Blender Carrot Muffins

Yesterday my husband came back from the grocery store with a 5lb bag of carrots. I asked him what I am supposed to do with that many carrots, he said “ you can make carrot halwa”. I knew that meant he wanted me to make the halwa. I ceded and made halwa using 5 big carrots. I still had a lot of carrots. I have been wanting to make this blended dump carrot cake for a long time. I decided to give it a try. Blender cake means the cake is make using a blender or mixie ( without using any other fancy gadgets). Dump cake means that the cake is made by dumping all the ingredients into one bowl and mixing them up. In this case we dump all the ingredients into the blender/mixie and mix them all up. You put it into a pan and bake them. I decided to make muffins instead of baking them into a cake. The result was these delicious looking golden beauties. My children finished them in half a day!!

Here is the easy recipe: 

Servings: makes 9 large muffins 

Ingredients: 

Carrot: 1 large peeled and chopped 

Eggs: 2 large 

Sugar: 1 cup 

Cooking oil: 1/2 cup ( I used coconut oil) 

Cinnamon powder: 1/2 tsp 

Flour: 1 & 1/2 cups

Baking powder: 1/2 tbsp 

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Grease/line the muffin pan and keep ready. 

In a blender add chopped carrots, eggs, sugar, oil, cinnamon powder and blend well. 

Add the flour little by little and pulse lightly until mixed. Do not over mix. Turn off the blender. Now stir in the baking powder. 

Pour into muffin pan until 3/4th full. 

Place on medium rack and bake for 11-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted. 

Turn off oven, take the pan out and let it cook. 

Remove muffins from pan when completely cooled. 

Enjoy!!

Chocolate Orange Cake with Orange Glaze

At my work place, we have a tradition of celebrating everyone's birthdays. Recently it was one of my co-worker's birthday. She has dairy allergy and therefore cannot eat regular cakes. I wanted to make her something pretty that didn't have dairy in it. I then decided to make her a Chocolate-Orange Marble Bundt Cake with orange glaze. As you can see I have made Chocolate-Orange Marble Bundt Cake before but without the glaze. I used powdered sugar and royal icing flowers to decorate the cake. 

This time I decided to try a slightly different cake recipe. I must proudly admit that this was an experiment that was successful. The cake was moist, light and with the right amount of sweetness.

 I was proud of the end result and the testimony to that is not only my friend whose birthday it was liked it but all my other co-workers did too and the cake was gone in no time!! Bonus: it looked so pretty. 

This is a cake that is easy to make and decorate, especially on a weekday. It is perfect for the upcoming holiday season where you attend so many holiday parties and may have to bring something or have to host one and have so many items to prepare !

Servings: 10-12

Prep time: 30 minsCook time: 45 mins-60 mindTotal time: 75-90 mins

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

All purpose flour: 2 cups

Baking powder: 1 tsp

Baking soda: 1 and 1/2 tsp

Salt: pinch

Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup

Instant coffee: 1 and 1/2 tbsp

Milk: 1 cup

Hot water: 1/2 cup

Powdered sugar: 1 and 1/2 cups

Cooking oil : 1 cup 

Eggs: 3 large

Orange juice: 1/4 cup 

Orange zest: 2 tbsp ( from 1 medium orange) 

Raisins: 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence: 1 tsp

For the glaze:

butter: 1/2 cup 

orange juice: 1/4 cup 

powdered sugar: 1 cup 

orange zest: 1 tsp + 1 tsp

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.

Grease the Bundt pan thoroughly and keep ready.

Seive together flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt and keep aside. You could also just whisk it using a whisk. Whisk thoroughly.

Mix the instant coffee and cocoa powder in hot water and keep aside.

In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, with the oil, milk and vanilla essence. 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix well. Do not overmix!

Divide the batter into two equal portions. 

To the first half add the water, coffee and cocoa mixture and mix well. Again, do not overmix! If the batter is too thick, add a tbsp of milk.

To the other bowl,  add the orange juice, orange zest and raisins. Mix gently but thoroughly. Do not over mix!

