Christmas is here!

And you have two recipes! First up, Christmas Cake.

When I moved to Delhi in 2010 the Dragon and I were thrilled with our spanking new house and decided we wanted to have a christmas party. We made many plans but I don't remember if we did bake all the things we planned, and we didn't have many guests--only the Glare if I remember right--but I did make my hero Joe's Old School Fruitcake for the party. And dear lord in heaven. I decided immediately that I had to make it every single year. And thus was born the annual Christmas Cake Party, in it's fourth edition this year.

Carrot Cake and life lessons

The first time I heard of carrot cake I was, obviously, revolted. Carrots! Orange vegetables with their very distinct and strong flavour in a cake! Impossible. Gajar ka halwa was made barely palatable only by the addition of obscene amounts of ghee. And raisins. How could you put carrots in cake and expect it to taste nice?

Of course, one day, I finally ate some. It was cake, after all, and one thing I cannot resist is cake. What I found was a ridiculously moist, cinnamony cake that made me purr in joy at every bite. I fell in love. Dark and damp, with fluffy white icing, only faintly sweet, with undertones of caramel, and that suggestion of spice. And raisins, of course. I looked for my dream carrot cake recipe for a long time. I found a few good ones along the way, including an eggless one.

Butterscotch cake with Caramel topping

Staying at the sister's I was asked to bake. Unfortunately, the large and varied group of people meant that my choices were restricted. So I thought about it and decided it was time to try a caramel cake. I know Deb has one, and Dragon makes it a lot. But somehow it's just not caramel enough for me. So I trawled my other two go to sites, and got the cake from Annie, and the topping from Joe. (Joe you're my hero.) (Annie, you're pretty awesome too.)

Piña colada cake

I thought of this before Deb posted, I swear. And you'll see it's not like her recipe. I've been very taken with the idea of making up my own recipes lately, especially ones that incorporate fruit and booze. So I thought, how can I turn a piña colada into cake? I thought about fresh coconut, or frosting with coconut, but I don't like coconut, except as milk. So I decided to put pureed pineapple in the batter and replace the milk/buttermilk with coconut milk. The frosting I finally went with was white chocolate based, because it sets better than a plain buttercream. I think I need to work on it a bit to get the coconut flavour to come out better, but for now, voila!

Lemon pound cake with lemon glaze

A cousin whose birthday I missed was the perfect excuse for this. She inhaled the tres leches I had left over, and would emerge from her book blinking sleepily to say 'cake? I heard cake!' every time anyone said anything that rhymed with cake, and so, even though she wanted chocolate, I begged her to choose something else for me to make. She graciously allowed me to choose, with this as the result.

This cake is fabulous. Light, moist, tart, sweet, and mildly crunchy if the humidity doesn't make the frosting gooey, it goes so well with anything at all, and stays for ever in the fridge. Though I don't know, the second time I made it I took three fourths of the bundt off to friends, and it didn't last long enough for us to measure it's longevity!

Tiramisu cake

My dad has a birthday last month, so I wanted to bake him a cake. He's mad about coffee and cricket, and since they haven't invented a cricket cake yet, it had to be this one.

The problems I had were silly, but problems nonetheless. I couldn't find mascarpone anywhere and simply did not have the time to bake it. I also had no one to eat the cake since I was leaving town the very day of his birthday, Amma was in the US, and neither he not my grandma should be eating that much cake. I decided to use a tiny tin, and I have one-third the recipe. Not a bad result at all! Remember to treble it and bake for 2 9inch cakes, or just mosey on over to Deb's and use the original recipe.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

It's not that I'm not cooking, I just either forget the camera, or lose the recipe, or don't have the time to post. June and July was too much travelling and well work's been hard so here I am finally posting.

I finally did it! I've always been intrigued by this cake, the red velvet cake, and was heavily disappointed to discover its a mildly chocolate cake that's red. Until I ate one at the cupcake heaven on Vine Street in Berkeley. While I love me some luscious evil death by chocolate cake, there's a lot of joy in a plain ol cocoa cake. You can taste the butter. And the salt. And a lot of other things. Anyway, I managed to find some red food colouring, and it set in my shelf in the pantry for ever. Three months into living at the parental house mean I have barely cooked, let alone baked. Plus, every time I did cook, I was left with a giant slab of cake in the fridge that I ended up eating!

Lime/Lemon layer cake with White Chocolate Ganache

My momma turned SIXTY this week, and as the only family representative I wanted to make her a cake she'd love. She's a bit persnickety when it comes to cake, so chocolate was out. Thank god - I'm quite sick of it myself. I found this recipe on teh internets, and it really did look like something she'd like, because of the fruit flavour and the tang of the lemon curd. But I needed to adapt it a bit, because I'm not comfy with buttercream yet, and the day temperature being between 35 and 45 C it really wasn't the best idea. I decided to experiment and made a half cake, scaling down to three eggs, as a farewell cake for my last day at work, and while I was in the supermarket getting ingredients I was hit by the idea for the white chocolate ganache. Now, I've never made one before, and at the time I just made it like ordinary chocolate ganache. Later I found out that it's much more complicated and I stuck to my original recipe. I saved her a piece of the trial cake and it was met with some face crinkling because of the sweetness of the ganache - but then the lemon curd kicked in and she got her happy face. Nailed it!

