Perfectly Imperfect- Strawberry Jam filled Cake!!

Clean & Delicious Part 2- How to make an easy Valentine's Day Dessert with Fresh Homemade Jam!

I have baked a fair amount of cakes in years since I am alive. But trust me when I say that I have never ever baked such a cake as this one. This rough looking broke cake, speckled with red blobs is the best example of ‘love’. Just as love refuses to be perfect, this little treat refused to look perfect. But a bite into this, transfers you to a luxurious ride over the mountains. For the day that we celebrate love, I give it thee- My perfectly imperfect cake; My Strawberry-Jam filled cake!

This year, on Valentine’s Day that is coming tomorrow, make these simple treats for your friends and family. A mid-week Valentine’s Day special dinner should be fast yet comforting. And this is the perfect dessert to end the special occasion with. You can involve your kids in the process of making these beauties, which can be enjoyed fresh warm from the oven, or cooled to room temperature. Additionally, bake it separately in tin foil cups which would make it extremely easy to transport it around as I would be tomorrow!

Ingredients

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ Teaspoon salt

1 Cup granulated sugar

½ cup or 100 gms butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

12 - 14 Tablespoons milk start with 12 and if required, add the next 2 tbsp. I had to add to get the batter to the right consistency.

4 Tablespoons vinegar

1 cup strawberry jam (I used homemade)

½ cup strawberry cut into small pieces

These ingredients would make 2 cakes in standard cake pan, or 8 little cakes in the small aluminium disposable containers.

Method

Start by tumbling in some halved strawberries in a pan over medium heat and stir in a cup of homemade jam. If you are using store bought jam, then skip the step as most often than not, store bought jam contain addition of pectin and other stabilizers to thicken and improve shelf life. But if you made some fresh jam last week using my recipe, then do this step to thicken and intensify the flavour again. Simmer the jam for 10 minutes on medium heat and then check for sweetness. Once you are happy and the sugar or salt is dissolved, set aside to cool to room temperature. Adding cooked halved strawberries add another textural dimension to these cakes.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Oil and flour your cake tins properly and set it aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside.

In a small jug, mix together the milk and vinegar and set aside to marry and become buttermilk.

Using a stand or hand mixer, combine sugar and butter together. Beat it till it’s light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time; and mix thoroughly till it doubles in volume. Now add the butter milk and beat for 2 minutes on medium speed.

Add the leavened flour to the sugar mixture, and stir until smooth. It would be a doughy cake batter, but the batter should fall off the spatula upon shaking. If yours doesn’t look as smooth as the pic below, then add in a tbsp. more of milk, till it reaches similar consistency as in the pic.

Spoon half of batter into prepared pans, spreading evenly. Top it with a generous helping of freshly made and cooled strawberry jam. Spoon remaining batter over the strawberry layer, trying your best to cover the jam as much as possible.

Optionally, sprinkle the top of the cake with brown sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cakes, comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing sides from the pans. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Cheers!!

Weekend in Pictures!!

Are you set with a weekend plan already? Its Friday, and most of us don’t have an extra buck to spend outside. The restaurateur in me is reeling under losses, but the blogger in me has taken over to celebrate these barren weeks. So this is what I plan to do this weekend.

Gardening would be  the first thing indeed. I need to ensure such harvests all month long.

8th of December harvest.

4th of December Harvest!

from garden to table! Fresh Zucchini harvested to be stirfried  and served over a crisp salad.

Stocking up the refrigerator and the freezer is always on my weekend To-Do list.

Turmeric is a great spice with anti bacterial properties. It helps preserve the meats better!

What better than to cook up a few sauces and condiments in advance and refrigerate and/or freeze them for the naughty times to come. After the demonetization drive, I am pretty sure many of you restrain from ordering out. This is an excellent way to ensure that your cravings are fulfilled in a healthier and cleaner fashion.

Marinara Sauce is a great homemade sauce which can be refrigerated for a week, and it tastes even better as it ages.

Breakfast cookies couldn't be better than this- Whole wheat Kesar Pista Cookies and hot Bournvita

A pizza in a swirly bread form! Yum breakfast up ahead.

Some romantic family cooking with both my boys on toes, is my favourite Saturday dinner activity. My little one loves to bake bread, while my elder one loves to chop veggies. I absolutely love to stir up this storm!!

Apple Pie to the perfection!

Shakshuka with homemade whole wheat bread!

Hubby requested an Orange Cake for his Birthday!

And an Orange Cake he got!

