Banana Bread

Banana bread gives me a fond memory of my little one going for her swimming lessons while in Sydney. She was 1 year and 7 months old. Dyuti used to insist on buying a slice of Banana bread from a cafe shop next to our house. It wasn't that she wanted the bread every time we pass that shop; only after her swimming lessons.

Now that she has grown up and taste buds has changed, she wasn't that keen on munching it. Anyways we did love this banana bread with the walnut crunch. Followed the link:Banana bread

Ingredients:

Very ripe bananas - 350g (4 nos)
Plain flour - 180g
Baking powder - 2½ tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Light brown sugar - 160g
Eggs - 2, beaten
Melted butter - 4 tbsp, plus extra for greasing
Walnuts - 50g, roughly chopped

How to:

• Sift plain flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl
• Mash two-third of the banana to a smooth paste and the remaining mash roughly
• Using electric whisk, whisk eggs, brown sugar and melted butter until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in high speed until it turns pale and slightly increased in volume
• Pre-heat oven to 170C. Grease the loaf tin about 21x9x7cm with melted butter and lightly flour the tin
• Fold in the mashed bananas and the roughly chopped walnuts in the wet mixture.
• Transfer to the loaf tin and bake for about an hour until skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning it onto a rack to cool completely.

B'day Cake !!

Another attempt on cake decorating with fondant for my better half's birthday. He's crazy of his cam and lens. So this Nikon DSLR camera cake for the birthday boy.

Happy B'day to me !!

My first attempt with fondant and it paid my effort !!!!

Eggless Chocolate Cake with Chocolate frosting

I've baked this chocolate cake for my friend Bini & Jayesh. It's their wedding anniversary and was a surprise for the chocolate cake lovers.

This is really simple. It doesn't need an electric whisk; just a whisk/spoon for mixing up. This is the first time I've baked chocolate cake as Sathya is not fond of chocolates in cakes/desserts and always avoid any recipes which has cocoa/chocolate content.

Recipe Source: JoyofBaking

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1½ cups
Sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa powder - ¼ cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - ¾ tsp
Salt - ¼ tsp
Melted Butter -1/3 cup (75 grams)
Warm water - 1 cup (240 ml)
Lemon juice or Vinegar - 1 tbsp
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Instructions:

• Pre-heat oven to 180 C/ 350 F.
• Lightly grease the cake pan with melted butter.
• Sift the dry ingredients (all purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt ); add sugar. Whisk all ingredients together with a whisk/spoon.

• Add melted butter, warm water, lemon juice and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients and whisk until well combined.

• Pour the batter to the cake pan and bake it for 30 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly touched at the centre or a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• Remove from oven and place the cake on a wire rack to cool.

Chocolate Frosting:-

Ingredients:

Semi-sweet chocolate - ½ cup (chopped)
Thickened cream - ¼ cup (cream contains 35% fat)
Butter - ½ tbsp

Instructions:

• Place the chopped chocolate, cream, and butter in a heatproof bowl.
• Place over a saucepan of simmering water and melt until smooth. 
• Remove from heat and let stand at room temperature until it is of thick consistency. 
• Transfer the cake to the cake pan so that when you pour the frosting over the cooled cake, it doesn't drizzle over.
•  Let stand until frosting has thickened.

Notes:

• I poured only half of the cake batter to the cake pan and the remaining poured into 6 cupcake moulds.
• I've used the above mentioned quantity for making frosting as I used only of the batter to make a cake.
• Double the frosting quantity if using the whole of the batter onto the cake pan.

Happy New Year 2013

Wish you all a very Happy New Year !!

I had plans to bake a new year cake, just a casual two tier round cake was in my mind. Then Sathya's friends planned for a get together on new year's eve. I agreed to bring the cake,

Many Thanks to my dear Sathya for suggesting the model of Sydney Harbour Bridge. I was still not sure whether I could accomplish this task. It was my very first attempt with a customized cake :) I started making a plan. As I didn't have the baking moulds of the bridge & pillar, I baked a square and round shaped Butter cake. Then cut the cakes into my desired shapes.

Prepared Buttercream frosting and tinted with mix & matching colours. I was not in a position to click much snaps this time. It took almost 5 hours to cut & decorate the cake. The most time consuming part was the cake decorations. Another extra hour in setting up the ingredients and a hell lot of cleaning the utensils. Ufff.... Oh yes, Sathya helped me decorating the grass.

It was great seeing the kids Dyuti, Thejus & Ahaan waiting patiently till 12 am to blow the candles set on Harbour bridge. Well, the candles resembles the Sydney fireworks ;P