Cardamom Coffee Cake with Cyrstallized Ginger

As a child I used to wonder so much as to why these adults keep having so much coffee and tea through the day. Now I know that's because there is nothing much to look forward to on a normal day at work! :( There are some days when as soon as I get up in the morning, I think today I will make myself a nice cup of tea/coffee at work and have, and very much look forward to that part of the day! Yes, Really! Do you guys do that too?

And then, there is that best part of starting the week ends, Saturday mornings, when it is very quiet and you feel like you have all the time in the world, when you can sit and enjoy that steaming hot cup of tea!

How nice would  it be to have that steaming hot cup of coffee with a nice moist cake? I keep looking for nice coffee cake recipes, sponge, crumb etc., So far I have liked my Orange cake the best, and I found this Mollie ketzen's cardamom coffee cake recipe. As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to try it, I did this week end, although I altered the recipe a little bit according to my taste buds and the cake turned out really moist and tasty. And as the original recipe says, it did taste much much better after it was completely cooled down.

Here is my recipe for you guys to try:

1/2 lbs unsalted butter, softened.

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups standard white flour

2 tst baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tbsp cardamom powder

1 cup full fat yogurt

2 tbsp vegetable oil

And to make a nut mixture, you will need:

less than 1/4 cup brown sugar

few finely chopped walnuts

little less than 1/4 cup finely chopped sweetened crystallized ginger.

1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder

I used Masti crystallized ginger for this, as is it tasted yum! :) The addition of ginger gave a very nice flavor to the cake, along with the heavenly cinnamon, cardamom combination, Yes, HEAVENLY!

Preheat oven to 350 degree fh. Grease an 8 inch loaf pan (This is what I used and it gave me a HUGE cake!) In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar well and add eggs, beating well after the addition of each egg. I loved the color of the mixture at this stage, a nice blush color and I couldn't help myself from clicking a picture. 

Mix the vanilla essence to it, Then in a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom powder.

Add the flour mixture to the egg butter mixture, part by part, alternation with sour cream and mixing well after each addition. Mix well.

Mix the brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon and walnuts for the nut mixture in a separate bowl.

Now transfer approximately 1/3 of the batter to the greased loaf pan and cover it with half of the nut mixture, Add another 1/3 of the batter to it and cover again with the rest of the nut mixture, Cover with the rest of the batter, smooth it and bake for 60-65 mins or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Now this is a little bit longer than some other cakes, so I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, but it was alright.

It tasted the best next day with a cup of my favorite apple lemon tea!

So which cake do you like to have best with coffee? Please share.

Sending this recipe to Bake Fest event hosted by Sumee and Vardhini.

Cheers.

Nankhatai/Indian Tea Biscuits

Those of you from my hometown Coimbatore must have definitely relished Soospari biscuits from the bakeries in Coimbatore. I am not even sure if I have got the spelling right. For those of you who have never heard about it, they are Indian tea biscuits that we find commonly in bakeries in Coimbatore. 

For me, there was nothing particularly special about these biscuits, that is until I left Coimbatore for work. Although I have never visited a bakery just to buy these biscuits, I remember always picking up a few, whenever I went to buy something else, now I guess that makes it quite special. :) 

So many times I have searched in Google looking for the correct name and recipe for these maida biscuits and have never found them, the closest was a kind of Italian cookie called "Sospari". May be that is it? I have no clue!, that is until I came across the recipes for Nan Khatai from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking blog.   It was too familiar so I had to try that and feed my nostalgia!

When I mentioned about making soosparis to my mom, she instantly said the recipe would call for maida flour and sugar, so may be Nankhatai is Soospari? I don't know, But if any of you know or remember something, please leave a comment :)

I adopted the fourth Nankhatai recipe by Divya, the recipe can be found here, I have not modified anything from the original recipe. Just baked it for an extra 3 minutes which gave the biscuits a nice golden tint. 

And the verdict, I guess Divya can now stop looking for more recipes for Nankhatai, they were just so perfect, crispy, sugary and just melted in my mouth. All my friends liked it too and they were more than happy to pack up the left over cookies home.

Hope you guys enjoy making and eating this sometime too.