Best. Yellow. Cake. Ever.

All this frantic fancy baking - I was craving something nice and simple. Just, plain cake, you know? Vanilla, and moist, and crusty, and not too sweet; no complicated flavours, no brouhaha to prepare. Just cake. So I scooted over to smitten kitchen, and found these recipes.The second of which I then adapted. I shall babble no more and send you straight to the best cake ever.

Chocolate Whiskey cake with Baileys frosting

I promised all my friends I'd bake them cakes in March and April, mainly so I could bake all the delish recipes I've been dying to try, and then not have to eat them. A fellow whiskey-loving friend who periodically ensures there is Cutty Sark in my life recently had a birthday, and having seen these over on smittenkitchen, I decided I'd try them.

The first problem was that they're cupcakes and I needed to make them into a cake. Luckily, trawling the comments revealed a fairly straightforward formula for it. The second and larger problem was the lack of Guinness in our lives and not enough knowledge of beer to know what I could use to substitute it. I decided to ditch the beer entirely - a bad mistake I found out later when the cake itself tasted really bad. Then I needed to get my hands on Baileys, but that was solved by a quick search online, after which I made my own Irish Cream. DAYAM it was good.

Double Chocolate Cake

So I quit my job recently and decided to have a party to celebrate. Heck, who'm I kidding, I just wanted an excuse to bake. Hee. I've been dying to try more from smitten kitchen, and it's been a long time since there was chocolate in my life. Therefore, double chocolate cake. As usual, it lived up to everything I am now coming to demand from anything of Deb's, and was inhaled by my friends. Not a crumb left.

Pastel de Tres Leches (Three-milk cake)

Yeah, nothing to write home on the face of it, innit? Until, one day, at a Mexican restaurant in Montclair NJ, my uncle made me try some. Holy. Mother. Of. All. That. Is. Sacred. And. Tastes. Good.

Take a sponge cake, and soak it with condensed milk and cream - bleurgh you say. I don't like condensed milk you say. That really doesn't sound very appetising you say. And then you eat two pieces. (True story, of my colleague who is addicted to all that is chocolate.)

When I came back to India and realised I would never be able to stroll out to a restaurant and eat it again, I was desperate, desperate to find a recipe that worked. Much research revealed that it is a Central-American dessert, and called so because the soaking syrup calls for three kinds of milk: condensed, evaporated and cream. The first time I tried it was for my gramma's birthday last year. I assumed evaporated milk was milk powder, and proceeded to toss some in. Bad idea. If you can't get evaporated milk, skip it! I also found that the damn cake wouldn't drink the syrup as promised, which just meant much more work. And then I left it to soak in the fridge, which meant it set instead of soaking and wasn't all gooey right through.

No-bake Strawberry Cheesecake

I've adored cheesecake ever since the first time I ate a real one, not the eggy, gelatinous ones we get here in India as a rule. When I was in college, we discovered this bakery in Khan Market (I can't even remember the name, but it doesn't exist anymore so it doesn't matter I guess) that had divine blueberry cheesecake for the decadent sum of seventy rupees. (My daily budget was about 50), and as a special treat we'd go eat some occasionally. I've met many more of note, like the strawberry one at the deli at the southeast corner of central park, and lets never forget Rocco's in the West Village. Most recently it was the blueberry at Big Chill, in Khan Market again. So when my kind friend offered to teach me how to make one, I nearly peed in excitement.

So heeere it is at last my loverlies. Adapted from here.

This was part of the mad six-hour baking marathon some days ago. Also from then is the challah, the knish, the stew and the pavlova. It's best left to set overnight so make it the day before.

Orange Yoghurt Cake

Now, it's been a while since the sistah introducted me to smitten kitchen, and I have been DYING for a chance to try out some of her stuff, especially the non chocolate desserts. It being the gramma's eighty-sixth, I decided to make her lemon cake. But there aren't enough lemons around, and deffy not nice ones. It is also orange season, and we have these that I think are clementines, but we call them khinu. So I decided to tweak it a bit. And add cream cheese frosting. Which didn't really work out too well cos I wanted it more like a glaze and it wasn't, and I suck at icing cakes so it took a gorgeous looking cake and made it look lame. But. The flavours went wonderfully. Still, I want to make this one plain some day. My soaking syrup wasn't very syrupy, but the ohh the moistness! I was also making it in a tearing hurry so I didn't have time to document the process. Next time!

Evil chocolate cake Redux

This was formerly, Mint Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and whipped cream. After moving here, the recipe had to be adapted to unavailability of fresh strawberries and dark chocolate. The result.

Apple Cake

The sister brought me a bundt pan, so I've been going a leeeetle nuts. Heh.

