Season delight.....fruit cake

Oh ! it's end of the year. Loads of memories has been assemble of year 2014. Adios 2014.... and ready to cherish upcoming memories of 2015. So, this blog is based on seasonal delight that is known as "fruit cake". Fruit cakes bring to mind the christmas festive followed by the new year celebration. I just simply wait to relish this cake in December and it is mine favourite month too.


Fruit cake is also been named as plum cake which contains lots of dry fruits, plums soaked with various spices and rum for months. This pre-preparation can be done well in advance before making it. Soaked fruits for long months or even years are much better in taste and aroma.
So, here I start with the recipe to enjoy and celebrate the end of the year.

Fruit cake

Yield - 1/2 kg

Ingredients:
Flour                       115gm
Margarine               85gm
Icing sugar              115gm
Eggs                       2 no (large)
Caramel                  30gm (2 tbsp)
Baking powder       1/2 tsp
Cocoa powder        20gm

 For soak fruits:
Sultanas                 20gm
Candied peel         40gm
Angelica                40gm
Cashewnuts           20gm
Lime                      1/2 no.
Lemon essence       1 tsp
Cinnamon powder  1 tbsp
Nutmeg powder      1/2 tsp
Clove powder         1/2 powder
Dark rum                to soak
 Port wine               50ml


Method:

1. Chop the dry fruits (plums and prunes are optional) and soak in rum, wine lemon juice and essence and with  spices and store the mixture for 15 days prior of preparation of cake.
2. On the day of sponge preparation, start creaming fat and icing sugar till its fluffy.












3. Aerate the eggs along with vanilla essence and add in the cream mixture slowly.

4. Add hot caramel in the mixture.

5. Dridge the soak fruits with dry ingredients and atlast mix with cut and fold method.

6. Grease and dust the cake or loaf tin.

7. Pour the batter in the tin and bake at 150 C for 45 minutes.

8. Cut into even portion and serve warm with vanilla ice cream as dessert.

9. Can be serve as high tea cake.

NOTE : 

The color of the cake should be dark brown.
Can serve with red wine.
Before baking tap the top surface of sponge mixture with water. It prevents the cake to form hard crust.

Enjoy this month while making the fruit cake .......

Devil's Food Cake recipe

 "Devil's food cake" is known as "Red velvet cake". This cake is very famous for red color sponge and velvet texture, vary in the amounts of shortening, butter and vegetable oil.
In recent years, red velvet cake and  red velvet cupcakes have become popular in US and many other european countries too.
For me, it is very dramatic cake with its bright and red color that is offset by a creamy white frosting. It is completely sinful.Being a chef, I was just aware of the product.Last month when i had this cake at first, it gave me awesome feeling by its appearance and its taste. It was completely sinful.
Immediately, next day I started with my recipe to develope the cake with presentation of my style.
Its going to be splendid for you all. So here with the recipe.

Ingredients:

For the sponge :
Flour                     250gm
Salt                      1/2 tsp
Cocoa powder     20 gm
Unsalted butter     113 gm
Powdered sugar   300 gm
Eggs                     2 nos.
Vanilla extract       2 tsp
Buttermilk             240 ml
Red liquid color     2 tbsp
Distilled vinegar     1 tsp
Baking soda          1 tsp

For cream frosting :

Amul cream cheese   250gm
Mascarpone cheese  250 gm
White chocolate       100 gm
Amul cooking cream  50 gm
Whipping cream        to fold

Method :
For the red sponge -
1. Pre heat the oven at 180 C. Grease the cake mould and dust the cake mould with flour. Keep it ready.
2. In a mixing bowl, take flour, salt, cocoa powder. Set aside.

3. With the electric beater cream butter and powdered sugar together till its fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at the time, beating well.

5. Take buttermilk and add edible red color, also thick beetroot juice can do.

6. Alternately add this liquid and flour mix to the butter cream mixture.(at low speed)

7. In small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda mixture and quickly fold into the cake batter.
8. Working quickly pour the mixture in the greased cake tin and bake it at 180 C for 25 to 30 minutes.
9. After baking, refrigerate the sponge and then start layering.

For the cream frosting -
1. Make a white ganache by adding melted white chocolate to the boiled amul cooking cream. Set aside.

2. With electric beater, mix both the cream and add white ganache and fold in whipped cream as required.
3. Set this mixture in refrigerator for an hour. And ready for application

Enjoy making !!!!