Now pour the batter into the Bundt  pan little at a time alternating between the chocolate and the orange flavored ones. Start and end with the chocolate batter.

Tap the Bundt pan against the kitchen countertop to get rid of any air bubbles. 

Place it in the center rack of the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes it until a skewer comes out clean.

My oven took 40 minutes. Keep checking after 35 minutes and adjust the time accordingly.

When done, take the pan out and let it cool down for atleast 30 minutes before taking it out of the pan and place it on the wire-rack.

Let it cool completely before decorating it.

While the cake is cooling, prepare the glaze.

For the glaze: 

Add the butter to a pan. Once it is melted, add the orange juice, sugar and bring it to a boil. Reduce the flame and simmer for 5 mins stirring continuously. Turn off the flame. Stir in the zest.

Glazing the cake: 

Once the cake is completely cooled, place it on the serving plate/tray. Spoon the glaze on top of the cake. Sprinkle the remaining zest on top. The glaze thickens once it cools down. 

Enjoy! 

I am bringing this to my friends at Angie's Fiesta Friday#202. Angie's cohosts this week are two awesome bloggers,Judi @ cookingwithauntjuju.com and Laurena @ Life Diet Health. Do check out Angie's Fiesta if you have not already!!

Cooking made easy:

You could make this cake spiked by adding orange liqueur. To do this, add 1/2 cup Curacao or Triple Sec to the glaze with the orange zest once the flame is turned off.

Tip for healthy living:

Since Bundt cakes are not layered with frosting or iced, they are a great alternative to iced cakes thereby reducing the sugar intake. 

Food for thought:

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt 

Please do share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

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Rainbow Cake from scratch!

Off late I have been rather low on energy... I get tired rather easily. I am sure those who know me or have been following my blog would have noticed that I don't post that often now and I am also not that active on social media. I have just enough energy to get through my 2 jobs, cooking and the other everyday household chores.

So why I am I telling you all this?? To give you testimony of what a child can make a mother do!! This is the first year that I didn't have my daughter's birthday celebration at home. I had it at Michaels with very few of her school friends. This way I didn't have to cook much or worry about cleaning the house! I ordered Pizza from Papa John's & made a nice chickpeas salad. I had some chips, grapes for the kids to munch on. I was going to order cake from Costco, but my daughter requested for a " mommy" cake as every year. She wanted something with a fairy on top! I relented and decided to make an enchanted fairy garden cake. But what about the inside of the cake?? I decided that I will try my hand at the Rainbow cake! After all there has to be something beautiful when it comes to fairies!

In the past, I have quite a few times used boxed mixes when I have made 3-D cakes like the Tinkerbell cake, the Elsa cake, the McQueen car cake. With all the food I was cooking, I didn't need the additional hassle about worrying about the texture of the cake. This year, since I was not cooking any food, I decided to make the cake from scratch. I looked for the perfect vanilla cake recipe that I could rely on. I found it here. I modified the recipe to suit my needs by doubling it and using cooking oil instead of shortening. I also used a mix of sour cream & yogurt instead of buttermilk. I also reduced the sugar. I used this rainbow cake recipe as a guide. Again, I modified the recipe to suit my needs by virtue of the recipe itself & the amount used. I baked using four 9 inch pans ( which was how many pans I had) and had to adapt the recipe accordingly.

So how is this cake healthy?? All the ingredients are fresh, no shortening has been used. I have ensured that the cake is not too sweet. I have also tried to use minimal food coloring. You can make it completely using natural food colors. You can check they recipe here. The buttercream layers are thin between the cake layers, as is the outer layer.

Overall, while this cake is easy to make if you have 6 pans, it requires some patience if you are using only 2 or 3 as you have to bake the cake in batches and wait for the cake to cool down to remove it out of the pans and bake the next batch! I also had difficulty with my mixing bowl as it wasn't big enough therefore there wasn't enough room for the batter to be mixed !! If I were to make it again, I would make the batter in 2 batches.

The assembling itself is not hard. You just have to ensure that all the layers are the same thickness. A cake leveler is very handy for this.

