boil over. Alternatively, you can cook the carrots in milk without a cooker. 
2. When the carrots are cooked, puree them using an immersion blender. If not, wait for the carrots to cool and then puree them. Add some more milk if needed (if the consistency is too thick), and bring it to a boil. 
3. Keep stirring to avoid the kheer from sticking to the bottom of the pan. When it comes to a boil, add saffron and sugar and keep stirring on medium heat for 10-15 minutes until the kheer reaches a consistency of your liking. You can continue cooking until the milk reduces and thickens a little. 
4. When the kheer has thickened to your liking, remove from heat and garnish with cardamom powder and nuts & raisins (if you would like)

 The kheer thickens a little more as it cools to room temperature. The kheer is best served at room temperature or chilled. 

 

Strawberry Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Little girls' birthday parties are hardly without pinks and purples these days. Every little girl is enamored by the pretty pinks of princesses and can't seem to get enough! A cute daughter of a friend of ours loves pink in all forms... she has to have at least one shade of pink or purple in anything she wears or touches. So I was wracking my brain on what treat to give her on her birthday and I thought - why not make strawberry cookies? Except, I had no idea how to make them! Thankfully, Sally at Sally's Baking Addiction had a lovely recipe (and an easy one too), and I followed it to make a batch of delightfully pink and flavorful cookies that the birthday girl loved! Thanks, Sally!

Here is her recipe. I highly recommend the recipe. The cookies were soft and chewy and very flavorful! Who would have thought of using strawberry cake mix?! Mix strawberry cake mix with baking powder, eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and chocolate chips and voila! In 10 minutes, you get the pinkest cookies you can ever bake!

Mango Kesari

Kesari is a sweet pudding made from roasted semolina. To up the flavor quotient and do something slightly different, I tried adding mango pulp to infuse a sweet and delicate flavor of mango. Adding the mango pulp also made the kesari really soft and moist, which is usually achieved by adding a lot of ghee. So win-win from that perspective.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup fine or semi-fine rava or sooji 
2. 3/4 - 1 cup mango puree or canned mango pulp
3. 1.5 cups sugar (adjust depending on how sweet the mango/mango puree is)
4. 2 tablespoons ghee / clarified butter
5. 1 cup milk
6. 1.5 cups water
7. 1 teaspoon powdered cardamom 
8. a generous pinch of saffron
9. 2 tablespoons of mixed nuts and raisins

Preparation:

1. Warm the milk for about a minute. Soak the saffron in the warm milk.
2. Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. When the ghee melts, roast the rava until it begins to change color
3. When the rava begins to roast, add the nuts and raisins and roast until the nuts begin to change color (I did this because I am lazy)
4. Heat water separately until it begins to boil. When the rava and nuts are roasted, slowly add the boiling water while stirring the rava continuously, making sure no lumps form. This is crucial. 
5. After mixing in the hot water and making sure there are no lumps in the rava, slowly add the milk (along with the saffron) while stirring the mixture continuously. 
6. Next, add the sugar and stir well. Keep stirring on low-medium heat making sure the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. After stirring for 5 minutes, the rava will plump and begin to cook. 
7. Now, add the mango pulp and stir well. Stir for another 5 to 10 minutes until the rava begins to spit and splutter as it cooks. 
8. At this point, add the cardamom, mix well and close the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes until all the moisture is absorbed. Stir every 2 minutes or so to make sure the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. If the kesari is still sloppy in consistency, let it cook for a few more minutes. You can also add more ghee as needed if the kesari looks dry or is sticking to the pan.

Remove from heat and serve hot or at room temperature.

Milk Kozhukattai

For Ganesh Chathurthi this year, I made paal kozhakattai... an easier, simpler version of the original sweet Kozhakattai

I followed this recipe to make the kozhakattai and they came out quite well. It incorporates all the ingredients that go into the poornam kozhakattai, but it is a short cut to make my life easier :)

Sticky Toffee Cake

This was the cake I baked for our anniversary this year. Again, my husband picked out the cake, and knowing him, I wasn't surprised that he picked one that involves toffee flavor (aka caramel).

I adapted the recipe for this cake from Piece of Cake. There are so many different kinds of flavors of cakes to explore from the book, and I use it as a guide to venture into new flavors. 

Ingredients:

1. 15-20 pitted dates, chopped and soaked in 1 cup hot milk for about 1 hour
2. 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3. 6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
4. 1 teaspoon baking soda
5. 1 teaspoon baking powder
6. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
7. 2 eggs, at room temperature
8. 3/4 cup brown sugar

Frosting:

1/2 - 1 can Dule de Leche!( 1 can = 13.4 ounces).