Stocking up on good wine and booze never seems to be a bad idea, especially since New Year is around the corner.

Have you tried making a cocktail with 24 hours refrigerated flavoured water like so?? A must try!!

Lastly, some homemade spicy caramel popcorn with a great movie on Hotstar should sum up the weekend beautifully.

So this is how I would be spending my weekend. Drop in a comment to tell me how you are placed during this weekend. Cheers!!

Depression Vs Strawberry Oats Bars!!

It seems we Indians are the most suppressed and oppressed and all pressed and stressed to be the most depressed in the world. And with Deepika’s confession; we all have started using this word even more lightly than ever. Being ‘Sad’ or ‘upset’ are losing its place in the English vocabulary; and has been steadily replaced with the newer, stouter words like “I am so depressed”. If just a bad ice cream can lead you to depression, then it’s a problem. A problem that cannot be solved by any medical practitioner. A bad hair day or a chipped nail or a walkout, none of these should lead you to depression. Use the word intelligently. Differentiate between being upset and being depressed. They are NOT same. And once you have established what you are, try making this to ward off the feeling. Trust me, the effort and taste would lift your spirits high.

If you have read so far, then you must feel you need these recipes. Yup, you got me; I am making a whol;e series of three anti-depressant recipes. My theory behind these dishes are to involve you in some activity which will get you off the ‘feeling blue’ stage. Now, an idle mind is a devil’s workshop. You have read it, I have read it and trust me I have felt it too. So that night, when you can’t sleep, get up and ponder about in the kitchen instead. Keep yourself occupied at all times. Plus the physical activity will lead you to a better sleep easily. Eating something colourful and flavourful will fill you up with vibrant feelings. A chocolate on the other hand would just depress more, thanks to the darker colour. But again, cacao has many properties that makes it an anti-depressant as well. So my post today and in the coming days; would be about 3 dishes, which will lighten and enlighten your day (or night). All of it are guilt free, and requires enough grease to just tire you without scaring. Don’t believe me, check it out below then! For today, it’s my oats and Strawberry bars..

To learn how to make these little parcels of vibrant deliciousness, follow the link here- http://www.smartindianwomen.com/

Cheers!!

Coming up next

•          Depression Vs One Pot Penne, Indianized!!
•          Depression Vs Sandwiched French Toast!!

Left Over Series Finale!!

Since you guys have loved my leftover series so much, I reckoned a few more tricks and tips is something I owe you lovely people. If you have any more left over cakes, and parfait don’t interest you; then read up to get to know of other wonderful stuff that you can do with it.

Now these tricks and tips I picked up, but didn’t try all of them, as of yet. If you ever try it out, let me know! But I am sure, all of it will work well and would give you guys a very satisfying dessert to enjoy after a hearty meal, or a snack to be had between meals.

First in my list is an Ice Cream Sundae. Now you can get really creative here. And make different flavours with it. The steps are simple, and the best part being all of it has to be done the day before. So it’s the perfect party dessert.

Take a litre of vanilla ice cream and let it melt a bit to the semi solid level.

Now whisk it well, while adding stuff like chocolate chips, almond flakes, raisins, dried cranberries etc.

Take a handful of crumbled cake and incorporate well with a spatula, making certain that the cake don’t powder off in the ice cream. Some gentle firm stokes is all that’s required.

Freeze it overnight and enjoy a perfect frozen dessert. No one can ever tell that it’s a store bought ice cream. And instead the guests would swoon in absolute joy.

The next in line is a Toasted Jam Cake-wich.

Google Images

Take 2 thin slices of stale cake loaf, like plum cakes or rum cakes from the festive season.

Toast it lightly in a buttered pan, and generously spread over a tart fruit preserve like diabetic jam or a really good bitter orange marmalade. The sweet bread with not so sweet jam is so enticing and confusing to the palette that it would be one of the greatest hits in a high tea party. Do chop the Cake-wich to smaller pieces so that it’s easy to hold and eat.

And as for the last, yet one of the best things to do with stale cakes; is to make a Bread-no-Cake Pudding with it.

Cut little cubes of the cake and set it aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg to half a cup of milk, mix vanilla and a tbsp. of oil to get a sugar free custard made. I soak the cake in the custard for at least an hour or more, and then top it with additional flavours like that of half a tsp of cocoa followed with a handful of chocolate chips. A brief whisk later, I let it all go into a preheated oven to cook off.

Now this is a basic custard recipe that I have given measurements on. Adjust it to suit the amount of cake you intend to bake in the custard. After pouring, the custard should be visible to you, which will be soaked up in the hour you let it soak for. A rum cake might not soak so much, but a simple sponge will soak up all liquid.   