Frosting: I made a double the batch of my favorite buttercream frosting. You can check the recipe here. It was just enough for layering and icing the cake! Mind you, I used a thin layer of frosting.

Let's now go ahead and check the recipe in it's entirety. The ingredients can be divided into half to make 2 batches of the cake batter.

Servings: 12-14

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Butter: 2 cups ( 4 sticks), softened
Coconut oil: 1 cup ( any cooking oil can be used).
Sugar: 5 cups
Eggs: 10 large, room temperature
Vanilla essence: 3 tsp
All purpose flour: 6 cups
Baking powder: 4 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Whole milk: 1 cup
Yogurt: 1/2 cup
Sour cream: 1/2 cup ( you can use 1 cup sour cream if you don't have sour cream).
Food coloring: gel colors in 6 colors: violet, blue,green, yellow, orange & red.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
Prepare six 9-inch round cake pans by greasing it with butter and dusting it with flour or by just using a non-stick spray.

Line the bottom of each cake pan with parchment paper circle.

Take 6 bowls: add 2 tbsp milk to each bowl and add one each of the six colors, mix and keep ready.

Mix together the remaining  milk with the yogurt,sour cream and vanilla essence. Keep aside.

Cream together butter & oil until light and fluffy, around 3-4 mins.  Do not rush this step! It is very important.  Add sugar one cup at a time, making sure to mix it after each addition.

Add one egg at a time, beating it until fluffy after the addition of each egg!

Sift together flour, sugar and baking powder.

Fold the flour mixture into the butter-egg mixture, alternating it with the milk mixture. Start and end with the dry ingredients. Make sure not to vigorously mix it. Just gently and thoroughly.

Add 1.5 cups of batter to each of the prepared bowls with color. Gently mix it so that the batter is evenly colored.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans. By the end you should have 6 cake pans with 6 different color batter in each. If you have less number of pans, bake just that many colors and wait for those to be baked and cooled and removed out of the pans to bake the next batch.

Place the pans on the middle 2 racks.

Bake for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pans halfway through the baking them. After 25 mins, I like to check every 2-3 mins to check if the cake it done.

Take the pans out and let the cakes cool down ( atleast 30 mins) before taking them out of the pan.

To level the cakes, wait for it to cool down completely ( atleast another 30 mins).

This cake tends to crust due to the sugar & egg in it. Don't be alarmed. You will be cutting off the crusty tops while leveling the cake. I like to use my cake leveler to level the cake as I can mark the height on the leveler and this way I can ensure that all the cake layers have the same thickness.

Level off all the 6 cakes and keep aside.

Now take a cake board that is 1 inch less in diameter. Keep it on top of the leveled cake and trim the crusty edge of the cake. You can use any object that is a circle and slightly smaller than the cake. I used a stainless steel plate. Do this with all the 6 cakes.

Now it is time to layer the cake!!

Take a cake board. I have used a 9 inch cake board.

Place a small dollop of frosting in the center of the cake board.

Place the purple cake layer on top of it.

Now spread the frosting on top of the cake in an even fashion so that it is 1 cm thick. I used a piping bag to do this.

Now arrange the other layers in the same fashion in this order: blue, green, yellow, orange and red.


Once the top layer has been placed, Stick a thick straw in the center of the cake. I did this so that the layers don't shift during transportation.

Now do a crumb coating to the entire cake. Crumb coating is applying a thin layer of frosting to the entire cake. This seals in the crumbs and makes it easy to ice the cake.

Place the cake in the refrigerator for atleast 30 mins.

After 30 mins, remove the cake out and frost it any way you desire! I applied another thin coating of frosting as I didn't want the cake to be too sweet.

I decorated the cake once I reached Michaels as I didn't want the cake to be messed up during transportation.

Decorating the cake:
Crumble some of the crust from the cake that was cut of earlier. Mix different colors. Sprinkle it along the diameter of the top of the  cake.
I sprinkled some around the base too once it was placed on the stand.

I used edible flowers made from royal icing to make my enchanted garden at the top. I used a fairy from the enchanted planted garden that I had and and an angel from Michaels as cake toppers.