Chocolate mini cupcakes with caramel frosting

Hello you guys,

Hope you all are having nice time enjoying the holidays.. I made these chocolate mini cupcakes with caramel frosting for some friends and us..And I m having so much fun eating these.. I love these mini cup cakes, these are like mini pieces of heaven.. yum yum.. :)

To make these you will need:

For the cake:

1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 of 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp flour
1/8 cup + 1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch salt
1/2 egg beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup boiling water

For the icing:
1/6 cup butter
3 - 5 tbsp cup milk [adjust until you get a spreadable consistency]
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/3 cup brown sugar + 1/3-1/2 cups white sugar

This amount makes about 15-20 mini cup cakes, depends on whether you want muffin top.

To make the cake,

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Stir all dry ingredients into a large bowl.
Add egg, milk, oil and vanilla then beat well together until combined.
Add the boiling water and mix until just combined.
**Batter will be quite watery unlike other cakes, dont be alarmed
Pour batter equally into each of the cupcake tims
Bake for roughly around 20-22 minutes
Cool the cake well before icing it.

To make the icing:

Bring brown sugar, 3 tbsp milk and butter to a boil and remove from heat after 2 minutes.
Add vanilla essence.
Cool it until it gets to luke warm temperature and then add the white icing sugar and stir well.
Spread the icing on the cake when the cake is cool. I also added some sprinkles and a dark chocolate chip on top of each cake.

And this is how it looked inside.. so chocolaty...I was a bit greedy and added loads of icing, if you want to go easy on the sugar or would like to have more chocolate then reduce the amount of icing to suit..

And yes, If you do not want to eat too much, just eat one and then take the rest and run..... run fast to your neighbors  :)

Orange Mini Cupcakes and A New Year wish!.

Hello you guys,

Wish you all a very Happy new year 2013! Hope all of us have a fantastic year! :) I made these cute orange mini cupcakes for my husband's work colleagues this holiday season. 

This is one cake recipe that will never let you down! I got this recipe from this wonderful blog here. The first time I tried this recipe, it came out so wonderful that I went back to the blog to leave a comment and found this interesting bit..

This Sicilian Orange Cake is the famous orange cake from the once popular CaféAgostini (this cafe has closed on 22 July, 2005) owned by Margie Agostini, in the heart of Sydney ’s suburb for the rich and famous, Woollahra. Customers have often been heard to say that “Margie’s orange cake is to die for”.

I found this recipe on Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape Cookbook a while ago but was surprised to find out how this recipe was linked to Australia:

Rick Stein: "To be accurate, I suppose this cake should be known as Margie Agostini'sorange cake. It was her signature dish at her greatly missed Caffe Agostini in Woollahra in Sydney. It seemed to me to be just made for Sicilian oranges. The recipe came from an article in the Times by Jill Dupleix, although I had eaten the cake at the cafe a few years earlier and I thought it was amazing. As Jill says, it has to be the richest, moistest, butteriest and yet lightest orange cake in the world." 

Well, no wonder it tastes sooooo good. And yes, from then on, I have made it quite a few times, and every time it has turned out perfect and its veru quick and easy to make as well, (and my basic sponge recipe too, minus the orange juice!) So thought of sharing this with you all today.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

For the cake:

125 grams lightly salted butter.

125 grams brown sugar

2 medium eggs

2 tsp finely grated orange zest

125 grams standard white flour

50 ml fresh orange juice

1/2 tsp baking powder

For the icing:

1/4  cup softened butter
2 cups icing sugar
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
A pinch of salt
2 tsp ofresh orange juice 
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together butter and sugar. 
Add one egg at a time, Beat well after each egg and add a tsp of flour after each, if necessary to prevent curdling. 
Beat in Orange zest.
Add all flour at once, mix well.
Add baking powder.
Slowly mix in orange juice.

Grease cake pan, pour the batter and bake @ 170 degree cs for 25-30 mins. I used a mini cup cake pan, and made 12 mini cup cakes and also had some better remaining which I used to make 2 small four inch cakes, for some friends (That is if I do not gulp it! :()

Once the cake is done, cool it completely before icing.

For the icing, mix all the ingredients for icing well until you get a spreadable consistency and ice the cupcakes, I also added some sprinkles on top of the icing... And then enjoy...

Adios!