• 2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
• 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 200g flour (wholewheat always works best)
• 100g melted butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200 ml milk
• 150g sugar (brown for preference)
• 1 tbs sugar for caramel

Heat over to 250C. Beat eggs and sugar together. Add melted butter. Add milk, and then flour, cinnamon and baking powder. Beat till you see bubbles in the batter. Sprinkle sugar in the bottom of the bundt pan, and sprinkle some water on it. Heat over medium flame till sugar caramelises. Put apple pieces in the bottom, and pour batter on top. Bake for 30 min or so, test with knife. I didn't caramelise the sugar first, so it result was less than lovely. This recipe is also a good basic cake recipe!

Honey Spice cake with Caramel frosting

For the cake

• 2 eggs
• 3 cups wholewheat flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon (toss 2 cloves in when you grind if you can)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbs butter (salted)
• 1 tbs orange zest
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey

Preheat oven to 250C. Combine butter and zest in a saucepan over medium heat, until butter sizzles. Beat eggs and sugar together till fluffy. Add honey and then butter-zest mixture. Keep whizzing. Add milk. Now mix all the remaining ingredients in a bowl and fold them into the wet mixture, by hand. (This bit I forgot, maybe that's why I ended up with something resembling dough?) Bake in greased pan for 30-40 min. Remove from pan and cool.

For the icing

• 1/4 cup butter (salted)
• 1/3 cup milk (original called for heavy cream, none in house, I v lazy...)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup icing sugar (I used powdered white sugar and it's a little too sweet)

Mix butter, milk and brown sugar in pan over medium heat. Keep stirring as you bring to a boil. Once it's bubbling nicely, take off fire and set aside for 5-10 min. Whisk in the icing sugar. Pour over cake, and put in fridge to set.

The cake is from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and the icing from Taste and Tell.

Both have been slightly adapted.

Carrot cake

4 eggs
1 cup brown/white sugar
125g melted butter (I like it salted)
1 cup milk
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 or 4 cups grated carrots (how carroty do you want to be? :D)
1 cup raisins

Beat eggs till fluffy. Add sugar. Beat. Add melted butter. Beat. Add milk. Mix. Add baking powder and flour. Mix. Ad cinnamon. Mix. Add carrots and raisins. Mix. Bake in greased tin at 200C for 30-40 min. Keep an eye on it!

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

When I was a kid this was my FAVOURITE cake, which amazed the parents since I was also pathologically addicted to cream and icing. Hee. Imagine my joy when I grew up and invented a recipe!

Prep time: 20 min
Cooking time: 40 min with some watching

4 eggs
250g flour
150g butter, salted (well I like the salty touch, use unsalted if you like)
150ml milk
250g sugar
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp pineapple essence
1 tin pineapple slices, drained
2 tbs sugar and tichy bit of water
An electric beater
A steel baking dish, preferably round
1 flat dish larger than the bottom of the baking dish, with about 1 inch of water

Beat the eggs, however you like. I used to separate and whatnot, but I found it makes barely any difference. I stick the beater on high and whizz em till they get frothy. Beat in the 250g sugar. Melt the butter and pour it in. Beat some more. Add milk and essence. Beat. Add flour and baking powder. Beat. When little bubbles form as you beat, you may stop.

Put the 2tbs sugar and tichy bit of water in the steel baking dish and heat on high flame till it caramelises. Use the tongs and keep turning the dish about 2 inches above the fire. The caramel can get dark. Turn off fire and put baking dish into the dish with water, making sure first that the caramel is evenly spread about the bottom. Place pineapple slices in whatever pattern you like. Eat leftover pineapple :D Pour in batter and bake at 150 deg C. If this is a stupid tiny electric oven like mine, use it on the bottom setting until the cake rises to the top of the dish. Then put on the top but watch it! I just burnt mine. Basically keep checking on it and testing with knife to see if it's cooked.

Loosen sides with a knife and upturn on a serving dish. Voila! Caramelised pineapple slices on top of cake!

Serving suggestions: custard or vanilla ice cream. Also fabulous cold the next day.

Mint Dark Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and Cream

Madness has resulted in the extremely belated post. Sorry. I haven't cooked in AGES. But I'm back! With two recipes today.

• 2 bars dark chocolate (60% cacao, 43g)
• 1 bar mint chocolate (43g)
• 125g butter
• 6 eggs, separated, with whites beaten stiff
• 250g sugar
• 2 tbs milk
• 4 tbs flour
• Sweetened whipped cream to put between layers and cover cake
• Strawberries to decorate
  

Melt the chocolate and milk in a saucepan. Add the butter and melt it in. Remove from heat and add sugar, flour and egg yolks. Fold in beaten whites. Bake at 400F in a greased pan for 45 min. Remove cake and allow to cool. Slice some strawberries longitudinally. Cut it horizontally and spread sliced strawberries and whipped cream across the bottom half. cover with top half, making sure that there is enough cream to make them stick. Cover cake with more cream. Decorate with strawberries as desired. Chill in freezer or refrigerator till serving.

This is a modified version of a recipe the Food Alchemist sent me

edit: alternative icing
chocolate truffle

Melt 100g of dark chocolate in a saucepan. Take it off the fire and let it cool a bit but not solidify. Stir in 50g of cream. Allow to cool some more, spread on cake and stick in fridge. Devour once set.

For alternative desified version, Evil Chocolate Cake Redux.