This cake can be sliced thinly as it is quite tall.

My daughter and everyone who came for the party loved the cake. I hope you do too!!

Enjoy!!

I am going to share this birthday cake with all my friends at Angie's Fiesta Friday! Angie, I know I have not been a frequent visitor this year at your parties, but I am sure you understand. I shall try to stop by more often now.

Cooking made easy:

When you make an elaborate cake such as the one above, it helps if you give yourself extra time to get everything done, especially if you have to bake the cake in batches.
Also, buttercream frosting can be made a week or 2 early and kept in the refrigerator. Just bring it to room temperature before using.

Tip for healthy living:

When making cakes like this, reducing the amount of frosting used really helps reduce the sugar content per slice. A little thin layer of frosting between layers won't make that big a difference. Also, while serving slice thinly so that you don't end up eating  much nor will there be too much wastage.

Food for thought:

If I am always comparing myself to other human beings, I am either suffering from ego or jealousy.

Please do share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

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Raspberry Cheesecake for Beginners

My husband's birthday was in the recent past. His favorite cake is the Cheesecake! He absolutely loves cheesecake. So, I set about making a cheesecake for him. I have made "no-bake" cheesecake before and didn't quite like it. This time I wanted to make a cheesecake that is baked. At the recommendation of a close friend, I decided to follow a simple recipe from the wrapper of the Philadelphia cheese. The recipe was for a classic cheesecake. I modified it  and transformed it into a raspberry cheesecake.The cheesecake was very simple and easy to make and the result was delicious!!

My colleagues loved it, but it was my husband who raised the bar. My husband, who is a man of few words, announced that this cake was as good as what you get in the stores!! For me, there is no higher compliment!!

The only downside of this cake is that you cannot make it in a rush.The advantage is that you can make it ahead of time and therefore is perfect for gatherings like birthdays, thanksgiving & holidays! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it!!

Servings: makes one 10 inch cake ( 16-18 servings)

Prep time: 20minsCook time: 55 minsTotal time: 5 hours 45 mins (including refrigerating time)

Ingredients:

Cream cheese: 4 packages ( 8 oz/226 gms each) ( room temperature)
Sugar: 1 cup
Eggs: 4, large
Vanilla essence: 1 tsp

For the crust:
Graham cracker crumbs: 1 1/2 cups
Butter: 1/3 cup

For the topping:

Fresh raspberries: 1 cup
Pink fruit jelly: 1/4 cup( preferably something pink or red)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325 deg F.

Mix the graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. You can use your hands or pulse it in a food processor.

Press it onto the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. Keep aside.

In a bowl add the 4 packages of cream cheese, vanilla essence  & 1 cup sugar. Beat well using a hand blender. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each egg, on low until just blended.

Pour over the crust in the springform pan. 

Place in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 50-55 mins or until the center is set. Leave it in the oven with the oven turned off and the door open for another 30 mins.

Take it out of the oven and let it cool down completely on the countertop ( around 2 hours).

While the cake is cooling, prepare the topping.

Rinse, drain and keep the raspberries in a bowl.

Heat the jelly in a saucepan on the stovetop until melted. Turn off the flame. Pour the melted jelly on  the raspberries in the bowl.

Once the cake is cooled, release the edges of the cake from the pan gently using a spatula or a butter knife. Release the springform pan and keep the cake on a rack it serving plate/ cooling rack.

Arrange/pour the raspberries with the jelly on the Cheesecake.

Refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 4 hours or until serving.

Enjoy!!

I am bringing this to Fiesta Friday #147,  & Saucy Saturdays#72. Angie's co-hosts this week are: Julianna @ Foodie On Board and Hilda @ Along The Grapevine.

Cooking made easy:

To slice the cheesecake easily, use a knife that has been dipped in warm water. Keep a bowl of warm water handy and dip the knife in warm water before cutting each slice.

Tip for healthy living:

To enjoy this cake without packing the pounds, make the serving portions small by making thinner slices. You will still enjoy the dessert, but guilt-free!

Food for thought:

We do not remember days, we remember moments. Cesare Pavese

Please do share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

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