Carrot cake with cream,cheese icing - a birthday treat for my lovely daughter

August month is always exciting for me, yes, it has my cute pie's birthday.  From the first week itself, all the planning starts.  With tonnes of cake variety online, it gets only harder to settle for one.  Nonetheless, the carrot cake won my heart.  Not only known for its simplicity - it will impress any mother, who wants to load her child's tummy with vegetables.  So a win-win for both!
   

The day started with going to the temple, offering prayers.  Back at school, we arranged a cake cutting from a bakery nearby.   So, this carrot cake was reserved for her evening bash.  The best thing about carrot cake is that they are  made with oil, rendering their texture so soft even when consumed directly from the refrigerator.

Tangy cream cheese frosting went along well.  So, let's buckle up and enjoy the cake in making....

Ingredients required

For carrot cake

• Self-raising flour - 2 cups
• Powdered sugar - 11/2 cup
• Egg - 4
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 11/2 cup
• Shredded carrot - 3no or 21/2 cups

For cream cheese icing

• 125 gm of Cream cheese
• 125 gm of unsalted butter
• 5 tbsp powdered sugar

Method

Stir in salt to the flour.  Keep aside.  

In a separate vessel break four eggs, add powdered sugar and beat well till they are combined.

Add in oil, vanilla essence and beat again

Slowly fold in shredded carrots.

Finally,  add in flour mixture in three batches till they are well incorporated.

Pour them on a parchment paper lined 6-inch round baking pan and bake at preheated oven 180 -degree celsius till done. Cooling the cake can be done by inverting them over the wire rack for two hours.   I got four muffins and an entire cake made of 6-inch pan.  

Now prepare cream cheese icing, in a blender blend in cream cheese and powdered sugar.  Later on, add softened butter/melted butter and blend again till you get a fine paste.   This is our icing.

After the cake has been thoroughly cooled, cut into two and ice them on centre.

Close over the other half and ice the entire cake.

You can also make spiky patterns on a spoon's back.  Refrigerate them to set.  

On her Birthday, cake cutting was done and here we go, a yummy slice for you all!!  :)

HAPPY BAKING :) :)

Tomato chutney - Potluck party, cyber style

    When I first looked into my partner's(Sutapa Ghosh) dish, I was happier  thinking that making chutney would be easier. Alas, this tomato chutney cooked in bengali style is not  an easy one.  The important ingredient required was ammsattva or mango leather which I had hardly heard off.  At this time, Sutapa Ghosh of sutapasindian blog suggested other names of ammsattva.  In Andhra pradesh, these ammsattva or mango leather is called as Mamidi Tandra or mango jelly.

      According to wiki, they are fruit leather, mixed with concentrated sugar solution, sometimes also an chemical called potassium metabisulphite and is poured over bamboo mats.  The texture of prepared mamidi tandra is unique because it is  made by consequent layering (only after before added layer dries away) over a period of month.  Over ripe thotapuri mangoes are specially used for this purpose.

Gems & choco chip cookies

   My daughter travels by school van, and everytime I come down to help her get into the van, all I can see is ten other kindergarden kids with cute and innocent looks, smiling and waving hands at her! Everytime I look at them, I wished that I could get them some sort of snacks, chocolates or cookies prepared by me.  And finally prepared these awesome Gems n Choco Chip Cookies.

                             


   Out of the oven, these cookies were soo soft textured that I myself could hardly resist having them.  Since I prepared them for kids, I had gone too buttery which was responsible for the soft, crumbly texture.


                               

Khus khuswali khumb/ Mushroom flavoured with spicy poppyseeds base

   I love to try gravy with different base, here is one, poppy seeds flavoured mushroom gravy.  Poppy seeds are highly nutritious, rich source of protein, dietery fibre and also an base for preparing anti-cancer drugs.  I have previously prepared Harira, where poppy seeds are pressed to yield milk which is had with poori/chapathi.  Alternatively, poppy seeds are known to create false positive result in drug tests :(  So, it is advised better not to carry them when you travel to other countries, especially to Saudi Arabia where it is regarded as an severe punishable offence.

Ingredients required

For the masala paste (The following ingredients are dry roasted and ground into a fine paste)

• 3-4 tbspn khus khus/poppy seeds
• 3-4 dry red chilly
• 1 tsp whole dhanya
• 1 -inch cinnamon stick
• 1 black cardamon
• Pinch of ajwain
• 2-3 cloves
• 1 tsp of putane ki dal 
• 3-4 garlic pods
• 1/2 tsp dry ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder

Mocha and almond biscotti

     Happy Independence day to one and all :) :) :)  Baking partners challenge for this month included four cookies from four different countries, when I first read them all were interesting and challenging in its own way.  But the biscotti from Italy, a twice-baked cookie drew my attention.  Personally, I felt this one to be more challenging and thanks to Swathi Iyer and Sandhya for recommending the same.  Biscotti is an perfect dip for tea and is flavoured with nuts.  It is more or less similar to our Indian rusk (tastewise and texturewise).  The cookie dough is first rolled into log, part-baked, sliced and finally baked again!  I flavoured them with coffee and almonds, result was wonderful!  Hubby luved to have it with tea

Source - www.joyofbaking.com

Ingredients required

• 1/2 cup or 75 gm of blanched whole almonds (which is later deskinned and finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 11/4 cup all-purpose-flour
• 1 tbspn instant coffee powder (dissolved in 1 tbspn hot water)