Tutti Frutti biscuit

Hyderabad, continues to be the city of pearl and truly famous for karachi bakery. I would like to name the bakery  as "A true icon of hyderabad baking" .
Remarkable biscuits of this city inspire me to post this recipe. In this recipe I have replicate the texture of karachi biscuits by casting a distinct flavour.



Let's not waste time and go for this divine recipe as follow.

Ingredients:

Flour                                 1/2 cup
Vanilla custard powder       1/3 cup
Powder sugar                    1/4 cup
Salted butter                       50 gm
Tutti frutti                           3 tbsp
Pineapple essence              1/4 tsp
Vanilla essence (opt)           7 drops
Baking powder                   1/2 tsp

Method :

1. Cream butter and powder sugar together.
2. Mix flour, vanilla custard powder, milk powder, tutti frutti, baking powder together and keep aside.
3. Add pineapple essence and vanilla essence to the cream mixture.
4. Atlast add all the dry ingredients and make a soft dough.

5. Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes.
6. Roll out the dough rectangular with the help of dusting flour.

7. Cut it in square shapes and bake at 170 C for 10-12 minutes.

Pavlova "call me cup cake"

Pavlova is a meringue based dessert named after russian ballet dancer "Anna Pavlova". It is a meringue dessert with a crisp crust, light and soft from inside. The dessert is the popular dish and important cuisine of Australia and New Zealand. It is a dessert most identified with the summer time, but is eaten all the year round.

Pavlova can be make in form of birthday cakes or as cupcakes. I personally prefer to make this dessert in form of cup cake as it can be eaten whole at one time like cup cakes. That is how I called pavlova a "cup cake". Pavlova is the combination of meringue, exotic fruits and whipped cream.

After considering several ideas, I have decided to do pavlova and here the recipe goes with the real images attached.

Ingredients :

Egg whites            2 no.
Caster sugar         120 gm
Salt                      1 pinch
Melted chocolate  50 gm
Whipped cream    50 gm
Fresh fruits            As required
Fruit glaze            60 ml

Method :
 1. Make a meringue of egg whites, caster sugar and salt.

 2. Place the mixture into pipping bag fitted with a star nossel.

 3. Pipe out round on a butter paper to resemble small nest.

 4. Bake at 120 C for 40 minutes.
 5. Remove from the oven and cool.

 6. Coat the pavlova with melted chocolate and whipped cream into hallow.
 7. Place the exotic fruits in the whipped cream
 8. Apply fruit glaze over it ,which help the fruit to remain fresh
 9. And drizzle it with some melted chocolate.

This recipe gives you 5 to 6 servings.
You can also serve them at tea time which give a sigh of bliss.

Drench Tiramisu

Heavy rains are back again and one dessert that came in my mind to blog  is Tiramisu . It is an Italian dessert with the flavor of coffee, rum and mascarpone cheese. A very subtle and smoothing dessert to have this season.I enjoy eating tiramisu specially in monsoon which provide the flavor of coffee, rum and cheese accompany with heavy rains with scenic beauty.
Tiramisu can be excellent dinner party dessert and also can be a cake to celebrate the occasions. It is a time consuming recipe but very easy to make. 

And one more bonus tip, you can make this recipe in bulk and store for at least a month in a home freezer. Just at a time of serving remove an hour before and serve.

The perfect recipe of making Tiramisu.

Ingredients:

Egg yolk                  75gm

Grain sugar              72gm

Rum                        35ml

Vanilla pods/ess.      2no/few drops

Mascarpone              750gm

Egg whites               150gm

Caster sugar             85gm

Gelatin                     7gm

Method:

1. Make coffee syrup and allow cooling.

2. Dip the disc of chocolate sponge in the coffee syrup and then lay in the base of the          moulds.

3.  Add vanilla essence in the egg yolks and beat the yolks with little portion of sugar to         make a sabayon.

            

4. Then gradually add the rum and whisk until incorporate.

5. Soak the gelatin in the cold water and keep aside.

6. Add the mascarpone cheese to the sabayon and continue whisking until smooth.

7. Mean while whisk the egg whites to soft peak stage and gradually add the caster sugar.

8. Whisk until the meringue is formed.

9. Melt the soak gelatin and add in the meringue and whisk it.

10. Add 20% of the sabayon mascarpone mix in the meringue and fold in.

11. Then add the meringue mix into the rest of the sabayon mix and fold in.

Take care: not to over mix.

 1. Pipe the tiramisu mix onto the sponge bases until the mould is half filled.

 2. Then add another layer of chocolate sponge soaked in the coffee syrup.

 3. Top up the moulds with more of the tiramisu mix and level off.

Celebrate and enjoy monsoon ......