Rainbow ruffle cake

Initially, when I took to baking, I would search all types of cakes available online.  The one cake, which would impress me the most is this rainbow cake.  For long, I had been thinking of making this and surprising my kid, but as routine life goes on -this cake remained as an sweet memory inside my heart.  Now, when Swathi Iyer  and Julie announced this month's challenge, I almost jumped with joy! Yes, the challenge to bake my sweet-heart cake!

This cake needs an lot of patience, to bake each layer and also to assemble them.  I flavoured green layer with pista, red with strawberry  (which went according to the recipe source provided) and orange, yellow went with orange and mango fruit juices.  Rest I made as plain sponge and coloured them.

As soon, I started assembling them, I could see an huge tower of cake, to be feasted.  :)  I used Tropolite cream for frosting.

Each and every slice was delecious with whipped cream frosting.  As expected, my kid was very excited.  :)  At the end, that is all what every baker wants, to get amazed by their pretty hero's and heroine's of their life, isn't it?  :)

All thanks to Swathi Iyer  and Julie , this challenge was amazing and I am eagerly looking forward to another one!

How to make vegan whipped cream - from Tropolite

    Hi guys, today we are going to see a 'vegan version' of whipped cream in our post.  I have also posted dairy whipped cream, and instant whipped cream before.   Now, with a more prevailing vegan culture at our place, this cream not only makes a huge reach but also restores same delicious taste as any regular dairy cream.

There are many brands of non-dairy whipped cream, but Tropolite is best.  At Hyderabad, I bought them at Balaji grand bazaar.  The best feature with Tropolite is that you need not flavor them with essence nor do you need to add sugar.  Everything is pre-packed and all you need to do is to whip them up!  Isn't it cool?   And yes, just like instant noodles, you need only TWO  minutes to whip them up.  Let's get started :)

How to make whipped cream - from commercial powder

     Yes, in this post, I will explain how to whip up an delecious cream, from instant powder.  One magic of this whipped cream is not only that it is instant, but, requires exactly three minutes to prepare.  You can even prepare them the day before, trust me, this can  do wonders to your cake.

All you need is Whipped cream - instant topping (I used BLUE BIRD - 50 gm) and 90ml of ice-cold water.

Refrigerate the vessel (into which you are about to whip) and blender blades for atleast an hour.  Dissolve powder with water and begin to whip.  First minute the liquid will slowly rise to top.  Second minute, you can see lovely curls which swings according to the direction you are whipping and by the end of third minute, you can detect soft, fluffy frosting which has expanded almost, thrice in volume, forming stiff peaks over the blender

As soon as you get  this stage, cover them with cling wrap and refrigerate atleast fifteen minutes, before you use them for frosting.  This will yield you 11/2 cups of frosting.

Happy cooking :)

Watermelon-look alike cake/ fondant sponge cake

     I love to bake.... baking, not only ends up with an beautiful, gorgeous end-product, but also relaxes my mind and eases the day. (Now, let us forget about the sink getting loaded with lots of dirty vessels.... and the overall messy work, LOL) Though, I would love to bake all the time, my regret is not on the cost I had spent, but on the consumption part.  Since, we are an family of three (I would say, two and an half :D ) I can't proceed to my next bake, untill and unless my previous one got completely out of stock.

So, when my sambhar cake disappeared, I was wondering what to proceed.  So, when I explored my refrigerator, my eyes shined gloriously over the cling wrapped fondant.  Yes, this fondant is very special to me, since I experimented myself, with stocked on condensed milk.  Isn't that exciting?  I, dragged this fondant and along with icing colours played an little to create this magical watermelon look-alike cake.  Basically, there is no watermelon(Beleive me, not even an drop of essence or juice),  but an sponge cake topped with fondant to create an fake look.  Though I am not uploading details of fondant here, I promise to get back soon with an detailed post :)

Whipped cream - From Amul tetrapack

Whipped cream is essential in any baking.... sandwich them between cake, pastry or top in your favourite puddings, trifle... this cream enriches every dessert  :P  Though they are also made from non-dairy cream (which is far less expensive and requires lesser time to whip), the latter's  reduced reach or availability makes it an tougher part to execute.

Though, whipped cream is said to be undone with tetra packs due to those  interrupting stabilizers , separating the liquid cream from solid one helps us to recover from the same, also increasing the fat content in the cream.  I just went through the fact, when I had an glance at Nita Mehta's Cakes and Cake Decorations. She has clearly explained that separating liquid cream, and whipping up the solid one might result in good outcome and all thanks to her, it did :D

So, here comes the mighty solution for all-time-bakers.....

You will be needing 200 ml of Amul fresh cream, 2 tbspn of castor sugar (or icing sugar)

Do not shake the Cream, refrigerate for minimum two hours.  Open the Amul Fresh Cream pack, and separate the creamy part, reserve liquid in separate bowl (You can use liquid cream for cooking purpose)

And this creamy part is placed below ice-bath (an large bowl filled with ice-cubes)  and we start to whip using electric blender.  

After five minutes, when volume almost doubles, add icing sugar and continue to whip.

It will take another ten to twelve minutes, and there you get nice stiff peaks.

Aren't they lovely??

DO NOT OVERBEAT THEM, as there are chances of butter separating from the mixture.  Use them as such.  If you want to store, freeze.

Linking this to CCC Challenge, hosted by Srivalli