Vanocka - Christmas special Bread

  Vanocka is a sweetened braided bread, with full of flavors from Czech Republic and Slovakia.  Apart from sugar, this bread also has loads of almonds and raisin to give a  sweet hint and has aroma  from nutmeg and lemon zest. 

This bread involves braiding in three batches, and stacking them all up.  They have to be pinned through toothpicks or grill sticks so that the layer don't collapse.  The real trick is to equally divide the dough into nine counterparts for braiding, which can be efficiently done through weighing machine. 

After baking this yeast-raised bread, there was an strong hint of aroma around my home, resembling the plum cake. Each slice was a bit dense yet sweetened with a lemony flavor.   We ended up devouring this beautiful braided bread.  Merry Christmas to all, and thanks to Swathi Iyer for suggesting such a exotic bake. 

Eggless Fruit Cake

Merry Christmas to everyone :D  Hope you all enjoyed and had a blast.  With incoming guests at home, I made this Eggless fruit cake to suit the occasion.  It was devoured in no time, and I as mighty impressed with myself.  Here are few clicks .....

The only prep needed was to marinate dry fruits and nuts overnight, you can throw few spice powders if you like - they will elevate the flavors for sure.  I have used condensed milk as a substitute for eggs.  Do let us know how it tastes as the recipe follows. 

YULE LOG - Baking partners December 2013

The very same date, previous year was my first post for Baking partners ..still cant beleive it is since an year now, feeling very nostalgic :) And ever since I bought an OTG, and got many flopped outcomes, I had been scratching my head for an better alternative.  Introduction to this Baking partners was an 'blessing in disguise', through one of my friend's blog.   Let me take this as an ideal oppourtunity and list out other bakes I made,

1. Plum cake
2. Apple pie
3. French Macaroons
4. Cheese cake
5. Newyork-styled pizza
6. Chocolate eclairs
7. Chiffon cake
8. Biscotti
9. Kronut
10. Pumpkin bread
11. Pataqueta

    Don't get hard on counting, since I missed february month :)  So, each bakes listed here, has lots of tactics or lots of tips/details involved.  Since we were given links to knowledge each details, the entire baking became like an 'internal assessment' to us :P   Now, I have the confidence of baking my own cookies/cakes, thanks all to this humble community.

Coming over to this month's challenge, it is YULE LOG.  YULE LOG is an dessert/cake made especially during Christmas.  Here an chocolate cake/genoise cake is baked using an swiss roll pan, filled with vanilla icing, rolled over and again frosted with chocolate icing.  Fork impressions are made in order to make them resemble like an log!   Making them was quite interesting and nourishing the delecious outcome was the BEST DAY in my life.  Thanks all goes to Tanushree and Swathi Iyer.

SANTA CLAUS BREAD - CHRISTMAS SPL

I had always wished to do creative baking.  Yes, my recent crush, being on fondant type designer cakes.  Though the difficult part in such bakes is to find right ingredients within your reach or within your budget :(  Nevertheless the creative part in breads sparked me, when I visited this santa claus bread in Vicky's post.  Thanks to her and here I am posting an similar version :) Atlast, this one makes me pat my own back, and yes ' I AM HAPPYYY' :) :)

 

Ingredients are quite simpler, the trick lies in shaping the dough.  Here, I have explained with step-by-step pics.  So, don't worry!!!  Just surprise your loved ones, for upcoming Christmas.

Plum cake

Hi guys this is christmassyyy time, so let s bake a plum cake with sooo simple, available ingredients at home.

I am doing it as my first challenge or task from Baking Partners, which has the logo as follows:

Ingredients required

• 100gm butter
• 125 gm maida
• 125 gm powdered sugar
• 3 tsp sugar (to caramelise)
• 1/4 cup of boiling water
• Two eggs, with yolks separated
• 125 gm of combined mixture like cashew, pista, badam, raisins, chopped dates, chopped orange peel
• One small packet of apple/grape juice
• 1 tsp of baking powder

Initial preparations

• First, let us caramelise the sugar.  In a deep pan, add 3 tsp of sugar and 6 tsp of water, let the sugar melt.  After the sugar passes two-string consistency, it darkens its colour from white to golden brown, which will take ten to twelve minutes. Don't stir in the entire process.    When it starts to darken, switch off the flame and add 1/4 cup of boiling water and swirl the pan.  After sometime, you can see golden brown caramelised sugar syrup, you can also view some videos online that explains the complete process.  Now keep the caramelised syrup aside
• Mix nuts, dates, orange peel and marinate them with apple/grape juice in refrigerator for one week.  Traditionally, rum or brandy is used, but i preferred apple juice better.  
• Sift flour along with baking powder in a separate plate, mix them also add marinated nuts-dates-orange peel (draining the  liquid after a week's time)  and mix again in plate such that nuts get coated with maida very well.  This is done so that nuts dont go and stick down to cake.  

Method

 In a vessel blend butter and sugar using electric blender.  Now, add two egg yolks and blend again.

In a separate vessel, add two egg whites beat it till they turn fluffy. 

Now add the egg white mixture to butter-sugar blended mix and stir well.  Also add in caramelised syrup.

Now add maida-baking powder-nuts mix 

Now pour the batter in baking dish and bake at 180 degree celsius for about one hour

Plum cake is now ready to serve!!!!!

Wannaaaa a sliceeeee?????