Preparation:

1. Cream the brown sugar and butter until soft and fluffy. 
2. Add eggs and beat until well combined
3. Mix the dry ingredients - the all purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder. 
4. You can either blend together the dates soaked in milk, or just add them as is to give a bit of texture. I didn't blend them this time, but I would blend them the next time I make this cake.
5. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
6. Then add 1/2 of the dates + milk mixture and mix.
7. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix until just combined
8. Add the remaining dates + milk mixture
9. Finally add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
10. Transfer the batter to a greased & floured 8 or 9 inch pan and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until a cake-tester inserted comes out with a few crumbs. 
11. Remove the cake and let it cool on a wire rack. When cool, invert the cake onto a plate and frost with warm dulce de leche

This was a yummy cake! Sticky and sweet and caramel-y! If you are a fan of caramel or dates, you would like this cake. 

Dulce de Leche Banana Chocolate Muffins

I had an extra can of dulce de leche, so I scrounged around for a recipe to incorporate it. Banana and dulce de leche go great together. So I found a recipe for a moist muffin that involves banana, dulce de leche and some chocolate for extra deliciousness.

Here's the recipe I used and highly recommend.

I "frosted" the muffins with a drizzle of dulce de leche. The muffins were moist and yummy.

ready for the potlcuk!

Onion Rings

As part of my husband's birthday meal, I also prepared some onion rings. Onion rings are one of his favorite munchies. He'd asked me to make them on several occasions, so I finally decided to make a batch for his birthday. 

I followed Ina's trusted recipe for onion rings and they turned out great. 

They are also incredibly simple to make. Use white/yellow onions, slice the onions into rounds, marinate them in a simple batter of buttermilk, salt, and pepper, bread/coat them in a mixture of all-purpose flour and cornmeal that's seasoned with more salt and pepper. Deep fry!

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

My husband loves cheesecake. For his birthday this year, I asked him to pick a cake that he would like me to bake, and sure enough he picked a cheesecake, and not just any cheesecake, a rich dulce de leche caramel cheesecake!

Indulgences are meant for birthdays, so I scoured a lot of different sources to settle on a recipe to make this cheesecake. It is a slight adaption of a recipe that I thought sounded decadent and awesome, and sure enough it didn't disappoint. 

And I was thrilled that the cheesecake did not crack or over-bake in parts! It was perfect. Here are the tips to ensure that your cheesecake doesn't crack. 

1. Wrap the spring form pan in which the cheesecake bakes with a generous round of aluminum foil. 
2. Do not over beat the eggs. Gently beat the eggs just until combined. 
3. Bake the cheesecake in a water bath. Place the aluminum wrapped spring form pan inside a baking tray filled with about 1 inch of hot water. This allows the cheesecake to bake gently.

I made a standard graham cracker crust using the below ingredients

For the Crust:

1. 2 cups worth graham cracker crumbs (plain honey graham crackers)
2. 3 tablespoons sugar
3. 7 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Preparing the crust:

1. Mix the graham cracker crumbs with sugar. Slowly pour in butter and mix well (I used a spoon and my hand to mix everything). Mix until the crumbs are moist and start to clump when you press.
2. Transfer to a 9 inch spring-form pan and pat the crumbs down the bottom of the pan and a little above the sides of the pan. 
3. Bake for about 10-12 minutes in a preheated oven at 375 F. 
4. When baked, let it cool completely on a cooling rack. 

Filling was adapted from this recipe
For the filling:

1. 3, 8 ounce packages of soft, room temperature cream cheese (total of 24 ounces)
2. 3/4 cup sugar
3. 1/4 cup 2% milk
4. 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6. 3 eggs (at room temperature)
7. 1 can Nestle's Dulce de Leche (13.4 ounces) + 4 tablespoons extra dulce de leche

Preparing the cheesecake:

1. Beat the cream cheese and sugar until fluffy and smooth. 
2. Add milk, vanilla extract and flour and beat until combined
3. Gently warm the dule de leche in the microwave (about 15 to 30 seconds) until it is soft and pourable. Add one can of dule de leche into the batter and beat until combined.
4. Add the eggs one at a time until just combined. Do not over beat. 
5. Pour filling into the cooled crust
6. Finally dollop 2 tablespoons of dule de leche into the filling and swirl it around with a knife. 
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for 60 minutes until the center is jiggly when you shake it. Refer to my tip above on baking this in a water bath. Add hot water to a deep enough baking tray, transfer the aluminum wrapped pan into it and bake.
8. Let cheesecake cool on a wire rack for 1 hour. When cool, pipe out some more dule de leche onto the cheesecake in a pattern of your liking. 
9. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake. Then refrigerate it for at least 8 hours before serving.