Keep an eye on it while it’s in the oven. If the top is browning too much, cover it with a foil. The test of doneness remains the same as a cake. A toothpick if comes out clean, then the pudding is done.

This dessert is very versatile. You can serve it hot or warm with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream. And it can also be served cold to enjoy just like so.

Armed with so many left over inspired dishes, I am sure you will never ever have a problem stale cakes again!! Cheers!! 

Left-Over Series-: Gulab Jamun Parfait

Left over Series Continues with a twist of west meets east! Yup, the cakes go in a short-cut custard topped with a Gulab Jamun. Yeah, on the new year I was gifted a big jar of Gulab Jamun which was both- yummy and super soft. But just in a day, we got bored of binging on the fried delight. So I ended up jazzing it up with a few more things, to make this phenomenal dessert Parfait.and as expected, the guests did va va voom!!

Ingredients-

Now, this recipe cannot come with any set measurements. The amounts will vary upon the number of layers that will go in it, and the thickness of each layer that you want to put on.

A handful of vanilla fruit cake, crumbled

10 Roasted almonds, chopped

A cup of prepared Custard (follow the instruction on the pack)

2 Gulab Jamun to top it all.

Method-

In a pretty cocktail glass, pour the chilled custard and coat the bottom well. Sprinkle on some roasted chopped almonds.

Now layer it with a big helping of crumbled cake. You may repeat the layering a few times, till you fill up the cocktail glass to your liking.

Top the glass with a pretty plump Gulab Jamun and top everything with some chopped nuts.

And a top class dessert is made. Cheers!!

Left-Over Series- Berry Cake Parfait

We are almost 10 days in the new year! And do u have a refrigerator yet filled with cakes of all sorts? If you do, then this article is tailor made for you.  

Christmas this year was much bigger than what I had thought of it to be. Lots of edible gifts landed my way, including some exotic stuff like this mouth-watering jar of Bhut-Jholokia pickle to the usual fare of rum cakes and cookies.

About a fortnight gone, and all these bits and pieces of stale cakes are haunting my refrigerator. Add to it all the Christmas baking that I specifically did for my friends and family, and you know I have a big sweetish problem to tackle for some days to come. So I reckoned, it just can’t be me, but many more like me with the same problem. So this post is a shout out to all you disturbed souls, who hate throwing, but can’t keep junking on so much sweets as well. I am going to try and transform all these sweets into drool worthy desserts to be served to your guests while you entertain your first parties of this receding winter. First in the series is my Berry-Cake Parfait, which look so so pretty in these see through borosil glasses. Second would be an Indian twist to this layered dessert, with homemade fresh custard served with Gulab Jamun Parfait.

Berry - Cake Parfait

Ingredients

Now, this recipe cannot come with any set measurements. The amounts will vary upon the number of layers that will go in it, and the thickness of each layer that you want to put on.

A handful of quick cooking oats

A handful of old biscuits or cookies smashed

A pinch of cinnamon

A blob of salted butter

A big handful of any flavour of stale cake smashed

100 to 200 gms of fresh strawberries/plums or any other fruits that will soften on cooking

Lemon juice

Sugar to taste

A pinch of salt

Method

First prep the strawberries. Wash and clean it thoroughly, and chop it to small bite sized pieces.

Season the pieces well with lemon juice and sugar. Microwave this mix for half a minute at a time, till the berries are soft and cooked through. Mix in a small bit of butter while the berries are still hot, and set it aside to cool completely.

In a pan over medium heat, dry roast the oats till fragrant.  You may add some chopped nuts too in the pan, for added crunch. Remove from heat and add the smashed biscuits to the hot pan. Mix both these well and set it aside to cool down the mix and the hot pan. This will ensure that the parfait toppings won’t attract condensation, and instead remain crunchy as it slowly cools with the pan.

Now to assemble, take a clean see through glass like so, and brush the bottom with a bit of melted butter. Add the berry mix in the bottom. Follow it up with a good sprinkling of the oats and cookie mixture. Another layer of berry mix followed with crumbled cake. Continue like so to create a beautiful mix of colours and flavours in the little glass. This should be served in room temperature, not too chilled. A blob of vanilla ice cream will compliment all these flavours even better.

Now tell me, if your guests won’t end up gaga-ing on this beautiful master piece? Cheers!!

Next up would be the pretty glass of Gulab Jamun Parfait, so stay tuned to return back tomorrow!!